The recent leak of U.S. military documents classified as “secret” and “top secret” is a major event. Many of the leaked documents focus on different aspects of the war in Ukraine between U.S./NATO and Russia. Others concern spying by the U.S. on nations it considers “allies,” as well as on Russia. The existence of these leaks, and what they reveal, are damaging and embarrassing to the U.S. and its vaunted military and intelligence power. As the website The Hill wrote, “The largest U.S. military leak in a decade is a serious blow to Ukraine’s war effort, creating an intelligence threat for that country’s forces ahead of an expected counteroffensive this spring.”

So it isn’t any wonder that the Pentagon went “into full-speed damage control to assure allies and assess the scope of the leak” and that U.S. political and military leaders vowed to “turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said.

It also isn’t any wonder that the coverage of these leaks in the U.S. media has focused on “who done it," not on what they indicate about the war in Ukraine, and about U.S. relations with other countries around the world. (See the accompanying article, "Leak of Top-Secret War Documents: the U.S. Is Deeply Involved in Directing Proxy War Against Its Imperialist Rival; Spying on Friend and Foe Alike,” for more of the U.S. actions that have come to light through these leaks.)

But the most important lessons from the leaked documents aren’t being discussed or even mentioned in the U.S. media. What can be learned from the documents about the nature of the war in Ukraine, and why the U.S. is there? Why does the U.S. have surveillance and spying that seems to cover the entire globe? What and whose interests does all this serve?

The U.S. Is Fighting a Proxy War Against an Imperialist Rival

As Revolution has written, Ukraine is not a battleground between democracy and autocracy, it is a conflict zone of imperialist rivalry between Russian imperialism and U.S. and Western imperialism. Both are fighting to impose their will on the other, to advance the interests of their empire at the expense of the other—and at the cost of tens of thousands of lives lost, with the looming threat of crushing and incinerating millions more, including in a possible nuclear war. (For more analysis and history of this situation, including several articles by Bob Avakian [BA], go to revcom.us’s Resource Page on the War in Ukraine.)

The U.S. is waging a war by proxy. This means that not only has the U.S. provided the Ukrainian military with tens of billions of dollars-worth of arms, ammunition, equipment, and training—it uses the Ukrainian people and military as proxies. Meaning, Ukrainians are the ones who fight, kill, and die to advance U.S. imperialism’s interests of exploitation, conquest, and domination.

And for anyone with eyes to see, that is clearly revealed in the leaked documents. As David Sanger, a New York Times reporter, wrote after reading some of the documents, “While President Biden has barred American troops from firing directly on Russian targets, and blocked sending weapons that could reach deep into Russian territory, the documents make clear that a year into the invasion, the United States is heavily entangled in almost everything else.” Sanger, writing for the imperialist propaganda organ the NY Times, expresses some degree of concern here about this “heavy entanglement,” precisely because he fears that this could have unanticipated consequences and perhaps damage U.S. interests overall.

Over 100 pages of leaked documents released so far indicate that the U.S. provides Ukraine with day-to-day oversight of and guidance on how the war is conducted. It provides “precise intelligence and logistics that help explain Ukraine’s success thus far.” The U.S. and NATO have already sent massive infusions of modern tanks and other weaponry to Ukraine. Many Ukrainian soldiers and officers continue to undergo intensive strategic training in the U.S., England, and Germany, where they learn skills in gathering and communicating target information, intelligence, logistical support, and combined arms warfare.

In late February, the U.S. and NATO pledged still more “heavy weapons and military training” to “tip the balance of the war” this spring during an expected offensive. The leaked documents fret over whether the offensive will succeed. But behind it all—the planning for the spring offensive by U.S. and NATO leadership hinges on a big gamble: that a U.S./NATO-supported Ukraine can up the ante and “win the war” without compelling Russia to respond to its defeat with nuclear weapons, which would in turn force the U.S./NATO to use its nuclear weapons on Russia.

This insanity isn’t mentioned in the pages of the New York Times or on CNN when they “report” on the leaked documents.

Cold-Blooded Calculations to Further Empire

The backstabbers
(They smilin' in your face)
All the time, they want to take your place 

From “Backstabbers,” by the O’Jays

Another lesson from the leaks: the U.S. spies everywhere, all the time, on friend and foe alike. It fakes friendship while undermining its “allies.” It lies to them and insults them behind their backs. Meanwhile, lesser rats scramble for a few more crumbs that fall from the table, to make deals for their own benefit, hoping the king rat won’t notice. But of course, the king rat (i.e., the U.S.) has its satellites, its electronic surveillance, its spies, to monitor “every move they make, every breath they take.”

A couple of examples: the leaked documents indicate that the U.S. has been eavesdropping on the communications of Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, a key ally of the U.S. and longtime cornerstone of U.S. military presence in East Asia. It wants to manipulate Yoon and his country into selling weapons to Ukraine, despite the fact that South Korea has a long-standing policy of not selling weapons to countries at war. Yoon is concerned that if he breaks that policy, Russia will increase its weapon sales to North Korea, an enemy of the South Korean government and the U.S., thus jeopardizing South Korea’s security.

The documents also reveal that the U.S. was monitoring communications between the brutally repressive and murderous president of Egypt, one of its closest allies in the Middle East, and others in his government, when he ordered 40,000 rockets, along with ammunition and gunpowder, to be shipped to Russia, with instructions to do it secretly, “to avoid problems with the West.” It seems that Egypt did not send the munitions.

On the U.S.’s part, all this conniving, threatening, and maneuvering is part of maintaining and strengthening its position at the top of the existing global power alignment of imperialism. Meanwhile, Russia is waging horrific war to prevent further U.S. expansion and consolidation in countries bordering on or close to Russia, and to expand its own power and influence in the division of the world by imperialist powers. It spies on and suppresses people in its own country who oppose that war.

All this isn’t just because some evil, manipulative thugs managed to get control of sophisticated electronic spy gear and brutalizing police in both countries. It is because the U.S. and its Russian rival are both driven by the basic compulsion and relentless logic of capitalism—expand or die—and they keep pulling out all the stops as they struggle to determine who comes out on top in their fight.

Time to Put an End to This Madness

Kill or be killed… backstabbing treachery… using the tremendous productive resources of society to devise ever more deadly ways of killing ever more people… lying talk of “democracy” while the bodies of civilians pile up…

What has come out in public because of these leaked documents is like some of the shit that can spew into the street when a sewer backs up. They are some expressions of the sewer of a world contorted by the production and social relations of imperialism.