On February 19, Biden tweeted:

We're calling out Russia’s plans. Not because we want a conflict, but because we are doing everything in our power to remove any reason Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine.

If Russia pursues its plans, it will be responsible for a catastrophic and needless war of choice.

Would a war in Ukraine be catastrophic? Yes! It would be hellish and deadly at best. Is it needless? From the standpoint of humanity, a war in Ukraine would be much worse than needless. But is the U.S. doing everything in its power to remove any reason Russia may have for invading Ukraine? Bullshit. In fact, just the opposite.

Russia has massed over 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. But in the colliding imperialist interests of the U.S. and its allies on one side, and Russia on the other—over who will dominate countries and regions in Europe, the U.S. has been the main provocateur. And its strategy of pursuing a “diplomatic” solution centers on sanctions that would impose tremendous suffering on ordinary Russians (for background, see recent revcom.us coverage of Ukraine).

U.S. Provocations Threaten Russia, Escalate Danger of War

Imagine a scenario where Russia installed missiles in Cuba¹ and Central America that allowed it to launch attacks on the U.S. and was moving to enlist Mexico in an anti-U.S. military bloc and install state-of-the-art missiles on the U.S.-Mexico border. And imagine that those missiles not only posed an offensive threat to the U.S. from close to its borders but had the capacity to shoot down missiles the U.S. launched at Russia in retaliation.

Do you think the rulers of the U.S. would stand for that without holding the threat of an invasion over the head of the Mexican government? The answer is obvious.

But that’s basically what the U.S. has been doing to Russia in central and eastern Europe. The U.S. has been moving rapidly and dramatically to station cutting-edge and high-powered missiles near Russia in Romania and Poland. And in the longer run, it is moving to bring Ukraine—which shares a 1400-mile land and sea border with Russia—into the U.S.-led NATO military bloc.

The U.S. and its media mouthpieces dismiss concern over this as “Russian ‘worries’” (as if there is no objective basis to determine if those worries are warranted). The New York Times for example tells its readers that the U.S. base in Poland “contains sophisticated radars capable of tracking hostile missiles and guiding interceptor rockets to knock them out of the sky. It is also equipped with missile launchers known as MK 41s, which the Russians worry can be easily repurposed to fire offensive missiles…”

To be clear, both the U.S. and Russia are oppressive imperialist powers, and both lie all the time about what they are doing and why. But note how the Times here is conditioning its readers to dismiss the possibility that MK 41s can easily be repurposed to fire offensive weapons simply because “our” enemy made that claim and “our” side rejects it, without bothering to present any objective evidence that the claim is false. In fact, the Times editors are certainly aware of analysis in more out-of-the-spotlight articles and research papers by mainstream experts aligned with the U.S. that “MK 41 launchers inside the [Polish] missile defense batteries could be adapted to fire Tomahawks [offensive missiles],” and that the MK 41 missile launchers are the U.S. military’s “preferred weapon of choice” for launching attacks (not knocking down incoming missiles).²

In addition to their use as attack weapons, stationing weapons near Russia that neutralize Russian missiles (including nuclear missiles) could give the U.S. an advantage in a nuclear exchange, creating increased possibility and necessity that one side or the other would feel free to or compelled to launch a nuclear attack which, even if limited in scope at first, could escalate with unimaginable consequences.

Here, it must be said to people who were correctly appalled when Trump demanded to know why, if the U.S. has nukes, he couldn’t use them: Biden’s “emphasis on diplomacy”; strengthening the U.S.-aligned NATO offensive military alliance and pushing it to Russia’s borders; and moving to secure the ability to wage and win some level of nuclear missile exchange with Russia increase the danger of nuclear war.

Biden's Insistence That Putin Has Decided to Invade Could Force Russia's Hand

Biden’s claim that he has definitive intelligence that Russia has decided to invade Ukraine could itself potentially be a provocation. If Russia does not invade Ukraine, it could appear that it “blinked first” and is weak and its position and credibility as an imperialist power would be undermined. And in this way, Biden’s repeated insistence that Russia has decided to invade Ukraine puts pressure on Russia, even as far as to potentially actually go ahead with an invasion.

And if Russia does invade Ukraine, the U.S. will claim the moral high ground in imposing economic sanctions aimed at destabilizing and weakening the ruling Russian regime by depriving ordinary Russians of food, medicine, and other necessities of life.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III acknowledged as much when he said, “It will be Mr. Putin who will bear the responsibility for the suffering and the immense sacrifice that ensues (emphasis added)." In other words, his logic: sanctions imposed by the U.S. bring suffering and death, but if “we,” the U.S., impose them, we hope people will blame Putin so we can use the suffering to advance our (imperialist ruling class) objectives. How is this not terrorizing and killing innocent civilians to hit at a rival, aka terrorism, on a scale the most brutal drug cartel could only dream of? Or, as Bob Avakian (BA) puts it without hyperbole:

These imperialists make the Godfather look like Mary Poppins. (BAsics 1:7)

Revolutionary Defeatism

A war between U.S.-backed forces and Russia over Ukraine would be driven not fundamentally by a triggering incident (like a Russian invasion of Ukraine). It would be a product of the insatiable compulsion for imperialist powers to grab more or be pushed off the table of global bloodsuckers. With that setting the stage, the “game of chicken” being played with the lives of millions right now has a dynamic of its own. Something unexpected could happen in Ukraine or elsewhere that could force the hand of one side or the other and trigger a war despite the “best laid plans” of both sides.

In this situation, for people here in the belly of the beast, the homeland of U.S. capitalism-imperialism, standing with humanity means upholding and applying revolutionary defeatism. As BA explains in The New Communism:

Revolutionary defeatism means that you oppose the actions of your own government and ruling class in carrying out their wars, which are wars for empire. It means that you welcome any setbacks they suffer in those wars, because that weakens their oppressive hold over masses of people, here and in the world more generally.

This holds even in a situation where the “other side” in a conflict with the U.S. empire is no good either. BA addresses this challenge in The New Communism:

It is crucial that people come to see what the nature of these wars being waged by their government actually is, and why these wars have to be actively opposed; and even if you can’t, and shouldn’t, support the other side, you still have to have the basic approach of welcoming the defeat of your own government in the wars it is waging. The defeat of these imperialists should be welcomed because, number one, their wars are unjust, even if the people opposing them are also unjust. And, two, every such defeat weakens this system and its ruling class and brings closer the time when people can actually bring it down and bring something liberating into being in its place.