Why has the US-led Western world kept alive the threat of a Cold War-style confrontation even when available evidence has repeatedly pointed to a world order crying out for peace?
Because, some analysts say, without a threat of war there is no basis for Nato to exist any longer.
Hence, whenever peace reigns supreme, warmongers in the West create a sense of doubt and denial.
And then, mark you, where there is suspicion for a brewing war, there has to be an identified subject of blame. In the eyes of the West, Russia fits the bill, perfectly.
For, on what grounds does the West remain so steadfast in their propaganda that a Russian invasion of its neighbouring Ukraine will take place “at any time” in spite of strenuous denials from Moscow that the Kremlin has neither interest nor desire to start a war?
The US intelligence services, notorious for falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a precursor to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, appears to be at it again.
First, they claimed that Russia was going to invade Ukraine on February 15. Nothing happened. Twenty-four hours earlier Russia seemed to checkmate the entire West when Moscow announced the withdrawal of their military personnel from the border with Ukraine, saying that the training period marked by daily drills had come to a planned ending.
Surprised at the unexpected announcement the US, predictably supported by Nato claimed that they are yet to see evidence of the Russian troop withdrawal. Immediately, Russia shared videos of their troops returning to the barracks and planes to the hangers.
Still, the US and Nato cast aspersions over the shared “evidence”, before making startling claims that Russia has not only lied about troop withdrawal, but they have in fact increased the number of the soldiers by a figure bandied as 7 000.
Earlier this week, Russia called a meeting of the UN Security Council to address in particular the moribund Minsk Agreements.
This is a treaty that was signed after the 2014 coup in Ukraine that saw the toppling of a democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych, loathed by the West for his overtly pro-Russian stance.
That triggered the Eastern Ukrainian Russian-speaking cities of Crimea and Donbass regions to launch a fierce military campaign, demanding independence from Ukraine. An estimated 14 000 people on all sides lost their lives in the conflict.
This last UNSC meeting sought to revive the moribund Minsk Agreements, which the Ukrainian regime of President Volodymyr Zelensky has lately been decrying as unsatisfactory since assuming power in May 2019.
The Minsk accord seeks to foster dialogue between Kiev and the breakaway republics.
However, since their resolve to secede back in 2014, the eastern regional republics of Donbass have since denounced their Ukrainian citizenship in favour of the Russian.
Their identity books and passports are Russian. They share with Russians language, culture, identity and values.
Until a fortnight ago, peace observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had been stationed in east Ukraine to monitor the situation and promote peace.
Suddenly, in the wake of the Western alarm over the so-called “imminent invasion”, observers were seen packing and leaving eastern Ukrainian republics reportedly on the instruction of their unnamed countries.
This gave rise to fears that the US and the West were up to something.
Addressing the UNSC meeting, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that the Russians could “fabricate a pretext” – stage a fake excuse – and create a “false-flag invasion” on February 20 or any day afterwards.
Blinken said the fake incident could appear like Ukraine has attacked Russia or the breakaway republics. Moscow dismissed the theory as absurd.
However, by Thursday this week Kiev claimed that the separatist in the east had shot at a kindergarten in mainland Ukraine, luckily hurting no one.
A day later, this past Friday, the leaders of the breakaway republics, especially in Donetsk and Lugansk, were starting mass evacuation of women, children and the elderly amid claims that Ukraine military was increasing shelling of their residential areas.
Ukraine denied the allegation, and blamed the Kremlin for negative publicity.
They were being evacuated to Russia, a destination where they have a sense of belonging and feel secured.
Sharply growing fears are that the Donbass region – under international law part of Ukraine but practically long torn apart its official ties to Kiev – would become an epicentre of fierce military battles in the event of a full-blown conflict breaking out, regardless of would have lit the match.
Russia is steadfast, according to President Vladimir Putin, that Moscow need not cause any war and intends starting none whatsoever.
After months of Western propaganda that seemed to want to frighten Russia into military slumber, during which the US led a rising chorus of threats to cut Russia off from the global SWIFT transactional regime should Ukraine be invaded, there has been a constant change of tune in the discourse.
At the UNSC, Blinken for the first time admitted that a US-led war against Russia would affect not only Europe but the entire universe. He’s correct. Russia is a nuclear power and has one of the largest armies in the world – among the top three - including a sophisticated cyber warfare capability.
Ukraine is not a member of Nato (yet), and therefore in an event of a conflict with Russia Nato would not be able to trigger Article 5, which refers to “an attack on one is an attack on all”.
That is why US President Joe Biden has been vocal in that he would send not a single American soldier to go and fight on Ukrainian soil in event of war.
The best the US and the West have done thus far has been to ship and fly in tons of military supplies to Kiev coupled with commitments to Zelensky of massive financial backing to shore up a Kiev economy already crippled by adverse Western propaganda regarding “imminent” war with Russia that remains nonetheless evasive.
But how did the world get to a precipice and why is Africa’s voice muted?
First, let’s hasten to revisit the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the turn of the 1990s.
According to Putin, the US-led Nato gave verbal undertaking to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last premier of the USSR that Nato would not expand eastwards to Russia’s borders.
However, over the last 30 years Nato had roped in Russia’s neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe such as Romania, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. Succinctly explained, this has been a major plan known as Encirclement of Russia by the US and the West.
The last straw that broke the back of the camel has been Ukraine’s active move to also join Nato.
This is a country on Russia’s door-step bringing the enemy home, literally.
In my home language we describe such a situation as water penetrating under the front door!
The thought of American and Nato missiles sharply pointing at Moscow from a shouting distance has given Putin and the Kremlin sleepless nights.
It is a downright threat to Russia’s national security.
Their candid reminder to the West of their promise to Gorbachev has fallen on deaf ears.
Until recently when Russia started to flex her military muscle, characterised by the recent daylight military build-up on the eastern and western borders with Ukraine that Nato has decried as a cryptic code for a declaration of war.
Sergey Lavrov, the veteran Russian foreign minister, lamented what he referred to as the “West’s relentlessness in portraying Moscow as a threat” to peace and stability in the region. Far from it, he argued, saying “the West ignores facts”.
And why is Africa seemingly sleeping through a revolution? The AU-EU Summit was this week held in Brussels. Top of the agenda was not a looming possible conflict of global repercussions, as Blinken correctly noted. No. It was the vaccines.
Less than 12% of Africa’s total population has had a double jab, compared to over 70% of their European counterparts. The Africans were therefore bagging Europeans to show a bit of heart, and cease hoarding the vaccines for their nationals.
The outcome was that the EU undertook to assist at least six African states to set up vaccine-manufacturing centres to mitigate the so-called vaccine apartheid.
Other than vaccines, there isn’t much that came out of the face-to-face summit.
The AU could not speak in one voice and implore the Europeans to desist from war-mongering through their Nato and preach peace.
No demands made for the peace sake.
No proposals about how to avert a possible conflict that would engulf AU member-states should it break out.
This is a huge disappointment.
Central and West Africa is littered with French and foreign soldiers for the former colonial masters.
In Mali the French soldiers have been ordered to leave the country weeks after the French ambassador was expelled for breach of diplomatic decorum.
Africa’s role in Geopolitics will continue to be undermined by the Global South.
Lack of continental unity, self-centredness, corruption and a glaring absence of international relations acumen are a malady that holds back Africa’s development and her position as an equal at the table of the nations of the world.
No wonder the State of Israel enjoys a warm seat at the AU’s HQ in Addis Ababa after being mysteriously granted observer status, dividing a fragmented continent further.
Makoe is an international relations freelance writer
Sunday Independent