The US and Europe have decided to inflict preliminary sanctions on Russia while still leaving some room for diplomacy. According to the papers, 190 000 Russian troops surround Ukraine. The Russian claim is that the US started the belligerency by giving NATO status to ex-USSR nations soon after the collapse of the Soviets in December 1991 and siting missiles on the borders of Russia. The Russian leadership is right to feel that the Cold War has never been over and has taken new forms. The real fear of Putin and acolytes, however, is to see Ukraine and ex-USSR nations become part of Europe and leave their sphere of influence, perhaps even increase the political danger inside Russia in turn. The NATO conference of 2008 in Bucarest decided to extend NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. This was seen by Russia as tantamount to war. And another reason for the war-mongering is that Putin’s strident nationalism is tolerated by the Russian people and hides its government’s massive thievery, injustices, and crimes of the past thirty years.

There is a more hidden reason to the war. It is strange and sad to see videos of enormous columns of sophisticated war machinery being set in place. The NYT doesn’t hesitate to show maps and photos of the Russian moves. Nothing however, or very little, is shown of the war capabilities of NATO. This organization saw its raison d’être disappear in 1989–1990 with the collapse of the USSR. But as a large irreplaceable market for US-made or -designed weaponry, its existence continued to be justified by the likes of the US Senate for other reasons, such as countering terrorism or perceived Iran’s threat (missiles in Poland are supposedly for defense against Iran’s missiles). Now that Russia has provided a bona fide reason for using NATO’s capabilities, we learn that Ukraine will never be part of it and will be left to its own devices, except for the supply of certain weapons. It seems that armament industries can continue to be great investments both in the US and the USSR.

According to the wikipedia’s list of countries by military expenditures, the USA spends more than ten times on war (“defense”) what Russia does.

US: 778 billion$ = 3.7% of GDP;

Russia: 61.7 billion$ = 4.3% of GDP;

China: 252 billion$ = 1.7% of GDP;