Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin may have inadvertently disclosed a broader, ignoble motive for the proxy war. An April 2022 statement that he issued in Poland at the end of his stealth visit to Kyiv emphasized that Washington’s goal was not merely to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion, but to "weaken Russia" to the point that it could no longer pose a threat to any other country. Achieving such an objective would indisputably require a prolonged war in Ukraine – regardless of the consequences to the Ukrainian people.
That cynical strategy replicates the one the United States used in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989....
The goal in Afghanistan then, as it is in Ukraine now, was simply to harass and bleed Washington’s adversary. Then, as now, there was little concern about the impact on the beleaguered inhabitants in the country serving as an arena for a proxy war – and surprisingly little concern about the wider geo-political ramifications. Tom Twetten, the number 2 official in the CIA’s clandestine service during the 1980s, later admitted that US leaders had no postwar plan for Afghanistan.
https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2023/01/10/using-ukraine-as-a-bloodied-pawn/
That cynical strategy replicates the one the United States used in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989....
The goal in Afghanistan then, as it is in Ukraine now, was simply to harass and bleed Washington’s adversary. Then, as now, there was little concern about the impact on the beleaguered inhabitants in the country serving as an arena for a proxy war – and surprisingly little concern about the wider geo-political ramifications. Tom Twetten, the number 2 official in the CIA’s clandestine service during the 1980s, later admitted that US leaders had no postwar plan for Afghanistan.
https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2023/01/10/using-ukraine-as-a-bloodied-pawn/
Antiwar.com Original
Using Ukraine as a Bloodied Pawn
U.S. and NATO officials routinely contend that assisting Ukraine in its war against Russia is a moral as well as a strategic imperative. Ukraine is supposedly on the frontlines of a global struggle between democracy and freedom on one side and brutal authoritarianism…