After a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters Monday that one of the US’s goals in Ukraine is to see a “weakened” Russia.
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin told reporters in Poland when asked what the US goal was in Ukraine.
The New York Times reported that by calling for a weakened Russia, Austin was acknowledging a shift in the US view of the war from a battle for Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.
Austin made the comments alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also made the trip to Kyiv to meet Zelensky. Blinken said Russia is “failing” in its war in Ukraine and Austin claimed Kyiv could win “if they have the right equipment” and “the right support.”
Biden administration officials told the Times that the US and its close allies had made a decision to speak optimistically about Ukraine’s chances in the current phase of Russia’s assault, which is focused primarily on the southeast portion of the country, where Moscow should have an advantage.
Pushing the narrative that Ukraine can win helps justify the massive amount of weapons and other military equipment the US and its allies are sending into the country.
Austin said the US would “do everything we can” to help Ukraine win the war. In their meeting with Zelensky, Blinken and Austin pledged more military aid for Kyiv, bringing the total amount of US military assistance for Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24 to a whopping $3.7 billion.
The US and most of its European allies are digging in to support Ukraine and keep Russia under crippling sanctions in the long term. Blinken reportedly told European countries that he believes the war will last through 2022.
Last week, NATO member Turkey said that other members of the military alliance want the war in Ukraine to continue to weaken Russia. “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. “They want Russia to become weaker.”
The Biden administration has claimed it is doing everything it can to end the war in Ukraine, but in reality, it has abandoned diplomacy with Russia. Blinken hasn’t spoken with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since February 15, and the Russian ambassador to the US has said the Russian Embassy in Washington is “under blockade.”
Ouch, irresponsible statement, you don’t say the quiet part out loud. I would say some blather about international law and we support Ukraines efforts to rid its country of Russian invaders. Our support should pretty explicitly end at the 2000 border. As it turns out unless Russia wises up and fast they are going to be weakened, as it turns out it looks like Russia is gaining about 1000km of NATO border in the north. This thing has been a disaster for Russia, but the longer they stay the bigger the disaster gets. No need to gloat.
Same old, same old john. Try a few real media not your pathetic echo chamber.
“I would say some blather about international law and we support Ukraines efforts to rid its country of Russian invaders.
Blather indeed. Especially given the fact that international law is an afterthought to the country Austin represents. And that country can count nothing but lies for their incursions into ME countries as compared to Russia’s legitimate concerns about their security. Something even you agreed to before you fell on your head.
Same old racist, white supremacist tone towards the Slavic “untermenschen” as always, whether it’s Germans, united Europe or Americans acting out of tribal interest and ancient hate towards Russians, doesn’t matter.
Same old, same old. For the Vickie Nudelman, Blinken, Pyatt and Chrystia Freeland’s of this world, it’s a matter of life or death.
I wonder if SoS top diplomat Blinken knows that the Ze régime hs banned all opposition media andParties opposing him, besides making all the troops sent into the losing battles against Russia lay down their lives rather than surrender. There is no democracy in this Ukraine, and the Russian move after so many years of trying to negotiate is working, but the USA∕NATO stance shows us that reality is to be fought, and money and weapons are all that is needed. What a tremendous waste of lives, which the West pretends to value in this battle.
Get with the program. Putin bad, Zelensky good. That’s all the American people need to know.
After Kyiv Visit, Lloyd Austin Says US Goal Is for US To Be ‘Weakened’
The whole conflict has weakened everyone worldwide, so I guess mission accomplished. Less purchasing power, more hunger, fewer resources to address humanity’s real problems.
…except for the military industrial complex, their stock holders and those in the U.S. government they pay off to do their bidding…
The Americans think they are being clever , i wonder what their responce will be when the next country they invaded is supported by Russia with the latest weapons and intel ?. by pouring arms into the Ukraine they have now set a precident .
Well said Jesse.
This isn’t a precedent. Both sides have been giving their preferred sides arms in every major conflict, and most minor ones, since World War Two ended.
I saw your garbage article on Counterpunch today. Pathetic.
FACT: Disney’s special zone has run a 5 to 10 million dollar deficit, AFTER paying for their expenses (including servicing their bond issues) from their own tax revenues. Now the 2 adjoining counties will receive those revenues. So explain to me, oh great Thomas Knapp, why the hell will those counties have to levy massive property tax increases?!?
Be so kind as to spell it out.
“Now the 2 adjoining counties will receive those revenues.”
No, they won’t.
Instead of taxing itself and borrowing on its own credit, Disney will just pay whatever the current county levies are. The tax burden will be partially redistributed from Disney alone to every property owner in those counties. Or the amount spent on e.g. infrastructure and law enforcement will be decreased. Or both.
You are WRONG, and furthermore are a left wing schill.
I’m correct, and make no secret of the fact that I’m an ultra-leftist (libertarianism is the left-most point on the left-right political spectrum).
the left-right political spectrum is based on whether one sits their ass on the left or right (of the king originally I think) in a parliement. no king, no parliament, no politics: no left-right political spectrum. and politics, when it is a thing, is of course made of many more axes than just one. trying to reduce it to one just obfuscates thinking about the actual issues at stake.
In the French Estates General, and then the Assembly, the political class estates (Nobility and Clergy) sat on the right, and the productive class estates (farmers, merchants, etc.) sat on the left.
The prototype American libertarian, Thomas Paine, sat on the left when he went to France and was elected to the Assembly. As did the prototypical French libertarians such as Bastiat.
The eternal class war is between the political class (the right) and the productive class (the left, also known as libertarians).
Would Bastiat sit on the left today? Pretty much everyone in French politics, and definitely so everyone on “the left”, are *explicitly anti-libertarian*, socialist, Marxist. Even the current president is a former Socialist party member (a party who had no issue allying with the Stalinist French Communist party). Bastiat today would not sit either left nor right – because he would not stand a chance to be elected in the first place nor want to, most likely. He’d probably have emigrated to New Hampshire or something 🙂 . “the left” today means the exact opposite of “productive class”. they are those who campaign for higher taxes, basic income, etc.
Also, today, sitting in parliament, *is* being the “political class”. They’re professional politicians, and they’re not libertarians, at least for a huge majority of them in most countries, including France and US. Are there any libertarians sitting on the left in either of these parliaments? Is there a country with a parliament where Socialists don’t sit on (and usually, crowd) the left?
Socialists aren’t the “left.” In fact, Marx was the first major right-deviationist from the libertarian class theory of Comte and Dunoyer, which he cribbed and re-purposed, changing the terms of class warfare from political vs. productive to capital vs. labor and throwing in a dumb theory of value to make it work.
In existing parliaments and congresses, there is not, for the most part, any “left.” Of all the US politicians, can you think of one more conservative than Bernie Sanders?
Socialists both define themselves as left and are considered “left” by others (in fact, they sometimes even use it in the party name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Party_(France) that’s definitely not a party for Bastiat… + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_the_European_Left )… Aren’t the most socialist members of US Congress (the squad etc) considered “the most left-wing” ? Your definition seems to be different than that of everyone else. Of course you can use any definitionts you want, but you might be misunderstood 🙂
Not sure what you mean about Bernie. Doesn’t he suggest a lot of changes, such as much higher taxes, in his program? that’s not conservative, that’s socialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Bernie_Sanders
“The New York Times reported that by calling for a weakened Russia, Austin was acknowledging a shift in the US view of the war from a battle for Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.”
A “shift” from what to what? How is this different from what’s been happening since 2014? I swear these idiots believe their own made up bullsh*t so completely that they have lost touch with reality. Therse is no shift, The US was, and continues to be, the number one instigator in this conflict and damn near every conflict on the planet.
The so-called Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists refuse to move the hands any close to nuclear war even as U.S., allies promise heavy arms for Ukraine and shrug off Russian nuclear warning.
What is going on? Something doesn’t seem right? Why does no one seem concerned about Russia using Nuclear weapons? The attitude is the same prior to the war when no one believed Russia would actually invade. The world seems too complacent.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin the Turd is a joke!
The insanity is beyond belief.
So they want to weaken a guy who has a limited amount of ammunition and 10 grenades by making him waste all his ammunition; but dont have a follow up plan to deal with the grenades.
Of course what Austen said was true. But it was a huge gaff to say it out loud…
Ukraine ain’t messing around, President Volodymyr Zelensky has been passionately pleading for arms, now it looks like they got them and they are going for Russia’s Jugular. However Russia still has the nuclear card? What is going on?