a cura di Stefano Fait, direttore di FuturAbles
Questo è quel che probabilmente leggeremo sui giornali: “forze armate americane pronte alla guerra contro la Russia per l’Ucraina”
http://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnews.php?idx=6&pg=7202
Non è così. Questa è l’arbitraria interpretazione (con parafrasi ingannevoli) dell’Atlantic Council che, per usare un eufemismo, non ha la pace e la prosperità del mondo al centro delle sue preoccupazioni.
Martin Dempsey ha scelto con accortezza le sue parole e, per come la vedo io (ingenuamente? arbitrariamente?), ha dimostrato di essere la persona giusta, al posto giusto, nel momento giusto (anche perché Obama, ogni volta che è sotto pressione, cede e si chiude in se stesso, stando a quel che si può ricostruire dalle sue azioni e da certi aneddoti riferiti da membri del suo entourage).
Dempsey ha già contribuito a tenerci (noi della NATO) fuori da due conflitti, uno in Iran e uno in Siria, e sta facendo il possibile per tenerci fuori da quello più terribile di tutti: Occidente contro Oriente (“Oceania” contro “Eurasia” – cf. Orwell).
Ho messo in risalto le frasi chiave che aiutano a capire il messaggio che stava lanciando all’opinione pubblica e agli analisti in ascolto. Quel che ho inteso io – e chiaramente mi auguro di non scambiare i miei desideri per la realtà – è quanto segue:
- “reassure our allies”: i dispiegamenti americani in Europa e nel Mar Nero servono per placare le ansie dei paesi ex-comunisti;
- “not to escalate this thing further into Eastern Ukraine and allow the conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in the Crimea”: se i russi si limiteranno a riprendersi la Crimea e non avanzeranno alcuna pretesa nell’Ucraina orientale, tutto andrà bene [il che permetterebbe di arrivare all’ottimo piano informalmente proposto da Kissinger-Brzezinski-Lavrov]
“resolve this diplomatically”/ “without it being escalatory”/“avoid escalating this thing”: la questione va risolta assolutamente per vie diplomatiche (come da insistenza cinese). Qualunque altra azione sarebbe un errore (“miscalculation”); - “everything that we have done, I tell him, here’s what we’re doing”: sto facendo quel che va fatto per creare un rapporto di reciproca fiducia con la mia controparte russa ed evitare equivoci dalle conseguenze potenzialmente disastrose;
- “a question that I think deserves to be assessed and reassessed and refreshed”: entrare in guerra con la Russia è decisamente l’ultima cosa che vorrei trovarmi a fare.
- “we do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies“: Noi interveniamo solo per difendere membri della NATO e l’Ucraina non è nella NATO.
TRASCRIZIONE DELLLA PARTE “INCRIMINATA”
JUDY WOODRUFF: The United States is sending more military material, forces into Eastern Europe, F-15s into the Baltics, F-16s to Poland, another warship into the Black Sea. What message is the U.S. trying to send to Russia right now?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: We’re clearly trying to send a message to Russia, almost exclusively through diplomatic channels, so that I do have an open line with my Russian counterpart that I have used twice the last two days.
But we’re trying to tell them not to escalate this thing further into Eastern Ukraine and allow the conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in the Crimea. But the message we are sending militarily is to our NATO allies.
So, one of our responsibilities at times like this is to reassure our allies. And so the deployments you mentioned into the Baltic air policing mission, into the aviation detachment in Poland, the deployment of the ship, are really intended to reassure our allies.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, the U.S. is saying to the allies, if this were to come to some sort of military conflict, the U.S. would back up NATO?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, don’t forget, we have — actually, we have NATO treaty obligations under Article 5 for collective defense.
And, so, when they ask us for reassurance or they ask us to — for contingency planning, we respond, and we do have obligations with NATO.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, if there were to be a misunderstanding of some sort, if there were to be an accident that were to lead to something bigger, has the administration thought through the consequences of what that means, the two countries that are the greatest armed powers on the planet involved?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, that’s why we’re seeking aggressively to resolve this diplomatically, before we would reach the point where there could be a miscalculation.
It’s probably worth mentioning why this is so unsettling to the Eastern Europeans. You know, we live here in America and sometimes don’t understand the realities of geography and demographics in Eastern Europe.
There are — if Russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it exposes Eastern Europe to some significant risk, because there are ethnic enclaves all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
I will give you one example. There are 400,000 ethnic Romanians living in Ukraine. So this is enormously unsettling.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you know what the Russians are saying is that they have an historic relationship with — with Crimea, and they’re saying the Crimean legislature has voted now to have a referendum, and they’re saying what the government in Kiev did was illegal.
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Of course they are. And they’re trying to roll back to the February 21 agreement, and we’re trying to suggest that, really, the clock started on February 24.
Those are matters of diplomacy. Our role, as the military, is to seek ways to influence this without it being escalatory. And, by the way, I do have this open line with my Russian counterpart. So, everything that we have done, I tell him, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we’re doing it. We disagree fundamentally about your claim of legitimacy, but, as militaries, let’s try to avoid escalating this thing.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But there is a chance it could escalate?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Of course there is.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There is a chance of military conflict?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Sure. Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And is the U.S. prepared if that happened?
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, that’s a question that I think deserves to be assessed and reassessed and refreshed as this thing evolves.
But, remember, we do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies. And I have assured them that, if that treaty obligation is triggered, we would respond”.