that’s an… interesting viewpoint, and, as a “Westerner”, i see little evidence to support this narrative aside from some Western think tanks both existing and, perhaps thinking what you propose.
You only need to look at (very small) sample of the attendees of the Atlantic Council’s meetings to see that it is directly responsible for a huge amount of policy. These people aren’t attending for a laugh, they attend because they know its power and have the same interests and goals as the organisation.
Understanding the role of these organisations in the wider net of actors is a fundamental knowledge area that most liberals don’t have as a result of only really paying attention to media, who always play their role down as the media functions as fundamental collaborators with state interests.
as for what started this war? that was Russia’s illegal invasion of another sovereign nation. period. and, unless you’re implying that “the West” or even the US somehow controls him or his actions, I don’t see how either had anything to do with Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
This is the liberal western interpretation. It is not the global left’s interpretation which has a fairly significant consensus that this war was caused by nato expansionism, ignoring fair security concerns, and the 2014 coup that led to the civil war that preceded this. The left generally doesn’t view this war as having started in 2022 but instead in 2014, with Russia eventually joining as a belligerent after exhausting the potential methods of ending it via the Minsk agreements. Both the anarchist and socialist left worldwide pretty much agrees on this, with people ranging from Chomsky, Vijay Prashad, Wolff, Yanis Varoufakis, Lula, Corbyn, Cuba, Bolivia, european socialist parties etc etc etc all having the same take across the board. None of whom get much media exposure of that of course, because like I said before the western media is collaborative with the interests of western states.
I think for context I should add that I live in the UK and that from the perspective of British politics, american liberals are to the right of our conservatives, most of you would be Tories in the UK. Understanding this context is probably important for you to understand that I do not include liberals when I say “left” or “global left”, the american democrats are extremely right wing.
it’s not a matter of “interpretation.” Russia invaded a sovereign nation. Illegally. A war ensued as a direct consequence of that illegal invasion, and nobody but Russia is to blame.
you can cast aspersions at all of the people and nations and political ideologies you don’t like, but it doesn’t change those facts.
It’s completely a matter of interpretation and narratives. The western community has one that serves their interests while Russia has one that serves their interests. Meanwhile the left has a completely different one that recognises the military industrial complex of america profiting off of its new forever war while millions of innocents are sent to their deaths.
You subscribe to the liberal one. That’s fine. I do not.
I suspect our opinions differ on what “sovereign” actually is here too. I don’t consider much of Europe to be particularly sovereign, but instead to be vassal states of US empire referred to colloquially by the american media as “the international community”, a funny name given that it excludes 2 thirds of the world. We probably differ on that opinion as well though.
well, when the fact that the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine is what started the war is what’s inconvenient, that’s when “narratives” and “interpretations” assert themselves to deflect blame and cast aspersions upon others who some happen not to like for whatever reason. It, however, doesn’t change the facts of the matter, regardless of how many straw men, ad hominem, whataboutisms, or other logical fallacies get bandied about.
edit: something that has always fascinated me is how someone could so ardently claim to be a “Marxist” while going to such lengths to defend the actions of an oligarchic autarch of a strictly capitalist and fascist country.