Putin and the Game of Allies

By Howard Bloom

October has been a month of marshalling alliances. And in the ally gathering game, Joe Biden and NATO have come out on top. With the exception of one important Putin victory.

There was a vote in the general assembly of the United Nations on October 12th to condemn Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories. The West won the vote 143 to 5. In other words, 143 nations voted to condemn the Russian invasion. Only five sided with Russia.

Putin’s rain of up to 185 rocket attacks a day on civilian structures in Ukrainian cities was so appalling that states in Russia’s stealth alliance, nations in Russia’s Axis of Evil, did not vote against the condemnation. That included Axis of Evil members Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and the really big one — China. Only Syria, Nicaragua, North Korea and Belarus voted on Russia’s side. And the second most populous country in the world, India, also stayed on the sidelines.

The West’s victory was so overwhelming that the United Nations’ official press release on the subject read like it was written in the White House: it said, “Ukraine: UN General Assembly demands Russia reverse course on ‘attempted illegal annexation.’”

Politico reports that the avalanche of votes in the UN was no accident. The US, the United Kingdom, and the European Union lobbied their fellow UN ambassadors, counting their support one nation at a time the way a whip in the US congress counts votes and goes for a win.

But the vote at the UN was not the only measure the US was taking in October to solidify its alliances.

In Brussels, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was meeting with other NATO defense ministers in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a group that monitors Ukraine’s need for weapons day by day and speeds those weapons’ delivery. Then Austin had a meeting of NATO defense ministers on October 12th and 13th.[i] And Austin was scheduled October 14th for a meeting of the Bucharest Nine Group in Brussels, a group of nine countries on Russia’s western flank, countries vulnerable to Russian invasion.