America on the Brink: How US Foreign Policy Led to the War in Ukraine

by David Ray Griffin

Overview

The American government, through its media, has convinced most Americans to support the Ukrainian government. This books shows why this is a mistake: The United States promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward”; and there had been ample warnings, by George Kennan and others, that moving NATO eastward, especially moving into Georgia and Ukraine, would cause problems for Russia.

In Ukraine prior to 2014, Ukrainian and Russian speakers were coexisting tolerably well. But in 2013 and 2014, neocons in Obama’s administration engineered a coup, with help from neo-Nazis, turning Ukraine into a Russia-hating nation. The war in Ukraine began that year (not in 2022, when Russia attacked in order to protect the Russian-speaking regions under attack by the new coup government in Kiev).

Although this book is primarily about the war in Ukraine, it also shows how, in one sense, the war in Ukraine is simply one more instance in the trajectory of American imperialism. as illustrated by previous US interventions in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Greece, Dominican Republic, Panama and Iraq.

In another sense, this war reveals just how committed America is to maintaining a unipolar world order: Because this war illustrates that America is willing to threaten nuclear holocaust. it is almost as if people in the U.S. State Department and military believe that life is not worth living unless the US can control the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949762723
Publisher:	Clarity Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/20/2023
Pages:	271
Sales rank:	648,844
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

David Ray Griffin was Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University (1973-2004); Co-Director, Center for Process Studies. He edited the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (1987-2004), which published 31 volumes. He has written 32 books, edited 13 books, and authored 248 articles and chapters. His most recent books are Unprecedented: Can Humanity Survive the CO2 Crisis?, Bush and Cheney, and The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?

Read an Excerpt

The most effective way to show the falsity of these views—that American has no empire or that, if it does, its empire is an accidental, benign empire—would be to rehearse the story of US imperialism.
But this would be a very long story. It would need to begin with the displacement of the Native Americans, which involved the extermination of about 10,000,000 of them. It would need to include the institution of slavery, which, besides all the other evils, probably involved the deaths of another 10,000,000 human beings. This story would need to explain why in 1829 the South American hero Simon Bolivar said: “It seems to be the destiny of the United States to impoverish [the rest of] America.” This story would need to deal with the theft of what is now the American Southwest from Mexico. It would need to deal with the increasing number of invasions after the American Civil War in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela. It would need to deal with so-called Spanish-American Wars of 1898-1902, during which America took control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Guam. It would need to explain why the war to deny independence to the Filipinos led to the formation of the Anti-Imperialist League, with one of its members, William James, saying: “God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles.” This story of American imperialism would also need to tell of America’s interventions further abroad—in Japan in 1854, China in 1900, Russia in 1918, and Hungary in 1919. Back in this hemisphere, this story would need to address America’s theft of Panama from Colombia in 1903, then its repeated interventions in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador, with lengthy occupations of some of those countries. It would need to explain its imperial aims in World War II, which led it to install right-wing postwar governments in Greece, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, even though this meant turning against the Resistance movements, which had fought alongside the Allies against the Fascist powers against deeply entrenched mythology, how the Cold War was far more the result of the imperial ambitions of the United States than those of the Soviet Union. It would also need to tell of the great number of countries in which the United States overthrew constitutional governments, such as Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1961-1964) [all have citations in text]

Editorial Reviews

"No one gives us a clearer picture of how we have engendered fear, suspicion, and hatred in much of the world, while still assuring ourselves about our virtue, than David Griffin. I strongly recommend this book for Americans who are able to learn the truth."
JOHN B. COBB, Jr., Processor Emeritus of theology, Claremont School of Theology

"David Griffin’s book forced me to confront the difficult truth that in many ways I remain an unrepentant American imperialist,.., I had never embraced the reality that American Imperialism was a “thing”. But after reading his book, I cannot hide from the fact that not only has my country become the modern-day equivalent of Ancient Rome, but that we have been thus my entire life. This awakening was David’s final gift to me and the world, accomplished through a book that must be read by all who are struggling to define the role played by America in the world today. You can’t solve a problem unless you first properly define it; David Griffin defines it."
SCOTT RITTER. former Chief Inspector for the UN in Iraq, author Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika

"This book is not theoretical philosophy, but an exercise in political common sense, raising pertinent questions for the survival of humanity and concretely applying philosophy to today’s crises, including the Ukraine war. In 16 chapters Griffin denounces aggression and war crimes that have been committed in our name. The chapter “Facing Up to the True Nature of the American Empire ” is essential reading for every human rights activist, for everyone who values truth and human dignity." ALFRED DE ZAYAS, former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of Democracy and and an Equitable International Order

Griffin’s readable America on the Brink exposes, on one hand, the US propaganda crusades to “protect” sovereign democracies from imagined Communist threats. On the other hand, it reveals the deadly, secret US military coups that have killed untold numbers of civilians while remaining mostly in the shadows…This book review only scratches the surface of the US atrocities abroad that are revealed in Griffin’s final work – about which most Americans (if they were allowed to know about them) would hang their heads in shame.” ELIZABETH WOODWORTH, GlobalResearch.ca

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