Jeffrey Sachs Witnessed 1990s Destabilization of Russia, Evoking the Blocking of US Voters from Foreign Policy Oversight
Real Reason for the US-Viet Nam War
Free weekly newsletter
Publication: each Saturday by 9 a.m. East Coast US time. Editions alternate between: (1) the hidden 1870s–1954 US colonial period in Viet Nam, and (2) a common pattern of racism in that hidden, early US activity in Viet Nam and in US society.
Prior issues may be viewed at https://briandroesch.substack.com/
Cites for some facts are in Roesch, B. (2021). Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam, First Edition Revised. See briandroesch.com
Jeffrey Sachs Witnessed 1990s Destabilization of Russia, Evoking the Blocking of US Voters from Foreign Policy Oversight
In a recent article, followed by an August 30, 2022 interview on Democracy Now, economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, wrote:[i]
“The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous.”
The failure of Western leaders to be forthright has long been enabled by a gambit in the 1940s, which cut US voters out of their role of general foreign policy oversight. As a result, Sachs witnessed a destabilization move by US leaders done without voter approval—though there was time for voter debate—during a deep financial crisis in Russia and Poland after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union:
Well, interestingly, in the case of Poland, I made a series of very specific recommendations, and they were all accepted by the U.S. government — creating a stabilization fund, canceling part of Poland’s debts, allowing many financial maneuvers to get Poland out of the difficulty. And, you know, I patted myself on the back. “Oh, look at this!” I make a recommendation, and one of them, for a billion dollars, stabilization fund, was accepted within eight hours by the White House. So, I thought, “Pretty good.”
Then came the analogous appeal on behalf of, first, Gorbachev, in the final days, and then President Yeltsin. Everything I recommended, which was on the same basis of economic dynamics, was rejected flat out by the White House. I didn’t understand it, I have to tell you, at the time. I said, “But it worked in Poland.” And they’d stare at me blankly. In fact, an acting secretary of state in 1992 said, “Professor Sachs, it doesn’t even matter whether I agree with you or not. It’s not going to happen.”
And it took me, actually, quite a while to understand the underlying geopolitics. Those were exactly the days of Cheney and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld and what became the Project for the New American Century, meaning for the continuation of American hegemony. I didn’t see it at the moment, because I was thinking as an economist, how to help overcome a financial crisis. But the unipolar politics was taking shape, and it was devastating. Of course, it left Russia in a massive financial crisis that led to a lot of instability that had its own implications for years to come.
Of destabilizations, US voters have been groomed to think they are not supposed to have general oversight. A move in the 1940s crippled the US voters’ role of oversight of the general direction of foreign policy. It arose as the State Department and the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) were setting up a system of “limitation of sovereignty” of other nations (CFR-State Report E-B19). The report called for such a limitation, where US leaders deemed it necessary for US “security and economic prosperity.”[ii]
The planners realized that system would be “ditched” if the public learned that State was working with an outside group.[iii]
So, they did not inform the public. Without voter input, they set up the system. Operating mostly through the National Security Council, it has done over 60 coups, invasions (including the war in Viet Nam), and destabilizations into 2022.
That 1940s move still cripples United States democracy. It blocks the vital role of the US public in exercising oversight of the general direction of foreign policy. In 2004, a CFR Senior Fellow, Walter Russell Mead, pointed out that voter role:[iv]
And while American foreign policy is studied in great detail by professionals and scholars, it must ultimately be debated and decided by tens of millions of voters who have neither the time nor perhaps the inclination to immerse themselves in briefing papers, task force reports, and long scholarly texts. [emphasis added]
The destabilization of Russia in the early 1990s, which Jeffrey Sachs describes, has led to today’s severe crisis in Ukraine. While Russia should not have invaded, the destabilization had foreseeable results of Russian instability, in which the US leaders could try to gain influence over territory like in their 60-plus actions cited above.
Destabilizing Russia without voter approval denied the United States the opportunity for the public to debate and decide. The common sense question was: Would it be wise to work with a Russia newly released from communism?
[i] Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China HJ https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/30/wests_false_narrative_china_russia_ukraine?jwsource=em
“The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” https://www.laprogressive.com/europe/western-narrative
[ii] Quote on limitation of sovereignty. Chomsky, N. (Nov. 4, 2011). Changing Contours of Global Order, Professor Noam Chomsky, YouTube Video, Publ. by Deakin University (Nov. 11, 2011), 18:07–18:28, of 1:18:00.
[iii] Ditched, Bowman says. Grose, Continuing the Inquiry, p. 23; Wala, The Council on Foreign Relations and American foreign policy in the early Cold War, p. 31. Others agree not share. Schulzinger, The wise men of foreign affairs, pp. 61–62. Not shared with public. Shoup, Imperial brain trust, p. 119. For voters to exercise meaningful control, they must have information, a purpose of First Amendment. Chomsky, N., & Herman, Edward S., Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Chapter 7: Conclusion, Kindle location 7542–7555.
[iv] Voters ultimately decide. Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War, p. 6, Kindle location 129.