Helmut Kohl: A great and flawed statesman | Brookings - June 22, 2017 |

Kohl, a committed trans-Atlanticist, simply went over their heads to Washington. He recognized that U.S. President George H.W. Bush and his advisers James Baker III, George Shultz and Condoleeza Rice understood, as he did, that this was a historic chance toaccomplish the dream of a Europe whole, free and at peace [President Bush in Mainz - May 31, 1989]. His greatest achievement, however, was winning over Mitterrand and Thatcher by agreeing to a further round of European integration (including forgoing the strong Deutsche Mark for a common currency, the euro)--and thereby binding Germany's fate irrevocably to Europe's. It transformed the continent and secured him a place among his country's greatest statesmen of all time.

Yet he left public life--actually, he had to be forced out--with his reputation tarnished and diminished. Germans from both sides of the former border were angered by his airy promise in 1990 that East Germany's landscapes, ravaged by mining and pesticides, would soon be transformed into "flowering meadows" at no cost to the German taxpayer. The actual bill for unification has been estimated at 2 trillion to 3 trillion euros. It was worth every cent.

There were historians who warned a re-unification of Germany would ultimately lead to a new confrontation and a Third World War. History has not taught or convinced human kind the ugliness of wars.

A 'Europe Whole and Free and at Peace' | RAND Corp. - Sept. 8, 2009 |

The assassination of the heir to the imperial throne of Austria-Hungary in Serbia ignited World War I in August 1914. The event triggered interlocking agreements among two sets of Europe's great powers in a tiny part of the Continent that was of little account in the grand scheme of things.

Georgia is not Serbia, 2008 is not 1914, and Russia and the United States are not Russia and Imperial Germany of 1914. The various great powers of today are not armed to the teeth in confrontation with one another and they are not itching for a fight, egged on by mutually reinforcing hubris about national capabilities, will, ambitions and pride.

Hubris ... Bill Clinton stabbed Boris Yeltsin in the back by covert act to start expansion of NATO. The colour revolutions of 2004 and 2008 threw fuel on the fire. The NATO Summit in Bucharest in Spring 2008, under administration of his evil son George W. Bush [plus Bolton, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Neocon cabal] led to ultimate provocation by promising NATO membership to Georgia (War in August 2008) and Ukraine (War in February 2014 on forward).

In fact, America has double-crossed "Old Europe" and the EU leadership through the years. Making of a derelict NATO a fighting machine in wars across the globe that were not their fights whatsoever. The so-called Atlantic alliance is not for energy sustainability or an effort to save the planet. On the contrary ... it's for hegemony and become the Oil & Gas supplier of the Western World for coming decades. The mantra is to destroy Russia, a fascist endeavour. History will judge harshly American foreign policy and wars ever since the attacks of 9/11. We have been a witness to the whole string of events and could not change a dot or comma.

'Sapere aude'