© AP Photo/ Michael Conroy/TASS

In my personal opinion, we Russians fall into a kind of naivety when excitedly watching kaleidoscopic military chronicles on TV, or read and listen to essays by "frontline bloggers", or reflections by some ill-accredited "war correspondents". As human beings we can understand this, recollecting the brilliant lines by Leonid Martynov written back in 1939: "In the intervals / / Between storms / / The waters seem submissive. // In the intervals / / Between wars // It’s hard to hold ourselves together." The main thing is not to lose sight of the fact that pictures are being generated by a primitive device consisting of a tube, mirrors and colored glasses. You need to roll and turn the thing. In our system of allegories, the kaleidoscope is equivalent to a state’s military policy that gives rise to bloody images.

Nowhere does the kaleidoscope spin as fast as in the USA, it turns out. Amid what is happening in Ukraine, the US Congressional Research Service has released an interesting document titled Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2023. Any of those was only feasible through Congress authorization; congressmen must present the relevant backgrounds and procedures. To keep the cases in mind, so to speak.

Let's face it, this paper can make your hair stand. Over the course of 225 years, there has not been a single year that the Americans abstained from invading a country. Sometimes they did so several times a year. An oddball nation, isn’t it? Young and bellicose, sure thing. And there has always been a good reason to invade: saving the lives of American citizens, loyalty to allied commitments, protection of democracy ideals and other casus belli cases, all of them geared towards half-wit laymen. On the top of the list we see 1798-1800, an undeclared naval war with France. “This contest included land actions, such as that in the Dominican Republic, city of Puerto Plata, where marines captured a French privateer under the guns of the forts. Congress authorized military action through a series of statutes,” it reads.

And here is the last case: “Europe. During January 13-18, 2023, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Calvary Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, arrived for a scheduled rotational deployment in support of DOD’s Operation Atlantic Resolve, and off-loaded more than 2,500 equipment items at port facilities located in Vlissingen, The Netherlands; Aarhus, Denmark, and Riga, Latvia” (as part of the DoD operation Atlantic Resolve). And further on: “On March 7, 2023, the U.S. Army began unit deployments in support of European allies and partners that ‘provide a robust deterrent and defensive posture alongside our allies across the European continent,’ with approximately 500 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division Headquarters, Fort Drum, New York, replacing soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division Headquarters. Additionally, about 3,800 soldiers from the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, replacing soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.” And so on and so forth.

Another historic evidence is as follows. In 1815, “the second Barbary War was declared against the United States by the Bey of Algiers of the Barbary states, an act not reciprocated by the United States. Congress did authorize a military expedition by statutes. A large fleet under U.S. Commodore Stephen Decatur attacked Algiers and obtained indemnities.” “February 16, 1920, to November 19, 1922. A marine guard was sent to protect the United States radio station and property on Russian Island, Bay of Vladivostok.”  Just a reminder: the Red Army assumed control of Vladivostok on October 25, 1922.

The first American soldier officially entered the territory of today's independent Ukraine on August 6, 2014. “At the request of the U.S. State Department, a dozen American troops from U.S. European Command arrived in Kiev, Ukraine, to help investigate the downing of the Malaysian airliner MH17 that killed all 298 passengers aboard. These specialists would assist State Department personnel in Kiev and not visit the crash site in eastern Ukraine, where there was fighting between the Ukrainian forces of the central government and separatists backed by Russia.”

The main thing, however, is that since January 5, 2017, the geographical terms "Europe" and "Ukraine" (except for Serbia's case) have become dominant in the congressional book of invasions. The latter name is mentioned as many as 27 times, and the former — over 50. The first trends were Spain, Mexico and Central America, and now it is Europe. Given the number of American troops already deployed there, the continent seems to have been given a really peculiar part in Washington's plans. Russia expanded thanks to Siberia and the North, the USA acquired Spain and Mexico, but in the 21st century, America would take aboard Europe, or the entire European Union, or Germany, let’s be honest. The fact that a new "Monroe doctrine" will become operative for this part of the world, has nearly become the ABC of present-day global diplomacy. NATO’s new and unexpected role is getting increasingly clear in this context. While the Cold War saw the bloc as a legitimate tool to ensure US presence on the continent, now it grew into a thinly veiled occupation government. And the same Scholz is kind of a Russian mayor of the German-occupied city of Kharkov.

All the analogies are naturally lame. Of course, one can find lots of propaganda arguments about the best intentions of pro-NATO forces or Moscow’s "belligerence". Russia, for loathing to be part of the United States in some new geopolitical coordinates, forms and terms, and unwilling to lose its subjectivity, has found itself in a state of war with either “the whole of NATO” or "the whole of the West". A fact of life. We do have a grueling time but fortis fortuna adiuvat, as the Latin saying goes. Fate helps the brave.