US Incited Ukraine Conflict in Pursuit of Wolfowitz Doctrine's Aims, Says ANC Chief

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine was triggered by the United States, implementing its Wolfowitz Doctrine, said Fikile Mbalula, General Secretary of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), while delivering "observations" on the Ukraine crisis at a party conference.

"... it is primarily a conflict between the US and US-led NATO and Russia in pursuit of the objectives of the so-called Wolfowitz doctrine," Mbalula stated during the ANC National Conference.

According to Mbalula, the "US provoked the war with Russia over Ukraine, hoping to put Russia in place."

The ANC boss noted that the trigger for the conflict in Ukraine was determined by the same document, which says that in the post-Cold War era, Washington identified Russia and China as geopolitical rivals that "must be contained."

"According to this doctrine, the US should not allow...any country in the world ... the possibility, in the post-Cold War period, to challenge US interests, especially its hegemony," the ANC leader stressed. "In this regard, US geopolitical strategy has identified Russia and China as the two powers that must be contained, according to the Wolfowitz doctrine which undergirds US foreign policy. This is why the US provoked the war with Russia over Ukraine, hoping to put Russia in place. The peace and “free market economy” dividends promised at the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s have been shattered. The Western imperialist dominance over Eastern Europe is being advanced not through free trade and open competition for markets, but through US-led strategies."

What is Washington's Wolfowitz Doctrine?

The Wolfowitz Doctrine is the unofficial name given to the initial version of the 1994-1999 US Defense Planning Guidelines, leaked by the American media in 1992.

The doctrine outlined a policy of unilateralism, touting the US as the only superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union and declaring its primary goal of holding on to this status.

"The US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests," the media quoted the leaked document as saying.

In this vein, the main goal of this proclaimed US defense policy was to "prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."

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In addition, the doctrine downplayed the importance of international coalitions and declared the right of the US to intervene "when and where it deems it necessary."

A month after the document was leaked, the US National Security Council published a rewritten version of the doctrine, which muffled the harshness of the statements, but retained the same essence.

This past February, Sameed Basha, a columnist with the US-based National Interest magazine, said that Washington was waging an indirect war to maintain and boost its dominance using the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

The columnist clarified that despite the promises made to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward, the US sought a privileged position.

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According to him, the Russian special operation was a way to show and prove to the West that the Wolfowitz Doctrine could not "move forward against Moscow."

In February 2022, Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine in response to requests by the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics for help in defending these regions from ramped-up attacks by Ukrainian troops. Russia has said the operation aims to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine and to completely liberate the Donbass region.