Pushing NATO into a war with Russia

Ukraine is trying desperately to entangle NATO into a war with Russia. The mentality that stands behind the actions of the provocateur is brilliantly described in Kipliing’s poem “A Pict Song”.

It is an amazing poem in which despair of the oppressed Picts makes them choose a cynical and opportunistic strategy as a last resort to protect themselves from Rome. The Ukrainian government in its war with Russia pursues a strategy similar to that of the Picts in Kipling’s poem. The accuracy and force of the similarity that I found between the Picts of the past and the Ukrainians haunted by the Maidan, reveals itself in a metaphor, which is a powerful mechanism in the description of history.

  In a face-off with a powerful nation a weak country is sometimes ready to sell its most precious commodity – independence. – to those allies which are capable of destroying its enemy.

In Kipling’s poem, the Picts are portrayed as a people who, despite their own weaknesses, are determined to use the strength of others to defeat their Roman oppressors. On the way to this objective the Picts are ready to embrace even slavery, for all the means are good if they see Rome destroyed. The last stanza of the poem is a cynical and shameless consent of the Picts to accept as masters the people capable of defeating Rome:

No indeed! We are not strong,

   But we know Peoples that are.  

Yes, and we’ll guide them along

   To smash and destroy you in War!

We shall be slaves just the same?

   Yes, we have always been slaves,

But you—you will die of the shame,

And then we shall dance on your graves!

Some people treat the Picts’ readiness to accept even slavery, if it should be the price for victory, as a charming hyperbole resorted to for the sake of emphasis.

Exactly as in the case with Kipling’s Picts of ancient times, the XXI century sees Ukrainian ambitions put aside to give way to just one persistent idea on the part of Kiev: get NATO to go to war with Russia.

This is really scary against the backdrop of Ukraine prioritizing this wonderful desire despite the existence of nuclear weapons.