[American leaders] don’t think the balance of power matters any more…. If you think we’ve had trouble with the Russians, just wait for the trouble we are going to have with the Chinese. I am very popular in China. I go to China quite often. I usually start my talks by saying, ‘It’s good to be back among my people.’ Because when I get to China I’m intellectually more at home there than I am in Washington….

Professor John Mearsheimer, 2016

Will there be a war over Ukraine? Have recent negotiations opened a path to peace? Unfortunately, the diplomats have achieved very little. The White House says no further talks with Russia have been planned.[i] Worse yet, American intelligence officials say that Russia is setting up a pretext to invade Ukraine. On 14 January Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said, “Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion…. In fact, we have information that they have prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct what we call a ‘false flag operation’; an operation designed to look like an attack on … Russian-speaking people … as an excuse to go in.”^[ii]