PREDICTABLY enough the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provided the media with a hook on which to hang a barrage of war propaganda.

Over recent weeks US officials – State Department and some Pentagon – have been trying hard to sustain a narrative that China is likely to supply Russia with weapons.

This is at a piece with the broad US strategy of leveraging the conflict in Ukraine to boost an Atlanticist project to trap Europe in a more antagonistic relationship with China.

The first part of this has been the relatively successful operation to break economic (and commercially important) ties with Russia. The European Union and Nato are not quite united in this endeavour especially since the decisive states in the EU, France and Germany – from different standpoints – initially resisted the US drive to subordinate Europe's direct and material interests in retaining trade and energy links with Russia to the US strategic plan. But the US prevailed.

Which elements of the sabotage of the Nordstream energy link between Russia and Germany involve British underwater expertise, US submarines, Nato manoeuvres in the Baltic and Norwegian complicity remain a subject still for investigation and debate. However, the effort going into rubbishing US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s revelations about the sabotage is confirmation enough, especially since a complete media blackout had descended over the operation. 

The clear commercial advantage that Norwegian gas suppliers now gain from the sabotage has done something to erode the cosy image projected by this Scandinavian state. And Sweden too is very tight-lipped about its investigations into the sabotage of the pipeline. The soon-to retire-head of Nato is a former prime minister of Norway and an unashamed Cold Warrior in the north European social democratic tradition.

From the US armaments and aerospace industry come a consistent message that “supplying weapons would be the logical progression of the ‘no limits’ partnership Beijing and Moscow declared weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.

China’s swift move to assert its basic foreign policy principles has, to some extent, blunted this line of attack. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the Munich security conference to rubbish Chinese intentions and motives even before the plan’s release. 

He claimed that China provides “non-lethal assistance” that supports Russia’s war effort – magicking into unverified existence a US intelligence claim that Beijing is “considering providing lethal support”.

China said the allegation is a “smear” and without evidence.

It is not simply a question of principle for the Chinese but also a matter of practical common sense. While the US propaganda offensive continues – exacting a continent-wide cull of stray weather balloons and a disproportionate expenditure in supersonic missiles – there are voices in the US that take a more cautious line conscious, no doubt from a standpoint of economic realism, that China has good reason to stay out of the Ukraine conflict.

Perversely, one US response to China’s assertion of its policy – and its proposals for a resolution of the issues – is to criticise China for interfering outside of its sphere of influence.

This is not a universal principle that the US Navy applies in the South China Sea or the straits between China and its wayward Formosa island.

China’s 12-point plan asserted the centrality of national sovereignty and calls for a general de-escalation of conflict. Without naming names it calls for an end to sanctions, a ceasefire, protection for POWs along with practical proposals to facilitate grain exports, secure power plants and end attacks on civilians.

The Chinese initiative is in line with the attitude most of the world  – excluding the Nato-led bloc – takes in neither supporting the Russian invasion nor sanctions against Russia.

The Chinese offer included its oft-repeated criticism of the “Cold War mentality” and asserted that “the security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs”.

China’s swift and strong response to Blinken’s rumour-mongering has at least resulted in a measure of caution, with some US sources – equally mindful of the damaging economic consequences of a full economic breach with China – expressing doubt about the State Department pitch.

While the US armaments and aerospace industry has a clear material interest in continuing conflict, big sections of US capital are integrated with Chinese supply chains, dependent on imports from China and, like much of European industry, heavily engaged in exporting to China.

The second element in the Cold War narrative is the claim that Russia is contemplating the deployment of nuclear weapons. The source of this is a briefing reportedly given by the prolix US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and leaked by people who, it is claimed, wish to remain anonymous.

It was – guess who? – Blinken who first aired this speculation last October. The New York Times ran a story quoting US officials under the headline “Russian Military Leaders Discussed the Use of Nuclear Weapons”.

In fact it was Zelensky himself who upped the ante with provocative talk. Even the unwaveringly obedient Kiev Independent felt compelled to run a headline: “Zelensky’s staff forced to clarify statement after president suggests ‘preemptive strike’ on Russia.”

This time round, once floated, this balloon was allowed to gently deflate with a qualifying assessment that maybe, just maybe, not even the deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons is a probable option for Russia. No sources outside of the US intelligence world, anonymous or not, were quoted.

Our media echoes the US corporate media in its lack of investigative rigour about anonymous sources emanating from US government circles while remaining no less animated by Seymour Hersh’s reliance on such sources. Hersh, however, has a Pulitzer prize to buttress his credibility.

The war in Ukraine has enabled the US to achieve its first strategic goal. German industry has lost access to cheap and abundant Russian energy, the German economy and its prized export supremacy in high-value manufactured goods is threatened.

Along with preferential domestic subsidies for US manufactured goods – which render European imports uncompetitive – US industry has low-cost fracked gas bought at a domestic discount compared to the price charged European energy importers. A sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline – fulfilling Biden’s threat – makes a newly consolidated Nato more completely the instrument of US control over Europe as well as providing a new export market for US gas.

A forced North Atlantic compact now exists, under US management, as the war against Russia is prosecuted. 

At both the Munich security conference last month, and at the United Nations, the unwillingness of the great majority of the world – and especially the global South – to sign up for sanctions against Russia or rally to the Nato strategy is beginning to trouble Atlanticist strategists and their media mouthpieces.

In a sign of waning US dominance, most of the world has refused to be dragooned into Nato’s war.

Participants at the Munich meet were in no doubt about the essential character of the war. Its  raison d’etre was spelled out by former CIA chief and US defence secretary Leo Pancetta: “The reality is that Nato and the United States, are now, without question, in a proxy war with Russia.

“Maybe it’s not a direct war, but it certainly is a proxy war, in terms of their efforts to make Putin pay a price.

“And as a result of that, it is critical that they continue to have these meetings, urgent meetings, to make sure everybody’s on the same page.”

British foreign policy – under Labour or the Tories – invariably takes the projection of US interests in Europe as its assigned task. Britain played this role in the European Union and, Brexit notwithstanding, it is equally active today. Staged appearances of British figures – from a clownish Boris Johnson to a grinning Rishi Sunak – on the deserted streets of Kiev are part of this theatre.

Back home the increasingly sinister if no less ludicrous figure of Tobias Ellwood MP, who chairs the Commons defence committee, is emerging as a leading figure in the British bid to big up arms exports beyond nominally “defensive” ordnance and equipment to high end and high tech offensive materiel.

Exiting the Royal Green Jackets with the rank of captain, Ellwood remains in the army reserve as a lieutenant colonel in the sinister 77th Brigade which includes both serving and reserve personnel in psychological operations abroad and at home.

Echoing Zelensky’s entreaties, Ellwood called for Ukraine to be gifted air power and said: “We’ve been too hesitant to date to provide the necessary hardware. A year it took for us to pluck up the courage to provide tanks. And now we’re having the same debate about air power as well.

“We should recognise that this is about Russia, standing up to Russia. Ukraine happens to be the theatre of war.”

In Germany, where the first stages of a new world war will be fought, there is deep concern about this approach.

Reluctantly, Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed to an increase in military spending of €100 billion (£88bn) – about double the annual defence budget  – although US defence industry sources complain bitterly that it remains unspent. At the same time the German government agreed a €200bn subsidy for the energy costs of its own citizens. Which it is spending.

The Germans seemingly are reluctant to burn the candle at both ends.

Last weekend up to 50,000 people joined a Berlin demonstration organised by leading feminist figure Alice Schwarzer and Left Party Bundestag deputy Sahra Wagenknecht calling for an end to the war and peace negotiations. A petition is gathering signatures and is approaching the million mark.

The longer this war continues, the greater the pressure on European economies. With the first stages of an escalation it is not the US or Britain that will be the war zone. Most EU states and  European capital – by and large – fear an escalation and a permanent conflict on  its borders. But for the moment the US and British governments are united in blocking negotiations except on terms unacceptable to Russia. 

What is remarkable – unlike the 1980s when the deployment of US missiles in Europe sparked a mass peace movement that encompassed even middle of the road Labour figures – a section even of the self-proclaimed left has lined up with the imperial warmongers.

In the worst profit-driven inflationary spiral and energy crisis our working class has ever experienced  they think, unlike most German social democrats, that prosecuting the war with ramped up arms supplies trumps social spending.

This will not end well.