A series of strategic blunders and “severe provocations” by President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are what spurred Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine, according to a renowned linguist and social critic, Noam Chomsky. 

In a lengthy interview with broadcaster David Barsamian, the “Manufacturing Consent” author and MIT professor emeritus claimed that in the months preceding Russia’s February invasion, Washington was intent on “integrating Ukraine step by step into the NATO military command.” In September 2021, he said, Mr. Biden “announced a program, a joint statement to accelerate the process of military training, military exercises, more weapons as part of what his administration called an ‘enhanced program’ of preparation for NATO membership.”

“In September 2021, you could read it on the White House website,” Mr. Chomsky said, adding, “It wasn’t reported but, of course, the Russians knew it.”

Arguably America’s most celebrated, if controversial, contrarian, Mr. Chomsky in the same interview blasted the “criminality and stupidity on the Kremlin side.” Yet in his estimation Washington’s leaning in on Ukraine’s Western strategic tilt did not stop with Mr. Biden. He also said that in November Mr. Blinken “signed what was called a charter, which essentially formalized and extended” the program for Ukraine’s gradual NATO onboarding and that “a spokesman for the State Department conceded that before the invasion, the U.S. refused to discuss any Russian security concerns.” 

Mr. Chomsky’s criticisms of Washington’s policies with respect to Ukraine are all the more remarkable for what they do not include — namely, the relationship with Ukraine under the Trump White House. He emphasized instead that starting in 2014, during the presidency of Barack Obama, America “began to pour arms into Ukraine — advanced weapons, military training, joint military exercises, moves to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command.” He added: “There’s no secret about this. It was quite open.”  In the professor’s estimation, these “serious provocations” provided no justification for the Russian invasion; they merely precipitated it. 

What emerges in the interview is less a crusade to assign blame than finding fault with the West’s approach to resolving regional conflict that after nearly four months risks engulfing the world in a wider and far more dangerous war. Mr. Chomsky sees with considerable accuracy those efforts as failing spectacularly. “With near 100 percent unanimity, the United States and most of Europe want to pick the no-diplomacy option,” he said. “It’s explicit. We have to keep going to hurt Russia. You can read columns in the New York Times, the Financial Times, all over Europe. A common refrain is: We’ve got to make sure that Russia suffers. It doesn’t matter what happens to Ukraine or anyone else.”

While that assessment is colored by a visceral undercurrent of disdain for what in another context the famously libertarian scholar might term Western imperialism, there is some logic to it, uncomfortable as it may be for some. For Mr. Chomsky it has eluded even prominent commentators like the Times’ “big thinker” Thomas Friedman, who “wrote a column a couple of weeks ago in which he just threw up his hands in despair.” What is missing, Mr. Chomsky asserts, is the realization that the West’s “doublethink” — a word coined by author George Orwell — on Russia is stymieing efforts to end the war. 

At the crux of the matter for him is not only Mr. Putin’s “criminal invasion” but NATO, too. In a separate interview in Sweden about that country’s plans to join the military bloc, Mr. Chomsky said that he pointed out how “Swedish leaders have two contradictory ideas.… One, gloating over the fact that Russia has proven itself to be a paper tiger that can’t conquer cities a couple of miles from its border defended by a mostly citizens’ army. So, they’re completely militarily incompetent.” Yet “the other thought is: they’re poised to conquer the West and destroy us.”

That contradiction in Mr. Chomsky’s estimation is “standard in the entire West,” and its prevalence makes elusive a diplomatic solution that could eventually be satisfactory for both Moscow and Kyiv. It also means the manufactured necessity of pumping huge financial resources into what President Eisenhower warned against, namely a military-industrial complex. “Recently, in fact, Biden proposed a huge military budget,” Mr. Chomsky said. “Congress expanded it even beyond his wishes, which represents a major attack on our society, exactly as Eisenhower explained so many years ago.”