The Kremlin’s Strategic Blunders Are Leading to War
PATRICE GREANVILLE
Observing the mounting provocations by Washington and its NATO puppet, many people in Russia (and abroad) think that Putin's response to the West has been weak, misguided and inordinately accommodationist, a form—in their eyes—of appeasement. They argue—as does Paul Craig Roberts—that Washington needs to be confronted far more clearly and decisively, with force if necessary, the way one confronts a depraved bully with a long list of crimes to its name. I have a great deal of sympathy for this point of view, as do many people who don't like seeing an arch-criminal get away with his ever-expanding reign of terror and intimidation. But, folks, this is a soup with some flies in it, and we need to pay more attention. While in a non-nuclear world that kind of thinking—giving a bully what he deserves— makes perfect sense, in a nuclearised world the cost/advantage calculus is far more complicated and the right response almost impossible to pin down. For it is certain that, at this point, an all-out nuclear war between the great powers, a war, mind you, precipitated by the United States and its vassals, besides its unprecedented horrors, is a war guaranteed to have no winners. This is not the kind of decision that any rational leader would like to make. So what is Putin or Xi to do? They face a ruling class that appears to be either technically insane or terminally cynical. Inhabiting a huge bubble of hypocrisy of their own making, drenched in the supremacist myths of US exceptionalism. Thusly intoxicated, US elites flail about the world impervious to reality or morality, while wiping their plutocratic asses in the UN charter governing the civilised behaviour of all nations.
Under such circumstances, hubris may blind them to the great risks inherent in their constant warmongering. But are they really blind and indifferent to the horrific costs, or—as Kissinger and Nixon once supposedly admitted—this is just a bluff to keep the enemy off balance?
Clearly, the Russians and the Chinese, led by rational and competent people, don't want to be forced to find out. A war between the great nuclear powers is a war with no winners in which the totality of the human race stands to be wiped out. They know war up, close, and personal in a way that is simply alien to most Americans, and seemingly forgotten by the idiotised vassal nations in what passes for a free Europe. Well, Russia and China haven't forgotten. The Soviet Union lost more than 27 million people in WW2, and thousands of towns and cities, plus almost 70% of its hard-won infrastructure and industrial base in her struggle to overcome the Nazi assault. China chalked up almost 30 million lives in casualties, an enormous figure even in a nation of over one billion inhabitants. In their eyes, it probably makes sense not to provoke the bully into a fight. Plus, there are powerful historical reasons for avoiding a shooting war as long as possible. As demonstrated by the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact, avoiding war while growing stronger with each passing day is not a bad strategy when confronting a monstrous war machine led by deluded and unstable people. The USSR, despite its many problems, was a much stronger and more resilient nation in 1941 than in 1939. Those two years allowed her to safeguard and reposition the assets she needed to survive the Nazi attack, and she did. (See for ex. OPERATION BARBAROSSA: MYTHS AND REALITY). The same can be said for the truly vertiginous development of Russia's modern military in slightly over a decade: the Russia of 2008 (when it had to subdue a NATO-prodded Georgia into some stupid adventurism) and that of today can't be compared from a military standpoint. Military-naval analyst Andrei Martyanov agrees: "Russia and her Armed Forces of 2021 and of 2008 are separated not just by 13 years, but by two generations of weapon systems and C4ISR." Let that sink in for a minute. In sheer speed and effectiveness, Russia's capacity for strategic development is second to none in the world, and is not to be matched or surpassed by the Pentagon in the foreseeable future, no matter how many trillions it wastes on such pursuit. It's actually a systemic and cultural question not subject to a quick resolution. Ditto with China. Could that be the reason why Putin can afford to look "weak" and calm and non-confrontational toward Washington, despite a non-stop cascade of provocations and vituperations? Keep these things in mind as you read Paul Craig Roberts' persuasive indictment of the Kremlin posture. —PG
The Kremlin’s Strategic Blunders Are Leading to War
Posted By pcr3 On December 2, 2021 @ 10:43 am In Articles & Columns | Comments Disabled
Paul Craig Roberts
While US Whore Media and Whore “scientists” dependent on Fauci-controlled NIH and Big Pharma grants whip up fear over a relatively harmless “Omicron variant,” a real dangerous situation that I have anticipated for seven years is raising its deadly head.
The arrogant fools in Washington lost in their own hubris have been practicing nuclear attacks on Russia within 20 kilometers of Russia’s borders. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Washington’s operation Global Thunder rehearsed launching nuclear weapons against Russia from both western and eastern directions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Washington was not taking seriously Moscow’s warning not to cross Russia’s red lines.
Putin is correct. But it is the Kremlin’s fault.
The only decisive action the Kremlin has taken in response to intense provocations from Washington and NATO was the Kremlin’s decision to accept the overwhelming vote of the people in Crimea to be reincorporated into Russia where the territory had resided for 300 years. The Kremlin’s alternative was to lose Russia’s Black Sea navy base.
In a strategic blunder of the first magnitude, the Kremlin refused the same plea from the Russian people in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, territories that also had been part of Russia for centuries. By refusing to honor the vote of the Donbass Russians to again be a part of Russia, the Kremlin subjected them to war and destruction by the Ukrainian army and various neo-nazi Ukrainian militias. If the Kremlin had accepted the vote of the Donbass Russians to be returned to Russia, the conflict would have ended as Ukraine would not destroy itself by attacking Russian territory. Without the ongoing conflict, Washington would have been unable to continue its machinations against Russia in Ukraine.
In an effort to salvage the situation, the Kremlin put together the “Minsk Agreement,” which Western powers were to support, but didn’t. Thus, the conflict has continued to smolder since 2014, providing Washington with 7 years to use anti-Russian propaganda to define the narrative.
The Kremlin’s passivity and attempt to rely on agreements with the US and NATO to resolve a Ukrainian situation that Washington most certainly does not want resolved has convinced Washington and NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg that there is no fight in Russia, thus producing the situation that I have feared: Washington has concluded that Russia’s red lines are merely rhetoric.
Many other Kremlin failures have contributed to this dangerous outcome. The Kremlin still permits Israel to attack Syrian territory when one telephone call from Putin is sufficient to halt the attacks. The Kremlin still permits the occupation of a small part of Syria by US troops and CIA Arab mercenaries hostile to the Syrian state. The Kremlin receives massive insults to the Russian president and still refers to those insulting Russia as “our Western partners.”
These are not responses that create the impression that there is any force behind the Kremlin’s red line.
The Kremlin has also failed miserably in anticipating Washington’s moves, indicating an incompetent intelligence service or a willing disbelief in the Kremlin of Russian intelligence reports. Despite its obviousness, the Kremlin failed to anticipate the invasion of South Ossetia in 2008 by a US and Israeli-trained and equipped Georgian army. Putin was at the summer Olympics in Beijing. The Kremlin failed to anticipate Washington’s obvious overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine and the replacement of a Russia-friendly regime with a neo-nazi regime. Putin was at the Sochi Olympics.
Washington simply will not take seriously a government incapable of paying attention to what is happening to its interests in its own backyard.
One might think that the Kremlin would learn by experience, but apparently not. With reports that half of the Ukrainian army is in the Donbass region threatening the Russian inhabitants, US Secretary of State Blinken threatens Russia with “serious consequences” if Russia protects the Donbass Russians.
Imagine, a cipher like Blinken, a person of no ability or accomplishments, a representative of a second-rate military power that discriminates against its own white troops, issuing threats to the world’s dominant military force. This is hubris run amuck, hubris encouraged by years of Kremlin low-key response to major provocations. As I have warned, the low-key Russian response, despite its good intention, encourages more provocations, and sooner or later Washington will go too far and cross a red line that will force a Russian military response. My fear of nuclear war is the reason for my warning that Russia needs to put a strong foot down in order to stop the progression of provocations that can only end in war.
Why has the Kremlin been so meek in response to insults and provocations? I have no inside information. The speculations are that (1) the Kremlin wants the Donbass Russians to remain in Ukraine in order to water down the influence of anti-Russian attitudes in Western Ukraine; (2) the Kremlin did not want to confirm Washington’s propaganda that Russia was rebuilding the Soviet Empire by reabsorbing the Donbass Russians in addition to Crimea; (3) westernized Russian intellectuals have more confidence in the West than in their government; (4) the Atlanticist Integrationists desire to be part of the West than to be allied with China; (5) the Kremlin thinks that by continuing to be low-key and open to cooperation with the West all difficulties will be resolved; (6) Russia knows the horrors of war and wants to avoid war at all costs; (7) Russian billionaire oligarchs want the West as a haven for their stolen wealth.
All of these are sound reasons as far as they go. The problem is that all of these reasons ignore that Russia is Washington’s enemy of choice. Russia is the enemy that justifies the $1,000 billion annual budget of the US military/security complex. Russia is the enemy that strengthens Washington’s hold on NATO and Washington’s European empire. Russia is the enemy that keeps the Washington-abused American population loyal to the government that is destroying American liberty. Russia is the enemy that can be blamed, along with China, for every failure of Washington. How can the Kremlin forget that the hostility of the American Elite to Russia is so overwhelming that President Trump was confronted with a CIA/FBI/Justice Department orchestrated “Russiagate” for simply stating that he intended to restore normal relations with Russia?
Normal relations with Russia are impermissible to the extent that a President of the United States was removed from office in a stolen election after trumped-up “Russiagate” and “Impeachgate” attempts failed. To complete the lesson to all future presidents that normal relations with Russia are impermissible, Trump supporters are being prosecuted for attending a rally in support of Trump, a rally now known as “the Trump Insurrection.” Six hundred innocent people are held in prison in violation of habeas corpus and First Amendment rights. Not even the US Constitution can protect them.
And this is a government that the Kremlin thinks it can reach an accommodation with!
God help the Russians and all of us as Washington’s provocations continue their march to war.
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