Paul Craig Roberts

PCR

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.