Aletho News

Ukraine war turns into Russian roulette

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 16, 2024

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the US President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference.

Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic”. He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia. 

Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.

One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the US and UK are intensely conscious of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning on Thursday that any use of western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.” 

Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” 

Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before also, but did not follow through even when western weaponry was used by Ukraine with impunity to invade Russia recently. So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” 

On its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced, it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, and that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own. 

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday, “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.” 

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal. 

Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack. “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev. 

Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army “is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…

“most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.” 

Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been expunged altogether from British press reports — fearing, perhaps, that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the UK in a war against Russia in a  combat role!

Moscow anticipates that the US-UK ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine. On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that Uk-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the UK of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory. 

What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.

That is to say, although Russia cannot be defeated or evicted from the territories in eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed, Washington and London regard that the final outcome of this random event cannot yet be determined before it occurs; it may even be any one of several possible outcomes, and the probability cannot be ruled out that the actual outcome  might even be determined by chance.

Apparently, Biden believes that Russia’s current battlefield dominance is a random phenomenon and possible outcomes range from an annihilation of Russian military power to a large-scale disruption of life in Russia and a possible collapse of Russia — at a minimum, the weakening of the Russian hand in any future negotiations. Simply put, the war is now about Russia rather than Ukraine and long-range missiles can be a game changer. 

Thus, Biden, with no political constraints working on him anymore, is escalating the war to create new facts on the ground before his presidency ends in January, which may create conditions for permanent NATO military presence on Ukrainian territory and present Russia with a fait accompli. 

Such a strategy built on the quicksands of probability is akin to a game of Russian roulette — an act of bravado. Indeed, Biden’s options to support Ukraine are shrinking with each escalation, As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “With only four months left in the Biden administration and little hope of Congress approving additional funding for Ukraine no matter who wins the presidency, the White House is debating how best to help Kyiv given its limited toolbox.” 

Equally, Europe’s interest in the war is also waning. European politics is becoming unpredictable with the ascendancy of the far-right in Germany, the crisis of leadership in French politics, the relative decline of EU’s economy vis-a-vis global rivals due to limited innovation, high energy prices and skills gaps, etc. and, of course, the overarching economic crisis in Europe with no end in sight, as brought out starkly in the recent report by Mario Draghi. 

Basically, Biden is pre-setting the trajectory of the war beyond next January so that even after his retirement, his policy approach aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia remains on track. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday that Washington is working on a “substantial” round of further assistance for Kiev. He confirmed a meeting this month between Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky.

Sullivan noted that Biden is working to put Ukraine in the “best possible position to prevail” during his final months in office. The bottom line is that Biden’s war strategy is attenuating as “escalation management” while NATO transitions as a direct party to hostilities. 

September 16, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

An Act of War! Putin’s Final Warning as NATO Prepares to Attack Russia

By Glenn Diesen | September 14, 2024

President Putin has warned that the long-range precision missiles considered to be used against Russian territory will make NATO directly involved in the war. These missiles supplied by the US and UK can only be operated with the involvement of American and British soldiers, and the missiles will be guided by the satellites of NATO countries. The dishonest discussion in the West about NATO’s decision to escalate in such a reckless manner is deeply troubling given that nuclear war is at stake.

Incrementalism: From Proxy War to Direct War

These long-range missiles represent the end of the proxy war and the beginning of a direct NATO-Russia war. Since the Western-backed coup in 2014, NATO and Russia have been fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. On the first day after the coup, the new government in Kiev installed by Washington created a partnership with the CIA and MI6 for covert war against Russia.[1] By definition, a proxy war is when two or more powers do not fight directly in battle but fight through a third-party country. From 2014, the proxy war was defined as NATO supporting Kiev and Russia supporting the Donbas rebels who opposed the legitimacy of the post-coup government installed by Washington.[2] In the words of Ukraine’s General Prosecutor, who was eventually fired by Joe Biden, Washington was treating Ukraine as a colony and demanding the right to approve all new government appointments.[3]

When Russia became a direct participant in the conflict by invading Ukraine in February 2022, the proxy war became even more dangerous as NATO involved itself in the war planning and supplying the weapons, ammunition, training, mercenaries, intelligence and target selection for Ukraine to fight Russia. Yet, NATO was fighting Russia indirectly through a proxy. Over the next 2,5 years, the lines between proxy war and direct war became increasing blurred. This line will now be eliminated as NATO’s war against Russia becomes a direct war as the long-range missiles supplied by the US and UK are also operated by the US and UK.

How did we end up with the US and UK attacking Russian territory without any serious debate in the West? Incrementalism or salami tactics involve cutting off thin slices gradually. With small incremental steps, no one action appears to be so outrageous that it justifies a major response, yet over time the aggressor has pushed through all red lines with minimal opposition. The US used such tactics to mitigate Russian opposition and to alleviate concerns among European allies for NATO expansion, the missile defence system, and the proxy war in Ukraine. NATO incrementally sends more powerful weapons and become increasingly involved in the war. Any negative reactions from their own public or Russia are sought to be mitigated by imposing restrictions on the use of these weapons, but these restrictions are then incrementally removed.

In the beginning of the war, the US was apprehensive about sending tanks and Biden warned that sending F16s could trigger World War 3.[4] Where has the incrementalism taken us today? American illegal cluster ammunition is used to bomb civilian targets in the Russian city of Belgorod, and NATO has provided the intelligence and weapons for the invasion of the Russian region of Kursk where civilians are kidnapped and executed. German tanks manned by soldiers with fascist insignia on their uniforms are yet again fighting in Kursk, and the main objective was most likely to seize the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. NATO does not criticize Ukraine when it attacks Russia’s early nuclear warning system or nuclear power plants, and instead praises the invasion of Kursk for having humiliated Putin.

NATO’s self-delusion: Ukraine’s “right to defend itself”

The argument that Ukraine has the right to defend itself is a very deceptive counterargument as nobody has disputed that Ukraine has this right. The question is how deeply NATO can be involved before the thin line between proxy war and direct war is crossed. The US is illegally occupying Syria, and nobody would disagree that Syria has the right to defend itself. But does Russia have the right to bomb American and British cities under the guise of helping Syria defend itself? What would the US have done if the situation was reversed, and Russia was attacking American cities through Mexico as a proxy?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer argued: “We don’t seek any conflict with Russia. That’s not our intention in the slightest”.[5] This is probably true, Britain merely wants the right to strike Russia with missiles without Russia responding. When the US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul peace agreement in 2022, the Israeli and Turkish mediators explained that the Americans and British saw an opportunity to fight and bleed Russia as a strategic rival by fighting with Ukrainians. As American political and military leaders keep reminding us, this is a great war as NATO can weaken Russia without using its own troops. The question is how deeply involved NATO can become before we ask the very uncomfortable question: does Russia also has a right to defend itself?

Putin’s argument is reasonable and deserves to be discussed seriously, yet we no longer have reasonable discussions in the West as any empathy or understanding for the Russian position is castigated as treason. Every discussion is simplified and dumbed-down to either supporting “us” or “them”, and support for “us” entails repeating a ridiculous script that ignores reality and ends up with self-harm. If we want to avoid nuclear war, we should begin to take the security concerns of our adversary more seriously instead of shaming any effort to do so.

How will Russia Retaliate Against a NATO Attack?

Russia can pursue either horizontal or vertical escalation. Horizontal escalation is more restrained by retaliating in other areas by for example supplying air defences to Iran, making arms deals with North Korea, sending Russian warships to the Caribbean, sending advanced weaponry to NATO adversaries, or even providing intelligence for strikes on for example US occupation troops in Syria and Iraq.

However, a direct attack by NATO on Russia will likely pressure the Russians to respond directly with vertical escalation irrespective of the risk of a nuclear exchange. F16s and other weaponry that will be used against Russia have been placed in Poland and Romania as these are considered “safe spaces” as long as NATO is not directly involved in the war. NATO drones operating over the Black Sea and providing targeting data to Ukraine seem like an obvious target. NATO satellites that are used to guide missile attacks on Russia can also be destroyed. Attacks with tactical nuclear weapons in Western Ukraine would also be a powerful retaliation that send a strong message without attacking NATO directly.

It appears that NATO has deluded itself with incrementalism as it now plans to attack Russia without expecting any significant retaliation. Whenever Russia responds it is portrayed as occuring in a vacuum, thus Russia is presented as both weak for not responding to red lines and aggressive for acting unprovoked. Russia responded to the coup and covert war in 2014 by taking back Crimea; Russia responded to NATO’s sabotage of the Minsk peace agreement and the refusal to give security guarantees by invading in 2022; and Russia responded to the sabotage of the Istanbul agreement in favour of sending weapons by annexing Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhya and Kherson.

What was previously recognised as possibly triggering World War 3 is now dismissed as Russian propaganda as NATO is merely helping Ukraine defend itself. The Western political-media elites continue to argue that Russia has threatened retaliations in the past that did not materialise. Russia’s restraint is thus interpreted as weakness, and NATO continues to escalate until Russia responds sufficiently.

The problem is that Russia has been restrained because any response could result in a rapid and uncontrolled race up the escalation ladder that results in a nuclear exchange. As NATO takes the world to the brink of world war, should we not at least have a sensible discussion about what is being done instead of hiding behind meaningless slogans such as “Ukraine has the right to defend itself”?

September 14, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment