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Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0

By Gilbert Doctorow | June 7, 2024

In the opening days of this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum, there were a number of signs that the Kremlin is taking a much tougher line in its relations with the West than hitherto in response to the war mongering rhetoric that has come out of Western Europe in the past week. France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States had publicly stated that the weapons they have supplied to Ukraine can be used as the Kievan authorities see fit, meaning that attacks on the Russian heartland with long range missiles coming from their factories and programmed by their specialists are permitted.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing commemorative activities in France yesterday, Emanuel Macron had done his very best to enrage the Kremlin by excluding Russians from the ceremonies and instead by warmly embracing the defender of the Bandera Nazi collaborators, President of Ukraine Zelensky. Macron compounded the insult to Russia by announcing that he will send Mirage 2005 all-purpose fighter jets to Ukraine before year’s end and that Ukrainian pilots are now in training in France.

The new hard line from Russia was evident already at the start of the week when deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was allowed to speak his piece to the press, condemning the entry of West European powers into what is essentially co-belligerent status in the conflict. Ryabkov, you will remember, was the hard liner from the Ministry back in December 2021 demanding a voluntary roll back of NATO to its 1994 borders through negotiations over a draft document to that effect, lest Russia be compelled to push them back by force.

Then the tough condemnation by Ryabkov was repeated to the press by his boss, Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov.

At his meeting with representatives of the leading news agencies from 16 countries on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin sounded a tough note when he said that Russia’s response to a possible attack on critical Russian infrastructure in its heartland using the long-distance missiles supplied by the West would be met by an asymmetrical response, namely by Russia’s supplying similarly advanced weapons to armed forces that are in confrontation with the United States and are in a position to inflict significant damage on them if properly equipped. This sounded very much like a plan to arm the Houthis of Yemen, who could take good advantage of Russia’s hypersonic ship killing missiles to take revenge on the U.S. aircraft carrier force in their region. Or to give an assistance to Iraqi and Syrian militias who have been attacking U.S. military bases that are being maintained in their territories illegally.

Of lesser importance, but still valuable as indication of which way the wind is blowing in Moscow, at that meeting with the press Vladimir Putin allowed himself to use some vulgar terms that are out of character. These came in his answer to the Reuters journalist who asked about Russia’s possibly using tactical nuclear weapons against the West.  Aside from saying that Western talk about Russia’s supposed plans to attack them were as dense as the wood of the desk before him, he called this all ‘bullshit’ (бред or чушь собачья). We also know that in the last day or two for the first time ever Putin alluded to the United States as an ‘enemy’ rather than using the now conventional term ‘unfriendly country.’

Then came the news yesterday, that Russia is dispatching the Admiral Gorshkov warship and task force to the Caribbean for exercises. The Gorshkov is not just any ship in the Russian fleet. It has been fitted with the latest Zircon nuclear capable hypersonic missiles. I imagine that from waters near Cuba its missiles could reach Washington, D.C. in five or ten minutes.

This looks as though the Kremlin is deliberately setting up a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0, but basing its missiles in ships operating freely in international waters as is their right.

Apparently, the Biden administration has responded with feigned nonchalance to this development, saying that Russian exercises in the Caribbean are an innocent affair that take place periodically. Such is what Reuters reports.

However, I very much doubt that Pentagon officials are in fact so laid back.

All of the foregoing was the warm up. Today, at the Plenary Session of the St Petersburg Forum we saw that the hard line – soft line debates are still raging in the Kremlin. This was clear in the very odd decision to designate the political scientist Sergei Karaganov as moderator, pitching questions to Vladimir Putin and to the two honored guests on the podium with him, the presidents of Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Still more peculiar were the, shall we say, very unfriendly questions that Karaganov put to Putin, all of which hinted at a power struggle in Moscow over how best to respond to the West. This will be the subject of the segment below.

*****

In the past, before the start of the Special Military Operation, moderators for the Plenary Sessions of the St Petersburg Forum were uniformly chosen from among well-known American journalists. Usually these were people who knew little or nothing about Russia and were reading to Putin questions prepared for them by their editors. A perfect case in point was CNN anchor, pretty woman Megyn Kelly who held the position at the 2017 Forum. Her list of questions was repetitive to the point of hectoring. But she added glamor and could draw a Western audience. When relations already were becoming quite strained, the organizers of the Forum slotted in the Vesti journalist, anchor of the widely watched Saturday evening news Sergei Brilyov. Brilyov could be said to be a half-way compromise, because he was deeply embedded in the West, with his family residing in the U.K. while he was a dual national with British passport.

As late as a day before the opening of this year’s Forum, there was speculation that the moderator would be Tucker Carlson. In one sense, his taking that role would ensure a vast audience for the proceedings. On the other hand, his very American persona would be in contradiction with the dominant anti-Western current that I now see.

Instead, what we got was Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist whose name many in the West will find familiar because of the shocking call he made in June 2023 for Russia to put an end to Western provocations in and over Ukraine by striking one or another of its enemies in the West using tactical nuclear arms and forcing capitulation.

Karaganov’s essay entitled “A Difficult but Necessary Decision” appeared in the most respected Russian foreign policy journal, Russia in Global Affairs”.  See https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/a-difficult-but-necessary-decision/

The article is worth re-reading because many of the points critical of Russian foreign and military policy that Karaganov made there, all indirectly deeply critical of Vladimir Putin’s softly-softly approach to managing international relations, were repeated face to face in his exchange with Putin on stage this afternoon. The key point he made is that Russia must quickly climb the escalatory ladder and win by its own ‘shock and awe’ behavior; that this, in the end, will save millions of lives by disrupting the present gradual ascent towards all-out nuclear war between the superpowers.

Whereas Putin had allowed himself to be subjected to unfriendly questioning from Western journalists on stage at previous Forums, this is the first time I have seen him subjected to unfriendly questioning by a leading member of Russia’s own foreign policy establishment.

The tension was visible in Putin’s face as he argued that so far Russia’s sovereignty and existence has not been threatened, so there is no reason to speak of using nuclear weapons in this conflict. Moreover, the Russian armed forces are daily pushing back the front line, gaining new territory and decimating the enemy’s manpower. Ukraine is losing 50,000 men a month and even the most drastic mobilization plans now being foisted on Kiev by Washington will, at best, only fill in the losses, not strengthen the Ukrainian positions for a counter-offensive.

Karaganov also probed Putin’s mentioning to the world press Russia’s planned ‘asymmetrical’ response to any attacks on its territory. Would Russia be sending hypersonic battleship killing missiles to the ‘enemies of our enemies’ in the Middle East, he asked. Putin demurred, saying that nothing has yet been shipped, and that every future move would be taken only after thorough study.

*****

Putin’s speech to the Plenary Session about the 9 structural reforms that Russia will be implementing in the period to 2030 was itself an odd address for an audience consisting of not only Russians but of businessmen and government representatives from a great many foreign states. The speech was almost entirely about economic development of the country and improvement of living standards.

Before getting to his questions about Russian foreign and military policy, Karaganov had put questions to Putin from the economic domain. However, his dry manner, utterly lacking in charm, could not have warmed the hearts of the audience. And even in this domain, the questions he put to Putin were unfriendly.

Karaganov spoke as a true son of the alienated Russian intelligentsia when he asked his President whether in the ongoing recentralization of economic management there would not be reexamination of the whole privatization process of the 1990s which was directed in a criminal manner.

Without wishing to plead the case of the oligarchs, Putin put the blame not on criminal intentions but on mistaken economic assumptions of those managing the economic transformation at the time, namely that they had assumed that whatever the business under examination may be it would be in better hands if privately owned than to remain as state property. As it turned out, said Putin, we have found that the state is entirely capable of managing businesses and its role is essential for industries requiring heavy capital investment.

No doubt there were many Russians in the audience who enjoyed the sparring on the dais. But there surely were others who shared my concern that there is a battle going on in the Kremlin for the direction of Russian foreign and military policy.

What we saw in the discussion on stage today was an indication of who will take the reins of power in Russia if Vladimir Vladimirovich is overthrown or assassinated, as the United States so fervently hopes: it will very likely be people thinking like Sergei Karaganov, like Vladimir Solovyov, like Dmitry Medvedev, who will have fewer qualms about taking risks, including dropping Russia’s 70 kiloton tactical nuclear weapons here and there to vanquish the West and their Ukraine proxy. By the way, each of these ‘tactical’ as opposed to strategic bombs is four times as powerful as those dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

June 8, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah air defenses force Israeli jets to turn tail

The Cradle | June 7, 2024

Hezbollah announced in a statement on 6 June that it targeted Israeli warplanes over the south of Lebanon, forcing them to withdraw to their airspace.

The statement marked the Lebanese resistance group’s first acknowledgment that it possesses the ability to confront Israeli fighter jets, something which observers have speculated about for years.

“In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their brave and honorable resistance, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance fired air defense missiles at enemy warplanes that were attacking our skies and broke the sound barrier [sonic boom] in an attempt to terrify children, forcing them to retreat to behind the borders,” Hezbollah’s statement read.

It did not elaborate further on the air defense weaponry.

The resistance group carried out several more attacks that day, including a Burkan missile attack on Israel’s Al-Baghdadi site.

Throughout the course of this war, Hezbollah has demonstrated its ability to down advanced Israeli drones flying over the south of Lebanon to carry out attacks. Several Hermes drones, made by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems and worth several million a piece, have been shot down by Hezbollah in recent months.

“We still do not know much about the air defense missile itself, but it will restrain the ability of Israel to fly freely over Lebanon,” retired Lebanese General Amine Hoteit told The New Arab, referring to Thursday’s Hezbollah statement.

It is likely that Hezbollah has more advanced air defense weaponry than the missile launched towards Israeli warplanes on Thursday, Hoteit added.

US media reports from early November last year claimed that Washington has intelligence that Syria agreed to send Hezbollah a Russian-made missile defense system.

Hezbollah has turned up the heat on its operations against Israeli military sites in recent days, coinciding with the continued indiscriminate bombardment of south Lebanon and increasing Israeli threats of a wide-scale war against the country. A drone attack on Wednesday killed at least one soldier and injured around ten.

It has said that while it does not want a wider war, it is prepared to fight one if it is imposed on Lebanon.

June 7, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

American mainstream expert calls for global war in three continents

By Uriel Araujo | June 7, 2024

Is a “Three-Theater” war scenario both feasible and desirable for the US? Some think so. American analysts within the Establishment are in fact calling for war “in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.” This is what Thomas G. Mahnken (both a Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor and the CEO of  the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments) is urging Washington to do, in his most recent Foreign Affairs piece.

For Mahnken, Washington is “currently involved in two wars—Ukraine’s in Europe and Israel’s in the Middle East”, while also “facing the prospect of a third over Taiwan or South Korea in East Asia.” Moreover, “all three theaters are vital to US interests, and they are all intertwined.” Deprioritizing Europe and disengaging from the Middle East can only weaken American security, he argues: “The U.S. military drawdown in the Middle East, for instance, has created a vacuum that Tehran has filled eagerly.” Of course, such reasoning can only make sense if American “security” is equated with Washington’s unipolarity.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, during his recent speech at Shangri-la Dialogue (in Singapore), made it a point to stress that “despite historic clashes in Europe and the Middle East… the Indo-Pacific has remained our priority theater of operations.” According to Austin, the US is a Pacific nation (with a capital P, and with no pun intended, presumably), and added that “the US can be secure only if Asia is secure. That’s why… [we have] long maintained our presence in this region. And that’s why we continue to make the investments necessary to meet our commitments to our allies and partners.” As for the relationship with China, the Secretary was more ambiguous, claiming that “a fight with China is neither imminent nor unavoidable.”

While Lloyd Austin seems to differ from Mahnken (on emphasis), there is not necessarily a dilemma there. I’ve often described Washington’s ambitions as being all about having the cake and eating it too. Jerry Hendrix (retired Navy captain, formerly an adviser to Pentagon senior officials, and currently a senior fellow with the Sagamore Institute) has written that, in Mackinder terms (classic Geopolitics), the US has embarked on a quest for the “Heartland”, and this contradicts its true “sea power” nature. This is so because Washington, in recent times, has been “burdened” by mostly “land-based actions in Iraq and Afghanistan fought primarily by a large standing army operating far from home”.

Rather than doing that, Hendrix urges the Atlantic superpower to, once again, “think and act like a seapower state”, that is, with a focus on deriving its might from “seaborne trade”, employing “instruments of sea power” to advance its interests. The expert describes the post-World War II period as an exceptional “free sea” period, marked by a “secure environment” which has supposedly allowed free trade to flourish in a globalized planet – this being the rather gleeful manner in which he describes the US-led world order, in spite of the fact that Washington has always weaponized protectionism.

In any case, as Hendrix notes, the American superpower acts both as a “continental power” and as a “sea power”. I’ve described its foreign policy as resembling  the swing of a pendulum. Give or take, all Great Powers engage to some extent in proxy conflicts amid their geoeconomic and geopolitical disputes with other powers. In terms of regional disputes, whether one likes or not Moscow’s foreign policy today, one can at least concede that historically Russia and neighboring Ukraine have an intertwined and complicated shared history, and the same applies to China-Taiwan relations. But America is something quite different. To keep things in perspective, one should keep in mind, for example, that, amazingly, the only place in the entire world China has an overseas military base is Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. In contrast, depending on how one counts it, Washington, in 2015, had about 800 military bases in over 70 countries.

Moreover, the US has in fact invaded 84 out of the 194 nation-states recognized by the United Nations, and has been militarily involved with no less than 191 of those, according to  Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock, the authors of “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth”. The hard truth is that the United States of America is the only nation today (and arguably ever) to potentially engage in warfare across three continents – a scenario, keep in mind, that is cheered by prominent mainstream American commentators and scholars.

Other analysts, such as Andrea Rizzi, writing for El Pais, have described the possibility of war fronts in the Middle East, Europe and the Asia-Pacific becoming connected as a “nightmare” scenario – although not so convincingly, in Rizzi’s case, who seems to believe the political West has necessarily something to do with “democracy”, a historically controversial premise to say the least. Rizzi, however, makes the very valid point that “in geopolitics — and in life — high-stress situations lead to a greater margin for unforeseen events, errors in calculation and communication, uncontrolled actions by minority factions and escalations that are unintended, at least by the key players.” Even the main actors have an interest in keeping stability, at some point someone (or one’s proxies) may indeed make “a daring movie”, in Rizzi’s words, and thus bring about an escalation and unpredictable outcomes.

A series of Ukrainian and Western actions arguably represented precisely such a red-line crossing, in Moscow’s perspective. While some worry about the same thing happening in the Pacific, thus inadvertently igniting yet another war, others call for and crave for precisely such a war – not just in the Indo-Pacific region, but also in Europe and the Middle East, simultaneously. It is hard to describe such a call in any way other than as a will to set the world on fire – after all, one cannot literally desire war between Great Powers in three continents and not expect everything else that often comes with it (call it apocalypse in disguise, if you will).

Unbelievably, such bellicose calls, rather than being confined to the hate speech of extreme and fringe individuals and organizations, pass as reasonable and mainstream discourse, produced as it is, by respectable experts with impeccable credentials. And, mind you, Foreign Affairs will even publish it. It is no wonder: Washington foreign policy itself is, after all, largely built on the premise of American unipolarity and global war if need be.

June 7, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Germany approves plan for war

RT | June 7, 2024

The German government has finalized new plans for a potential war, including reinstatement of compulsory military service and deployment of NATO troops on its eastern flank, citing rising concerns over perceived threats from Russia.

The country’s new defense framework was approved by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet on Wednesday, replacing guidelines that dated back to 1989. “As a result of Russian aggression, we have a completely changed security situation in Europe,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

The new defense plan spells out such details as mandatory conscription and forcing manufacturers to produce only war goods. Parts of the country could be evacuated, and subway stations, underground parking lots and other subterranean facilities would be used as temporary shelters.

Revisions to the framework also reflect NATO’s eastward expansion, which could mean coming to the aid of allies in the Baltic States. “Germany is no longer a frontline state, but serves the allied armed forces as a hub for the alliance in the heart of Europe,” the cabinet said.

The government reportedly has plans to control food distribution to deal with possible shortages in the event of a war. Those contingencies include stockpiling wheat and other grains in secret locations and creating an emergency reserve of rice and beans. The reserves would provide the German population with one hot meal a day, German media outlet Bild reported.

Beyond the military draft, citizens could be forced to work in certain civilian jobs, such as nursing or baking bread. Hospitals would have to be prepared for large influxes of patients.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the new plans reflect increased security threats. “The overall defense of Germany is a task to which we all have to make our contribution, state and civil institutions, as well as each and every one of us,” he insisted. “We need a resilient society that can deal with the challenges.”

Pistorius warned German lawmakers on Wednesday that the country must be “ready for war” by 2029. He suggested that the Bundeswehr needs to be expanded, ideally by requiring military service that “cannot be completely free of obligations.”

Berlin abolished its draft in 2011, and the country’s military has faced equipment shortfalls. A parliamentary report last year said that at the current pace of military revitalization, it could take half a century to shore up German forces.

Germany and other NATO members have claimed that the bloc faces the threat of a Russian invasion if Moscow prevails in its conflict with Ukraine. Speaking at a briefing with foreign media outlets on Wednesday in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Western governments are stoking absurd fears to help maintain their global hegemony. “Someone has imagined that Russia wants to attack NATO,” he added. “Have you gone completely insane? Are you as thick as a plank? Who came up with this nonsense, this bulls**t?”

June 7, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Potential US Tactical Nuke Deployment in Asia-Pacific Could Bring Catastrophic Fallout – Expert

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

The director of the Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, Li Jian, provided insight regarding the potential deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the western Pacific Ocean in an interview with Sputnik.

“The question of US nuclear weapon deployment has a long history,” Jian told Sputnik, highlighting advancements in US tactical nuclear capabilities, such as the B61-12 bomb, and the completion of testing for various aircraft models.

“Since the US Department of Defense purchased 400 B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs, there needs to be somewhere to deploy them,” Jian emphasized.

The expert outlined potential deployment sites in the western Pacific, including military bases in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Diego Garcia island.

“If tactical nuclear weapons are deployed directly in South Korea, this would become a direct factor of strategic containment against Russia’s Far East, Northern China, and North Korea,” the expert warned.

Addressing concerns in Northeast Asia, Jian questions the likelihood of deployment in South Korea over Okinawa due to prevalent anti-war and anti-nuclear sentiments among the Japanese, particularly island locals. He cautioned that such actions could disrupt the regional strategic balance, exacerbate arms races, and impede nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

US Senator Roger Wicker, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a report on May 29 urging a significant increase in US military preparedness, particularly against nations like North Korea and China.

Titled “Peace Through Strength,” the report suggests exploring new strategies, including a “nuclear sharing agreement in the Indo-Pacific and re-deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula.” This call comes in the wake of the US Army’s deployment of the Mid-Range Capability, also known as the Typhon Weapon System, to Northern Luzon, Philippines, for the Salaknib 24 exercises in April.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ASEAN States Will Not Support US Plans to Deploy Missiles in Region – Official

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

JAKARTA – Member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are unlikely to positively assess the plans of the United States to deploy shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in the region, Indonesian Ambassador to Russia Jose Tavares has told Sputnik.

In April, a spokesperson for the US Army Pacific told Sputnik that the US was on track to deploy a new medium-range missile system in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2024.

“I don’t think anyone in our region would appreciate if other countries deployed armament in our region,” the ambassador said, speaking about ASEAN’s reaction to the US Plans to deploy such missiles in the region.

He added that Indonesia has always been advocating peace and stability in the region and hopes that major powers also adhere to these principles.

Jakarta hopes that Southeast Asia will be a region of cooperation and common good and not a center of an arms race, the ambassador said.

He added that the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone has yet to be ratified by the nuclear-weapon states while expressing hope that it will happen soon.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky rejects Indonesia’s peace plan – media

RT | June 6, 2024

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has rejected a peace plan by Indonesia aimed at settling the conflict with Russia, the Antara news agency reported on Thursday, citing Indonesian President-elect and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto.

The minister proposed a peace plan to end the Ukraine conflict at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore on Saturday, calling for a demilitarized zone and a United Nations referendum in what he described as disputed territory.

Speaking to reporters following his meeting with incumbent President Joko Widodo on Thursday, Subianto said he had met Zelensky in Singapore and outlined Indonesia’s plan to achieve a ceasefire with Russia.

“[Zelensky] did not agree [with the initiative], however, we will continue to try,” he said.

The proposal formulated by Indonesia includes a ceasefire and the establishment of a demilitarized zone that would see each party withdraw 15km from their current forward positions.

The zone would be observed and monitored by a UN peacekeeping mission, Subianto said. A UN referendum would then be held “to ascertain objectively the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants of the various disputed areas.”

Jakarta, which pursues a policy of non-aligned diplomacy, had previously attempted to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko dismissed the plan, claiming that “there are no disputed territories between Ukraine and the Russian Federation to hold referendums there.”

Commenting on the Ukraine “peace summit” due to take place at Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland on June 15 and 16, Subianto said the president had yet to decide about Indonesia’s participation but added that “all relevant parties” should attend the event.

Russia has not been invited to the summit, which is expected to address Zelensky’s so-called ‘ten-point peace plan’. The proposal demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Ukraine considers its own, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for Russian officials to present themselves to war crimes tribunals.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Neocon Star Julie Smith is ‘Worthy’ Successor of Warmongering Victoria Nuland

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.06.2024

US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith was nominated on June 5 to fill Victoria Nuland’s shoes and become under secretary of state for political affairs. What’s known about Smith?

  • From 2009 to 2012, Julie Smith served as the director of European and NATO policy at the United States Department of Defense and then as the deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013.
  • In 2016, The Intercept called Smith a “rising star in the Democratic foreign policy establishment” akin to neocon and warmonger Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland’s husband.
    In January 2016, Smith signed Hillary Clinton’s anti-Bernie Sanders letter, bashing his desire to normalize ties with Iran. The letter was part of Clinton’s broad smear campaign against Sanders, then her Democratic presidential rival.
  • Testifying before the Senate in February 2017, Smith accused Russia of continuously undermining US interests at home and abroad and peddled the “Trump-Russia collusion” hoax.
  • Between 2014 and 2018, Smith worked in the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) funded by major US defense contractors.
  • She also worked at consultancy firm WestExec Advisors, founded by Antony Blinken and Michele A. Flournoy in 2017, that is suspected of secret lobbying on behalf of US military corporations. Over a dozen WestExec alums joined the Biden administration, triggering concerns “about the potential for groupthink, conflicts of interest, (…) legalized corruption” and “monopolization of foreign policymaking” by corporate interests, per The Intercept. According to the New York Times, some of WestExec’s clients – which the firm keeps on the hush-hush – got hefty contracts from the Pentagon.
  • In May 2020, Smith accused China of undermining US leadership by providing aid to Europe to fight the COVID-19 pandemic; in July 2020 she called to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
  • In March 2022, Smith groundlessly accused Russia of using chemical and biological weapons amid Russia’s revelations with regard to a network of Pentagon-funded secret bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.
  • In December 2022, she announced an effort to step up arms production by NATO member states amid the Ukraine conflict and strongly advocated enhancing NATO military presence in Europe “to ensure that Russia can never attack NATO” in December 2023.
  • “We do consider the Russian threat to the NATO alliance to be the preeminent threat that we’re grappling with,” Smith told an online briefing on April 4, 2020.
  • At the same press briefing she stressed that NATO’s engagements will not be limited to one region, expressing willingness to challenge Russia and China simultaneously and adding that “a lot of the security challenges we face today don’t have any geographic boundaries.”
  • In October 2023, Smith asserted to the press that the US and NATO will continue to support Ukraine and Israel amid the latter’s Gaza war.

Being a darling of the military-industrial complex, Smith is likely to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Victoria Nuland, and continue stoking tensions in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s Shoigu Accuses NATO of Training for Invasion of CSTO Countries

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

ALMATY – Sergei Shoigu, a former Russian defense minister who now chairs the national security council, accused NATO on Thursday of increasing the number of military drills along the western and northern flank of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in what he said was a preparation for invasion.

“The alliance has been building up military presence and deploying new weapons along the northern and western flanks of the collective security zone. The number of airspace provocations is on the rise, and numerous military exercises are being conducted to train, among other things, for an invasion of CSTO countries’ territories,” Shoigu told fellow secretaries of CSTO member states’ security councils.

He called “NATO’s continuous expansion” a direct threat for CSTO allies. The Russian official said the West was using the conflict in Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in the hope of inflicting as much damage as possible.

“The West is pursuing the obvious goal of using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in order to inflict as much damage as possible on our country. It has become absolutely clear that the attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia has failed,” Shoigu said.

Turning to the CSTO’s eastern flank, Shoigu said Russia was concerned about new militant training camps cropping up across Afghanistan and jihadists flocking to the Central Asian country from Syria and Iraq. He said the risk of terrorist spillovers was increasing.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Biden could cause nuclear war – Trump

RT | June 6, 2024

US President Joe Biden may end up destroying the world in a nuclear conflict, his election rival Donald Trump has claimed.

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, the former president warned that “we have a chance of going into World War III because of our leader.”

The remark came after Hannity suggested that Biden was in a state of mental decline, showing several clips of the president appearing distracted or fumbling his words during public appearances. Hannity and Trump were discussing a report published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, which said the incumbent was showing “signs of slipping” behind closed doors.

Trump suggested that, unlike the leaders of Russia, China and North Korea, Biden is “not at the top of his game” and “was never the brightest bulb” among American politicians – even when he was younger. It is currently the “most dangerous time in the history of our country,” he warned, citing the destructive potential of nuclear weapons.

In the event of a nuclear exchange, “nothing will matter because practically nothing will be here anymore,” he warned. “This is obliteration. Maybe world obliteration. And we have a man that is incapable of even discussing it.”

Trump pointed to the Ukraine conflict as a major source of danger. Russian President Vladimir Putin “is talking about nuclear weapons,” he said.

The Biden administration has recently granted Kiev permission to strike targets outside of what Washington recognizes as Ukrainian territory with US-donated weapons.

When asked on Wednesday how he would react to possible attacks deep inside Russia using Western arms, Putin said Moscow may “supply our weapons of the same class to parts of the world, where strikes would be delivered against sensitive assets of the nations that act like that against Russia.”

The US and its allies are getting “directly involved in the war against us,” he added, and this path of escalation “leads to very serious problems.”

Asked directly whether Moscow would consider using nuclear weapons, Putin said he’d rather stay clear “not only from the use, but even from the threat of use” of such arms. However, he warned people in the West not to delude themselves that such a scenario was impossible.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The West is already at war with Russia but its leaders can’t wake up from a dream

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 5, 2024

Is NATO planning something big in Ukraine? Are we on the cusp now of WWIII really breaking out since the U.S. has now backed the idea that Ukraine can fire missiles beyond its borders into Russia?

The news that President Joe Biden has given the go-ahead for long-range missiles to be fired into Russia should be worrying for a number of reasons. The dangerous game of escalation that the West is playing will have a breaking point in the not too distant future. The question is whether the West really understands how Putin thinks as it is presently betting on no retaliation from Russia, which is not only erroneous but very, very dangerous. Recent missile strikes into Russian territory destroyed two radar installations which western press refuse to report. The significance of this strike is important as the more Ukraine loses on the battlefield, the more desperate its tactics, egged on by western leaders who still think that their stake in the war is minimal. Although just recently Germany’s leader Scholz did a U-turn at a conference in Berlin with French President Macron — in backing the missile strikes into Russia plan — the truth is that officially NATO does not support the plan, which is why the UK is doing it independently using Storm Shadows operated by SAS soldiers.

This has been going on for months and so in many respects the news that the U.S. has authorised the practice could be taken lightly. What’s new? Or, more to the point, is Ukraine going to use longer-range U.S. missiles to keep up with such strikes like the radar stations? Does it have enough missiles in stock is also an important question.

With this strategy in play, we are looking in all scenarios at the slow demise of NATO as the more that such strikes occur, the more it is evident that NATO is a defunct organisation and only really a talk shop at best. NATO members are divided on an overall strategy with Ukraine and so member states do their own thing. If we see more of these strikes, the pressure on Putin to react will be overwhelming but when that time comes, he will practice an eye-for-an-eye strategy and strike the equivalent military installations within Europe or at least Ukraine’s drones operating in the Black Sea. This will be a shock for the West. It will take some days for such a strike to be seen for what it is: a warning. The message will be the escalation game has its limits and you’ve gone over a line.

But are the recent reports of a new offensive in the planning from NATO genuine? Probably not. Just like the reports of Putin wanting to negotiate a peace deal now. Both fake news reports are part of a strategy of panic from the Biden administration which really needs some sort of victory in Ukraine to present to the American people. Yet all of the aces are with Putin and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of falling into these traps. Putin has been pretty consistent in how he sees any kind of peace deal. Denazification, demilitarisation and no deal on NATO membership. The reasons why peace talks are a mere figment of the imagination of western journalists who sink to new lows is that the West cannot entertain any of these requests and has taken so much control of the media that its leaders are starting to believe their own BS. The fourth requirement also of Putin’s is that he can’t negotiate peace with a leader in the Ukraine who no longer has legitimacy as a president. One wonders how long the West can continue to kick up a fuss about that one.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Fico: Western-backed political opposition forces triggered assassination attempt

RT | June 5, 2024

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has argued that the assassination attempt that nearly killed him last month emanated from foreign-backed politicians who refuse to accept foreign policies that prioritize Bratislava’s interests over the agendas of major Western powers.

Fico posted a video statement on Wednesday, marking his first public appearance since the May 15 shooting in which he was critically wounded. He credited medical workers with saving his life and said he expects to resume at least some of his work duties by around the end of this month or in early July.

The PM condemned efforts to downplay the assassination attempt and blame it entirely on a deranged gunman. “I forgive him and let him sort out what he did and why he did it, in his own head,” Fico said. “In the end, it is evident that he was only a messenger of evil and political hatred, which the politically unsuccessful and frustrated opposition developed in Slovakia to unmanageable proportions.”

Fico returned to power for a fourth term as prime minister after his Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party won the country’s parliamentary election last September. He said his wounds from last month’s shooting were so severe that it would be a “minor miracle” for him to resume his work duties within a few weeks. He warned against efforts by political adversaries – including media outlets bankrolled by billionaire political activist George Soros – to shrug off the implications of the attempted assassination.

“I want to ask the anti-government media, especially those co-owned by the financial structure of George Soros, not to go down this path and to respect not only the gravity of reasons for the attempted murder, but also the consequences of this attempt,” Fico said.

The long-time leader added that he had been warning for several months of likely political violence because of the “hatred and aggressiveness” of Slovakia’s opposition parties. He lamented that major Western democracies stood silent as those parties attacked political opponents and stoked hatred.

He warned that more political violence is to be expected if opposition forces continue on their present course. “The horror of May 15th, which you all had the opportunity to see practically live, will continue, and there will be more victims.”

“Violent and hateful excesses against legitimate governmental power are tolerated at the international level without any comment,” Fico added. “The opposition was unable to assess, because no one forced them to do so, where their aggressive and hateful politics had led sections of the society, and it was only a matter of time before a tragedy would occur.”

Fico claimed the parties that ruled Slovakia from 2020 to 2023 did whatever larger Western democracies demanded, including treating Russia and China as “mortal enemies.” The previous Bratislava regime also “looted” Slovak military stockpiles to provide weapons to Ukraine, he added. After returning to power in October, Fico’s government halted such aid, raising the ire of NATO powers.

“It is precisely the conflict in Ukraine that the EU and NATO have elevated even more, literally sanctifying the concept of the single correct opinion – namely that the war in Ukraine must continue at any cost in order to weaken the Russian Federation,” Fico said. “Anyone who does not identify with this single mandatory opinion is immediately labeled as a Russian agent and politically marginalized internationally. It is a cruel observation, but the right to a different opinion has ceased to exist in the EU.”

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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