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NATO Plans to Destabilize Asia

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 23.07.2024 

NATO’s plans to establish a foothold in Asia to counter China better is nothing more than a sure recipe for disaster. Coming to Asia and beating war drums against a country that has not attacked anyone is akin to pushing it to take any and all necessary steps to protect its interests. NATO, thus, is pushing China to shun its regionally focused pacificism in favour of a more belligerent stance. A more aggressive China will, in NATO’s calculation, push Asian countries to move more towards the US out of their common fear of Beijing as the hegemon. However, Asian countries are not readily buying the US narrative. They remain sceptical, even as they are still committed to maintaining a balance between China and the US to avoid getting trapped in the ‘Cold War 2.0’.

NATO’s Intended Exploits in Asia

In recent years, NATO has upped the ante in Asia to establish its tentacles. The linchpin of this strategy is to hijack the Asian countries’ defence and military strategies and shape them in strictly Western ways. This will include, as in the West, military competition plus a shift away from deep economic ties with Beijing. Once accomplished, this will help isolate China globally. In the US, since 2016, the successive administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been taking steps to “de-couple” from China. The European Union, too, is now increasingly coming round to this idea of putting serious curbs on trade with China. A key reason for this is the inability of both the US and the EU to compete with Chinese products. Ultimately, they want Asia to ‘learn’ the same lesson.

This was precisely the idea that Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s existing Secretary General, sold in an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs in early July. Addressing the China-Russia ties and blaming China for the combined failure of the US, EU, and NATO to defeat Russia in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said “this shows that in today’s world, security is not a regional matter but a global one. Europe’s security affects Asia, and Asia’s security affects Europe … These are big challenges that call for bold decisions”.

The bold decision, as it stands, is to link Europe’s security with Asia unnecessarily and at any cost. This will help the West centralize Asia’s security narrative under a common framework, with Asian countries ultimately losing their agency and autonomy. At least this is the idea.

How China Sees it

China has already warned NATO not to create “chaos” in Asia.  “China urges NATO to … stop interfering in China’s internal politics and smearing China’s image and not create chaos in the Asia-Pacific after creating turmoil in Europe,” said Chinese spokesperson Lin Jian.

Still, NATO’s narrative could work against it, even as China will make sure to frame it in a way that could wean regional states away from it. For instance, as is already evident, China is projecting NATO’s narrative, with evidence, in terms of how the US – and the collective West – are actually pushing for confrontation even when Beijing does not have a history of engaging in aggression with its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.  No shots have yet been fired that could draw a global outcry, calling for military solidarities against Beijing.

There is, therefore, a high degree of exaggeration and propaganda. If the imperative is really to counter China, why are the US and NATO countries not putting a premier on building deep economic ties with Asian countries? The reason is that they don’t have any economic plan of such magnitude that can counter China.  Therefore, the West cannot help but offer military help. But this is a help that not many countries in Asia are even looking for. Defence cooperation with the US is one thing, but welcoming NATO, a typical military alliance, in their territories and developing a global military alliance is an entirely different thing.

How Asian Countries See It

For many countries in Asia, any step towards NATOizing their security is reminiscent of colonial and imperialist relations that defined these territories’ and peoples’ relations with the West for centuries. Therefore, they seem to put a very high premium on maintaining their strategic autonomy.

Ironically, the opposition to developing a fully-fledged alliance is visible even in such countries as the Philippines that are otherwise known for being ‘pro-US’. President Ferdinand Marcos has called on the region to reject a “Cold War mindset”. Kishore Mahbubani, formerly Singapore’s ambassador to the United Nations, for example, warned as early as 2021 that the “biggest danger” of NATO’s Indo-Pacific shift is that the alliance “could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture” to East Asia. Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto, for instance, stated in June that his country would “continue our strong cooperation with China” but “at the same time, we will work to expand and deepen our close partnership with the US and the West”.

Let’s also not forget that this region also includes a critical mass of countries – such as Indonesia – that have a history of ‘non-alignment’. They refused to take sides during the Cold War, and they are again showing strong signs of maintaining a similar stance in the current scenario.

Still, these countries’ scepticism is intensified by NATO’s recent performances. It has thus far badly failed in Ukraine. It wreaked havoc in Libya and Afghanistan, ultimately failing in both cases to bring stability. Does it have a track record of fulfilling its promises and achieving its objectives? For countries in Asia, establishing an alliance with an organization with such a poor record is a poor trade – not only because it will not bring much benefit, but also because it might directly – and negatively – affect their flourishing economic ties with China.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

NATO States Embrace Conscription, Eyeing Future War with Russia

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | July 22, 2024

As NATO escalates its proxy war in Ukraine and inches closer to fighting directly with Russia, the Washington-led bloc is embracing mandatory military service. Many European members of NATO have expanded or reintroduced conscription as part of large-scale preparations for such a war, CNN reports.

Already outpaced in terms of military industrial capacity by Russia, the alliance’s new battleplans will see an attempt to beef up weapons production and form 35-50 brigades of 3,000-7,000 battle ready troops.

Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has insisted, “Today, we have 500,000 troops on high readiness, combat-ready battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance for the first time.” But the bloc is struggling to meet its goals of assembling 300,000 soldiers prepared to be activated within a month and another half a million in six months. There is also a question of whether the bloc can filed a military fit for a protracted war akin to the Ukraine conflict.

Following the end of the Cold War, several European states ceased conscripting their citizens. Although increasing numbers of NATO member countries have resorted to the draconian practice during recent years, especially in the Baltics and Scandinavia. Roughly a third of the NATO alliance practices some form of compulsory military service.

This year, for the first time since it was abolished in 2006, Latvia reimplemented its draft. Male citizens are subject to conscription within a year of turning 18 years old. Additionally, Norway has unveiled a long-term plan to increase its ranks of mandatorily conscripted troops, employees, and reservists by 20,000 as well as double the military budget. In 2015, Oslo became the first NATO government to establish a gender-neutral draft.

Lithuania brought back mandatory military service in 2015, each year drafting 3,500 to 4,000 men between the ages of 18-26 for a nine-month period. Although the Finnish Defense Forces employ only 13,000 people during peacetime, Helsinki claims it has the ability to activate over 900,000 reservists  with 280,000 combat-ready troops. Sweden conscripts both men and women, Stockholm drafted 7,000 its citizens and the military expects to conscript 8,000 next year. The Swedes have had conscription since 1901.

Citing the supposed Russian threat to Europe, Robert Hamilton, the head of Eurasia Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said “It is tragically true that here we are, in 2024, and we are grappling with the questions of how to mobilize millions of people to be thrown into a meatgrinder of a war potentially.” For 30 years, Hamiliton served as a US Army officer. “Meatgrinder” is a term often used by frontline troops in Ukraine, particularly during the battle of Bakhmut where the average life span of such a soldier was only a few hours.

In the United Kingdom, conscription is currently being pushed by Conservative MPs. The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual military spending bill, may include provisions which inter alia will seek to automatically register all eligible men and women for Selective Service, a form of conscripted labor, which could inevitably include military service.

Former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe General Wesley Clark echoed Hamilton’s hawkish sentiments, emphasizing “whether this is a new Cold War or an emerging hot war is unclear.” He added that NATO “must rebuild our defenses,” including with mandatory military drafts.

“I think young people in Europe and the US will come to realize that this generation, like the generation that fought WWII, it didn’t ask to be the ‘Greatest Generation’ but the circumstances thrust that burden on them,” Clark added.

The risk of direct war with Russia is growing by the day amidst the Ukraine proxy war, as the alliance has largely approved NATO missiles to be used for attacks against the Russian mainland. The bloc will soon provide Kiev with F-16s and an explicit green light for the warplanes to carry out direct strikes against Russian territory as well. Without irony, Stoltenberg claimed this should not be viewed by Russia as an escalation.

As NATO considers increasing its nuclear weapons deployments, the US is also planning to deploy previously banned, medium-range, nuclear capable missiles in Germany which has caused Russia to hint it could similarly retaliate. Pointing to the massive US-led buildup for war with China, President Vladimir Putin accused NATO of creating major security threats for Russia in Asia.

NATO set its sights on China four years ago, identifying Beijing as a military threat to European security. China maintains a “no limits” partnership with Russia. “NATO is already ‘moving’ there (to Asia) as if to a permanent place of residence. This, of course, creates a threat to all countries in the region, including the Russian Federation. We are obliged to respond to this and will do it,” Putin vowed earlier this year. That same month, Stoltenberg cited China as a reason the bloc is considering an “adaptation” of its nuclear arsenal.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 23.07.2024

A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.

The article claims:

Russia botched the initial invasion by failing to establish air superiority from the start, and it has been unable to synchronize its air and ground forces.

This is based on the assumption that Russia could somehow establish air superiority over the battlefield and infers that had the United States and the rest of NATO been in Russia’s place, air superiority would have been established. But this is false.

Fundamental Misconceptions 

At the onset of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) Ukraine possessed a formidable Soviet-made integrated air defense network consisting of some of the most successful and effective air defense systems in the world. This included long-range air defense systems like the S-300 as well as mobile systems like Buk, Strela, and Osa, as well as a large number of Soviet-made man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

The United States and its allies have not operated in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s since the Vietnam War. Over the skies of Vietnam the US would lose over 10,000 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to Soviet-made air defenses employed by Vietnam’s armed forces.

In subsequent conflicts, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, US-led forces would face either no significant air defenses at all, or air defenses consisting of old equipment operated by poorly organized, poorly trained, and poorly motivated troops, as was the case in Iraq.

Amid the US proxy war against Damascus and the US occupation of eastern Syria, US military aviation has been confined by Syria’s relatively modern air defense network, forcing both US and Israeli warplanes to conduct the same types of stand-off strikes Russian military aviation is conducting in Ukraine.
The article would claim:

Russia has demonstrated that it’s unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses, fly effective counterair missions, or run complex composite air operations like those the US Air Force pulled off in the opening days of Desert Storm in 1991 and then in the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Beyond the factually incorrect nature of this statement, the obvious differences between Iraq and Ukraine appear entirely lost among the “airpower experts” interviewed by Business Insider.

The Business Insider, citing these same “airpower experts,” also claims:

On the battlefield, effective airpower should aid the advance of armored combat vehicles and infantry by striking an enemy’s strongpoints, as well as the reinforcements and supplies they depend on.

Because of the vast differences between previous US conflicts around the globe and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine now, the type of rapid maneuver warfare utilized by US-led forces in Iraq would not only be inappropriate in Ukraine, it would be disastrous. The 2023 Ukrainian offensive before which NATO trained, armed, and directed Ukrainian forces, ended in catastrophic failure, comprehensively defeated by Russian defenses utilizing land mines, artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), long-range ballistic missiles, a wide variety of drones, and both infantry and attack helicopters utilizing anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) – all elements absent among the armed forces of the various nations the US has invaded and occupied since Vietnam.

Because Ukraine also possesses significant defense capabilities, including well-protected fortifications, minefields, artillery, and FPV (first-person-view) drones, NATO-style maneuver warfare would likewise result in catastrophic failure for Russian forces.

Russia has instead adopted a strategy of attrition. Instead of overwhelming Ukrainian positions with rapid maneuver warfare, it is grinding them down with huge amounts of artillery, MLRS, missiles, drones, and military aviation carrying out stand-off strikes using a variety of glide bombs ranging from 250 to 3,000 kilograms. While progress is slower than NATO-style maneuver warfare, it has allowed Russia to avoid the staggering losses Ukraine suffered last year during its offensive.

Ukraine is a different kind of war; thus Russia utilizes a different approach to military aviation.

The conclusion that events unfolding in Ukraine demonstrate the capabilities of Russian military aviation have been “significantly overstated,” as one expert interviewed by Business Insider put it, is a dangerous misconception. US-NATO military aviation would (and already has in Syria) demonstrated it suffers from the same limitations in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s.

Admitted Russian Advantages  

Business Insider’s article concedes there are aspects of Russian military aviation that constitute success. It mentions Russia’s extensive use of stand-off weapons – both air-launched cruise missiles as well as glide bombs (just as the US and its allies are using in Syria to avoid Syrian air defenses). The article also acknowledges Russia’s significant air defense and electronic warfare capabilities, constructing an “umbrella” protecting Russian forces, infrastructure, bases, and civilian centers.

There is one significant difference, however, between Russian and Western stand-off capabilities. Russia’s military industrial base allows it to produce missiles and glide bombs in quantities the collective West cannot match. Russia’s air defense capabilities also exist on a scale the collective West is unable to replicate.

After first claiming Russia is, “unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses,” Business Insider eventually admits the depleted air defense arsenals of the collective West and the inability to replenish them in any meaningful manner precisely because Russia has been able to not only “suppress” and “destroy enemy air defenses,” but also because of Russia’s ability to saturate and deplete Ukraine’s supply of interceptor missiles.  

Claims in the article that Lockheed Martin is expanding Patriot missile production to 550 a year are made without explaining that Russia is firing 4,000+ missiles at targets across Ukraine over the same period of time, meaning that 550, 650, or even 750 interceptors manufactured a year represent an entirely inadequate quantity.

And despite this fact, the article would even claim:

In Ukraine, the world has seen that Western air defenses can shoot down incoming drones and missiles when they have sufficient coverage and enough ammo, and the performance has quelled doubts about the Patriot.

This is doubtful.

The US and its allies transferred Western air defense systems to Ukraine, in part, to protect Ukraine’s power grid. In April 2024, CNN would admit that up to 80% of Ukraine’s non-nuclear power production has been destroyed. This means that Ukraine has either run out of Patriot missile interceptors, or the interceptors they have are failing to protect Ukraine’s power grid. It should be noted that the efficacy of an air defense system lies now only in its ability to intercept incoming targets, but also to be produced in large enough quantities to continue intercepting incoming targets.

The high cost of the Patriot missile system inhibits larger-scale production to meet the requirements of a large-scale and/or protracted conflict, meaning that despite its supposed performance in combat, it is still a fundamentally ineffective means of air defense.

Even before Russia’s SMO began in February 2022, the previous month Saudi Arabia’s Patriot systems had exhausted their supply of interceptors amid its ongoing conflict with neighboring Yemen. The United States’ inability to increase production forced Saudi Arabia to “borrow” missiles from neighboring nations.

The limited number of Patriot systems and interceptors being manufactured represent a metric of the system’s overall “success” and, despite the Business Insider’s conclusion, should  continue to drive “doubts” regarding it.

NATO vs. Russia 

The Business Insider article admits that in a conflict between NATO and Russia, NATO military aviation would face serious challenges that simply did not exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria.

The article cites US Air Force (USAF) General David Allvin who noted, “in future fights, it may be possible for the US to achieve air superiority only in bursts — small windows in a specific time, place, and location where air defenses are missing, destroyed, or out of ammo.” 

USAF General James Hecker would tell Business Insider, “if we can’t get air superiority, we’re going to be doing the fight that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine right now, and we know how many casualties that are coming out of that fight.” 

Considering the advantages Russia also enjoys in land warfare capabilities, including the production of up to 3 times more artillery ammunition than the collective West, the outcome of that fight would likely mirror the same incremental defeat Ukraine itself is now suffering.

Western Failures in the Skies of Ukraine, a Microcosm of Wider, Irreversible Decline 

The same blind pursuit of profits and power that compelled the collective West to expand NATO up to Russia’s border in the first place, and deliberately create a national security threat forcing Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, has also created the crisis facing the collective West’s military industrial base making it impossible to achieve the geopolitical objectives this proxy war in Ukraine is a part of.

In order for the collective West to “succeed,” it should first reevaluate what it is even trying to achieve.

This blind pursuit of profits and power is not unlike a tropism in nature – like a tree, for example – reaching downward with its roots and upward with its branches and leaves to grow as large and as fast as possible. In the ideal environment, such a tropism can thrive. In times of drought, the means of sustaining the vast proportions that the tree took could jeopardize its own very survival.

Until the 21st century, the global “environment” was ideal for Western hegemony. The disparity in military and economic power between the West and the rest of the world favored the blind pursuit of profits and power, often in the form of empire. The West grew to gargantuan proportions. Today, the environment has changed – this disparity no longer exists – and now the West is collapsing under the unsustainable size of its own overreach.

While Western policymakers search for game-changing strategies and technologies to maintain generations of global primacy, the unsustainable nature of this pursuit becomes more precarious all while Russia, China, and the rest of the world continue to grow stronger relative to the collective West. Only a policy of shifting away from coercion and control over the rest of the world, toward constructive cooperation with the rest of the world, can avert the inevitable collapse all other stubborn empires have faced throughout history.

For the rest of the world, including Russia and its Chinese allies, the goal continues to be defending their individual and collective sovereignty from Western hegemony while carefully avoiding the triggering of a much larger conflict borne of Western desperation.

In the meantime, in the airspace above Ukraine, a microcosm of the wider failure of Western foreign policy continues to play out, not only lacking any possibility of reversing in Ukraine or its Western sponsors’ favor, but almost certainly to continue accelerating to their detriment.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

France Unbowed Leader Melenchon Calls for Withdrawal From NATO

Sputnik – 21.07.2024

Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the left-wing France Unbowed party, told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview out Sunday that he would pull France out of NATO if elected the country’s president.

“I choose the logic of disarmament and appeasement … If I were at the Elysee Palace, I would certainly systematically and in an organized manner withdraw from the joint military command, from NATO. Especially during the war, to avoid seeing the country involved in this story,” Melenchon told the newspaper.

The politician said he wanted France out of NATO because the military alliance “sticks to the war logic.”

In late June, Florian Philippot, the leader of French euroskeptic party The Patriots, called for France’s withdrawal from NATO after Ukraine launched a deadly missile strike on a crowded beach in Crimea. He called this an escalation and accused NATO of seeking a total war. ​

July 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Could Trump’s election end NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia?

Strategic Culture Foundation | July 19, 2024

The presidential nomination of Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance as his running mate raises the prospect of a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Ukraine. Both have been vociferous critics of the NATO proxy war and the arming of the Kiev regime. Vance has even proposed a peace settlement that is close to Moscow’s demands.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is recently pushing peace diplomacy, has voiced optimism that the omens are good for a settlement later this year to the worst war in Europe since the Second World War – if Trump and Vance are elected.

Only days after Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt, he was officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate amid ecstatic scenes at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

After the tumult and drama over the last week – a long time in politics, as the saying goes – the Trump election campaign is in the driving seat. His vice presidential running mate is 39 years of age and gives the Republican Party a youthful zest. Both men are very much singing from the same hymn sheet regarding their “Make America Great Again” vision.

Trump has united the GOP under his leadership. All former party rivals lined up this week in Milwaukee to endorse the former real estate magnate in his bid to seek re-election to the White House in November. That helps to solidify his manifesto, which bodes well for diplomacy in Ukraine.

By contrast, the election campaign of Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden has run into a ditch. This week he was self-isolating in Delaware having reportedly incurred a third-time Covid infection. Biden increasingly looks toast. His apparent mental decline – the latest gaffe this week was not remembering the name of his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, referring to him haltingly as “a black man” – has provoked a crisis in the Democratic Party and the largely favorable U.S. corporate news media. Senior figures including former President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are reportedly urging Biden to stand down and pass the torch to a younger candidate. Panic is in the air.

There are reports that Biden may throw in the towel within the next few days as the Democrats head into their National Convention to officially nominate their presidential candidate. The trouble for the Democrats is they do not have a viable alternative candidate at this late stage in the campaign – with less than four months to election day on November 7.

That means there is now a serious chance that Trump could return to the White House after he lost the election in 2020, which MAGA loyalists hotly disputed as “stolen”.

That election outcome turns attention to one issue in particular: the war in Ukraine. The conflict erupted in February 2022 and has cost the lives of over 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Under the Biden administration and aligned European NATO members, there is no sign of the war coming to an end. Biden and European allies have pledged to keep sending weapons to Ukraine and tens of billions of dollars to prop up a hopelessly corrupt NeoNazi regime in Kiev.

Trump and Vance have pitched a diametrically opposite policy on the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

That stance is causing the Deep State and its military-industrial complex acute anxiety. The Ukraine war racket has been a bonanza that vested interests in the U.S. ruling class do not want to end. That tension provides a plausible explanation for the attempted assassination of Trump during an open-air rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Salient questions remain about how the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old student, gained access to such a high-security position to fire his rifle at Trump.

The Republican candidates have warned that the Ukraine conflict is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear world war. Trump has said that he would end the war immediately by cutting off the military aid spigot and forcing the Kiev regime to begin negotiations with Russia.

Tantalizingly, JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been even more explicit in proposing that the warring parties should accept the territorial gains made by Russia – including Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson provinces – and that Ukraine must accept Moscow’s demand that it remain neutral and outside of the NATO alliance.

Such a position is a breath of fresh air for its rationality. Many respected American scholars and diplomats have also recommended this historically coherent position as a solution, including Professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. At least Trump and Vance seem to be cognizant of this reality, unlike the Biden administration and the rest of the Democrat Party, along with the Western media establishment and European minions who insanely push a fraudulent war to the last Ukrainian.

Moreover, polls show that the majority of American citizens (and Europeans) would prefer to see a diplomatic solution to the worst war in Europe since 1945.

Hungary’s Orban has admirably advocated peaceful diplomacy and for his troubles, his government has been sanctioned by the European Union establishment. Slovakia’s Robert Fico has also called for an end to the war in Ukraine, which many believe led to an assassination attempt on his life in May.

The conflict in Ukraine is a senseless, bloody slaughter that should never have escalated if Russia’s peace proposals in December 2021 had been accepted instead of dismissed out of hand by the Biden administration and its NATO lackeys in Europe. Also, a peace deal was possible in April 2022 but again was scuppered by malicious U.S. and British intervention.

If an American presidential candidate is proposing a diplomatic end to the conflict then that should be welcomed. It seems that common sense is prevailing.

Having said that, however, there are caveats. The Trump-Vance rhetoric could be empty pre-election canvassing for votes.

Trump’s record is one of hyping expectations and not delivering. When he ran for the presidency in 2016, he promised to normalize relations with Russia – and did not deliver.

He also boasted about solving the conflict in the Middle East with a “deal of the century” – only to embolden Israeli aggression towards Palestinians and Iran.

A reality check is strongly advised on what Trump and Vance can achieve.

While both men express skepticism about “endless wars” and NATO, it should be borne in mind that the conflicts the U.S. empire is fueling have a systematic cause. The United States is desperately fighting to maintain its failing hegemony against the rise of a multipolar and more democratic global order.

Washington and its European vassals are unleashing wars as a matter of necessity for preserving their erstwhile global dominance. History teaches that wars are always the refuge of the Western imperialist ruling classes.

It is notable that while Trump and Vance talk about ending conflict in Ukraine, they are at the same time talking belligerently about confronting China and Iran.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans are deprecated by the U.S. establishment as being “isolationists” in their vision of pursuing “America First”.

But the notion of “isolationalism” is an oxymoron when one considers the objective reality of U.S. imperialism. Foreign wars are an insatiable appetite for Western dominance.

American relations with the rest of the world are all about power projection, dominance and ultimately using violence to assert its “might is right” presumed national privileges. That applies whether the incumbent in the White House is a Democrat or Republican.

Trump may sound more reasonable on the issue of conflict in Ukraine with Russia. That alone makes him a more plausible candidate compared with the reckless warmongering of Biden and the Democrat-Deep State nexus.

The war in Ukraine must be stopped as soon as possible and a more reasonable security arrangement for Europe must be negotiated as Russia has long been consistently advocating.

Any diplomatic opening towards achieving peace and ending the killing must be welcomed.

Trump and Vance might just deliver on ending the hostilities in Ukraine which in itself would be a huge step forward away from the abyss of all-out war with Russia. On that score alone, their election might bring about an improvement.

But alas there is a contradiction. Don’t expect world peace to break out in other parts of the globe, because U.S. imperialism is cranking up its war machine. Trump and Vance are hawkish in their policy towards China and Iran.

A comprehensive solution to ending U.S. aggression and militarism is not a change of personnel at the White House. A profound, systematic change in American politics and economics is required.

Is partial peace sufficient? Maybe it is for now.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Missiles in Germany Again: Why Is Berlin Betraying Its National Interests?

By Dmitry Babich – Sputnik – 19.07.2024

The decision of Washington to start in 2026 the deployment in Germany of US missiles aimed at Russia was not even discussed in Berlin. The public was forced to face a fait accompli. This is a clear degradation of Germany’s standing vis-a-vis the US, compared to the ’80s. Then, a similar deployment was met with protests of West Germany’s citizens.

The governments of both the US and Germany confirmed that in 2026, the American side will begin deploying long-range missiles in Germany. This dangerous move, reminiscent of the worst years of the Cold War, is officially explained by the need to contain “resurgent Russia.”

Gunnar Beck, an expert on European law and former vice president of Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, notes that there was no public discussion of this dangerous development in Germany, specifically no discussion in the Bundestag. No details of the deal have been revealed.

“It’s a fait accompli,” Beck told Sputnik. “The German and the US governments have announced they were considering this… But all of the talk of an imminent Russian threat to Europe, in my view, is just a pretext for justifying further military and financial assistance to Ukraine. And, of course, it is a pretext for intimidating the European population and forcing them to accept even larger amounts of military spending.”

Beck notes the few dissenting voices still audible in Germany belong to the parties, which the European Union and especially the European Commission’s chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen try to marginalize:

“There are people on the right and on the far-left which have been criticizing [the deployment]. The German public, by and large, is not war loving. But, of course, there is a lot of propaganda emphasizing that any attack against Ukraine is an attack against Europe as a whole – it is the position of the EU and German government,” Beck told Sputnik.

The situation is reminiscent of the early 1980s, when the US deployed Pershing missiles in West Germany – presumably countering a possible aggression by the Soviet Union. The only difference is that this time Americans promise not to put nuclear warheads on SM-6 missiles, Tomahawks and even some “hypersonic weapons.” These missiles will be carrying conventional warheads that will still make Germany a target for a Russian retaliation starting from 2026.

Beck indicated that American and West German propaganda of that epoch used the same arguments as now. It was said the ability of NATO allies to protect themselves was the best guarantee for peace, etc., but in both cases it was misleading propaganda based on fears and not facts:

“Up to 1987 the propaganda in West Germany evoked the specter of millions of Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany … that they would all flood into West Germany and occupy the country within three days,” Beck told Sputnik. “The kind of propaganda we are exposed to now is very reminiscent of this. We know today, and we have known for some time already that everything we were told in the 1980s was a great deal of nonsense. There was no evidence whatsoever of a consistently aggressive strategy by the Soviet Union.”

Indeed, Moscow acquiesced to the reunification of Germany in 1990 and withdrew its troops from East Germany in 1994 without a single shot fired. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten now that these concessions were part of the “Two plus four” agreement, whose terms Germany and three other signatories are breaching now.

It was signed on September 12, 1990, by the two (East Germany and West Germany) plus four (the Soviet Union, USA, the UK and France, former members of the anti-Hitler coalition).

Moscow then obliged itself not to prevent the reunification of Germany and to withdraw its troops by 1994 from the territory of the late German Democratic Republic. Both obligations were fulfilled. Now, here is how the obligations of Western powers were breached, in the words of Beck:

“No foreign weapons could be deployed in East Germany… And both German states then agreed that the united Germany would only deploy weapons on its territory if it is done in accordance with Germany’s constitution and the Charter of the United Nations. So, unless there is a UN Security Council resolution, it is a very debatable issue whether Germany can allow the deployment of new weapons that increase the risk of war.”

It should be noted that the German constitution prohibits the supplies of German weapons to the zones of armed conflict. However, Berlin is officially “pumping up” Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime with weapons worth tens of billions of euros.

Beck states the subsequent events showed the deceitful nature of the Western propaganda of the 1980s: Moscow indeed had no intention of invading Europe and withdrew from Germany at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, its goodwill was abused by Western allies.

Now, many Germans suspect a “remake” of the that deceitful intimidation: a poll conducted by Forsa Institute revealed 47% of Germans think the planned deployment of US weapons will only increase the possibility of a Russia-NATO conflict.

However, Beck notes this substantial part of German public opinion is not organized and its will has no chance of influencing the European Commission – or even the government of Germany.

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News, Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Scholz orders closure of one of the opposition’s largest media networks after interview with Zakharova

By Ricardo Nuno Costa – New Eastern Outlook – 17.07.2024

On 16 July, Jürgen Elsässer (67) woke up startled at 6 a.m., opened the door of his house while still in his dressing gown, and in front of him were dozens of police officers, some with their faces covered, heavily armed, in a surreal image befitting any authoritarian state. However, it was in Brandenburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, in the Germany of the tragicomic Scholz government, aka the ‘Traffic Light’ coalition.

The police were about to raid his house, while more than 200 federal and Brandenburg state agents were deployed to carry out further searches in eight other houses and offices in the region. Other raids were carried out in the states of Saxony, Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt, ordered by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), who had ordered Compact to be closed by decree as an ‘association’, when it was legally a publishing house. She also banned any activity by the audiovisual company that produced Compact’s content, such as its YouTube, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

The minister later explained that Compact ‘incites hatred against Jews, against people with a history of migration and against our parliamentary democracy in an indescribable way’. According to the Ministry, the legal basis is the Law on Associations, according to which organisations that are directed against the free and democratic basic order can also be banned.

‘The ban shows that we are also taking action against intellectual arsonists who are fuelling a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and who want to bypass our democratic state,’ the minister explained. “Our message is very clear: we will not allow ethnicity to define who belongs in Germany and who does not. Our rule of law protects all those who are harassed because of their faith, their origin, the colour of their skin or even their democratic position.”

As early as 2022, the German intelligence services (BND) considered that Compact, ‘as a multimedia company, conveys anti-democratic positions in society and against human dignity’, and since then, it has been classified as far-right by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and under suspicion.

Interviewed by journalists during the police search of the house where he lives with his wife and partner in the company, Elsässer said that ‘in 14 years of existence there has not been a single criminal charge against his magazine’, which is why he was surprised by the minister’s announcement. He also said that he was in contact with his lawyer to defend his rights and jokingly imitated Donald Trump with his fist raised saying that he was ‘ready for a fight’.

Mixed reactions in the press

While journalists from the mainstream media are refusing to give this episode its due importance, others have seen the government’s unusual decision as a clear warning sign. Opinions were divided between the established media and the few journalists still struggling to report, and the internet was abuzz with the event. The tag #Compact was the main topic on German Twitter throughout the day, and Germans and foreigners alike made the Scholz government’s persecution of the media viral. Germany is under the scrutiny of international public opinion for the worst reasons.

Elsässer complains that this is ‘the biggest attack on press freedom in Germany since the 1962 Spiegel Magazine scandal’. At that time, it was discovered that the Adenauer government wanted to silence several journalists by illegal means for political reasons. When this was discovered, Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauß and two state secretaries had to resign. However, not even then was a troublesome media outlet banned, as it is now with his case. Elsässer says that only in the GDR and during National Socialism were things like this scene.

The metamorphosis of Elsässer, the current standard-holder of Germany’s ‘new right’

Jürgen Elsässer is a long-time political activist. With a degree in history and a short career as a teacher, he started out in the far-left anti-German movement in the 1970s, wrote books with a strong anti-national slant, worked on the editorial boards of various left-wing publications such as Junge Welt, Neues Deutschland, he collaborated with Der Freitag and the Jüdische Allgemeine and was editor-in-chief of Konkret magazine, until after disagreements with other elements, he founded Compact magazine in 2010, with the idea of bringing together the best of the left and the right in a transversal front (‘Querfront’), based on national sovereignty, the multipolar world and the rejection of the EU and NATO.

In 2017, with the demonstrations against Merkel’s open-door immigration policy, he joined forces with the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, considered a quasi-neo-Nazi, and Martin Sellner, leader of Austria’s Identity Movement. Since then, the magazine has become a major reference point for the so-called ‘new right’ and Elsässer has become one of the central figures in the German nationalist spectrum.

His political proposal and trajectory are controversial and very heterodox. He clearly calls for the ‘remigration’ of non-European foreigners, makes claims to Polish territories, likes to provoke his opponents, has aligned himself with openly Islamophobic elements such as Michael Stürzenberger or the PEGIDA movement, has played on the edge, but always within the rules of the game. At least until today.

Elsässer is an experienced figure, with a huge culture and a large archive of articles and books written, where he has changed his mind, or at least his appearance. He says that he hasn’t changed at all, that he remains in the same political position as he was 40 years ago.

He worked for the Die Linke parliamentary group as a member of the BND enquiry committee in the Bundestag. He is an insightful expert on geopolitical issues. In 2012, he was received by then president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Tehran, together with a German entourage. About that trip to Iran, he said he enjoyed everything, only missing a good cold beer, like the good German he claims to be. He recently teamed up with Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s European frontrunner, who advocates a Germany that guarantees its status as a pole in the multipolar world that has already been born and is taking its first steps.

A quality magazine

Compact magazine was the centrepiece of the network that included audiovisual channels, the organisation of events, conferences, the publishing and sale of books and Compact TV, with its YouTube channel, which recently reached one million views a day.

Over the years, you could say that the magazine has moved to the right. In 2014, it dedicated a cover to Netanyahu, in which it accused him of perpetrating a ‘Genocide in Gaza’, then shifted its focus to criticising immigration, especially of Islamic origin. Later articles were also read against Hamas. With the pandemic, it took a clear stance against the government, the pharmaceutical industry and the accusation of a biological warfare conspiracy by the great powers of the West.

With Russia’s entry into Ukraine, it advocated dialogue with Moscow and the resumption of Russian energy. It was one of the few media outlets to do an exhaustive report on the Nord Stream attacks, to which it devoted almost an entire issue. In its December 2023 issue, it details how an extremely powerful Zionist sect with global reach, currently in the Israeli government, is planning an eschatological end-of-times war with catastrophic consequences for the whole world.

The absence of the Compact has already been felt since the arrival of the ‘Traffic Light’ government. Heavy pressure on distributors led to the magazine disappearing from petrol stations, supermarkets, newsagents and bookshops. Little by little, it was confined to subscribers. It was one of the few magazines where you could read good geopolitical articles.

The German typhoon

The magazine ban is just one more of the government’s decisions that threaten to divide German society, but it doesn’t seem to bother the establishment, either in the government or in the opposition on the traditional right.

Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) welcomed the federal government’s move. Stübgen accused the magazine of spreading ‘Russian war propaganda and conspiracy theories against the democratic order’. He also said that ‘this platform of enemies of democracy has only one goal, which is the destruction of our liberal society’.

In a comment on social media, historian Hermann Ploppa, identified with the left wing and linked to the famous alternative politics portal Apolut, confesses that ‘the Compact is not to my liking. A lot of it is simply disgusting. But there is no violation of the law. It’s also clear that the Compact ban is the opening fanfare to suppress the inconvenient media. That’s why we shouldn’t stand idly by. WE ARE NEXT.”

Across the party spectrum, only the AfD criticised the magazine ban. The party’s leaders, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, jointly announced on Tuesday that it was a ‘serious blow to press freedom’. ‘The banning of a media organisation means the denial of discourse and diversity of opinion.’ According to the far-right party, the interior minister is abusing her powers to ‘suppress critical information’.

Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW had not commented on the Compact ban at the time of writing. Wagenknecht has been on the cover of the magazine on more than one occasion. In its December 2022 issue, she was described as ‘The best chancellor: A candidate for left and right’. The relationship between Elsässer and Wagenknecht goes back to the 90s. In 1996, a still communist Elsässer interviewed his comrade Wagenknecht, long before he became one of the main ideologues of the new ‘Querfront’ between the ‘left of labour and the right of values’, an enterprise for which he has called on Wagenknecht to participate on several occasions in recent times.

The Zakharova interview

If the move against Compact magazine didn’t come without warning, it did coincide with the interview with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, conducted two days earlier by Compact’s Moscow correspondent Hansjörg Müller and broadcast on the magazine’s website and YouTube channel.

With hundreds of thousands of hits on the first day on the website and more than 250,000 on YouTube, Zakharova ridiculed the “traffic light” government in the one-and-a-half hour interview. She sharply criticised the policies of Scholz, Baerbock and the sanctions, which not only destroy relations between Berlin and Moscow, but also harm Germany’s own interests, all at the behest of “third-party interests”.

The Russian spokeswoman also alluded to the problem of immigration in Germany, which she said had geopolitical origins, with Berlin playing a subservient role to “US and British operations in the Middle East and Southern Africa”, which are causing the migratory chaos that is burdening Europe.

She also spoke about Germany’s obligations under the 1999 2+4 Treaty, the murky role of the German authorities in the case of Navalny’s alleged poisoning in 2020, the pandemic, vaccines and the announced abolition of paper money in Europe, the Federal Reserve, the destruction of Nord Stream, and much more. All in all, a fascinating interview, highly recommended, and very uncomfortable for Western liberal elites, especially Germans.

It’s clear that, once again, the German government is acting in accordance with the Washington Consensus, because the magazine in question was clearly in favour of peace between Germany and Russia, was gaining public influence and threatening several pillars on which Germany’s structure has rested since 1945. The fact that this doesn’t please many people is understandable, but it doesn’t make it an illegal outlet. Mrs Faeser’s decision sets a serious precedent, foreshadowing difficult days ahead for free information in Germany and Europe. Having found no illegality, the German government had to use two paragraphs of a law on associations to ban a publishing house because it was inconvenient. It’s all food for thought.

Ricardo Nuno Costa ‒ geopolitical expert, writer, columnist, and editor-in-chief of geopol.pt.

July 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

US claims Russia threatened by ‘democracy’

RT | July 16, 2024

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has rejected Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s call for resolving the “root causes” of the Ukraine conflict, arguing that Moscow illegitimately fears a “functioning democracy” in Kiev.

Lavrov spoke at the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday, describing Russia’s military action in Ukraine as the consequence of a security threat by the US and its allies.

“The problem with the formulation from the foreign minister is that there’s no one in Europe that is threatening Russia,” Miller said at a State Department press briefing. He insisted that there is no military threat to Russia by NATO and that no one has threatened to take Russian territory.

“What Russia seems to see as a threat is a democracy functioning on its borders. And that’s just not a legitimate view,” Miller added. “We reject that view.”

Miller did not specify which country he considered a functioning democracy. Multiple US officials and foreign policy pundits have described Ukraine that way in the past, especially following the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev.

The new Ukrainian authorities, “midwifed” into place by US envoy Victoria Nuland, sicced nationalist militias to kill and intimidate dissidents in Odessa and Kharkov, while triggering a civil war by sending tanks to pacify Donetsk and Lugansk.

Since Russia intervened in February 2022, Vladimir Zelensky’s government has suspended all elections and banned most opposition parties, while taking control of all TV stations. Zelensky’s own term expired in May.

Last month, at the so-called “Peace for Ukraine” conference in Switzerland convened by Zelensky, Polish President Andrzej Duda called for dismembering Russia, describing the federation as a “prison of nations.”

“Russia remains the largest colonial empire in the world,” Duda argued, advocating for his neighbor to be “decolonized” among some 200 ethnic groups living there.

In late 2021, Moscow sent the US and NATO a comprehensive security proposal in line with existing international treaties. In February 2022, Washington and Brussels rejected it, ignoring what Russia described as its “red lines,” at which point Moscow said it would have no choice but to resort to “military and technical measures.”

Russia also considers Ukraine to be unlawfully occupying parts of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, all of which voted last September to join Russia. President Vladimir Putin has conditioned any ceasefire talks on Kiev’s withdrawal from the administrative borders of these regions and a legal commitment to never join NATO.

July 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Cyberattacks: A New False Flag Frontier

BY KIT KLARENBERG | JULY 15, 2024

At the start of June, Admiral Robert Bauer, head of NATO’s military committee, announced that the military alliance had finalised plans to recognise state-backed cyberattacks on its members as a dedicated pretext for activating Article 5. Reportedly “a joint decision of all allies,” from now on, foreign hacking blitzes can be countered with a collective NATO response, up to and including military measures. Bauer’s disclosure passed the media by entirely – but this is a seismic development, heralding a modern, digital form of ‘false flag’.

Article 5, which provides for collective defence in the event a NATO member is attacked, was a core component of the military alliance’s founding treaty. While it has been invoked just once – by the US, in the wake of 9/11, to invade Afghanistan – there have been efforts to spark it before and since. Most recently, in November 2022, the government of Ukraine falsely declared a missile fired by Kiev that struck Poland, killing two people, was Russian in origin.

The purpose of this deceit was undoubtedly to embroil NATO formally and directly in the proxy war. Wise to the ruse, US officials harshly rebuked President Volodmoyr Zelensky publicly for the World War-threatening fraud. Such incidents amply underline Article 5’s susceptibility to abuse. Yet apparently, military alliance chiefs – and the bloc’s members – are keen to ever-expand its terms, well-beyond its initial remit. Adding cyberattacks to the roster of grounds for collective response is a long-standing objective.

In August 2019, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg authored a bombastic op-ed declaring the military alliance would “guard its cyber domain and invoke collective defence if required.” A “serious cyberattack” on one member state could be “treated as an attack against us all,” he wrote, triggering Article 5 in the process. Fast forward two years, and Keith Alexander, US National Security Agency director 2005 – 2014, called on the ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network to construct a global unified cyberattack “radar”:

“Imagine if we built a radar picture for cyber that covered not only what impacts Australia, but what impacts other countries, and we could share, in real time, threats that are hitting our countries… What we can do is share information and work together… Cyber is going to be hugely important for our future. It’s the one area where adversaries can attack Australia and the US without trying to cross the oceans… We have this anomaly: how are you gonna defend that which you can’t see?”

Alexander, who lied brazenly to the public about his agency’s spying capabilities – including while while testifying under oath to Congress – during his time as NSA chief, suggested this worldwide dragnet would contribute significantly to collective defence, in the obvious spirit of NATO’s Article 5. Given “proposals” for Orwellian, futuristic resources from Western politicians and military and intelligence officials almost invariably presage their real-world rollout, we can only assume in light of Bauer’s announcement such a “radar” is incoming.

‘Security Failures’

This interpretation is reinforced by Bauer observing how invoking Article 5 could only happen once it was confirmed a cyberattack was carried out by a state actor, not a private person or structure. “In that case, it would not be clear who to go to war with,” he added. It’s certainly a source of some relief that NATO is committed to securing clarity on “who to go to war with”, before launching a military “response” to a cyberattack.

However, these comments illuminate a very obvious, grave problem with adding cyberattacks to Article 5’s ambit. Identifying who or what is responsible for them to an absolute certainty is extremely difficult. This task is further complicated by a frequent lack of certainty over whether hackers operating from a particular state are doing so at the behest of authorities. For example, much has been made in Britain recently of  Russian hacking group Qilin, which supposedly infiltrated NHS servers.

Mainstream media reports have universally framed Qilin as a malign instrument of the Kremlin, although whether Russian officials command the group, let alone even know of its existence, is far from clear. A representative iNews article refers to Qilin as “a syndicate made up of more than 100 groups…not believed to be under the direct control [emphasis added] of the Russian government.” Instead, Qilin is claimed to be “a useful tool of global disruption the Kremlin is happy to turn a blind eye to.”

Further muddying the picture, it has been confirmed that Western intelligence services can falsely attribute cyberattacks, with devastating effect. In 2017, CIA files published by WikiLeaks revealed how the Agency masks its hacking exploits, to make it appear another state actor was responsible. Dubbed ‘Marble Framework’, among other things the resource inserts foreign-language text into malware source codes to misdirect security analysts. The Framework can obfuscate in this manner via Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi, Korean, and Russian.

Excerpt from leaked Marble Framework files

Moreover, CIA hackers employ crafty tricks and double bluffs to reinforce these bogus attributions, such as creating the appearance of attempts to conceal foreign-language text. Thus, forensic investigators are successfully conned into concluding even more strongly that the country framed by Langley is responsible. Unbelievably, this seismic disclosure prompted no Western journalist to reappraise the widely received narrative that Moscow’s GRU was responsible for the hack and leak of damaging Democratic National Committee emails in 2016.

That conclusion, universally reinforced by the Western media, was initially peddled by Matt Tait, a former GCHQ spy. He didn’t base his conclusions on anything technical, but “basic operational security failures” he detected on the part of the individual(s) who released the communications, including their computer username referencing the founder of the Soviet Union’s secret police, and “ham-fisted” attempts to pose as Romanian. Which is, of course, precisely how the CIA would cover its own tracks via Marble Framework.

‘Irrevocable Proof’

There has similarly been no mainstream discussion of why the Agency would seek to acquire and maintain this capability in the first place. Now that NATO considers cyberattacks an Article 5 matter, this question has never been a more urgent question, given the CIA’s extensive and deplorable history of false-flag operations to overthrow governments, and kickstart conflicts.

For example, in April 1953, the CIA and MI6 launched a welter of covert actions to undermine Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, in order to lay the foundations of his ouster. One key tactic in which the pair engaged was bombing mosques, and homes of prominent Muslim figures by operatives posing as members of Tehran’s Communist Party. A subsequent internal review of the coup noted that this incendiary activity mobilised Mullahs to take action against Mosaddegh.

These efforts were judged to have contributed to the “positive outcome” of the wider coup effort. Such a glowing appraisal of these false flag manoeuvres may have informed the dimensions of Operation Northwoods, a daring set of proposals under which the CIA would stage and commit acts of terrorism against US military and civilian targets. These could then be blamed on the government of Fidel Castro, precipitating all-out war with Cuba.

Potential false-flag actions outlined in extraordinary declassified documents include assassinating of Cuban immigrants on US soil, sinking boats ferrying Cuban refugees to Florida, shooting down US civilian airlines, blowing up US ships, and more. One specific element of Operation Northwoods is particularly relevant to consider in light of alleged state cyberattacks becoming Article 5 worthy. If the 1962 Mercury launch – the first US orbital spaceflight – went awry, Castro would be blamed by concocting:

“Irrevocable proof… the fault lies with the Communists… this to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.”

While Northwoods was ultimately rejected by President John F. Kennedy, the US military and intelligence community continued constructing false-flag blueprints thereafter. In 1963, a Pentagon policy paper advocated making it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS), justifying US retaliation:

“A contrived ‘Cuban’ attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the US and OAS.”

Langley’s cyberattack connivances have surely only grown more sophisticated, and more complex to unravel, in the years since Marble Framework was publicly exposed. Pinning blame on a foreign country for a cyberattack it didn’t actually commit is no doubt even easier and more effective today. Resultantly, a false flag tripwire for Beijing, Moscow, or any other Washington-mandated ‘enemy’ state to unwittingly and unwillingly stumble over, triggering the outbreak of global war, has now been forged by NATO.

July 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

NATO chief explains why Poland won’t intercept Russian missiles

RT | July 15, 2024

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has ruled out the possibility of Poland intercepting Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory, insisting that the bloc does not want to become directly involved in the conflict with Moscow.

Kiev has urged NATO member Warsaw to use its air defense capabilities to protect western Ukraine without moving the systems away from Polish soil. The idea was floated in the context of a recent Polish-Ukrainian bilateral security agreement, and was reportedly discussed at last week’s NATO summit in Washington.

In an interview given on the sidelines of the event for Ukrainian state television, Stoltenberg said NATO’s position had not changed, and that the best that Kiev can expect is help in targeting Russian warplanes with weapon systems operated by Ukrainian forces.

The idea of NATO intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine was previously rejected by member states, including Poland. Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said that Warsaw won’t engage Russian missiles without the backing of other members.

“If NATO does not make such a decision, Poland will not make it individually,” the minister stressed.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan claimed that providing air defenses to Kiev is “by far and away the best method of stopping the Russian aerial attacks,” when asked about Poland’s stance last week.

Moscow has described the Ukraine conflict as part of a US-led proxy war, in which NATO nations are involved in every way except by directly fighting Russian forces on the battlefield. Being de facto parties to the hostilities means Western nations share responsibility for Ukrainian war crimes, Russian officials have argued.

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Mainstream Media Downplays Tremendous Losses of Western Military Equipment in Ukraine

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 15.07.2024

The Western public has little, if any, knowledge of the scale of losses in troops and equipment sustained by Ukraine since the beginning of the special military operation, international observers say.

The Western press is concealing information about the real state of affairs on the ground in Ukraine, including the mass destruction of NATO weapons provided to the Ukrainian military, and the loss of Ukrainian soldiers, Irish journalist and entrepreneur Chey Bowes wrote on X on July 15.

“Here, yesterday, another €150 million [$163.4 million] of German taxpayers’ money was vaporized in Dictator Zelensky’s Ukraine,” Bowes continued, attaching a video showing the elimination of the German-made IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile system (SAM).

“Russian Iskander missiles completely destroyed the entire complex consisting of an IRIS-T SAM launcher and its TRML-4D radar station – these are the high-tech systems Zelensky is so desperately begging the EUSA for,” the journalist pointed out.

According to Bowes, the reason “the Western media doesn’t want” the public to see this, is “to maintain your ignorance and, therefore, your complicity in the ‘Ukraine can win’ fantasy.”

“After all, you’re paying for it all,” the journalist remarked.

Ukraine has received almost 108 billion euro ($115.9 billion), including 39 billion euro ($41.8 billion) of military aid from the EU since February 2022. The US’ Ukraine expenditures have so far reached $175 billion, of which $107 billion directly aided the Kiev regime, with $34.2 billion being disbursed for budget needs, and another $69.8 billion spent on arms and military assistance.

On Sunday, the Russian Ministry of Defense released footage of the destruction of an IRIS-T launcher in the Dnepropetrovsk region. The air defense missile launcher, the TRML-4D radar station, and the crew operating the system were eliminated, per the ministry.

As of July 14, 551 air defense missile systems, including those supplied by NATO, have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation.

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia could challenge NATO’s historical air dominance – media

By Ahmed Adel | July 15, 2024

Business Insider reported that NATO had never faced an adversary of Russia’s calibre after World War II, and it would have been difficult for the alliance to establish air superiority over Russian forces. The warning comes as experts have explained the sombre reality that the F-16 fighter jets, a key aircraft in many NATO air force fleets, provided to Kiev will not be a “magic bullet” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western allies expect them to be.

“Russia could challenge NATO’s historical air dominance,” reported the media on July 13 after explaining that this is a change from the scenario that emerged after the Cold War when the West had a clear advantage. “Russia would be a very different opponent. It has the territory and industry to build and field massive and sophisticated air defenses that an opponent may struggle to destroy.”

“The US and its allies, even with fleets of fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, likely would find it difficult to establish the same level of air dominance they’ve largely had since the end of World War II,” the New York-based outlet said.

According to experts cited by the portal, Western aviation has never had the experience of combating air defence systems at a level similar to that of Russia’s. During the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian military proved that it could establish extremely difficult air defence areas for the enemy with powerful radars, electronic warfare systems and missiles.

“The Russians could attempt a surprising and impactful opening attack,” the article warned. “For example, the Russians could target vulnerabilities like satellites to try to disrupt the space-based communications and navigation NATO airpower depends upon.”

The worry that Russia could establish air superiority over NATO, particularly over the bloc’s 30 European members, became a more serious consideration after Russian forces methodically obliterated Ukraine’s air force. Russia so impressively dismantled the Ukrainian air force that the Kiev regime is desperately seeking F-16 fighter jets from Western allies to replenish its fleet, even though experts are saying that the aircraft is now obsolete and unlikely to survive the conflict.

“As soon as the Ukrainians encountered Russian-controlled air space, the F-16’s value would diminish markedly, as would its likelihood of survival,” Harrison Kass wrote for the National Interest. “In a conflict with a great power, China for example, the F-16 would remain on the backbench.”

This is a telling revelation considering the US still uses over 900 F-16s, NATO members, including Turkey, Greece, Poland, and Romania, use hundreds more, as well as US non-NATO allies Israel, Taiwan and South Korea. In effect, the F-16 would be rendered almost useless against Russia given that the Eastern European country’s military is ranked second, one above China, according to the 2024 PowerIndex.

Kass warns Kiev that the good performance of the F-16 fighter jets in Iraq and Afghanistan does not say anything about their capabilities against Russian air defences.

After stressing that “the F-16 fighting falcon era is coming to a rapid end,” Kass concludes that the US-made fighter jet “will not offer a magic bullet for Zelensky” and will merely “buy a little more time.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the F-16s supplied to Kiev will be destroyed just like other Western military equipment. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned that their appearance in Ukraine will not change anything on the front and that they will be destroyed in the same way as other types of weapons.

Nonetheless, in 2023, several NATO states agreed to supply the Ukrainian armed forces with the fighter jets and launched training programs for Ukrainian pilots. On July 10, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US and its allies are “underway” in sending the promised F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

As Europe and the US are not interested in a viable, pragmatic, and lasting peace agreement in Ukraine which recognises Russian interests in the region and establishes a lasting solution, they are actively prolonging the fighting despite not only the humanitarian consequences but even the weakening of their own military. Whilst NATO members are distracted with training Ukrainian pilots to use fighter jets that are effectively obsolete in any combat with a great power, Russia, as Business Insider has acknowledged, has successfully challenged the air dominance NATO largely enjoyed since the start of the Cold War despite the introduction of fifth-generation fighter jets.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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