conflict
Slowly But Surely, Biden And The West Are Ramping Up Involvement In Russia-Ukraine War
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By JAKE SMITH
If we said, ‘Yeah, okay, go ahead [and fire into Russian territory],’ then you’re really putting the Russians in a corner to do something to top that, and who knows what that might be.
As Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, the U.S. and the NATO alliance are increasing their involvement in the conflict, presenting risks for a more direct confrontation with Moscow.
President Joe Biden reportedly gave Ukraine the green light in May to start firing U.S.-provided weapons directly into certain parts of Russian territory, as NATO members consider a similar policy and the possibility of sending trainers to train the Ukrainian military. The new initiatives would represent a shift in NATO’s policy of engagement in the war and could further escalate the proxy conflict with Russia.
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly convened on Monday and urged the alliance to remove a ban currently preventing Ukraine from firing Western weapons directly into Russian territory, echoing calls recently made by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and top officials from Britain, Sweden, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania. Kyiv has long requested that it be allowed to fire Western-provided weapons into Russia, with officials bemoaning that the NATO ban has prevented them from effectively countering Russia’s advances.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken Antony Blinken during a press conference on Wednesday did not signal any immediate policy change plans on how Ukraine is allowed to use U.S. weapons against Russia. But Biden has reportedly already given Kyiv permission to fire into Russian territory, according to the Financial Times, which Blinken failed to mention on Wednesday.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” a U.S. official told Politico on Thursday, adding that the administration’s policy stance against long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”
But Moscow has warned that if NATO allows Ukraine to fire their provided weapons into Russian territory, it will escalate the war and potentially drag alliance member nations further into the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that such an action by NATO would represent another escalation that could “lead to serious consequences.”
“Providing Ukraine with the means and the permission to strike deep into Russian territory significantly increases the chances of a direct U.S.-Russian clash, which in turn could lead to the use of nuclear weapons,” George Beebe, former CIA analyst and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, a non-interventionist foreign policy think tank, told the DCNF. Beebe noted that it was unlikely that Russia would utilize tactical nuclear weapons in the interim but instead potentially target American assets such as satellites, creating “a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation with the United States that proves difficult to manage and contain.”
Even though Ukraine could benefit from using Western weapons to fire against Russia — as its own domestic weapons are not capable of effective, long-range strikes — the West’s hesitation on the matter may have created a “hype” that will invite a Russian retaliatory response, Jim Townsend, an ex-NATO and Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, a foreign policy think tank led by former Democrat officials, told the DCNF.
“We have made this such a big deal that it will force the Russians to react one way or another. All of a sudden, it has become a red line drawn by the Russians, highlighted by the U.S. not wanting to escalate,” Townsend said. “And now, it has got such a high profile publicly that if we said, ‘Yeah, okay, go ahead [and fire into Russian territory],’ then you’re really putting the Russians in a corner to do something to top that, and who knows what that might be. So I think that certainly does run a risk of escalation, even more so than it did earlier in the war.”
Aside from weapons policy, members of the NATO alliance are also considering the idea of sending troops into Ukraine to help train Ukrainian forces. Ukraine suffers from a worsening manpower shortage and is rapidly recruiting and conscripting new men for the war effort; Kyiv has requested the U.S. and NATO to help train them.
A NATO-backed training presence in Ukraine, which would be the first of its kind since the war began, could bolster the country’s fighting abilities against Russia, whose own military does not suffer from the same manpower problems.
But if NATO-allied troops stationed in Ukraine are caught in the crossfire of an attack from Russia, it could prompt the entire alliance to take much more direct action in the conflict. Article Five of the NATO treaty stipulates that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and the alliance is then obligated to collectively take “action as it deems necessary,” including through armed force.
“Let’s say there are French trainers or German trainers in Ukraine, and they’re killed in a Russian missile strike,” Michael DiMino, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA official, told the DCNF. “So now, what do we do? What happens after that? Do we go ahead and avenge those casualties and have the U.S. or France or Germany — again, all NATO members — engaged in some kind of limited strike on Russia? Is Russia not going to view that as an act of war and then not respond?”
If NATO troops are killed in a Russian attack and the alliance chooses not to pursue retaliation, it could come with the risk of undermining the alliance’s promise to defend itself.
“Even relatively small numbers of Western boots on the ground would create an enormous incentive for Russia to target them; failure to do so would only encourage the West to believe that Russia would tolerate greater and greater direct Western involvement over time,” Beebe told the DCNF.
Kyiv officials and Zelenskyy will attend a June peace summit in Sweden “to provide a forum where world leaders discuss paths towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine; over 160 countries have been invited, including the U.S., although Biden has not signaled that he will be in attendance. Kyiv will also have a presence at the annual NATO summit in July, where, among other issues, existing and new initiatives to bolster Ukraine’s security will be discussed, potentially including sending troops to the region and lifting Western weapons use restrictions.
Featured image: WASHINGTON (May 15, 2024) US President, Joe Biden, delivers remarks during the 42nd Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)
conflict
US and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Hopefully a world war appears unlikely, but the decision to allow Ukraine to shoot U.S. and U.K.-provided missiles into Russia once again reveals the lengths to which the ‘neocon globalists’ will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.
News that the lame duck President Joe Biden has authorized long-range strikes into Russia using NATO systems was announced with the alarming warning that he had “started World War III.”
The following day, U.S.-supplied and operated ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the authorized strikes as an “escalation” showing that the West wants war.
“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly in the Bryansk region overnight is, of course, a signal that they want escalation,” he said, according to Reuters.
Lavrov continued: “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”
Why would the U.S. president finally give the green light to use NATO systems to attack Russia? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to follow suit and supply German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – because he does not want to see Germany drawn into a direct war with Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by suggesting it is only a matter of time before U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles strike deep into Russian territory.
Today – Wednesday, November 20 – the Guardian reported that it has already happened.
The U.K. government has been behind a long campaign to escalate the war in Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to secure continued U.S. commitments in Europe. The Trump camp has long signaled its desire to draw down its security provision to leave a “dormant NATO.”
In an indication of the dangers of the U.K.-backed move by Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an alarming amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine.
The policy change, announced in September and published following Biden’s announcement, says “an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia,” according to the BBC.
Russian nuclear doctrine has long included the use of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in “conventional” warfare – a significantly lower threshold than that of NATO.
While Russian officials urged Western leaders to consult the text, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that “we strongly are in favor of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen.”
As Reuters reported, this latest provocation is “unlikely to be a gamechanger.” Western media outlets have moved from a narrative of Ukrainian victory to mulling how or even if the state of Ukraine can survive its “inevitable” defeat.
Yet it is not only Ukraine which faces an uncertain future with a Russian victory. The entire globalist order faces a significant blow should the war conclude. Statements from figures such as George Soros, U.S. General Mark Milley, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen, and the former head of NATO stressed that their liberal-globalist regime is threatened by defeat in Ukraine.
Biden’s decision has been seen as an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s declared agenda – to clear out the “deep state globalists” whose “neocons seeking confrontation … such as Victoria Nuland” have led the U.S. into endless wars since that in Iraq.
An escalation to all-out war with Russia would not only be a disastrous precursor to nuclear escalation, but would also preserve the dominance of the same “neocon globalists” whose “forever wars” Trump has pledged to end.
Arch-neocon Robert Kagan said Americans who support ending wars are “intolerant.” He went on to author two articles which Hitlerized Trump and appeared to incite the assassination of a man who promised in his 2024 victory speech, “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”
This follows a long series of claims in the same vein.
“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump declared in February 2023, saying he would also end “the chaos in the Middle East” and “stop World War III.”
This move by Biden has no military significance in improving Ukraine’s chances of victory. Russia claimed to have shot down seven of eight ATACMS fired into its Bryansk region. Yet prolonging or even escalating this war has enormous political significance.
Since the publication of the RAND Corporation’s 2019 paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” a strategy of bleeding Russia on the battlefield to collapse its government has been clear. Russia’s near-limitless mineral wealth would provide an obvious boon to a Western system self-sabotaged by sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream gas supply.
The enormous significance of the war is found in its use as an attempt to extend and consolidate the power of the same system of neocon “globalism” which Trump has vowed to end.
This context explains why the U.K. government has consistently pressed for escalation since the 2022 intervention of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to have sabotaged peace in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble towards “regime change” in Russia.
Since then, the U.K. government has urged the authorization of long-range strikes into Russia, and it has supplied cruise missiles to attack Russian over-the-horizon nuclear radar warning systems, which play no role in the Ukraine war.
Reports have confirmed “terrorist operations” in Russia, including attacks on the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea were U.K.-led. A recent expose by The Grayzone revealed that the British state appears to be training Ukrainians to fight a guerilla war, extending hostilities even beyond any ceasefire.
Ukraine’s recent and failed offensive into Russia’s Kursk region appears to have also been a British operation – to secure the kind of “morale boost” which Alastair Crooke says is the only significant war-fighting contribution of the authorization of “wonder weapons” like ATACMS.
The ATACMS authorization was heralded as a turning point in the war by Foreign Affairs. Yet the suspicion of Responsible Statecraft that it was a “sideshow that may become a tragedy” appears to have been confirmed.
The grim reality of this war is underscored by the fact that measures taken which will result in even more needless loss of human life are done so to legitimize useful propaganda headlines. This is undertaken to sell a war which has long been predicted to end as it now seems certain to do so: with a victory on Russian terms.
Though it appears unlikely that a world war will result from this latest reckless move, what has been demonstrated once more is the lengths to which the “neocon globalists” will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.
That lifeline is perpetual war, and when they end – so do the careers of so many whose livelihoods and reputations depend on keeping them going.
conflict
Putin Launches Mass-Production of Nuclear Shelters for his People
From Armstrong Economics
By Martin Armstrong
Russia has begun mass production of mobile nuclear bunkers. This is in response to Ukraine’s use of Western US and British missiles to attack deep inside Russia to destroy its conventional capability so NATO can launch an invasion by March/April 2025.
This has coincided with Mr Putin’s change of Russia’s doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons to include the use of conventional weapons by Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked an ammunition stockpile in the Bryansk region using missiles supplied by the US military’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
Russia has also ordered the production of its mobile nuclear bunkers to protect citizens. They are shelters capable of protecting people from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment. These are known as “KUB-M” and will protect 54 people for 48 hours from the air shock wave and light radiation of a nuclear explosion; penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area; high-explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons; falling debris from building structures; dangerous chemicals; fires. Unlike traditional, stationary bunkers, mobile bunkers are built to be easily moved from one location to another, often on vehicles or trailers. They can be equipped with advanced shielding, air filtration systems, and other necessary survival equipment to withstand the harsh conditions of a nuclear event.
The Western press keeps putting out the Neocon and NATO propaganda that Russia will never fire a nuke and Ukraine can win the war. But this is all a smoke screen for NATO will invade Russia, and they are using Ukraine as our Hesbolla, the same as Iran is using Lebanon. Zelensky claimed he invaded Russia to force Putin to peace. But they had a peace deal. Boris Johnson ran to Kiev and instructed Zelensky he was not allowed to sign a peace deal, and now far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed so Europe can invade Russia.
Just as Robert McNamara said about Vietnam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq, what if these people are wrong AGAIN? There goes Europe! Not a single European leader cares about their own people.
Either the Ukrainian people rise up and take their country back, or Putin needs to nuke Kiev to show the world he is serious. Otherwise, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Our press will NEVER write a single word for peace. It is always Putin is bluffing. What if you are wrong again?
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was just shut down after Biden gave the go-ahead to use long-range missiles. Hm. If this was to win the war, then why flee Kiev? They know Putin will respond forcefully against Zelensky. Russians get nuclear bomb shelters, and we get Fake News – Don’t worry – he’s bluffing.
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