Tag: Crimea

Will Biden Pull a FDR and Choose War to Deflect from His Own Failed Domestic Programs? Stay Tuned!

FDR Declares War on Japan and Germany (1941)

It must be tempting for the puppet in the White House to opt for war in eastern Europe rather than admit that his war on Covid and his Build Back Better plans are rubbish. All politicians look to “save face” when big mistakes are made. Any attempt to support Ukraine’s stupid-ness (something the US democrats were highly involved with when Obama was leading things in 2014) would easily shift to an all out war involving Russia.

For the geographically challenged, NATO’s promise in the early 1990s has be repeatedly broken to the point where NATO is not on Russia’s doorstep.

Moon of Alabama has an article out that outlines the latest lie around Russian build-up on Ukraine’s borders.

Ten days ago I wrote about the potential of war in the Ukraine:

There is fear in Russia that the U.S. is egging the Ukraine into a renewed active conflict with its renegade eastern Donbass region and thereby into a war with Russia.
…
The Biden administrations war mongering towards Russia may be seen to be free of cost. But it takes only one miscalculation in Kiev or some unforeseen incident in the Black Sea region and the situation could seriously escalate.

Moscow sees a salami slicing tactic at work that would only end with NATO directly confronting it on all its borders:

Moscow’s narrative is that the Western powers are deliberately fueling Ukraine’s revanchist instincts by arming it and encouraging President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is fighting for political survival, to believe that with Western support, a window of opportunity is opening to recapture the lost territories in Donbas and Crimea and thereby redeem his pledge to be his country’s savior.And second, as Moscow sees it, the rising tensions with Russia have become a convenient alibi to involve NATO directly in Ukraine’s security and make it a template of the West’s containment strategy against Russia.

It does seem similar to Bush II wanting to complete what Bush I did in Iraq, is being repeated now with Obama II (Biden) wanting to complete what Obama I did in the Ukraine in 2014.

Russia has stated that it would intervene in the Ukraine should Kiev decided to invade Donbass. It would be the end of the Ukraine Moscow has said. (Russia would likely end up with taking the majority Russian east and south of the Ukraine. The rest would end up as a landlocked agricultural Nazi infested enclave.)

The Kremlin has also multiple times complained about the ever increasing amount of NATO activities near its border. A U.S. study confirms those activities:

There were some 2,900 incidents between NATO and Russian forces between 2013 and 2020. The three-year moving average increased by more than 60 percent over this eight-year timespan.

Of course, NATO will accuse Russia of doing what they are in fact doing, that is what politicians do, time and again, which is why they always fail and war is always one stupid mistake away from reality.

Moon of Alabama outlines the lie below:

The U.S. for its part has claimed that Russia is assembling more troops at its borders with the Ukraine. The claim is false. The Ukrainian defense intelligence chief recently provided a map with a table which shows that Russia has current only 40 Battalion Tactical Groups (ATG) at the ready while during the last ‘Russia invades’ scare in April it had 53 BTGs ready to go. How 25% less troops at the ready are supposed to a new danger is not clear to me.

There is hope that Biden (Obama) will come to his senses and save face by choosing this off-ramp …

The Saker detects signs of secret negotiations between Washington and Moscow that may be at the core of the announced Putin-Biden summit:

Since a Presidential summit is only organized once both sides have already come to a general agreement, at least in principle, on at least some issues, if Putin and Biden do meet, that means that both sides have worked out at least the outlines of some kind important deal (not just empty statements, as was the case the first time around, at least officially).

In his recent speech Putin said “it is imperative to push for serious long-term guarantees that ensure Russia’s security in this area, because Russia cannot constantly be thinking about what could happen there tomorrow“.  If Biden is willing to not only give guarantees (the Russians, understandably, have *zero* trust in western promises, written or oral) but also to actually take actions, probably mutual, coordinated and verifiable actions by both sides, then a war in Europe could be avoided, rather easily in fact.

Will Biden undo the total mess created by Obama and Trump and their Neocon handlers?

Maybe.

This is all blow-back of typical US intervention in places where it puts the American Empire’s nose .. seems that you can’t fix stupid.

Peace out all!

-SF1

What is With the Obsession with Russia, Primarily, and China Secondarily? PART 1

I have to be honest, I am a “boomer” who served in the US Navy after Vietnam and before Gulf War I, in a relative season of peace (rare for the US Empire these days).

The 1970s saw increased cooperation and trade with China and in the late 1980s finally saw increased cooperation and trade with Russia. With the Cold War over, people in general felt a lot better about the global conflicts and started to look at our domestic issues. Politicians and the Deep State do not like that. In search of distractions the Deep State looked for opportunities and continued to feed skewed Intel to the US government.

One would have thought that peace would allow the US to get a handle on its own economy and its own trade balance sheet. Nothing could be further from the truth. What happens time and again in large corporations, government and in bureaucracy in general is that politics squanders opportunities to take things to the next level, a better place AFTER addressing some key foundational and structural issues. The problem with politics and older organizations is that the momentum of the status quo keeps the change agents and whistle-blowers at bay while the existing paradigm sucks the life out of the organization or nation slowly. Because the leaders are temporary custodians of the organization, there is little incentive to do anything but “kick the can” down the road for others to deal with, the next generations of corporate leaders or the next crop of politicians or even the next generation of consumers and taxpayers.

Not cool.

In our existing morass it is apparent that the US Empire desperately needs an enemy. It needed one in 1990 as the USSR dissolved into over a dozen republics and it needed it yet again after the easy Gulf War I win that failed to produce the need for military in a big way for the long haul. Enter the “War on Terror” (Gulf War II, Iraq Invasion), which was designed to never end. This helped Bush II and Obama to satisfy the deep state and elites who see nothing but upsides to perpetual war, but after some rather apparent blunders, the target has shifted to Russia especially followed by China. Sure North Korea and Iran are in the mix but I am pretty sure the deep state is after another multi decade conflict so it can keep its job.

The blunder in the war on terror had to do with the exposure from Wikileaks and other leaks that made it clear that ISIS was actually a US/Saudi/UK and Israel initiative (to keep Iran from being a regional power that threatened Israel). The attempts to regime change Libya and Syria were part of an effort to further destabilize the Middle East which sent refugees to Western Europe by the droves, destabilizing Germany and France especially. The empire likes to keep its competition at bay, either directly or indirectly.

For the past three years, Russia has received the brunt of the attacks claiming that its motives are evil. A quick look at maps from 1990 to present say otherwise:

As you can see, the efforts in the Ukraine in 2014 was an attempt to further weaken Russian influence in the region. Their actual restraint shows the wisdom that Putin possesses in dealing with the US Empire and NATO. Russia did tactfully stepped in and secured Crimea and the critical port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea which they had possession of under lease agreements up until the US sponsored regime change in 2014. Beyond this, with the vast majority of Crimeans desiring ties to Russia there was swift and peaceful investments made by Russia like the Crimean Bridge below:

Crimean Bridge
Sevastopol Naval Base (Russia) on the Black Sea

This peaceful move PLUS the fact that the Russians were invited by Syrians to remove ISIS from their territories actually allowed Russian military to test their weapon systems and now have an edge in several different technological categories that make the Pentagon nervous. The fact that in October 2015 when this calculated effort to push ISIS out of Syria really started, Obama predicted that Russia would fail:

Syria (October 2015)
Syria Dec 2018

So the US was showed up in Syria, as trespassers they “fought” ISIS until Russia could beat ISIS .. and now the US rebels hold the land east of the Euphrates River.

Then, in 2019, the US turns its attention to Venezuela. The US Empire DOES have an addiction that it is not ready to admit. Of course they pull out the old Monroe Doctrine crap .. wondered if that applied in Iraq and Afghanistan, opps, wrong continent. Geez. But I digress. Why can’t the US just defend the US? Because it has a “need for empire” and its belief in the myth called “American Exceptionalism”.

At its root, the US obsession with “extending” Russia until it breaks is summed up by Moon of Alabama in this hilarious highlighting of a RAND think-tank article that was revised to look at the US instead in this  post:

This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the Russian Federation and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress —overextend and unbalance— the United States’ economy and armed forces and the U.S. government’s political standing at home and abroad. Some of the options examined are clearly more promising than others, but any would need to be evaluated in terms of the overall strategy for dealing with the United States, which neither the report nor this brief has attempted to do.

Today’s United States suffers from many vulnerabilities — the financial crisis has caused a drop in living standards, regressive tax policies that have furthered that decline, a decreasing life expectancy, and increasing authoritarianism under Barack Obama’s and now Donald Trump’s rule. Such vulnerabilities are coupled with deep-seated (if exaggerated) anxieties about the possibility of Russia-inspired political manipulation, loss of great power status, and even military attack.

Despite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, the United States remains a powerful country that still manages to be Russia’s peer competitor in a few key domains. Recognizing that some level of competition with the United States is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of “cost-imposing options” that could unbalance and overextend the United States. Such cost-imposing options could place new burdens on the United States, ideally heavier burdens than would be imposed on the Russian Federation for pursuing those options.

A team of RAND experts developed economic, geopolitical, ideological, informational, and military options and qualitatively assessed them in terms of their likelihood of success in extending the United States, their benefits, and their risks and costs.

Too funny, because the original 2019 RAND publication was focused in Russia’s situation and how the US might exploit her weaknesses.

What is noteworthy is the last line of this think-tank production, which SHOULD cause the deep state (as well as their Mossad ties) to pause in their agenda:

Most of the options discussed, including those listed here, are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counterescalation. Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here. Rather, the options must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation.

Cooperation, now there is a novel idea!

Hang on, there are more deep state and political thinkers that love their wallet more than life on this planet, especially for generations after their death!

Next time we will look more at China as well as the budding relationship that Russia and China are now enjoying and how Japan and other nations like Iran and Syria figure into all these geopolitics as well as the association called BRICS ( Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa ).

-SF1

NATO’s Push Using Ukraine for Azov Sea Access – Encroachment on Russia?

I don’t know about you, but I like to put the shoe on the other foot and see how it feels. You know, like Ron Paul would say, the Golden Rule but on the macro level .. “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

So when I hear from this Fort Russ article that NATO is using Ukraine toward asserting force into the Azov Sea, I had to look into it. At first glance this is not unlike the Russian fleet pushing itself into the St. Lawrence Seaway:

…  or the Straits of Juan de Fuca:

I contend that it is NOT like Russians entering the expansive Gulf of Mexico.

Let’s look at the Sea of Azov:

To narrow down on the rather small Azov Sea, we see what is going on:

This “sea” is almost landlocked. Notice that even without the Azov Sea, Ukraine is NOT landlocked. Yes, trade would be much easier for those on this sea IF peace were in power, however, those at the Pentagon hate peace and the Ukraine government is their puppet now that ISIS has been diminished and being redeployed.

 

You can see here that outside of Kerch is where the Russians built a awesome bridge that allowed the Crimean population to flourish with trade expenses lowered.

Should you see this as Russian encroachment, just know that the people of Crimea (and that of Dombass which has yet to be liberated) are solid Russians culturally:

So with this context, consider what NATO is up to:

the European Parliament approved a resolution calling on the executive authorities of the EU to provide for increased sanctions against the Russian Federation based upon the building of the Crimean bridge and the accusation – not unreasonable – that Russia now controls the Sea of Azov.

To assist in understanding what is at stake, consider the treaties that are in place:

Lavrov said a bilateral treaty with Ukraine prohibits military drills in the area around Azov without a green light from Moscow.:

“Now Ukraine wants to hold NATO drills in the Sea of Azov but it will be impossible to go there because our treaty with Ukraine requires mutual consent for the passage of warships into the Sea of Azov,” Lavrov told French media on Thursday. “But they want this and they are being actively goaded into this.”

That is correct .. if a bully comes into your neighborhood, you have to be firm:

Russia has reconfirmed earlier in the week that the Sea of Azov is ‘off limits’ to NATO and the U.S, for any purposes including drills and exercises.

To enter the Azov Sea, NATO ships would have to go under the new bridge in a waterway that is only just under 2 miles wide at its narrowest point.

Sorry, there is ZERO reason for NATO to move in this direction unless its real motive is conflict with the Russian military.

The US prompting of NATO policies that will be outfitting the Ukrainian navy with refurbished warships to not only stupid but dangerous.

The US / Ukraine alliance will not end well as one should understand the neo-Nazi underpinnings of the current Ukraine regime.

Please research this yourself .. know your locale, but also know your world as you will learn much about your government when you hear how they behave abroad.

-SF1