by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
As I said would happen, Putin’s refusal to quickly win the conflict with Ukraine has widened the conflict into the beginnings of WW III.
Putin himself now acknowledges this fact. In response to a journalist’s question about the consequences of what appears to be a US-UK decision to permit missile strikes from Ukraine deep into Russia, Putin said:
“The Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites. This is the first point.
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“The second point – perhaps the most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.
“Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.
“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement – it will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.
“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
My comments are as follows:
Putin has been at war with NATO since the 2007 Munich Security Conference when Putin announced that a multi-polar world was replacing Washington’s uni-polar order. In other words, he threw down the gauntlet to the neoconservatives and their agenda of Washington’s hegemony.
Putin possibly did not comprehend how determined neoconservatives are about hegemony, as a hegemonic agenda undoubtably seems unrealistic to Putin. He did not foresee that his challenge would lead directly to Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government and move to make Ukraine a member of NATO.
Once Washington had Ukraine, Washington began building a large Ukrainian army with which to embarrass Putin by suppressing the Donbas Russians. Putin was like a babe in the woods. For eight years while Washington built a Ukrainian army, Putin put his trust in the Minsk Agreement and remained unprepared for the easily predictable war on the horizon.
When Putin was finally forced to intervene, he did so in a foolish way that guaranteed increasing Western involvement, and by never enforcing any of his red lines now has his back to the wall and cannot ignore NATO/US missile strikes into Russia. Finally, he is forced to acknowledge the truth: “the United States and European countries are at war with Russia.” If Putin had been realistic instead of lost in liberal delusions, the war that seems ready to break loose could have been avoided.
As the cautious Gilbert Doctorow wrote four days ago, “a Third World War fought at least initially with conventional weapons is now just days, at most weeks away.” And this is just the Ukraine scene. Another major war is brewing in the Middle East. Whether or not war is that close, Doctorow’s point is well taken. War can’t be far off when the US and UK governments are discussing firing missiles at Russia.
As I wrote two or three days ago, “as talk has been forbidden, war is now a certainty.” Unlike during the Cold War, the West no longer has independent foreign policy experts. With very few exceptions, such as Scott Ritter, Mearsheimer, Doctorow, and myself, the Western “foreign policy community” speaks with one voice: “US good, Russia bad.” That’s about it. Those few of us who are independent of think tanks and university faculties funded by the military/security complex and neoconservative foundations are labeled “Russian agents/dupes” and worse. We are gradually being criminalized. Scott Ritter on his way to a conference in Russia was taken off the flight by the Washington Gestapo. His passport was confiscated, and his home was invaded. Currently, charges are being made against Americans accused of cooperating with “Russian disinformation,” by which is meant reporting a fact or expressing an opinion that is inconsistent with the official narratives.
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