(The Economic Collapse Blog)—If some lunatic shows up at your front door in the middle of the night and threatens to shoot you, does that make it more likely or less likely that you will shoot first? Any talk of NATO conducting a pre-emptive attack against Russia is extremely dangerous, because the Russians are paranoid enough already.
If they become convinced that we are planning to hit them before they can hit us, that could motivate them to do something really, really stupid. We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before, and we definitely do not need western leaders making provocative statements that are only going to make things even worse.
For example, during a conference in Brussels NATO’s top military official said something that is now making headlines all over the globe. The following comes from an article posted on MSN News entitled “NATO considers preemptive strikes amid rising tensions with Russia”…
NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer stated during a conference in Brussels that NATO leadership is contemplating the possibility of conducting precise preemptive strikes on Russian territory in the event of an armed conflict between Moscow and the Alliance.
It is now being claimed that Bauer was not actually talking about a pre-emptive strike on Russia.
But if you look at his actual words, it certainly seems like that was precisely what he was talking about…
During a question-and-answer session after his address at the European Policy Center in Brussels, Bauer said, “The idea was we are a defensive alliance, so we will only sit and wait until we are attacked, and then when we are attacked, we will be able to shoot down the ‘arrows’ that come to us,” referring to a Russian strike.
He also said that when responding to any attack, it would be “smarter” to “attack the archer, that is…Russia—if Russia attacks us. So you need to have a combination of deep precision (strikes) with which you can take out the weapons systems that are used to attack us.”
Needless to say, the Russians were not amused.
In fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that Bauer was essentially announcing NATO’s “real plans”…
The North Atlantic Alliance has ignored all diplomatic protocol, allowing itself to make statements about the possibility of preemptive strikes on Russia, top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov said.
“Just the other day, Mr. Bauer, NATO Military Committee Chair, explicitly stated that it’s no longer enough, and ensuring the defense of the North Atlantic Alliance member states requires strikes on targets in Russia that NATO believes may pose a threat to the bloc. I think there’s nothing to comment on here; it’s just that they have forgotten all etiquette, publicly announcing their real plans,” he noted at the 20th meeting of the heads of security and intelligence agencies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
If the Russians become convinced that we are going to hit them first, that will make it much more likely that they will hit us first. We really need to get the Russians to understand that we have no plans to do that.
Meanwhile, a French news source is reporting that European leaders continue to discuss “sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine”…
As the conflict in Ukraine enters a new phase of escalation, discussions over sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine have been revived, Le Monde has learned from corroborating sources. These are sensitive discussions, most of which are classified – relaunched in light of a potential American withdrawal of support for Kyiv once Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.
That is insane!
What in the world are they thinking?
No matter what Donald Trump does when he gets into the White House, our European allies fully intend to continue to escalate this war.
It is madness.
On top of everything else, this week the New York Times has reported that the Biden administration has actually discussed the possibility of arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
When Dmitry Medvedev heard about this, he went ballistic…
Moscow will consider any threat of nuclear arms being supplied to Ukraine by the US as preparation for a direct war with Russia, former president Dmitry Medvedev has warned. The actual transfer of nuclear weapons would be tantamount to an attack on the country under Russia’s new nuclear doctrine, he added.
On Tuesday, Medvedev posted a message on Telegram that was quite ominous…
“Give nuclear weapons to a country at war with the largest nuclear power? The idea is so absurd that it raises suspicions about a paranoid psychosis in Joe The Walking Dead and all those who would advise such a move.”
He continued, “Yet I must comment on the nonsense: 1) The very threat of transferring nuclear weapons to the Kyiv regime can be considered preparation for nuclear conflict with Russia;
2) The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to an act of attack on our country under article 19 of the Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence.
The consequences are obvious.”
I don’t think that the Biden administration has any intention of giving Ukraine nuclear weapons right now.
But the fact that they are talking about it is really freaking out the Russians.
I really wish that cooler heads would prevail, but instead both sides just continue to escalate matters.
Over the past few days, Ukraine has launched more long-range missiles provided by NATO into Russian territory, and now the Russians have announced that they are preparing another “response”…
Russia is preparing a response to Ukrainian ATACMS attacks on Kursk Region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday. Last week, US President Joe Biden authorized Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia’s internationally recognized borders.
In an official statement on Telegram, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that over the past three days, Ukraine’s forces had conducted two long-range strikes on Kursk Region using Western weaponry.
As I discuss in this video, many are anticipating that the Russian “response” will be even larger than last time.
Let us hope that the Russians only use conventional weapons, and let us hope that they limit their targets to Ukraine.
Because the Russians have previously identified a U.S. base in Poland as a potential target, and the Biden administration is making it clear that such a strike would trigger NATO’s Article 5…
White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said Monday that the U.S. has a ‘rock-solid’ commitment to NATO’s Article 5, should Russia strike the new U.S. anti-missile base in Poland. Article 5 is NATO’s principle of collective defense, that if one NATO member is attacked, all other NATO members go to war with the attacker, a world war-style response.
“We take our Article 5 commitments to our NATO Allies incredibly seriously. It’s rock-solid, and that’s not going to change,” Kirby said on Monday, according to Remix News.
Kirby was responding to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who on Thursday said that Russia is considering attacking a new U.S. anti-missile base in Poland.
We are dangerously close to a point of no return.
Once nuclear missiles start flying, there will be no going back.
The Russians have been working extremely hard to prepare for a nuclear war, and meanwhile the U.S. is still relying on hopelessly outdated systems from the 1970s and 1980s.
We must change course while it is still possible to do so.
Unfortunately, it appears that we are about to witness another series of escalations which will push us even closer to the unthinkable.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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