In a number of articles penned by yours truly for New Eastern Outlook there was a handful of points related to a possible war between the US and Russia.
However, as tensions between the two states continue flaring up due to the mindless anti-Russian stance of the Trump administration, this topic remains just as relevant, despite the apparent absurdity of the notion that either of the two major nuclear powers can hope to win anything in what can be easily described as a nuclear Armageddon. In spite of the first few modest steps towards deescalation made by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki summit, there’s no clear way of defusing the situation due to ongoing Russophobic hysteria among Western elites, notes Counter Punch. Washington is in desperate need of an enemy to cry wolf over, as this approach has proven to be extremely profitable for American arms manufacturers.
It’s been pointed out that the Trump Administration is ramping up confrontation and rattling sabers all over the globe, from the South China Sea to the Baltic via the Persian Gulf. The countries of the US-NATO military alliance have vastly increased their military spending and are boosting deployment of their forces in Europe in accordance with the policy of Enhanced Forward Presence — the positioning of strike aircraft, missile-armed ships and armored formations along the frontiers of Russia.
This hunger for super-profits has already got the United States drawn into the Korea war, Vietnam, Yugoslav Wars along with invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In all these ferocious forays embarked upon by the self-appointed global gendarme there was colossal destruction and the deaths of uncountable numbers of innocent citizens.
The never-ending string of sanctions that Washington keeps introducing against Moscow is aimed at attempting to undermine the financial welfare of Russian society, which is reminiscent of the initial stages of Washington’s anti-Iraqi war launched a couple decades ago. This is precisely what Trump’s “America First” is all about : military domination and total ascendancy over the economies of the world.
As noted by the well-respected online news site, Veterans Today, President Putin stated that “American submarines are on permanent alert off the Norwegian coast; they are equipped with missiles that can reach Moscow in 17 minutes.”
It has come to the point where US armed forces have begun active preparations for a military conflict with Russia. For instance, the combat personnel of the 3rd armored brigade of Fort Carson has recently conducted military games aimed at getting soldiers ready for a direct military confrontation with Russia. In particular, it is indicated that the command of the 4th infantry division has deliberately changed the type of exercises that were initially aimed at preparing the military personnel for asymmetrical warfare.
According to a recent statement of US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Wess Mitchell, American diplomacy toward Russia must be backed by “military power that is second to none and fully integrated with our allies and all of our instruments of power.”
According to The National Interest, the Pentagon is fast-tracking newly configured Stryker vehicles armed with Stinger and Hellfire missiles to counter Russia, while adding that there could not be plainer signals that the Pentagon and its sub-branch in Brussels are escalating toward conflict.
A pivotal role in those war preparations is being played by the MSM, as media has considerable ability to influence public opinion. Such a capacity to shape the overall narrative is not a trivial power. An irresponsible press can, and has, whipped up public sentiment in favor of military actions that subsequent evidence indicated were unnecessary and even immoral.
It’s been pointed out that irresponsible media coverage has undoubtedly strengthened public sentiment for ill-advised wars in the past, and it could do so again in the future. The sometimes shrill hostility of the mainstream media towards Russia is pushing the United States toward an increasingly hard-line policy that now borders on a Second Cold War.
It’s clear that US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley was influenced by anti-Russian hysteria, when she announced in one of her interviews that the Russian Federation will never be a friend of the United States.
Against this background, the recent piece released by the Foreign Policy Journal under the signature of David Swonson felt like a breath of fresh air. This critical thinker opens his articles with a notion that Russia must be a true friend of Washington to have put up with the US government’s international aggression for all these years. He would point out that it was Washington that drew the USSR into the Afghan war to make it suffer financial losses while the CIA was busy arming the Taliban. Further still, after the reunification of Germany, the United States and its allies made a firm promise to Moscow that NATO would not expand to the East, but the alliance started rolling east as soon the USSR was brought down. In recent decades, the notion that Russia represents a threat has become one of the main sources of income for American corporations, while the rest of us are being drawn closer to the prospect of a nuclear war.
So is it too late to try to talk some reason into the heads of those who were paid for their lip service but forgot to think for themselves first?
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”