Friday 22nd of November 2024
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a suicide pact….

NATONATO

The prime ministers of Sweden and Finland, Magdalena Andersson and Sanna Marin, both signaled Wednesday that they will likely be applying for membership in NATO.


The "prospect" is most "welcome," says The Washington Post: "Finland and Sweden Should Join NATO."

The editorial was titled "A Way To Punish Putin."

Before joining the rejoicing in NATO capitals, we might inspect what NATO membership for these two Nordic nations would mean for the United States.

 

by patrick j. buchanan

Finland is a nation the size of Germany, but with a population only 4% of that of Russia and a border with Russia that is 830 miles long.

Should Finland join NATO, the United States, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, would be obligated to go to war with the world’s largest nuclear power to retrieve Finnish lands that an enraged Russia might grab.

Moscow has already indicated that, should Sweden and Finland join NATO, Russia will introduce new nuclear weapons into the Baltic region.

Why is it wise for us to formally agree, in perpetuity, as NATO is a permanent alliance, to go to war with Russia, for Finland?

Given the war in Ukraine and concomitant crisis in Eastern Europe, it is understandable why Stockholm and Helsinki would seek greater security beneath the US nuclear umbrella.

But why would we voluntarily agree to give Sweden and Finland these war guarantees? Why would we commit to go to war with Putin’s Russia, a war that could, and likely would, escalate to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially if Russia were losing?

Finland was neutral during the Cold War. Sweden has been neutral since the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century.

How did we suffer from their neutrality?

In Helsinki and Stockholm, the benefit of a US-NATO commitment to go to war for Finland or Sweden is understandable.

But how does it benefit our country, the USA, to be obligated to go to war with a nation that commands the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons – over some quarrel in the Baltic Sea or Gulf of Finland that does not affect us?

Asked for his view on Sweden and Finland’s campaign to join NATO, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had a note of warning:

"We have repeatedly said that the (NATO) alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation and its further expansion will not bring stability to the European continent."

Should Putin’s Russia clash with Finland or Sweden today, the US is free to respond, or not to respond, as it sees fit, depending on our own assessment of risks and rewards.

Why not keep it that way? Why surrender our freedom of action in some future collision involving our main adversary?

History holds lessons for us here.

In March 1939, six months after Munich, when Czechoslovakia disintegrated into its ethnic components, Britain issued an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, then negotiating with Germany over the port city of Danzig taken from Germany by the victorious Allies after World War I.

When Germany, on Sept. 1, 1939, invaded Poland, Britain was obligated to declare war on Germany over a matter that was not a vital interest of Great Britain or its worldwide empire.

Lest we forget, it was the Bucharest Declaration of 2008, opening the door to membership in NATO for Ukraine and Georgia, that led to the recent crises in Eastern Europe and the current war.

The Russia-Georgia War of August 2008, the US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, Putin’s annexation of Crimea, and claiming of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine all proceeded from NATO’s decision in 2008 to open the door to membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is partly due to the US and Ukraine’s refusal to rule out NATO membership for Kyiv.

No NATO nation today has a border with Russia nearly as long as that of Finland. If Finland joins NATO, will we put US boots on the ground along that 830-mile border with Russia? Will US warplanes fly in and out of Finnish airfields and air bases up to the border of Russia?

Collective security is said to be a good idea.

But the core of NATO security is provided by US war guarantees, while most of the collecting is done by our 29 NATO allies, which could become 31 by summer’s end.

Otto von Bismarck predicted that the Great War, when it came, would be ignited by "some damn fool thing in the Balkans."

And World War I was indeed triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo in June 1914. The Germans came in in part because the Kaiser had given Austria a "blank check" for war.

What enabled America to stay out of both world wars for years after they began was our freedom of "entangling alliances" when they began.

But today we not only lead an alliance of 30 nations, but we are adding two more members, one of which has a border of 830 miles with Russia.

How long does our luck last?

 



Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

hor and cold parity...

 

Let's pray the ‘Cold War’ between America and Russia doesn't turn hot

 

The Cold War, a term coined 75 years ago, is still here – and it’s better than what seems to be the only alternative

 

BY Robert Bridge — an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream. @Robert_Bridge

 

In April 1947, the term ‘Cold War’ was uttered for the first time to describe the geopolitical rift between the US and the Soviet Union.

The confrontation supposedly ended with the fall of the USSR. But did the cessation of tensions happen only in our imagination?

While Washington and Moscow made invincible allies in the battle against Nazi Germany, the two ideological foes could no longer conceal their mutual enmity when World War II came to a close in 1945. Then, a severe chill swept the planet for nearly half a century that many feared would end in nuclear disaster.

Seventy-five years ago this month, Bertrand Baruch, the American financier and statesman, coined the term ‘Cold War’ to describe this protracted standoff. Speaking before a delegation of US lawmakers, Baruch, foreshadowing the Red Scare of the McCarthy years, told his audience: “Let us not be deceived, we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success.”

Historians tend to agree that the Cold War began in 1947 with the so-called Truman Doctrine, a program of ‘containment’ against America’s arch enemy as recommended by the US diplomat George Kennan, until December 26, 1991, when the Soviet Union gave up the ghost. Others argue that it actually began as early as 1945 when Washington dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II.

That dreadful act, which took Moscow and the world by surprise, compelled Joseph Stalin to ramp up the Soviet nuclear program. On August 29, 1949, Moscow tested its first nuclear weapon, thereby achieving strategic balance with the US.

 

For millions of people around the world, this was the start of the real Cold War, a veritable nightmare out of Dr. Strangelove that saw two nuclear-armed camps locked in an ideological battle over their preferred -isms. In the US, as in the USSR, schoolchildren regularly participated in emergency drills (cowering under wooden desks apparently protected one from radiation) in preparation for the totally unthinkable.

Perhaps the closest the world has ever come to a full-scale nuclear war was during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (called the 'Caribbean Crisis' in Russia), which saw US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev take nerve-wracking steps to walk away from a standoff without losing face that involved removing American ballistic missiles from Turkey and Soviet missiles from Cuba.

Fast forward 30 years and the USSR was relegated to the history books. What remains questionable, however, is whether the Cold War joined it there, or are we merely living through a continuation of those dark times?

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia faced the monumental challenge of transitioning from a command-and-control economy to a market one. At this point, Russians and Americans put aside their past animosities (personified by the jovial relationship between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin) as Western advisers arrived on the scene to help reform the economy. The fruits of those efforts have been hotly disputed ever since.

Employing the so-called “shock therapy” techniques of IMF-sponsored liberalization, Russia gave up price controls and state subsidies while offering a “loan for shares” scheme for privatizing previously public-owned assets. The end result was, among other disasters, massive inflation, unemployment, endemic poverty, the rise of an oligarchic class and an unprecedented surge in the death rate, which at least one study blamed on the reckless rate of liberalization. Needless to say, this first instance of post-Soviet cooperation between Russia and America did not represent a promising start. Nor would things get better.

 

The pivotal moment in modern US-Russia relations came following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite Vladimir Putin being the first global leader to telephone US President George W. Bush and offer Russia’s unconditional support, Washington returned the gesture in a way that Moscow would not soon forget. Just a few short months later December 13, 2001, Bush gave formal notice that the US would be withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Signed by Moscow and Washington in 1972, the ABM treaty maintained strategic parity – and more importantly, peace – between the nuclear powers, a type of balancing act that has been described as ‘mutually assured destruction’.  

What did the US proceed to do shortly after walking away from the 30-year-old treaty? It went ahead with plans to bolt down a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in Poland, a mere stone's throw from the Russian border. To which they deployed soldiers this year.

“The U.S. Navy recently moved sailors aboard its newest base, a strategic installation in northern Poland that will support NATO’s European missile defense system,” Stars & Stripes reported in January. “Citing operational security, the Navy would not say how many personnel were assigned to the base or provide … details about the installation’s size or structure.”

Last year, Mikhail Khodarenok, a retired Russian colonel, discussed in an RT op-ed what this system means for Russia and European security.

“The development of the Aegis Ashore complex in Poland worries Russia,” Khodarenok wrote. “Here is the problem. The Mark 41 launching system can be quickly adjusted, and the SM-3 would be replaced with Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.”

 

What is Russia supposed to do in this situation, when such a transformation of the land-based Aegis system in Poland could pose a very real threat to its national security,” he asked.

Nobody should think, however, that Moscow has not been busy finding ways to respond to the US and NATO efforts at building anti-ballistic systems in Eastern Europe. In fact, Moscow immediately got to work on ways to overcome the US anti-missile systems once Washington pulled out of the ABM Treaty. Those efforts paid off in ways that the US may not have anticipated. 

In 2018, Putin delivered a rather unorthodox State of the Nation speech in which he announced the creation of hypersonic missiles that travel so fast that“missile defense systems are useless against them, absolutely pointless,” he said.

“No, nobody really wanted to talk to us about the core of the problem [US anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe], and nobody wanted to listen to us,” the Russian leader stated defiantly. “So listen now.”

Moscow’s concern over the strategic military architecture being constructed in its ‘near abroad’ is no secret. Back in 2007, Putin delivered a speech to the Munich Security Conference in which he emphasized that for Russia, NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” He went on to ask the rhetorical question: “against whom is this expansion intended?”

At this point, many more pages could be written on other areas of US-Russian relations that demonstrate the two nuclear superpowers may have survived the Soviet times, each in their own way, but the vestiges of the Cold War continue to live on. From unproven accusations that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election to Washington’s unconcealed displeasure over Russia’s decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war against Islamic State, tensions between the US and Russia are reverting back to Cold War levels, and then some.

And now, with hostilities in Ukraine threatening to spill over into something beyond control, it may be a good time to pray that it remains a Cold War and doesn't turn hot. 

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/553950-cold-war-never-ends/

 

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ending the conflict….

Turkey wants to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, while some other NATO members would like to see it drag on as a way to harm Russia, Ankara’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday in a TV interview. In a lengthy appearance on CNN Turk, Cavusoglu addressed Turkey’s decision not to sanction Moscow and why the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine failed, among other things.

“There are countries within NATO that want the Ukraine war to continue. They see the continuation of the war as weakening Russia. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine,” Cavusoglu said.

While he did not name any names, US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that the conflict in Ukraine “could continue for a long time,” which was echoed by the former CIA chief of Russian operations.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with G7 leaders on Tuesday that the West is united in not allowing Russia to win and determined to “continue to arm the Ukrainian military so that it can continue to defend itself against [Russian] attack.”

 

Turkey has decided not to join the US-led sanctions against Russia because they are unilateral, unlike the “binding sanctions decided at the UN,” Cavusoglu told CNN Turk. Ankara articulated its position on the first day of the Ukraine conflict, which is to continue diplomatic contacts with both sides, as “a country that both sides trust.”

While Turkey did not expect much after the first Russia-Ukraine talks in Antalya, “hopes were high” after the follow-up talks in Istanbul, Cavusoglu revealed. However, Ukraine backtracked from the agreement reached there after images of the alleged massacre in Bucha, which Kiev blamed on Russian troops. Moscow has denied the allegations.

Cavusogly also shed light on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demand for security guarantees from NATO.

“Nobody agrees with Zelensky's request for NATO's Article 5 guarantees,” the minister said, referring to the alliance’s famous mutual defense clause. “No country has accepted this proposal. The US, UK and Canada do not accept this either. Of course, Turkey does not accept this. In principle, no one opposes this guarantee, but the terms of it are not clear.”

Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/554248-turkey-ukraine-talks-sanctions/

 

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the NATO viper...

A seismic shift has taken place in Finland in the two months since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops and tanks across the border into Ukraine. 

The small Nordic country shares a 1,300-kilometre border with Russia and has long been wary of provoking its powerful neighbour to the east.

Finland, like Ukraine, is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) despite maintaining close defence cooperation with the organisation.

Instead, the country is officially non-aligned militarily and has steadfastly maintained its independence for decades.

But as Russian troops have besieged cities, bombed hospitals and allegedly committed war crimes against Ukraine, internal support for Finland's current security position has dramatically changed.

Rather than being cowed by Putin's aggression, the invasion has driven the Nordic country into the warm embrace of NATO.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-23/putin-russia-what-will-happen-if-finland-and-sweden-join-nato/100998040

 

The "warm embrace" of NATO? Who writes this shit? Ah, Lucia Stein (Jewish?*) in London... Joining NATO is like being squeezed by a viper and a boa at the same time, to avoid being brushed off by a badger...

 

Yes, FASCISM IS ALIVE and WELL under NATO... And Putin would not care less, except he would have to have a few more nukes at the ready should NATO behave badly....

 

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See also: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

 

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* by this I do not mean a racist comment, but a cultural brainwashing possibility....

crooked NATO....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfSS-dzucsU

How to Stop WORLD WAR III...

[GUS SAYS: DISMANTLE NATO AND KISS]....

 

The original goal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), according to its first Secretary General, was "to keep the Soviets out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

 

Today, the Soviet Union is gone, the United States is dominant, and Germany is de-industrializing. Has NATO achieved its goals? If so, why does it still exist? And why did Fidel Castro call it “the most perfidious instrument of repression known to mankind”?

 

For Episode 6 of “The International,” a world-spanning video series brought to you by Jacobin and the @ProgIntl, journalist Abby Martin examines NATO’s global footprint and explains why this “defensive alliance” might end up causing World War III.

 

Subscribe to the channel, hit the like button and notification bell to stay up to date with upcoming episodes of “The International.”

 

Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. Find out more at https://jacobin.com/ and https://twitter.com/jacobin.

 

The Progressive International unites, organizes, and mobilizes progressive forces around the world. Find out more at https://progressive.international/ and https://twitter.com/progintl.

 

Subscribe to Jacobin in print for just $10: https://jacobin.com/subscribe

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

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