The Coming War with Russia

[Argus]

David Pugliose is normally a very conservative commentator on military matters and not much given to flights of fancy, but in the following column the other day, he detailed a lot of concern with the tension between the West and Russia.

Despite Ukraine being largely ignored by the media today, fighting continues there, and the vast, ignorant peasantry of Russia has been taught that all its problems are the fault of the West, which is conspiring to destroy them. Their soulless leader Putin speaks openly of using nuclear weapons, and Russian and Nato militaries are back to the old cold war days of playing chicken in he skies and on the seas.

Over the last year, tensions have increased to the point where Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkevics warned that Russian-Western relations had sunk to their lowest level since the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-coming-war-with-russia

[waldo]

and before Crimea... before the Ukraine... NATO was, it appears to many, purposely increasing tensions by expanding the NATO alliance towards Russian borders. How does that play in Russia... to the Russian people (the "ignorant peasantry" as you call them)?

[poochy]

I simply dont believe that Russian forces are in any shape to fight a serious war, recently much of their air force was grounded due to 3 separate crashes.

[WIP]

I simply dont believe that Russian forces are in any shape to fight a serious war, recently much of their air force was grounded due to 3 separate crashes.

Are you including the F-35?

Any nation with thousands of nukes can destroy the world several times over, and yet the US has been following a strategy of encircling and breaking up Russia into smaller, more manageable nation-states. How the hell do you think Russia overwhelmingly elected a military hardliner in the first place? Most Russian federal leaders getting in position to replace Yeltsin in the early 90's, were so against further war in Chechnya and Dagestan that they were willing to grant autonomy and be done with them. Putin was the only warhawk talking about sending in the troops to subdue the ethnic, oil-rich territories.

And Putin's continued high popular support within Russia has somewhat to do with improving economy...genuflecting to the Russian Orthodox Church and other nationalist tropes, but mostly because the average Russian can plainly see that they were lied to by the Americans when they were told NATO would not expand into former Soviet Bloc nations after their Warsaw Pact was dissolved....and, well the rest is history!

The war in the Ukraine is likely the single most misrepresented conflict in western media around today! And the big reason is because our limited mainstream frame of political debate is between conservative Neocons and liberal Neocons. This is why so many disastrous regime change fiascos under Obama have gone with little or no criticism from the right. For example: Libya.

One Republican after another drones on and on about Benghazi, Benghazi, because of the assault on a consulate in the eastern Libyan city, but never, ever question the policy to force Qadaffi out of power even though most of the senior staff in the CIA and Defense Dept. told Hillary and her minions (Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Victoria Nuland) it would be safer to leave Qadaffi in power. They pushed on with the strategy that has not only destabilized Libya and turned it into an Al Qaeda base, but the billions of dollars of loose arms have caused fighting all through West Africa and the Middle East.....leading to thousands of refugees risking their lives trying to get to Europe!

The Ukraine was another managed civil war scripted by $5 billion through US NGO's operating there under the guidance (again) of Victoria (Yatz is our man) Nuland! But where the hell has the right wing been in criticizing this dangerous operation? Nowhere because they would have done the same damn thing...just like in Libya! The Orange Revolution brought the worst nazi organizations like the Right Sector and Svoboda to prominence, and as the takeover of non-compliant eastern provinces stalls out, the fascist movements which dominate the army and militias are threatening to take their war to Kiev and overthrow Poroshenko...and put him on trial. The only thing keeping him in power is more money coming in from the US to prop up his bankrupt regime.

And what was it all for? Behind the scenes, Ukraine politics has been run by seven billionaires in the poorest nation in Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the billionaires (like Poroshenko) are in the west...don't do business with Russia and wanted stronger ties with the Eurozone. But the richest man in the Ukraine - Rinat Akhmetov was from the east, and owned just about everything worth owning in Eastern Ukraine. His political representatives kept the doors open with Russia because Akhmetov's business (coal, steel production, shipping) depended on Russian markets. After the overthrow of the former government, Akhmetov was the guy trying to negotiate his way out of the war the West had planned on to separate Ukraine from Russia. He even had his oversized private "security" forces in the streets of Donetsk (the largest city in the east, keeping the rebel militia from taking over the government buildings.

But negotiations were not in the cards, and Akhmetov's status has been drastically reduced as his largest former assets in the east have either been destroyed in the war or nationalized by the provisional government who say he will never get them back! So, all he's got left is the eastern port city of Mariupol, which the Kiev regime may lose eventually also, since most of that city is Russian or Russian-speaking and the rebels will likely take it if the US loses it's resolve and starts deciding that Kiev isn't worth all the money they have sunk into it.

For Putin's part, he's going to keep supplying arms to the highly motivated rebels in the east, since his costs of war are a fraction of what the US is investing in the conflict, and he's already made it clear that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO and host NATO troops on its soil without it being declared an act of war.

So, I'm glad that piece notes some of the important details that usually get overlooked in our media, like the US encirclement strategy and the nukes....it's about damned time somebody said something about the aggressive actions on the borders of a nuclear-armed state! Earlier this year, Obama committed the US to spend one trillion-with-a-T Dollars over the next 10 to 20 years refurbishing America's nuclear and missile arsenals. At the end of the Cold War, these were things we thought would end or wind down and be relegated to the past as we focused on new concerns. But here we are today, closer to full scale nuclear war than at any time in previous history. And most of the reason is because the Cold War generals and Defense Dept. staff of the 50's through the 70's were almost all WWII veterans. They had seen total war in their youth, and regardless of what they thought of the Soviet Union, they knew from first hand experience how bad war can be!

But what does the US have today as it pushes for more and more aggressive military tactics mostly to leverage economic aims: a bunch of chickenhawks who want to prove their machismo by sending other people to fight and die or send robots to do the job of killing others (I wonder where all that terrorism is coming from!). And the ultimate chickenhawk of all, is sitting right there in the White House...his Nobel Peace Prize likely close by, and selecting targets from a stack of baseball cards, and signing on to every regime change idea that's passed his desk so far!

Edited August 23, 2015 by WIP

[bush_cheney2004]

... Earlier this year, Obama committed the US to spend one trillion-with-a-T Dollars over the next 10 to 20 years refurbishing America's nuclear and missile arsenals. At the end of the Cold War, these were things we thought would end or wind down and be relegated to the past as we focused on new concerns.

No, "we" didn't think any such thing. Canada does not determine U.S. nuclear weapons policy...it just profits from it, just like the Vietnam War.

Canada continued to mine and export uranium for processing as part of the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear weapons production. Depleted uranium for kinetic energy munitions (e.g. long rod penetrators) was just a bonus.

Edited August 23, 2015 by bush_cheney2004

[Topaz]

It's said there is 3 sides to the truth yours, theirs and the truth. The Ukraine is a mess and what started all this and what is the truth behind it. I found a very interesting article by a Canadian author and please read this very long article and see if you agree or disagree with him. You will also be educated what you read. http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-americas-lebensraum-is-washington-preparing-to-wage-war-on-russia/5431970

[eyeball]

David Pugliose is normally a very conservative commentator on military matters and not much given to flights of fancy, but in the following column the other day, he detailed a lot of concern with the tension between the West and Russia.

The tension is fundamentally attributable to the fact that the planet's economic water-hole isn't getting any bigger. It should be no wonder why the animals, especially the greediest ones, aren't getting any friendlier but apparently it's still a baffling mystery.

I wouldn't expect very many conservatives including the author of the above or Putin to get this or what to do about it even if they did which is why throwing bombs and waves of civilians at their problems is easier and always comes more naturally.

[Derek 2.0]

I simply dont believe that Russian forces are in any shape to fight a serious war, recently much of their air force was grounded due to 3 separate crashes.

No real difference with the majority of NATO forces either......though the West's technological lead over Russia has further widened, the Russians still have deep, deep reserves, due in part to decades of 24/7/365 production of armaments and munitions.........A conventional war with the Russians, though of lesser scope, could be expected to go much the same as an expected war with the Soviets ~30 years ago.

NATO with a semblance of air superiority over the battlefield, a ground war of high-tech attrition with the Poles replacing the West Germans, playing the role of speed bump, and the war being decided by logistics.......with the Russians having to resupply overland, well contending with continuous NATO airstrikes, with NATO reliant upon material crossing the Atlantic, shepherd by NATO navies, fending off a diminished Russian submarine threat, with a greatly reduced perspicacity to conduct anti-submarine warfare......

[Argus]

and before Crimea... before the Ukraine... NATO was, it appears to many, purposely increasing tensions by expanding the NATO alliance towards Russian borders. How does that play in Russia... to the Russian people (the "ignorant peasantry" as you call them)?

NATO at one point even spoke of incorporating Russia. It is not like it's anything but a defensive treaty organization. Russia didn't see it as much of a threat until Putin took over, and the very notion that the West would invade Russia is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Putin is doing pretty much what Hitler did in creating a foreign bogeyman to justify his ramp up of military spending. His attack on Crimea and Ukraine are portrayed as a great patriotic act. Russian media, pretty much completely under Putin's thumb, pumps out the grand patriotic military theme every day, and it's working. Russians are united behind Putin and believe the West is attacking Russia.

[Argus]

It's said there is 3 sides to the truth yours, theirs and the truth. The Ukraine is a mess and what started all this and what is the truth behind it. I found a very interesting article by a Canadian author and please read this very long article and see if you agree or disagree with him. You will also be educated what you read. http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-americas-lebensraum-is-washington-preparing-to-wage-war-on-russia/5431970

Globalresearch is a loony site full of loony commentators, and not something you can honestly use as a cite for anything.

[Argus]

No real difference with the majority of NATO forces either......though the West's technological lead over Russia has further widened, the Russians still have deep, deep reserves, due in part to decades of 24/7/365 production of armaments and munitions.........A conventional war with the Russians, though of lesser scope, could be expected to go much the same as an expected war with the Soviets ~30 years ago.

NATO with a semblance of air superiority over the battlefield, a ground war of high-tech attrition with the Poles replacing the West Germans, playing the role of speed bump, and the war being decided by logistics.......with the Russians having to resupply overland, well contending with continuous NATO airstrikes, with NATO reliant upon material crossing the Atlantic, shepherd by NATO navies, fending off a diminished Russian submarine threat, with a greatly reduced perspicacity to conduct anti-submarine warfare......

You're talking like it would be a broad invasion of the West and that's most unlikely to happen. Much more likely would be a decision to take back Ukraine - all of it, or Georgia, or the Baltic states. Putin still believes they should be part of the Russian empire, and he's made no bones about it. Do you think Nato could dislodge the red army if it moved into Latvia, Lithiana and Estonia? Would they even try? The fighting would be over same day, and then the Russians would simply squat there. Would the US be willing to start a long sealift to get tanks and planes over to the Baltics and fight a war with Russia, destroying the Baltic cities along the way?

[Argus]

So, I'm glad that piece notes some of the important details that usually get overlooked in our media, like the US encirclement strategy and the nukes....it's about damned time somebody said something about the aggressive actions on the borders of a nuclear-armed state! Earlier this year, Obama committed the US to spend one trillion-with-a-T Dollars over the next 10 to 20 years refurbishing America's nuclear and missile arsenals.

I really don't get what it is with you Lefties that any time there's talk of a confrontation between any nation on Earth, however vile and corrupt, and the West, you immediately start ranting about idiotic conspiracy theories of the West, and how it's always the West's fault, especially the great Satan US. Why don't you people just go live in the autocratic states you seem to cherish when you despise the West so much?

[bush_cheney2004]

I really don't get what it is with you Lefties that any time there's talk of a confrontation between any nation on Earth, however vile and corrupt, and the West, you immediately start ranting about idiotic conspiracy theories of the West, and how it's always the West's fault, especially the great Satan US. Why don't you people just go live in the autocratic states you seem to cherish when you despise the West so much?

Agreed.....the Russian Federation just annexed part of another nation with military force, but the West is the bad guy ?

[Argus]

Agreed.....the Russian Federation just annexed part of another nation with military force, but the West is the bad guy ?

The West is ALWAYS the bad guy, no matter how murderous and evil the opposition is. Even with ISIS which brags about committing genocide, burns prisoners alive, and rapes and enslaves little girls, the West is the bad guy,

Edited August 23, 2015 by Argus

[Derek 2.0]

You're talking like it would be a broad invasion of the West and that's most unlikely to happen. Much more likely would be a decision to take back Ukraine - all of it, or Georgia, or the Baltic states. Putin still believes they should be part of the Russian empire, and he's made no bones about it.

Its no different than believed past Soviet aims, which through an invasion of Western Europe, would see the then Soviet Empire secured by politically and economically muting their enemies..........if remaining conventional, Putin still has the material and force structure to march on Paris inside a few months against a NATO that is greatly reduced in size and politically divided.

If Putin's aim is to reunite all ethnic Russians in the Baltic under a single flag, this could likely be achieved through subterfuge and not so overt political gamesmanship with the affected nations and the West/NATO.

Do you think Nato could dislodge the red army if it moved into Latvia, Lithiana and Estonia?

Physically yes, politically is the part that is open to debate.........in not doing so, that would be the end of NATO.

Would they even try?

At this point, with the fractured leadership in many European nations, and the questionable resolve of the Obama administration, I would think the most likely outcome would be another round of toothless sanctions on a Russia that supplies the majority of Europe's energy.....

The fighting would be over same day, and then the Russians would simply squat there.

Using much the same tactics and equipment, with only slightly better training, then Iraqi forces in Kuwait........fighting the Russians isn't the problem, having the will to fight the Russians is.

Would the US be willing to start a long sealift to get tanks and planes over to the Baltics and fight a war with Russia, destroying the Baltic cities along the way?

That depends on who is sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and the reaction of the majority of NATO........

Edited August 23, 2015 by Derek 2.0

[Big Guy]

Are you including the F-35?

Any nation with thousands of nukes can destroy the world several times over,e Prize likely close by, and selecting targets from a stack of baseball cards, and signing on to every regime change idea that's passed his desk so far!

Although I seldom read anything over 400 words I took a chance on yours and am better for it. While I do not agree with all of your analysis, I do agree with what you have described as facts of what has been happening on the ground.

Thank you for taking the time to research and present this interesting opinion.

[CITIZEN_2015]

No Russians are the bad guys. Their history is filled with atrocities even against their own people during the Bolshevik revolution. Fascist murderous leaders like Stalin, invasion and occupation of independent seeking countries such as Hungry and Czechoslovakia , Afghanistan supporting the most repressive regimes and terrorist leftist movements, abandoning their allies at the time of need and replacing them by killing their own past servants. Russia has never been a democracy but a dictatorship and still is to lesser extend.

[eyeball]

I really don't get what it is with you Lefties that any time there's talk of a confrontation between any nation on Earth, however vile and corrupt, and the West, you immediately start ranting about idiotic conspiracy theories of the West, and how it's always the West's fault, especially the great Satan US. Why don't you people just go live in the autocratic states you seem to cherish when you despise the West so much?

That's funny we don't have the same problem getting it that righties are always hot to trot for war. So why don't you people just go fight them and leave the rest of us out of it. Put your own money where your mouth is and sell some war bonds while you're at.

[WIP]

The tension is fundamentally attributable to the fact that the planet's economic water-hole isn't getting any bigger. It should be no wonder why the animals, especially the greediest ones, aren't getting any friendlier but apparently it's still a baffling mystery.

I wouldn't expect very many conservatives including the author of the above or Putin to get this or what to do about it even if they did which is why throwing bombs and waves of civilians at their problems is easier and always comes more naturally.

The animals around the shrinking watering hole today are capitalists coming to the realization that waging war may be the only way they can continue increasing their profits. Arms manufacture is a lucrative monopoly business backed by government, and though the nations destroyed by war come out losers, if rebuilding is in the cards for them, that's a whole nother profit-making enterprise!

The big elephant at this watering hole (USA) wants to control all the water; and seems willing to risk nuclear annihilation to prevent smaller elephants like Russia and China from getting any more water.

[WIP]

NATO at one point even spoke of incorporating Russia. It is not like it's anything but a defensive treaty organization. Russia didn't see it as much of a threat until Putin took over, and the very notion that the West would invade Russia is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Putin is doing pretty much what Hitler did in creating a foreign bogeyman to justify his ramp up of military spending. His attack on Crimea and Ukraine are portrayed as a great patriotic act. Russian media, pretty much completely under Putin's thumb, pumps out the grand patriotic military theme every day, and it's working. Russians are united behind Putin and believe the West is attacking Russia.

Thanks for rewriting history! Crimea had always been Russian territory..as it has a majority Russian population. And it was handed off to Ukraine by Kruschev back in the Soviet Union days when the Republican administrations had no real power or importance. As soon as the Soviet Union fell, there was a conflict between Ukraine and Russia regarding Russia's military bases there.

What was NATO supposed to defend against after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact? It's precisely because of NATO expansion east and south of Russia that we have Cold War 2.0.. NATO is just America and its vassal states. Russia would never have joined NATO, even if offered, because it would have meant following US objectives!

[WIP]

No Russians are the bad guys. Their history is filled with atrocities even against their own people during the Bolshevik revolution. Fascist murderous leaders like Stalin, invasion and occupation of independent seeking countries such as Hungry and Czechoslovakia , Afghanistan supporting the most repressive regimes and terrorist leftist movements, abandoning their allies at the time of need and replacing them by killing their own past servants. Russia has never been a democracy but a dictatorship and still is to lesser extend.

When I was growing up during the Cold War years, we were led to believe that the problem was communism....that Russians were okay and would be our friends if they could overthrow communism and become a capitalist democracy. Thanks for confirming that right wing ideology means war regardless of changing conditions.

[WIP]

Although I seldom read anything over 400 words I took a chance on yours and am better for it. While I do not agree with all of your analysis, I do agree with what you have described as facts of what has been happening on the ground.

Thank you for taking the time to research and present this interesting opinion.

Thanks. I wanted to add in all of the facts that are left out of our MSM reports here, and make note of the obvious: what's good for us is not necessarily good for everyone else! There are other countries out there with their own national concerns.

[TimG]

Any nation with thousands of nukes can destroy the world several times over, and yet the US has been following a strategy of encircling and breaking up Russia into smaller, more manageable nation-states.

This is nothing but pure Russian propaganda that makes the rest of your post hard to take seriously. The USSR broke a part because it was a collection of many nations that had no attachment to Russia. That is not the West's fault. Those new nations are scared of Russia and saw NATO as a way to protect against Russia who invaded them in the past. These former states wanted to join NATO more than NATO wanted them. And why shouldn't they? What bizarre logic leads you to conclude that these nations should not be allowed to join NATO if that is what they wanted? Do you believe that these nations are not real nations but puppets of Russia? I know that is what Putin believes and his apologists in the West. If Russia feels 'encircled' by a purely defensive alliance then that is testament to the small minded nature of the leadership. It is not the West's fault that Russia is led by children with nukes. Edited August 24, 2015 by TimG

[bush_cheney2004]

Thanks for rewriting history! Crimea had always been Russian territory..as it has a majority Russian population. And it was handed off to Ukraine by Kruschev back in the Soviet Union days when the Republican administrations had no real power or importance. As soon as the Soviet Union fell, there was a conflict between Ukraine and Russia regarding Russia's military bases there....

Using such logic, France should immediately annex Quebec.

[Argus]

That's funny we don't have the same problem getting it that righties are always hot to trot for war. So why don't you people just go fight them and leave the rest of us out of it. Put your own money where your mouth is and sell some war bonds while you're at.

Recognizing a threat or potential threat does not equate to wanting to go to war. In fact, recognizing and preparing for a threat are a lot less likely to result in war than sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away.