On Friday, NATO leaders agreed to the deployment of military forces to Eastern Europe to bolster Baltic states against the threat of Russian incursion.
Following the launch of the Western alliance’s unprecedented military exercise known as Anakonda-16 — ten days of war games in Poland involving some 30,000 troops from over 20 NATO member nations — the announcement backs up posturing over supposed Russian aggression in the region.
Anakonda-16 has been described as the largest military exercise since the Cold War — but Russian President Vladimir Putin has understandably perceived such moves as aggressive and a threat, with Russian officials referring to the exercise as “the summer of provocation.”
As areas along the border with Russia grow tense, NATO’s mixed messages about the deployment indicate the situation could explode at any time.
“These battalions will be robust and they will be multinational,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference following the first session of the alliance summit, Reuters reported. “They make clear that an attack on one ally will be considered an attack on the whole alliance.”
In fact, the announcement to deploy four battalions — consisting of between 3,000 to 4,000 troops, 1,000 of whom will come from the U.S. — has been expected since June, when chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Petr Pavel, claimed troop buildup would remain limited because no imminent threat from Russia exists.
“Deployment of substantial military force is not being considered,” Reuters reported Pavel said at the time.
It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing.
Now, however, as Reuters reports, the announcement codifies explicitly the Russian threat to Baltic states and Poland as the reason for that deployment.
Western — and particularly, U.S. — sabre-rattling in the area has placed Putin on the defensive.
As America celebrated Independence Day, Zero Hedge cited Russian news agency TAAS, that Putin — responding to last month’s deployment by the United States of two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean — “will respond to the double aircraft escalation, by deploying its own aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsoz, to Syria where its unofficial role will be as a counterpoint to U.S. naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean.”
NATO war games and troop deployment must be viewed contextually in light of correspondence from 2014, revealed earlier this month, from former head of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander of Europe of NATO, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, to senior advisor to the Atlantic Council, Harlan Ullman, which stated:
I think POTUS sees us as a threat that must be minimized,… ie do not get me into a war????
Breedlove, who earlier this year called Russia “a long-term existential threat to the United States and our European allies” — and whose reputation for hawkishness on Ukraine and Russia was well known — claimed he’d been hacked “several times,” intimating the emails may not be authentic. But, if valid, the correspondence clearly indicates a belligerent stance underpinning NATO’s actions with the U.S.’ old Cold War foe.
Breaking with other NATO member nations, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier sided with Russia in denouncing the Anakonda-16 exercise as heightening the possibility of all-out military conflict.
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“What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through sabre-rattling and warmongering,” Steinmeier cautioned in an interview published by German newspaper, Bild am Sonntag.
Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken. We are well-advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation.
Steinmeier added it would be “fatal to now narrow the focus to the military, and seek a remedy solely through a policy of deterrence.”
As precipitous as such sabre-rattling might be, in February, Ret. U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski offered insight in an interview on why the U.S. continues to stir hostilities with Russia.
“The Pentagon needs and wants Russia to be the next big enemy that they are arming against it, budgeting against it, that they are arming,” Kwiatkowski explained. “Certainly we have talked for a long time about China and China plays an important role as the enemy of choice for the U.S. military. But Russia is ideal in part, because we don’t import a lot of things from Russia, in part because we don’t have the debt relationship with Russia that we do with China. So, Russia makes for a very convenient enemy for the Pentagon in terms of its mission, its budgeting, and its intelligence organization.
“The Pentagon needs that kind of enemy. And [U.S. Secretary of Defense] Ashton Carter, if you listen to what he says continually — even from the beginning of time he was put in office — his job is fundraising, just like the university president’s job is not education but rather fundraising. Ashton Carter’s job is also fundraising, and he fundraises through the process of identifying, pushing, and delivering up an enemy that will justify their budgets.”
Despite Kwiatkowski’s explanation of China as an inconvenient enemy to provoke, the U.S. hasn’t ceased in the escalating tensions with that nation, either.
After the deployment of a number of U.S. warships to the hotly-contested waters of the South China Sea, China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced, also on July 4th, it would be conducting its own military exercises from July 5 through July 11.
“The drills are a very symbolic expression of China’s resolve,” Zhu Feng, dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Nanjing University, told TIME. “It is definitely also responding to the recent American warships patrolling the South China Sea.”
China even claimed it would be ready to fight U.S. aggression — and would be backed by Russia in the event support became necessary.
While the U.S. boils over with outrage following the prominent killings by police of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the subsequent murders of five police officers during an otherwise peaceful protest of those deaths, NATO and the U.S. inch ever-closer to a third world war that appears otherwise preventable — if Western leaders would simply put down their sabres.
Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.
At some point we need to ask ourselves if we’re not being led to WWIII by the military/industrial complex? Because that’s what this seems like to me. If I were Putin I would be highly incensed by the U.S. putting missiles on my borders, just as we were when the USSR planted nukes in Cuba.
How would we receive it if Russia had battle ships forming in the Gulf of Mexico?
This is BS … NATO is the aggressor, not Russia. This is all for the benefit of the sheeple that don’t pay attention and don’t care to.
First, NATO/USA demonize (Sadam Hussein, Gaddafi, Milosevic, Putin), then, they impose economic sanctions and at the end they attack!
American people, are you going to watch and do nothing? If you remain passive – your children will be the next victims !
John Perkins well describes the dirty details of this escalation process in his partly autobiographical book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
While the US strategy Perkins describes for controlling countries for the profit of the oligarchs may not be directly specific to all the examples you mentioned- particularly Russia- his work is useful in understanding American goals and policies.
The Swiss lawyer, Dick Marty, proved in his report that Kosovo’s “president” Tachi is involved in traficking of human (Serbian) organs ! The Council of Europe has adopted the organ-trafficking report presented by Dick Marty : http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/council-adopts-dick-marty-s-kosovo-report/29328740 But, it is allowed to the criminal Tachi to remain the Kosovo “president” and even to form a new Albanian Muslims Army that will do another crimes aganist humanity, burn more Serbian churches and take more organs : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5SkGpIKDs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZP0ExmJ9a0 ? What is the aim ? To kill all Slavonic people ? It seems that 30 000 000 Russians lives in WWII were not enough ? Serbian lives do not matter either ?
Could we not prevent more crimes or use our Armies to fight real evil ? … instead helping criiminals all around the world? Have USA not supported Pinoche in Chile? Most of evil dictators?
USA Army, strength, politcs, music, arts… are kidnapped by satanists ! People have to remain silent ?
There are people who oppose this in the US. It is the government that just dos whatever it wants. And the people who do or say nothing have been deceived into thinking that this bull is a good idea. Our country is divided. And those that have a clue as to what is going on are made to look crazy, or lie a traitor.
Obama has only one card left to play (WW3) to rule forever, and escape the economic shitstorm he’s caused.
So he wants us in Europe to fight Russia. I hope they nuke Washington, and Tel Aviv.
As long as the idiots who enlist are not in short supply the globalists will continue to use them as canon fodder…
If D.C.’s owners in Tel Aviv are “nuked” by a nation (not “servicing” them as D.C. is) to avoid that U.S. made NUCLEAR ROGUE STATE from initiating their Samson Option, one can only hope Christian/Muslim Palestinians are somehow warned and U.S. borders are closed to Ashkenazi “refugees” using certificates of ownership of the Judas Class in D.C. as passports. We could sit in awe as mushroom clouds of “Karma” rise up to the sky.
I pray and hope that this will be end of globalism and let the ICC trials begin…
What kinda stupid headline is this above.
murica is’ part of nato, which it shouldn’t be.
murica is south west atlantic, an north T east of china/russia.
Canada has a claim though.#
I think that all the only sane European countries should declare war on NATO, now. and have BREEDLOVE, STOLTENBERG, declared war criminals and Medicaly Insane,
This steady military buildup is not happening merely for show of strength. I suspect that they are going to take Putin out, and be swift in providing military support to the puppet that takes over.
Or, they’re going to invade Syria corner-to-corner and push out the Russians by force. This second scenario is plausible, considering that Canadian and European soldiers are gradually pouring in Iraq and Syria.
For the West, killing fields have no boundaries.
This was among the debates, among (us) philosophers back in the 80’s. E.g. China, Russia and Europe would unilaterally command the US Military Complex to either allow them to build many bases (of their own) on US soil, or, the US must not have any bases off of US soil; to effectively dismantle The World Police! If other countries want to make war with one another, who is the US-MC to intervene? That’s right, the bully on the playground! Because the bully is big, he uses that bigness to impose his own will upon others weaker than him: That’s the definition of the word Bully!
Such political-level posturing is analogous to the pushing and shoving of 3 or 4 bullies on the playground, jockeying for power; flexing the muscles; showing off their bravery: You don’t scare me! But in money-economics, profit and budgets, and all other ways and means of securing monies; this is the core motivation, even if human lives are at stake. The wealth-class rule Earth; always have, and will continue to, for decades to come: They run the chessboard, and we (including Pentagon employees) are their players. Imagine all that land to drill oil upon, and the mining operations, all waiting up there in Russia. It’s a capitalistic boner-maker!
America! The number one terrorist country in the world. Put Clinton in the mix and missiles will fly. Isn’t this fun news? Why has the people of Amerikca letting this happen? Oh, I forgot about the ‘boob tube and bought mainstream media’. Good job sheeple. Watch out for the ‘fallout’.
Many Americans are against this. Our country is divided. Those that appose our government are labelled terrorists themselves, and an enemy of the country. Our government has been highjacked by elitist psychopaths and with such a large population of people we are in no shortage of a large population of ignorance. The young in our poorer regions are targeted as recruits for the military. I am a single mom, and have been trying to arrange to get my 5 daughters to C.R. I hope the oldest of them will choose to join me. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. I don’t want to be in the US when the time comes for that fall out that some think they are immune to, or just don’t see anything at all.
This is how they establish the ‘boooogie man’ so long as their arsses are covered.
The u.S. along with Israhell and the lazy no good Sauds bring death to all others. That would also include the Usurped Kingdom.
I think it’s all orchestrated. Whenever things are good and quiet, someone in government starts cutting back on the military expenditures. As they are in no immediate threat. Suddenly, there appears a New threat on the world’s scene. And a need for a “world police”.