Category: NATO

AN IDIOT’S GUIDE TO WAR

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, THE WORLD IS CHANGING, UKRAINE, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

There’s a longstanding apothegm about war that says that amateurs talk tactics but professionals talk logistics. To this I would add that beginners talk weapons (remember Saint Javelin, M777s, Leopard tanks, F-16s? Seen a lot of game changer weapons come and go haven’t we?)

Logistics is the really hard part of planning: it is the business of making sure that the fighting end of the effort has all the things that it requires where it needs them when it needs them. The end comes when your guy kicks in the door of the enemy’s leader’s office. Everything else: aircraft carriers, tank armies, artillery, air fleets, medical support, planning is about getting him there. Here’s the photo. If the infantryman at the tip of the spear doesn’t have rations and ammunition he’s useless and will soon be out of the game. Getting these (and many other things) to him is extraordinarily difficult and many popular accounts of wars leave this somewhat boring aspect of the war business out of the story.

But war is a combination of many things all of which have to work together. All are necessary but none is sufficient. It is, I believe, the most complicated thing humans do (and, depressingly, history shows that it’s our favourite outdoor sport.) Saying one part is the most important is plain wrong. War without purpose (grand strategy and strategy) is just killing people and smashing things. Soldiers without training are dead men walking. Tactics without logistical support is just Brownian movement. And so on. Everything has to be planned and coordinated and carried out hampered by what Clausewitz called “friction”; against an enemy who’s doing everything to upset and counter you. Once you’ve planned it all out, you have to start all over again on the fly because “No plan survives contact with the enemy“.

What’s going on in Ukraine is an industrial war which is consuming enormous amounts of ammunition and weapons with tremendous destruction and hundreds of thousands of casualties. NATO is used to flying over a target with no air defence and dropping bombs, or small infantry groups who call in air or artillery when somebody shoots at them. And, in the end, NATO loses the war anyway and goes home. Alex Vershinin got it right at the beginning in June 2022 in The Return of Industrial Warfare.

The winner in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers is still based on which side has the strongest industrial base. A country must either have the manufacturing capacity to build massive quantities of ammunition or have other manufacturing industries that can be rapidly converted to ammunition production. Unfortunately, the West no longer seems to have either.

And, it should be clear it could be much more: Moscow calls it a “special military operation” and therefore Kiev looks like this; if it were a full-scale war Kiev would look like this.

What do we hear from NATO? More money. Must get to 2% of GDP. That’s not enough, 3% is needed. Maybe 5%. Money.

NATO’s money talk and boasting (remember “taking chips from refrigerators” and “Russia’s industry is in tatters“; Russia is running out of weapons?) has been replaced by some recognition of reality. In January the current NATO GenSek told us “When you look what Russia is producing now in three months, it’s what all of NATO is producing from Los Angeles up to Ankara in a full year“. Russia is four-to-one against the whole enemy coalition.

It’s production, not money. You don’t fight wars by firing bundles of dollars at the enemy. One of the primal errors of Western intelligence was measuring Russia’s economy using the ruble to USD exchange rate. (NATO GenSek still believes it though: “Russia is not bigger than the Netherlands and Belgium combined as an economy“.) In 2017 I wrote Exchange Rating Russia Down and Out which I concluded by saying Russia had a “full service economy”. And, whatever the GenSek may imagine, the World Bank tells us that “the Netherlands and Belgium combined” with its “industry in tatters” has become the fourth-largest economy in the world.

There is nothing that money can do to remedy the four-to-one ratio except with a lot of investment in production over a long time. Thanks to offshoring manufacturing, the Western industrial base mostly has to be built from the ground up. Is that even possible? If you think about it, an apprentice machinist on an assembly line fifty years ago was being taught how to do it by a master machinist who had been taught by a previous master and so on back to the middle of the 1700s when industrial production was invented. Each in the series advanced the technique, of course, but it’s still a chain you could trace back, machinist by machinist, for all that time. If that sequence of teacher-learner-teacher is broken, if the teacher has retired or died leaving no apprentices, how long will it take to get it back? Putting a pallet of engraved paper in the floor of an empty building and hoping it will turn into a pallet of artillery rounds is magic thinking. We know this from history. By winter 1914 it was evident that artillery ammunition consumption far exceeded anybody’s expectations and Britain, a manufacturing giant then, started tooling up. Even so it took a year and a half to manufacture the vast number of artillery rounds for the Somme offensive and about a quarter of them did not explode because the fuses weren’t properly made. How far away is the West from meeting the real demand?

Meanwhile, the EU economy isn’t doing so well and, with a stagnant or shrinking economy, just keeping the same amount of money flowing means that the percentage will have to grow. So the planned 3-4-5-whatever percent GDP increase they’re all calling for may turn out to be just enough to maintain the existing inadequate amount. As the Red Queen told Alice: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!“

The ends of “Last Summer’s Ukraine“, NATO and the EU are visible, don’t you think?

Beginners talk weapons;

Amateurs talk tactics;

Professionals talk logistics;

Idiots talk money.

EUROPE GETS AN ANATOMY LESSON

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, POLITICS AND POWER, THE WORLD IS CHANGING, TRUMP MYSTERY, UKRAINE, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

Well, “Fuck the EU” she said, and here we are.

Vance’s speech was a bombshell. Left them weeping, it did. Gotta say though, if Zelensky is where you find your “values and principals” these days, I think you should look somewhere else. We can only hope that Vance’s lecture has killed this sanctimonious and hypocritical values talk. Or reduced it a bit, anyway.

Many see it as complementary to Putin’s speech in the same forum in 2007, Here it is for comparison. For example: “Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves” certainly strikes a chord with Vance’s speech. But Putin’s principal theme (quoting FDR) was that security is indivisible. And surely that is the truth that we see in 2025: if one major player feels insecure then, at the end – say, in 18 years — everybody will. And here we are. The light-hearted attempt to destroy the country that “makes nothing” now has the IISS bemoaning the fact that Russia makes more weapons than all of Europe. Europeans, so confident so recently, now give themselves the fantods about Russia invading.

Two days before, the new US Defense Secretary had put in the first punch: Ukraine is now Europe’s problem. Lots of people are commenting on these announcements and the forthcoming negotiations between Moscow and Washington. This is my little addition to the discussion.

But first read my essay from 2018 on how to fix Ukraine because I think we are starting down that road. It will be a long road and there is still more fighting to come. One can hope, though, with the revelation of how short a time “as long as it takes” is, that the wretched Ukrainians pressed into the slaughterhouse will abandon the Galician cause and vote with their feet. (I am trying to train myself to always remember the distinction between Ukrainians and Galicians).

Everyone should recognise that it would have been more honest had Hegseth admitted Washington’s responsibilities starting from coddling Bandera, building up Stetsko, the five billion dollars, the cookies and “Yats is our guy”. OK, I appreciate that a new team is there, that the new team plans to make big and real changes across the board, is very much the opposite of the last Administration, but still Washington has been the principal author of the Ukrainian cataclysm. After all, in its original declaration of independence Kiev wanted to be neutral and, as Nuland said, it took a lot of money to change things. So some admission of Washington’s very (VERY) large role in the catastrophe would have been more sincere than leaving the impression that the Europeans did it themselves. As to de-industrialisation, don’t pretend Washington had nothing to do with blowing up the gas line that powered it; Nordstream wasn’t eaten by a passing shark. At least Vance said “we” when he talked about uncontrolled “refugee” admission. So, altogether, some admission that Europe was following Washington’s lead in many of these errors would have been better.

But the speeches were certainly truth bombs.

What have we learned? Well, something that Moscow learned a long time ago: Washington is not reliable (the complicated Russia word is недоговороспособны which essentially means that you can’t make an agreement with it and even if you do, it won’t keep it). In a word, Washington caused the Ukraine disaster and, now that it’s gone irredeemably bad, is walking away from it and leaving it to Europe. The simple geopolitical truth is that the United States of America lives on an invulnerable island, with weak and friendly neighbours. No outside force can do anything to it except by the mutual suicide of nuclear weapons. It took Moscow a while to learn it but, eventually, all the broken promises taught it that Washington’s word was worthless. So, in the negotiations that start tomorrow, Moscow is not going to take anything for granted and will accept no verbal assertions.

Now Europe has learned this. In the simplest, bluntest and most brutal terms the fact that has just hit it in the face is that USA is over there and Russia is here. The USA can make a mess anywhere and walk away at any time; remember Vietnam? Afghanistan? Well now it’s you.

So Europe, there’re four things you’d better do immediately: 1) figure out what your real interests are; 2) get yourself into a position to defend them; 3) make your peace with Moscow. (A European master of realpolitik told you years ago “The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia“.) And fourth, read and meditate on the joint Russia-Chinese statement of three years ago. Why? Because that’s the future. What to do? – the European Dilemma. But to start on this program you’ll certainly need a different bunch at the top, won’t you? The German elections next week will give us a clue.

What is the Trump team’s idea of a new world? My guess at the moment is that it envisions a future world of three Great Powers each with its own sphere of interest (I would further guess that it sees Europe in the US sphere and not on its own). This is very far from what the Chinese Foreign Minister spoke of at Munich which would be a world of many countries, big and small, rich and poor, all with a voice deserving of a listen and that is the future Moscow envisions also. See the joint statement and bear in mind that both Russia and China were exceptionalist powers before they learned that that’s a dead end. So, if I’m reading these tea leaves aright, there is still much to be worked out between Washington and Moscow-Beijing. The talks that start tomorrow are the first step in a long and painful road. They will require many adjustments by the American side because Washington doesn’t fully understand how much the correlation of forces has changed and I’m not confident that it can. In a week or so we’ll have a better idea.

Interesting times, indeed.

PS Someone the other day referred to me as a Cassandra: a prophet, usually pessimistic, often right but doomed never to be believed. I guess that’s a sort of compliment. Depressing though to have several friends close me out as a “Putin apologist”.

“LISTEN TO WHAT HE’S SAYING”

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn HISTORY, NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, UKRAINE

I’m fond of quoting the Duke of Wellington on intelligence:

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was at the other side of the hill.’

“Find out what you don’t know by what you do“. It’s not easy, it’s not necessarily pleasant but it’s what you have to do in order to minimise your surprise when whatever it is actually comes over the hill at you.

Here’s former British Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow saying the same thing:

My advice to all young diplomats and analysts [is that] if you want to understand Mr Putin’s foreign policy, listen to what he’s saying. You won’t like it, but you need to understand it, you need to listen to it. The place to start is the Munich speech in 2007.

“Listen to what he says”. It’s quite easy to. Putin has said a lot and most of it appears on the Presidential website in English as well as the original Russian. Never read what the Western reporters say he says – they almost always distort it – read the original. I’m sure that both Wellington and Bristow would agree.

And that’s what intelligence is all about. Try and understand how the other guy sees things. I have spent the last four decades trying to figure out what’s going on in Russia. I do that by reading what they say and watching what they do and trying to connect the two. Of course you should listen carefully to Putin and other officials, but there’s lot’s more you have to do. A country with a space program like Russia’s probably doesn’t need to steal washing machines for their chips. The West outsourced its manufacturing, Russia didn’t; so Russia can probably make lots of weapons if it has to. Putin has very high levels of support; outsiders probably can’t weaken it. The Russian economy is very self sufficient; sanctions might not have much effect. Russia’s making lots of new infrastructure; it’s not some poor country struggling along. Check these videos out: they’re Google street views of Russian towns ten years apart; the Western media certainly gives you a different impression about life in the Russian boondocks, doesn’t it? Look, listen, think. I’m sure that both Wellington and Bristow would agree.

If you don’t bother, if you blither on about “your values”, the “Rules-Based International Order” and your power and excellence, all you’re doing is looking in the mirror and seeing a slim muscled figure in place of your flabby overweight body. And, sooner or later, you’ll be very sorry because reality will bite you.

I have written many times on this site about bad Western intelligence and the unending stream of nonsense spewed in the West about Putin. Indeed, if there is one big theme of my website it’s that the Western view of Russia and Putin is almost completely false. In a word, Russia is much much stronger, in every way, than the Western establishments thought it was.

This is all being revealed in Ukraine right now: the Western “experts” were all wrong. March’s A total Russian collapse is surprisingly close puffs itself up to May’s Putin is terrified of Ukraine’s counteroffensive; then the bubble bursts and the very same “expert” declares Ukraine is losing, but the UK must stand by it. Their false expertise has cost thousands and thousands of lives. More and more witnesses have appeared to say that Kiev and Moscow had almost reached an agreement that would have stopped the fighting when the West encouraged Kiev to keep fighting. The reflection in their mirror told them that Western “game changer” weapons would terrify Putin’s unmotivated, poorly trained conscripts and their junk weapons. Here’s RAND, a year ago, solemnly pronouncing Russia’s failure:

Also, over the longer term, Russia does not have the capacity for a long war in the face of economic sanctions. Although Russia can continue to generate revenue from oil and gas exports, it does not have the ability to manufacture advanced weapons or even sufficient materiel to keep the Russian army fielded.

Then reality bit. The Western spinmeisters now redefine success, decide that victory doesn’t involve keeping territory and strengthen resiliance.

The bargaining stage of Kubler-Ross’ five stages.

LAB RATS TO THE FRONT!

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, THE WORLD IS CHANGING, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

First published Strategic Culture Foundation

We sleep soundly in our beds, because rough men stand ready in the night to do violence on those who would harm us.

– George Orwell

NATO contemplates Kaliningrad: “We think through those plans all the time, and… if that would ever come to fruition, we’d be ready to execute.” It would be “a multi-domain, very timely and effective capability”. “The best Polish military units, numbering 30,000 soldiers, should take part in the quick offensive“. Multi-domain, best Polish; in the imaginations of the strategists of Laputa, the Russians passively await the blow. But now we must leave the empyrean realms of pure thought and float down to earth; there we find that “The largest headquarters military exercises Winter 2020 in Poland ended with the complete defeat of Polish troops: on the fifth day of the virtual conflict, the enemy reached the banks of the Vistula and surrounded Warsaw“.

Moscow has just told us (in the guise of a “suggestion” from two scientists) what it would do while NATO was polishing its multi-domains. Andrei Martyanov summarises it. Russia knows that US/NATO attacks start with a heavy air bombardment. And very effective it is too. Against Iraq or Libya which had poorly-coordinated, poorly-maintained, obsolete air defence systems. Or against Afghanistan which had none at all. Went well until the Serbs sent the F-117 into premature obsolescence. But Russia has excellent air defences. But more to the point, which is what our two professors are talking about, it has a host of highly effective missiles, many of them hypersonic and it knows where to aim them.

In order to disrupt the bombardment and frustrate ground-based operations, the analysts say, Russia should launch a colossal counter or pre-emptive strike to wipe out enemy hardware. This could be achieved, they argue, with the combined use of drones, missiles, cyber warfare and new weaponry, destroying Western equipment before it can even get airborne.

As soon as Moscow decided that a real war was inevitable, there would be a rain of hypersonic missiles which would swiftly overwhelm NATO’s mediocre air defences and destroy airfields, aircraft hangars, ammunition dumps, logistics and C3I facilities. And the Defence Minister has just ordered more of them. The “Sulwaki Corridor” would be the quietest place in Europe. Russians, through their brutal experience, know Orwell is correct: war is about destruction and killing.

In the West, however, other matters predominate. An American Rear Admiral heads a group to “have a deeper inclusion and diversity conversation in our Navy“; it will “acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every Sailor in the Navy“. The German Army is far ahead as are many Western militaries. “America is stronger around the world when it is inclusive“. “Diversity, inclusion and respect are at the heart of the British Army’s values and ethos“. Diversity makes the Canadian Armed Forces stronger. NATO has “mainstreamed” “gender balance and diversity“.

Is transgenderism a “mental disorder” with very high suicide risk as at least one credentialed psychiatrist says, or is it a perfectly normal position on a flexible spectrum as many other credentialed psychiatrists say? Whatever, let’s try it out in the military and see what happens. Women have gradually moved to full combat roles in the US military. And, no matter how one might want to play with the meaning of the word “stronger”, men are physically stronger than women. And the infantry have to carry heavy loads: one of the more famous efforts was the Royal Marines’ “yomp” in the Falklands – 90 kilometres, three days, average load 36 kilograms. It is said that modern soldiers in the British Army are loaded down with even more. Perhaps weight itself should be made gender-neutral: “The Army Combat Fitness Test, ordered gender-neutral three years ago, is under evaluation by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command“.

Western militaries are lab rats for the latest woke diktats. But there are consequences: “Overall, 11 percent of female service personnel scheduled to ship out were not able to in the previous year because of a pregnancy.” “Research suggests that veterans who identify as members of marginalized populations (e.g., women and racial/ethnic minority groups) carry far greater risk for developing PTSD.” “Sexual violence remains pervasive. In 2018, 20,500 service members were sexually assaulted or raped including 13,000 women and 7,500 men. The rate of sexual assault and rape jumped by almost 40% from 2016 to 2018, and for women veterans, the rate increased by over 50% to the highest level since 2006.” Meditate on the corrosive effect on morale and trust of this: “Of women who reported a penetrative sexual assault, 59% were assaulted by someone with a higher rank than them, and 24% were assaulted by someone in their chain of command.” At some point, the US military will no longer have the levels of trust, cohesion, morale and readiness that distinguish a real fighting force from a parade army.

Lots of money spent, little to show for it. Weapons seem to have been designed to produce cost over-runs, not victories. The US Navy’s latest aircraft carrier, long over due and over budget still has “problems getting jets off the deck and issues with the landing systems“; problems indeed for an aircraft carrier. “[T]he F-35 currently has 871 software and hardware ‘deficiencies’.” The years-long and stunningly expensive super destroyer program has fizzled out: three built without the weapon they were originally designed around. Brand-new military equipment unuseable in Germany. Engine troubles in the UK’s new warships. AEGIS ships that don’t know where they are: HNoMS Helge Ingstad, USS Lake Champlain, USS John McCain, USS Fitzgerald; or maybe it’s only bad seamanship. German aircraft not ready. USAF bombers ageing out. Cost over-runs in Germany. USAF training ranges inadequate. A third of the RAF’s fighters unfit to fly. F-35 not very ready. Crumbling skin on F-22. NATO air defence is inadequate (vide this). “Only five of the U.S. Army’s 15 armored brigade combat teams are maintained at full readiness levels“. Where is the money going? Into woke projects like tanks with solar power? (Bit of a heat signature, but more money can be squandered fixing that.)

The experience of fighting “forever wars” – two decades of bombing and shooting from safe distances, kicking in doors and hoping there are no IEDs on patrols – have sapped preparation for a real war against first-class enemies. The truth is that Western militaries have been fighting – unsuccessfully – against minor enemies. They strike from secure bases confident in air supremacy and assured communications. (Can the Russians spoof GPS signals? What will that do to all the systems relying on GPS?) NATO is not winning against determined poorly-armed enemies; what makes it think it’s ready for determined well-armed enemies? And who wants to join a losing army? No wonder only one British infantry battalion is fully staffed.

The “forever wars” have enormous morale effects. In 2019 the US Army asked “how has serving impacted you?” and got back a host of answers about suicide and PTSD. The US military now publishes an annual suicide report: about 700 members and family a year. But, it says, deployment doesn’t increase the risk; no, that comes afterwards: over 6000 US veterans commit suicide every year. There are similar results in allied forces: German and British. Not surprising really: wars that last for generations without visible success are bad for morale: “For Afghanistan, 58 percent of veterans said that fight was not worthwhile“. NATO has already spent twice as long in Afghanistan as the USSR did and there isn’t anything to suggest it will be leaving: despite the agreement to be out by 1 May 2021, “no decision”. Meanwhile, NATO wants more troops in Iraq. Can’t end them, can’t win them. But NATO keeps looking for more: add China to the list.

Given skilful diplomacy and policies that didn’t threaten neighbours these things wouldn’t matter very much. Your inclusive and intersectional army would give good parades and your air force noisy flypasts, your navy could glisten at the dock. But the USA and NATO are not such: they believe they should be everywhere, interfere everywhere and enforce everywhere.

NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations… in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

Has NATO ever solved any dispute, anywhere, any time with anything but bombs and threats? Certainly not since the USSR went down: bombs in the Balkans (22 years), Afghanistan (20 years), Iraq (19 years), Syria (9 years), Libya destroyed, run out of Somalia. Its principal member has 800 military bases in 70 countries. Here is the famous meme that Russia must want war because it puts its country close to our bases. (Not just a meme, actually, NATO complains about “provocative military activities near NATO’s borders“; or, as others might say, “inside Russia”.) Iran, a country that last attacked somebody in 1795, also. The British Navy joins the US Navy in “freedom of navigation” cruises in the South China Sea. Both navies would suffer from shortages in a real war. Maybe better to stay at home and let Beijing worry about freedom of navigation to and from China. Not content with the fact that the USA has no competent icebreakers, Washington is contemplating FON cruises in the Russian Arctic. The US regularly flies B-52s near countries it wants to overawe – “sending a message” they call it. Some message – 31 were lost in Vietnam. Or was it 34? At any event, given that it’s spent years thinking about what to do if the USAF comes, it’s unlikely that Tehran sees two B-52s as anything other than a derisory provocation.

Some US generals get it – World War II loss rates. Maybe even most generals get it, but they’re not making the decisions. People who call it “the greatest military in the history of the world” (Obama) “best trained, best equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known” (Hillary Clinton) with the “greatest weapons” (Trump) part of “the most powerful military alliance ever assembled“, “America’s forward operating base for democracy” do. And, just as if the last twenty years had not been a record of overextended failures, here’s a cheerleader calling for more of the same: A Superpower, Like It or Not.

NATO isn’t a paper tiger, it’s a paper pussycat. Lab rats in the latest woke experiment; bad morale and fading cohesion; low readiness levels; exhausted by forever wars; expensive weapons that don’t work; pawns in the fantasies of belligerent braggarts: that’s a recipe for catastrophe.

NATO would be severely defeated in a war with Russia or China and probably with Iran. If it can’t secure Afghanistan or Iraq after two decades, if it takes 226 days to overthrow Qaddafi, 79 days in Kosovo, what makes it think it can casually provoke countries that know they’re on the hit list and have been preparing for two decades? Do the Polish players in Winter 2020 still think it will be “timely and effective“?

A NEW YEAR’S FANTASY

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn HISTORY, NATO, WAR ON RUSSIA, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

(First published Strategic Culture Foundation

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind

– Edward Gibbon

Counterfactual history is generally a waste of time because, in the end, it’s just speculation. But it’s fun and it can sometimes illuminate factual history.

For example, take the aborted Soviet-French-British alliance to stop Hitler. It came to nothing for a number of reasons but, had it happened, history would have been very different. (And – dare I say it? – probably better. And not the least of the benefits would be that we would be freed from the endless appeals to “Munich” to encourage us to stand firm and bomb the “Next Hitler”.) But I am not going to explore that counterfactual history in which the UK, USSR and France got together, Poland was convinced to let a million Soviet soldiers in and the German military, seeing the hopelessness of it all, overthrew Hitler and the future followed a different set of possibilities (Poland probably being occupied each time).

I am going to consider a counter-factual post Cold War history. Not because I believe – cynical as I have now become – that there was much of a chance of triumphalist Washington, in thrall to PNAC fantasies, allowing it to happen; I do it to illuminate some of the mess that we are in today.

After the Second World War, Stalin, either because he was a dedicated expansionist enemy of the West or because he was determined that, the next time, invaders would have to start their attack farther away from Moscow, absorbed most of the countries the Soviet Army captured/liberated. Communists – and each country had plenty – were put into power. (I invite the reader to speculate: they were absorbed but which was his true motive?) After the Washington Treaty, Moscow formed the Warsaw Treaty. But while the former was, more or less, voluntary, the latter was not and, the moment the USSR weakened, everybody wanted out. Mikhail Gorbachev, GenSek in 1985, began glasnost and perestroyka, believing that the USSR as it was had exhausted its possibilities; one thing led to another, the Berlin Wall came down, the Warsaw Treaty organisation collapsed: when the USSR’s “allies” realised the tanks weren’t coming, they jumped. The USSR itself then fell apart and a whole new world was there for the making.

This is what happened, now begins my counterfactual speculation.

The Western (=NATO) capitals – none of which had foreseen these events – get together and think about how to profit from the collapse of their enemy and how to build a more secure world. A world that is not just better for themselves but more secure for everybody because the wise people in NATO understand that they cannot be secure if their neighbours are not: they know that security is indivisible.

The wise men and women of NATO ponder – it is their world-historical moment; they will create tomorrow. Alternate futures pass before their eyes, they have the power to choose one and eliminate the others; they will pick, out of all the possibilities, the one road the world will travel. Their challenge, now that a great war has ended, is how to fashion a wise ending to the struggle. Not a triumphant ending but a wise one; not just for us but for our descendants. Not momentary but enduring; not a quick sugar hit but lasting nutrition. Many roads to failure; only a few to success.

They take their place with modesty: while, naturally believing that their “free world” system was and is preferable to Marxism-Leninism, they are wise enough and modest enough to know that reality comes in shades of grey. No triumphalism here: just the pragmatic desire to build stability and peace. No boasting: just an acknowledgement that both sides have won.

They remember other decision points when a few created the future. The French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars killed and maimed millions and devastated and squandered wealth throughout Europe. The easy end would have been to blame France and try to squash it for all time. But the victors – Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria – were wiser: they included France in the settlement; and their settlement avoided a great European war for a century. They knew that France would always be an important player and therefore had to be invested in the settlement. If it weren’t invested in the settlement it would be invested in breaking the settlement. It’s the essence of The Deal: everybody gets something and everybody has an interest in keeping things the way they are. When no one wants to tip it over, you have stability. The victors of 1919 forgot this principle and their settlement collapsed into an even worse war in twenty years. The victors of that war remembered the 1814 principle (partially) and integrated Germany, Italy and Japan into the winners’ circle.

The wise ones of NATO know this history; they know that the losers have to be made into winners so that the peace can have a chance of lasting; they remember the terrible example of the 1919 failure. There’s no place for boasting or triumphantasising. They bend their powerful minds in the Great Peace Conference of 1991 (counterfactual fantasy event) to calculate how to accommodate everybody’s security concerns. They know that security is indivisible: if one doesn’t feel secure then, sooner or later, no one will.

They start with two realities: 1) Moscow’s former allies – or at least their current leaders – hate and fear Moscow and 2) Moscow doesn’t trust NATO. The Wise Ones waste no time moralising, they know these are the materials with which they have to work and have to make to fit together.

Expand NATO? No, say the Wise Ones: while it will please people in Warsaw or Prague (at least until they get the bill), it will make Moscow nervous and that violates the principle of indivisible security. If making Warsaw happy makes Moscow unhappy, then, at the end of the day, they will both be unhappy and, if they’re both unhappy, then we will all be unhappy too. Indivisibility of security is the kernel of wisdom that the Wise Ones hold to. If nobody is unhappy then everybody is happy: it’s the geopolitical version of “happy wife, happy life”.

So, the question is this: how do we make a settlement to the Cold War in which NATO, the former Warsaw Treaty, former-USSR and Moscow all feel secure at the same time? Fortunately, at this unrepeatable moment in world history, the NATO leadership is replete with wise, knowledgeable and thoughtful people, well-informed about past errors, determined to do better, with the vision, modesty and ingenuity to square the circle. (I warned you it was counterfactual). They figure it out:

  1. They tell Warsaw, Prague, Kiev and the rest of them to form an alliance (Central European Treaty Organisation or some such name) grounded on NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all).
  2. They get a formal, signed, ceremonial declaration from NATO that, should Russia attack any member of the Central European Treaty Organisation, NATO will come to its defence.
  3. They get a formal, signed, ceremonial declaration from Moscow that should NATO attack any member of the CETO, Moscow will come to its defence.

So, between NATO and Russia, there would have been a belt of neither-one-nor-the-other-but-guaranteed-by-both countries. CETO would have lots of weapons and a high degree of interoperability and command structure left over from the Soviet days; therefore they would be able to mount quite effective defences with what they already had. Their weapons, being Soviet and very rugged, would work for years to come so they wouldn’t have to spend much on their defence.

(Note that, we have, as a sort of scale model of something like this, the relationship between Malta and Italy. From 1981 Malta is officially neutral and its neutrality is guaranteed by Italy, a NATO member. The USSR recognised this neutrality soon after.)

If a CETO had been formed, guaranteed by NATO and Russia, wouldn’t everybody be 1) happier and 2) more secure?

But that didn’t happen. We all know what did: the men and women of NATO were not so wise, they missed their world-historical moment and they went for the triumphantasising quick sugar hit.

So I wish you all a happy

New Year

in which you may reflect upon what might have been

but wasn’t.

RUSSIA THE ETERNAL ENEMY QUOTATIONS

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

All the clichés in one neat package.

  • Poor little NATO: just quietly minding its own business when those pesky Russians start doing exercises on its borders.
  • And again with the “rules-based order” claptrap: our rules, your disorder Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Venezuela.
  • What “Western interests” in the Middle East?
  • Amazing the “interference” a few grand on Facebook can produce, isn’t it?
  • Military activity in the rather large chunk of the Arctic it owns.

Ah well, the Bubble is strong and I’m sure the authors are paid to believe what they believe to be paid.

Geography still matters. Russia—NATO’s largest, most militarily capable neighbor—remains NATO’s principal external challenge. Russia under President Putin ignores international commitments; violates Ukrainian, Georgian and Moldovan sovereignty; conducts provocative exercises and maneuvers along NATO’s borders; expands military activity in the Arctic and North Atlantic; intervenes in parts of the Middle East against Western interests; and interferes in democratic processes within members of the Alliance, aspiring members and partners. President Putin’s objectives seem clear: secure his leadership position within Russia and prevent regime change; undermine the international rules-based order in favor of a Europe re-divided into spheres of influence; assert increasing influence on the Russian periphery, especially in Ukraine and Georgia, to prevent the success of democratic, pro-European governments whose example could undermine his own kleptocratic system; seize every opportunity to erode the cohesion of NATO and the EU; and widen divisions within individual member states.

NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, Nicholas Burns, Douglas Lute, February 2019

PSYCHOANALYSING NATO: THE DIAGNOSIS

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

(First published Strategic Culture Foundation, picked up by SouthFront, ZeroHedge, Straight Line Logic)

In previous essays I argued that NATO tries to distract our attention from its crimes by accusing Russia of those crimes: this is “projection“. NATO manipulates its audience into thinking the unreal is real: this is “gaslighting“. NATO sees what it expects to see – Moscow’s statements that they will respond to medium range missiles emplaced next door are re-jigged as the “threats” which justify NATO’s earlier act: this is “confirmation bias“. And, finally, NATO thinks Russia is so weak it’s doomed and so strong that it is destroying the tranquillity of NATOLand: this is a sort of geopolitical “schizophrenia“. (I must acknowledge Bryan MacDonald’s marvellous neologism of Russophrenia – a condition where the sufferer believes Russia is both about to collapse, and take over the world.)

I wrote the series partly to amuse the reader but with a serious purpose as well. And that serious purpose is to illustrate the absurdities that NATO expects us to believe. NATO here being understood as sometimes the headquarters “international staff”, sometimes all members in solemn conclave, sometimes some NATO members and associates. “NATO” has become a remarkably flexible concept: Libya was a NATO operation, even though Germany kept out of it. Somalia was not a NATO operation even though Germany was in it. Canada, a founding NATO member, was in Afghanistan but not in Iraq. Some interventions are NATO, others aren’t. The NATO alliance today is a box of spare parts from which Washington assembles its “coalitions of the willing”. It’s Washington’s beard.

NATO and its members are inexhaustible sources of wooden language and dishonesty. Take Washington’s demand that Iran get out of Syria while US forces stay there. Syria has a recognised government, that government invited Iran in; no one invited the USA and its minions in. A child could see the upside down nature of this: it’s a housebreaker demanding the host evict the guests and hand over their bedrooms. This, apparently, is what NATO calls the “rules-based order”. Here’s the American official insisting it’s all legal: “our forces are there under a set of legal and diplomatic documents… “; but he only mentions one and it’s an American one. Putin is condemned for saying “Whatever action a State takes bypassing this procedure are illegitimate, run counter to the UN Charter and defy international law“. We are expected to solemnly nod our heads rather than contemptuously laugh when unilateralism is meretriciously named “rules-based”. These inversions of reality are routinely fed to us by NATO and its mouthpieces.

A very recent revelation of NATO’s gaslighting is the Integrity Initiative (such a gaslighting name!) busy trolling away with a couple of million from the British taxpayer. Its remit, apparently, includes infiltrating political movements of an ally and it “defends democracy against disinformation” by smearing its own political actors with disinformation. Does Russia do this? Well there’s RT and Sputnik and “Russians” did spend nearly $5000 on Google and $7000 on Facebook fixing the US election. And almost one dollar on Brexit ads. And one should never forget the insidious effect of Masha and the Bear. But don’t dare laugh at these preposterous assertions: the BBC earnestly assures us that humour is Putin’s newest weapon. Against this mighty effort, there can be no vigilance too strong! The only way to protect our values is to trash them: defend freedom of thought by secretly planting fake stories, defend democracy by smearing the opposition as Russian stooges. Pure gaslighting, defended by projection and confirmation bias: “This kind of work attracts the extremely hostile and aggressive attention of disinformation actors, like the Kremlin and its various proxies“.

NATO hyperventilates about “Russia’s military activities, particularly along NATO’s borders“. Only in NATO’s counterfeit universe could this be imagined; in the real world Russia’s military is inside its own borders. Once again, the proper response is a contemptuous sneer rather than solemn head nodding.

NATO collectively and severally manifests a detachment from reality. Its website is full of pious assertions about being a defensive alliance that brings stability wherever it goes, replete with valuable values. And it always tells the truth. The reality? No rational person would regard Moscow’s concern about a military alliance creeping ever closer as “aggressive”. There is less stability in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan than before NATO entered them. Fooling around in Yugoslavia, Georgia and Ukraine have sparked actual shooting wars. NATO’s activities in Syria (illegal by any standards of international law, be it remembered) has not brought stability. More civilians killed, Raqqa obliterated, hospitals methodically destroyed. All “tragic accidents” of course; but don’t look here! look at Russia! Only in its imagination is NATO a bringer of stability. As to its values, they’re mutable – it’s good to break up Yugoslavia, invade Iraq and Afghanistan and destroy Libya but Crimeans taking the opportunity to return to Russia is a heinous crime. NATO’s so-called values are whatever NATO does. And as to NATO’s promises: well it did expand, didn’t it? (Here’s NATO’s official weasel-wording: “Personal assurances from individual leaders cannot replace Alliance consensus and do not constitute formal NATO agreement”. And suddenly its narrative jumps to President Clinton. Wrong POTUS, actually; NATO’s caught gaslighting again.) Its intervention in Libya was very far from what the UN resolution approved: it was an armed intervention against the government on false pretences.

Here’s what NATO’s so-called “stability projection” has actually produced: riots in France, partly connected with the influx of “migrants” coming from the Libya that NATO destroyed. But, we supposed to believe it has nothing to do with NATO, it’s Putin! Only an idiot could believe that.

NATO had a purpose when it was formed, or at least it thought it did. It is true that, at war’s end where the Soviet Army stood “elections” were held and socialist or communist parties came to power and stayed in power. (Austria being an exception). There were at least two ways that one could understand this extension of Soviet power. One was that they were the actions of an expansionist hostile power that fully intended to go all the way to Cape Finisterre if it could and, if not prevented, would. In such an case the Western Allies would be fully justified in forming an defensive alliance to deter Soviet expansion. Another possible interpretation was that, after such a hard victory in so fearfully destructive a war, Moscow was determined that never again would its neighbours be used as an assembly area and start line for the forces of another Hitler. Such an interpretation would call for quite another approach from the Western Allies. We all know which of the two interpretations was followed by. I have speculated elsewhere that Reinhard Gehlen may have had a strong influence on that decision. But, for whatever reason, the NATO alliance was founded on that first assumption and it shaped the world in one direction rather than another.

Since the USSR broke up, taking with it NATO’s original raison d’être, NATO members, sometimes under the NATO flag and sometimes not, have helped break up Yugoslavia and Serbia, invaded Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Syria, destroyed Libya, incited a war in Georgia, carried out a coup d’etat in Ukraine and participate in the civil war there. That’s not stability. And, where NATO has set foot, it stays. KFOR is still bringing “peace and stability” in Year 19 and Kosovo is home to a huge US base. Afghanistan is in Year 15. Iraq is in Year 14. Syria is Year 4 and set to run forever. Ironically Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians are back in Afghanistan; different flag, same place. That’s not stability either.

And still the wooden language rolls out. But turn off your brain when you read it.

POLITICAL – NATO promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

MILITARY – NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

 

Has post-USSR NATO ever peacefully resolved a dispute? Anywhere? Any time? It’s always military power. What did Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) have to do with NATO’s war on Libya? Did it attack one of them? How about Serbia? One can argue that someone in Afghanistan attacked the USA but who did in Iraq? As to “democratic values”, well, it will be amusing to watch NATO’s reactions to Ukraine President Poroshenko trying to avoid the election. And nobody likes to mention the pack of organ harvesters and drug runners NATO gave a whole country to.

If NATO were a human individual on the couch, a case could be made that it is living in a fantasy world in which everything is reversed.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;

that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Delenda NATO est!

PSYCHOANALYSING NATO: SCHIZOPHRENIA

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, WAR ON RUSSIA

(First published at Strategic Culture Foundation; picked up by SouthFront)

NATO sorrowfully explains its problems with Russia on its official website:

For more than two decades, NATO has worked to build a partnership with Russia, developing dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. Cooperation has been suspended since 2014 in response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine but political and military channels of communication remain open. Concerns about Russia’s continued destabilising pattern of military activities and aggressive rhetoric go well beyond Ukraine.

None of this – of course – is NATO’s fault: on the contrary NATO is concerned that

Russia’s military activities, particularly along NATO’s borders, have increased and its behaviour continues to make the Euro-Atlantic security environment less stable and predictable, in particular its practice of calling snap exercises, deploying near NATO borders, conducting large-scale training and exercises and violating Allied airspace.

Suffice it to say that this statement would have a closer relationship with reality if the words “NATO’s borders” were replaced with “inside Russia”. And I would be interested to hear the details of “violating Allied airspace”. Why even the Daily Telegraph in 2015 with its suggestive headline of Mapped: Just how many incursions into Nato airspace has Russian military made? had to admit “The Ministry of Defence says the Russian bombers have never violated Britain’s sovereign airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from the coast.” Likewise Violated US Airspace 16 Times In Last 10 Days turns out to be Air Defence Identification Zones which is not the same thing at all. Or Most Russian Plane Intercepts over Baltics Due to Error: NATO General. So NATO’s statement needs a further calibration so that “violating Allied airspace” becomes “flying in international airspace close to Allied countries’ airspace”.

Therefore, properly understood, NATO accuses Russia of 1) holding military exercises in its own territory, 2) flying in international airspace, 3) supporting secessionist movements in places that weren’t part of Yugoslavia or aren’t in the Middle East or North Africa. And they accuse it of invading countries that NATO didn’t invade first. NATO projects its behaviour, gaslights its audience and confirms its initial assumption when Moscow objects. But that’s NATOLand for you – the unicorns roam free and all is sunny until the bear smiles.

There is a striking schizophrenia among NATO’s members: Russia is, at one and the same time, so weak it’s “doomed” and so strong that it’s demolishing NATOLand.

Russia is forever, eternally, endlessly, doomed. Always on the edge of collapse. (But Russia has always been doomed here’s Time in 1927) and it was altogether finished in 2001. But doom dooms on. Has an ‘open society’ doomed Russia to fail? (September 2012); Russia Is Doomed (March 2014); Why Putin’s Adventure in Ukraine Is Doomed (April 2014); Putin’s Nationalism and Expansion Strategy Is Doomed to Fail (September 2014); Sorry, Putin. Russia’s economy is doomed (December 2014); Remember Russia? It’s still doomed (January 2015); Morgan Stanley thinks Russia’s doomed (February 2015); Secretary of Defense: Russia ‘Doomed to Fail’ in Syria (September 2015); Is Russia’s Economy Doomed to Collapse? (July 2016); Why The Saudi-Russian Oil Agreement Is Doomed To Fail (September 2016); Putin’s Bridge to Crimea Is Doomed to Collapse (January 2017); Russia’s Su-57 Stealth Fighter Is Doomed to Fail (December 2107); The Russian economy looks doomed (March 2018); Russia is doomed to steadily fall behind the rest of the world (August 2018); Why Putin’s 5-100 project is doomed to fail (October 2018). And its soccer team too! Aging and Inexperienced: Why Russia Is Doomed to Fail (June 2018).

You’d think, with all this doom dooming away at Russia, that no one would be much worried about it. Except of course for the risk of getting bits of it spattered on you when it finally crashes down. Said collapse confidently predicted three years ago by Alexander Motyl, who, making his wish the father of his thought, declaimed that Russia might even “disappear”:

As the new year begins, both Ukraine and Russia are making steady progress. The difference is that, while Ukraine is slowly, and more or less surely, adopting a raft of systemic reforms that will make it a normal Western market democracy, Russia is becoming a failed state. If current trends continue, as they probably will, Russia may even disappear.

But, amazingly, Russia has become more powerful than ever before. Not even Stalin in his wildest dreams imagined choosing the next US President. Yet, even as “weak and dying” Russia freefalls, Putin has done exactly that: “Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West—and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump” Trump being what Putin would design to “undermine American interests – and advance his own”. “Trump is Putin’s ally in Russia’s war on the West”. But even before he animated his Trumpenpuppet, his tendrils had slithered deep into Washington: “Putin’s Got America Right Where He Wants It: And that’s bad news for Obama”. So Putin, although he’s no genius, just another Brezhnev, has a puppet in the White House.

But not just there: Putin (Aspergers, “gunslingers’ walk”, lonely psychopath that he is), through his “useful idiots“, affects everything, everywhere. Brexit. French election. Italian election. German election. Austrian election. Dutch election. Canada’s next election. Catalonian separatism. Gilets jaunes. Hungary’s Prime Minister is a Putinist. And it’s more, so much more: Russia and the Threat to Liberal Democracy: How Vladimir Putin is making the world safe for autocracy. Moscow’s unstoppable “Hybrid War” weaponising Information, Culture and Money. Separatism, migrants, left wing right wing.

Sounds as if we’re the ones who are doomed.

In this race of the doomed: who will get to the FINAL DOOM first?

PSYCHOANALYSING NATO: CONFIRMATION BIAS

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, THE WORLD IS CHANGING, WAR ON RUSSIA, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

(First published at Strategic Culture Foundation)

(Earlier parts of this intermittent series discussed NATO’s projection and gaslighting.)

Psychology Today defines confirmation bias as:

Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions.

Or, closer to the topic of this essay:

Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.

This quotation is from an interview of George Kennan by Thomas Friedman published in the New York Times twenty years ago. He was speaking about what was then called “NATO expansion” (later changed to the more anodyne – and deceptive – phrase “NATO enlargement”. (I as a civil servant in the Canadian Department of National Defence used to amuse myself by seeing if I could sneak the forbidden “expansion” – an altogether more honest word – into briefing notes for the Higher Ups. As I recall, I got away with it about half the time. A trivial pleasure in the evolving disaster.)

But back to Kennan, Mr X, the author of the Long Telegram, the founder of “containment“, the man who actually lived long enough to see his recommendations, not only followed, but successful. He was right: in the long term, the Soviet system was not sustainable; it was, as Russian President Putin said: “a road to a blind alley“.

I think [NATO expansion] is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else…. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. It was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs… Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

The man who got it right in 1947 also got it right in 1998.

a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you

Could there be a better illustration of the truth of Kennan’s percipience than this headline from the New York Times in July 2017: “Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression“? The chutzpah of the headline is hard to swallow: Russia hasn’t moved anywhere. “The troops are conducting military maneuvers known as Zapad, Russian for ‘west,’ in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.” Belarus is an ally of Russia, Russia has a Baltic coastline of more than 400 kilometres, Kaliningrad is part of Russia. So what exactly is the reason what Russia can’t do whatever military things it wants to at home? Imagine the reaction if Moscow dared question an American military exercise in the USA. But this reversal of truth is now the propagandistic norm: “New photos show Russia’s building up its military on NATO’s doorstep, but the alliance says it won’t be intimidated” and “Russia Building Up Military on NATO’s Borders” in October 2018 (just before a large NATO exercise that actually is on Russia’s border). NATO idiotically assures us that Russian notions that NATO is encircling Russia “ignores geography” because of Russia’s 20 thousand kilometre border NATO touches only a teeny weeny bit. Well, if it can add Finland, Ukraine and Georgia, it will be a bit more. But I doubt any Russian has said “encircling”. Russians know there’s no NATO in Asia but they do see NATO moving its doorstep towards it. These are perfect examples of the confirmation bias that Kennan predicted: the NATO expanders are telling us that Russia’s actions inside its unchanged borders are exactly why we had to expand NATO’s borders. Russia’s reaction to NATO’s expansion enlargement justifies NATO’s enlargement expansion.

Here’s NATO patting itself on the back: “NATO enlargement has contributed to spreading democracy, security and stability further across Europe.” NATO’s official enumeration of its sad relations with Russia and Moscow’s many unfounded accusations and inexplicable failure to accept the simple declaration that this military alliance advancing every closer to Russia “does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia” may be found here. Parenthetically it is interesting that the specific accusations made against Russia in this apologia, which we are to believe sadly made NATO take other steps, are Crimea and Ukraine which greatly postdate NATO expansion. How clever of the expanders in the 1990s to foresee Russia’s actions in Ukraine nearly two decades later! Another clear case of confirmation bias.

This sort of thing goes on all the time. From the Washington Post in November 2016, a reliable mouthpiece of the US war party, “Russian warplanes keep buzzing the Baltics. Here’s how NATO scrambles.

A Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft on Thursday in the latest military provocation by Moscow over the Baltic Sea, the U.S. European Command said Saturday.

“Russian War Planes Threaten a US Navy Ship in International Waters” (Note the video reconstruction and see if you think it’s an accurate representation of what the actual video shows.) “Russia defends sending warships through English Channel”. Russia’s Existential Threat to NATO in the Baltics is a perfect fulfilment of Kennan’s observation “We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way”. And because we can’t defend them, the very existence of NATO is threatened.

I will agree that there are a few cooler heads around:

Gen. Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, told reporters he and his NATO counterparts have not seen obvious offensive acts from Russian aircraft or troops.

but they seem to be without much effect in the prevailing weather of Russia Threatens Massive Military Buildup to Counter US, NATO, Vladimir Putin’s nuclear warships pictured steaming towards the English Channel as Royal Navy prepares to scramble fleet, Latvia faces hybrid threat as EU, NATO boost defenses and many more.

The same confirmation bias can be found on the other side of the world in which we are ceaselessly told that China provokes US Navy ships peacefully exercising their free passage in international waters. This can stand for the numerous examples:

At approximately 0830 local time on September 30, a PRC LUYANG destroyer approached USS DECATUR in an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver in the vicinity of Gaven Reef in the South China Sea.

Imagine the reaction in Washington if Chinese warships patrolled the Gulf of Mexico “to ensure freedom of navigation“! The USN patrols to ensure the safe passage of goods to and from China in the South China Sea; Beijing reacts; proof that more patrols are necessary and justified.

So, after two decades of NATO’s expanding its doorstep to the edge of Russia, after years of the USN doorstep moving closer to China, where are we in terms of the stability that NATO expansion is supposed to have brought us? At least two wars – in Ossetia in 2008 and eastern Ukraine starting in 2014 – are consequences of NATO expansion. But, more to the point, we have two announcements, not, I suspect, by coincidence made a few hours apart.

25 October 2018, China

The Southern Theatre Command has had to bear a “heavy military responsibility” in recent years, state broadcaster CCTV quoted him as saying during an inspection tour made on Thursday as part of his visit to Guangdong province. “It’s necessary to strengthen the mission … and concentrate preparations for fighting a war,” Xi said. “We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly. “We have to step up combat readiness exercises, joint exercises and confrontational exercises to enhance servicemen’s capabilities and preparation for war.”

26 October 2018, Russia

Speaking at the UN on Friday, Andrey Belousov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of Nonproliferation and Arms Control, echoed Putin’s comments from last week that Russia is indeed readying itself for war, but only so it can defend its people against American aggression. “At a recent meeting, the US stated that Russia is preparing for war. Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I can confirm it”, Belousov said adding that “We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people.”

No stability, no security. And still the expanders blame Russia and China for responding to what they gratuitously began.

The last words go to George Kennan

There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else… This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.

NATO THEN AND NATO NOW

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, REPRINTS, THE WORLD IS CHANGING

(I wrote this under a pseudonym four years ago today. Any updating needed do you think?)

Then I supported NATO and believed in the “Soviet threat”. I didn’t really think that the Soviets were planning to attack the West (although it wasn’t a bad idea to keep NATO strong, just in case) but I believed that they – the system, that is – were opposed to us. NATO was a necessary balancer. And nothing I have learned since has changed my mind.

But the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union disappeared. So what to do with NATO? Some said it had served its purpose, “won” the Cold War (everybody won it actually), and could justifiably pack up and sell off the Brussels headquarters. On the other hand, others argued, as the most successful peace-time alliance ever, it would be a pity to get rid of it. About this time I was interviewed for a job on NATO’s International Staff (big tax-free salaries, not very heavy work schedule, good location) and one of the questions was: What’s NATO’s future? Well, said I, to become an alliance of the civilised countries against whatever was coming next. Who might these “civilised countries” be? Present members of course but more too: Russia (or was it still the USSR then? can’t remember), Japan, Australia, Brazil, quite a few in fact. I didn’t get the job (not, I think, because of my answers but because it wasn’t my country’s turn to get a job on the IS).

Well, that’s not what happened. As we all know NATO expanded (amusingly somebody after a year or so decided “expansion” sounded bad and “enlargement” became the compulsory word). I remember one of my bosses (a well-connected one who had spent three years in NATO HQ) assuring me that NATO expansion was such a stupid idea that it would never happen.

But it did happen and today there are lots and lots of new members – can anyone outside the NATO bureaucracy name them all? (there’s a story that the Canadian PM mixed up Slovenia and Slovakia and so they both got in) – and possibly more coming. Open to all who want in; why NATO wouldn’t dream of interfering with a country’s free right to choose. But oddly enough, no one in Africa has applied. Or South America, or Australasia, or Asia. And as to Russia, well, you know its application will be lost in the mail.

So we came to Kosovo. And NATO discovered a new role doing “humanitarian interventions” (and everybody there preserved his job! Hurray!) Kosovo set a pattern we’ve seen several times since. Every media outlet reporting exactly the same thing. One side committing every possible crime: terrible human rights violations, aggression, racism, whatever. The other side painted as the victim. (They say Kosovar men are being marched around; walking blood banks suggests a NATO mouthpiece. No women from Serbian rape camps have been be found; their culture tells them to be ashamed suggests a CNN mouthpiece. What’s the collateral damage in a village of a 500-lb bomb dropped on some target identified from 20,000 feet? Nobody asks. Why was the bridge in Novy Sad destroyed? Nobody knows.) We must intervene! Short. Easy. Justified. Preferably by air. No casualties. On our side, that is.

And so it happens. It takes a LOT longer than it was supposed to. And there’s nervousness about an actual land invasion being maybe necessary. But it ends eventually; thanks (not that they are given) to Russia’s Chernomyrdin. (Not, come to think of it, the last time Russia saves Washington and NATO from its folly).

Doubts and difficulties are immediately forgotten. Human rights professionals, like a certain Canadian Harvard personality, praise the intervention as a model of power wisely used in a good cause. Best-selling military authors hail it as the first time air power has won a war all by itself. All is well, in the best of all possible worlds. And you’ll be glad to hear that Albright and Clark are doing OK in their business interests in Kosovo.

And there’s another pattern set by this first NATO “humanitarian bombing” mission. Later – in the actual case of Kosovo fifteen years later – we learn that we weren’t quite told everything:

unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions… ethnic cleansing… violence and intimidation… extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions, and inhumane treatment. We believe that the evidence is compelling that these crimes… were conducted in an organized fashion and were sanctioned by certain individuals in the top levels of the KLA leadership.

NATO gave these people a whole country. Well done NATO! Well done Western media outlets!

But, learning nothing, ever praising itself for making “a more secure world”, NATO tramples on. It has now become a box of spare parts from which Washington chooses its next “coalition of the willing” for the next “humanitarian bombing”. And what are the results? Kosovo is a major crime centre. Afghanistan is about the same as it was before but at least Al Qaeda isn’t running it. Iraq is worse than anything Saddam Hussein or his two loathsome sons could ever have produced. Libya is a jihadist playground. Ukraine, in the eleven months from postponement of the EU agreement to postponement of the EU agreement, is a horrible nightmare with worse coming. Al Qaeda is back, bigger and better, as ISIS. How exactly has NATO made a more secure world?

All NATO does nowadays is visit chaos, bloodshed, disaster and destruction on countries using justifications we later learn are exaggerated or faked. But no one asks what’s going on or how we could be so mistaken over and over again. The monster lurches on, destroying and threatening.

NATO is a serious threat to the security of its members. To say nothing of the rest of the world.