The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. @BruceKGagnon
I trust Vladimir Kozin. I've known him for many years.
We met in Kiruna, Sweden - in the high north - at a Global Network annual conference some years ago.
I was impressed with his directness, honesty and humility.
He spoke well at our GN conference in Kiruna. There is a satellite communication/receiving station there that downloads surveillance and reconnaissance data and sells it to the Pentagon. Mostly they are tracking every thing Russia does. (US-NATO regularly make war games in the high north - dragging Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland increasingly into this aggressive military campaign aimed at Moscow.)
Downlink station near Kiruna, Sweden that helps Washington spy on Russia.
Then in 2019 the Global Network organized a study tour to Moscow, Crimea, and St. Petersburg in Russia. While in Moscow Vladimir came and spoke to our group of 25 people.
Russians have a long and proud history. They've been invaded many times over the centuries by the Mongols, Sweden (repeatedly), France and Germany. The former Soviet Union lost 27 millions citizens in WW II when Hitler tried unsuccessfully to destroy Russia.
Now the US-UK-NATO want regime change in Moscow. Who are they to think they have the right to dictate to Russia? This blind fucking arrogance is evil and must be resisted in what ever way one can.
I am so sick of the US wars, regime changes, stupidity, dishonesty and greed. This country is rotten to the core and is collapsing all around us. Mr. Big does not need us any more - we are expendable - superfluous - not needed - only useful as cannon fodder for the wars of the crashing empire.
Despite their denials, Western leaders did make a promise to the USSR that NATO would not expand to Central and Eastern Europe when Moscow agreed to Germany’s reunification.
Willy Wimmer, a former vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) explains in an interview with RT.
The Role of NATO, a U.S. Commanded Military Alliance
What we can do about it
Zoom call with speakers TUES. Feb 22 at 8:30 pm ET / 7:30 pm CT / 6:30 pm MT / 5:30 pm PT Please clickhereto register for the meeting.
Join us for this important meeting and discussion with leaders from the antiwar movement including (in alphabetical order):
Leela Anand – ANSWER coalition
Joe Jamison – US Peace Council
Ajamu Baraka – Black Alliance for Peace
Medea Benjamin – CodePink
Sara Flounders – International Action Center
Margaret Flowers – Popular Resistance
Bruce Gagnon – Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Margaret Kimberley – Black Agenda Report
Jeff Mackler – United National Antiwar Coalition
Nancy Price - Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (US)
Susan Schnall – Veterans For Peace
David Swanson – World Beyond War
Joe Lombardo will chair. Ajamu Baraka will give an opening statement
Only a few short months after the chaotic US defeat in Afghanistan, the US is pushing a war with Russia, a major nuclear power. US officials insist that the Russians will invade Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly denied this.
In recent days the US and some of their allies have closed their embassies and asked their nationals to leave Ukraine. [The US and allies moved their embassies to Lvov in western Ukraine where Nazis predominate.]
The Ukrainian military has a force of 150,000 troops, that are U.S. trained and armed with modern US weapons, near the Russian border and the independent regions in Donbass. These independent regions have taken a stand in opposition to the right-wing, coup government in Kiev, since 2014. The Ukrainian military has started heavy shelling of the independent areas of Donbass, which have returned the fire.
Every U.S. war in our lifetime has been based on false information, repeated relentlessly by the corporate media. There is deep apprehension that the US and the Ukrainian government are preparing a “false flag” incident that could lead to a major conflict.
The US has tens of thousands of troops in Europe, it is putting troops on high alert and sending more. They are not only arming the Ukrainian military, but they are expanding NATO bases and sending additional arms and missiles to other NATO countries in the region.
It is important that the US antiwar movement come together to oppose these dangerous war moves. Please join us on Tuesday.
There will be Q & A after 3 minute talks from each speaker
Here are the ex-CIA lunatics at the Atlantic Council: ‘The United States remains the world’s leading power with global interests, and it cannot afford to choose between Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Instead, Washington and its allies should develop a defense strategy capable of deterring and, if necessary, defeating Russia and China at the same time’.
See a much better article on the whole issue of Russia & China and western plans for war with both those nuclear-armed nations here.
Thousands gathered in Germany to remember the Allied offensive bombing of Dresden, on February 13th, 1945.
But those solemn memorials of the dead were upstaged by a procession of nearly 1,000 Neo-Nazis – on the out skirts of the city – who marched to the center. They were met by counter protestors.
Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, the Lukov March carried on in Sofia despite a ban, with local courts permitting the event. The Lukov March, commemorating a fascist leader, Hristo Lukov, who was in power during WWII in Bulgaria.
RT’s Peter Oliver reports, then Dr. Eike Hamer, publisher of Wirtschaft Aktuell, a business publication in Germany breaks it all down.
Because the Ukrainian-Nazi forces (150,000 of them along the line of contact with the Donbass near the Russian border) have resumed major shelling of the Donbass, children and the elderly are being evacuated to Russia.
Donbass militia leaders ordered an evacuation of civilians from the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics on Friday, citing the threat of Ukrainian shelling and the danger of a full-scale invasion by Kiev. The escalation comes after months of claims by Western officials and media that it was Russia that was preparing to "invade" Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have fired 18 120-mm mortar rounds at the village of Zaitsevo, a Donetsk People's Republic-controlled settlement situated on the outskirts of the town of Gorlovka, a DPR representative at the Joint Center on Control and Coordination has told journalists.
The deployment of 120-mm mortar systems in the Donbass conflict zone is prohibited under the Minsk Agreements - the peace deal hammered out in early 2015 aimed at enforcing a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and ultimately bringing the civil conflict to a close.
The mortar fire comes amid a major escalation of mortar, artillery and small-arms fire along the line of contact between Kiev forces and Donbass militia in the past two days, with both sides reporting dozens of violations of the ceasefire and blaming the other for the violence.
Buses lined up in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk for evacuation to Russia
Lugansk People's Republic the Trilateral Contact Group representative Rodion Miroshnik warned Friday that the Ukrainian army's deployment of a large amount of tubed artillery on the line of contact would lead to massive casualties if a major military conflagration was started.
"There was shelling of a small village called Sanzhary. It is located between Debaltseve and Pervomaisk on the line of contact. 122-mm artillery was used there, that is, tubed artillery," Morshnik said. "On the line of contact, we see a massive amount of cannon artillery in the 122-152 mm calibre, which can strike at distances of between 20-40 km. Let me remind you that there re just 7 km between the line of contact and the center of Donetsk, and 12 km from the positions where these weapons are deployed and the center of Lugansk. That is, if this artillery is used now, it will not be possible to avoid huge bloodshed and a massive number of victims," he added.
Miroshnik warned that the Donbass was being pushed toward renewed fighting, since Kiev has shown its lack of readiness to negotiate with the breakaway republics.
The leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk ordered an evacuation of their civilian population on Friday, citing the danger of an all-out Ukrainian assault.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with his Belarusian counterpart on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Kiev must sit down for talks with the Donbass breakaways, and do so as soon as possible. Putin also stressed that the Minsk Agreements were the only way to restore peace and relieve tension in the region.
I've been watching a ton of these trucker protest videos from Canada.
They are being supported by people all over Canada and the world.
People are touched by their spirit of joy and love, their persistence and dedication, and their sense of humor.
Their government and much of the media continues to demonize them - calling them Nazis and other such names. If Trudeau wants to see real Nazis he should take a look at the Ukrainians that he just gave $500 million to so they could buy more weapons.
Every day more police are coming into the area where the trucks are parked near the capital in Ottawa. The government is threatening to take the trucks away from those who have parked them, the truckers are being told their bank accounts will be frozen, they are told their truck insurance will be cancelled, and they each face $100,000 fines and a year in jail.
But the truckers, their families, and their supporters keep dancing.
The have stood up and fought against the totalitarian 'green pass mandates'. They have earned my deepest respect.
I love working class people - they are real.
Bruce
PS I've heard several times that little kids who are at this protest are saying this has been the best time in their entire lives.
Lvov, Ukraine in 2011 (where the Nazis predominate)
It was a day of remembrance that turned violent. In Western Ukraine, nationalists attacked veterans and their relatives on Victory Day [in WW II against Hitler's Nazi army].
People wearing St George ribbons to commemorate World War Two had them ripped off their clothing before riot police fought pitched battles with neo-Nazis.
RT's Aleksey Yaroshevsky witnessed the events.
Lvov is the city where Nazis predominate in Ukraine. The US and its NATO allies have moved their embassies to Lvov.
A difficult week - and the following week seems even worse
By Adam Keller (Gush Shalom)
Hacking into Mobile phones And extracting Personal information From them Started with The Palestinians And has reached Deep into Israeli society.
Israeli soldiers Raided Nablus And extra-judicially executed Three Palestinians.
The Knesset approved A law that Prevents Arab citizens Of Israel from marrying Whomever they wish And living in this country With their chosen spouse.
Two Palestinian workers Plunged to their death From unsafe scaffolding On a high rise Being built by A greedy contractor On the rubble of a slum Whose residents were Forcibly evicted.
And in the same week: The leadership of British Jewry, Which hitherto granted Unconditional support To all of Israel's actions, Informed a former minister In the Israeli government That racists of his ilk Were personae non gratae.
Russian President Vladimir Putin to German journalist: Regarding the expansion of NATO. You said a wonderful phrase: "They say that in the coming years Ukraine will not be in NATO."
What does "say" mean? We have been told for 30 years that there will be no NATO expansion at all, not one inch towards the Russian borders.
Putin sees the Nazi influence in Ukraine and he sees the US-UK-NATO arming and training the Ukrainian military.
The former Soviet Union lost 27 million people during Hitler's WW II invasion. Russia says we are not going there again.
Get NATO off our back - disband it. It's just another way the international war machine can use to extract precious monies from the host nation.
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the US and Britain
On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now.
But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.
The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave”. He was referring to independent journalists and whistle blowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organisations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished.
The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative”, much if not most of it is pure propaganda.
The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Putin is evil, “a Nazi like Hitler”, salivated the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia – tonight, this week, next week. The sources include an ex-CIA propagandist who now speaks for the US State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the US Government”.
The no-evidence rule also applies in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who spent £500,000 of public money flying to Australia in a private plane to warn the Canberra government that both Russia and China were about to pounce, offered no evidence. Antipodean heads nodded; the “narrative” is unchallenged there. One rare exception, former prime minister Paul Keating, called Truss’s warmongering “demented”.
Truss has blithely confused the countries of the Baltic and Black Sea. In Moscow, she told the Russian foreign minister that Britain would never accept Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh – until it was pointed out to her that these places were not part of Ukraine but in Russia. Read the Russian press about the buffoonery of this pretender to 10 Downing Street and cringe.
This entire farce, recently starring Boris Johnson in Moscow playing a clownish version of his hero, Churchill, might be enjoyed as satire were it not for its wilful abuse of facts and historical understanding and the real danger of war.
Vladimir Putin refers to the “genocide” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine in 2014 – orchestrated by Barack Obama’s “point person” in Kyiv, Victoria Nuland – the coup regime, infested with neo-Nazis, launched a campaign of terror against Russian-speaking Donbas, which accounts for a third of Ukraine’s population.
Overseen by CIA director John Brennan in Kyiv, "special security units" coordinated savage attacks on the people of Donbas, who opposed the coup. Video and eyewitness reports show bused fascist thugs burning the trade union headquarters in the city of Odessa, killing 41 people trapped inside. The police are standing by. Obama congratulated the “duly elected” coup regime for its “remarkable restraint”.
In the US media the Odessa atrocity was played down as "murky" and a "tragedy" in which "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) attacked "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal damned the victims - "Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says".
Nazi's throwing Molotov cocktails at the Odessa Trades Union Hall in 2014. Inside hiding from the onslaught were many peaceful local citizens who had been collecting collecting signatures in front of the building requesting a national referendum for a 'federated' Ukraine. No one has ever been charged for these crimes in spite of voluminous video evidence.
Professor Stephen Cohen, acclaimed as America’s leading authority on Russia, wrote, “The pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during world war two. [Today] storm-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other ‘impure’ citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s …
“The police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorialising Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms, renaming streets in their honour, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.”
Today, neo-Nazi Ukraine is seldom mentioned. That the British are training the Ukrainian National Guard, which includes neo-Nazis, is not news. (See Matt Kennard’s Declassified report in Consortium 15 February). The return of violent, endorsed fascism to 21st-century Europe, to quote Harold Pinter, “never happened … even while it was happening”.
On 16 December, the United Nations tabled a resolution that called for “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism”. The only nations to vote against it were the United States and Ukraine.
Almost every Russian knows that it was across the plains of Ukraine’s “borderland” that Hitler’s divisions swept from the west in 1941, bolstered by Ukraine’s Nazi cultists and collaborators. The result was more than 20 million Russian dead.
Setting aside the manoeuvres and cynicism of geopolitics, whomever the players, this historical memory is the driving force behind Russia’s respect-seeking, self-protective security proposals, which were published in Moscow in the week the UN voted 130-2 to outlaw Nazism. They are:
Russian demands for security
- NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow)
- NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
- Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.
- the West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact.
- the landmark treaty between the US and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The US abandoned it in 2019)
These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West. But who understands their significance in Britain? What they are told is that Putin is a pariah and a threat to Christendom.
Russian-speaking Ukrainians, under economic blockade by Kyiv for seven years, are fighting for their survival. The “massing” army we seldom hear about are the thirteen Ukrainian army brigades laying siege to Donbas: an estimated 150,000 troops. If they attack, the provocation to Russia will almost certainly mean war.
Now empty apartment building inside the city of Donesk in eastern Ukraine after Kiev's Nazi-led army shelled the city
In 2015, brokered by the Germans and French, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France met in Minsk and signed an interim peace deal. Ukraine agreed to offer autonomy to Donbas, now the self declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Minsk agreement has never been given a chance. In Britain, the line, amplified by Boris Johnson, is that Ukraine is being “dictated to” by world leaders. For its part, Britain is arming Ukraine and training its army.
Since the first Cold War, NATO has effectively marched right up to Russia’s most sensitive border having demonstrated its bloody aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and broken solemn promises to pull back. Having dragged European “allies” into American wars that do not concern them, the great unspoken is that NATO itself is the real threat to European security.
In Britain, a state and media xenophobia is triggered at the very mention of “Russia”. Mark the knee-jerk hostility with which the BBC reports Russia. Why? Is it because the restoration of imperial mythology demands, above all, a permanent enemy? Certainly, we deserve better.
Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, in her infamous talk with the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about the makeup of the future government in Ukraine after they orchestrated the 2014 coup in Kiev.
See Pyatt's train ride video to military training base in western Ukraine that US-NATO set up here
Nuland is a key neo-con who is back in power inside Biden's State Department. She is married to well-known war hawk Robert Kagan - one of the early movers and shakers of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). That neo-con outfit was hugely responsible for promoting the 2003 'shock and awe' in Iraq.
Nuland mentions Biden during the video, saying 'We'll bring Biden in for an 'atta-boy' - essentially meaning he would give the Obama administration's blessing on the new right-wing government that Washington clearly brought into power.
It's quite simple - we know the script by now - it's called a color revolution funded with lots of corporate money and support from the CIA, National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros's Open Society Foundation. They all worked together to run the operation.
Black history: First study of non-white population in the world
"Legacy of Courage: W.E.B. Du Bois and The Philadelphia Negro" is a 19-minute documentary that tells the story of the research that Du Bois did in Philadelphia's old Seventh Ward in the 1890s for his classic book, The Philadelphia Negro.
This video is part of "The Ward," a research, teaching, and public history project dedicated to sharing the timeless lessons from W.E.B. Du Bois' 1899 book, The Philadelphia Negro.
We seek to teach high school students about Du Bois' major contributions to social science and civil rights and engage a broad audience in an honest dialog about the continuing impact of race and racism.
This screenshot above reveals that all international air traffic is being routed around Ukraine.
The Biden 'team' regularly says they have 'new intelligence' claiming that Russia will invade, 'today, tomorrow, or next week'. This has been going on for more than two months. They often conclude with these words 'We are not sure when they might invade, but we know they intend to do so very soon.'
So much for US intel....
The latest I heard from the corporate media is that Russia will now launch cyber attacks on NATO. Could this be the false flag?
Anytime you hear the US-UK-NATO predict anything just imagine that the spokesperson is actually looking in a mirror and telling you what they are going to do.
No matter how many times Moscow says they have no intention of invading Ukraine that message never breaks through western media. The reason why? Russian words are not part of the talking points script the CIA hands to their agents who work at the highest levels of corporate run media.
This is the dirty secret that continues today despite the appearance that the Church Committee hearings in Congress in the 1970's had cleaned up the CIA control of the media. It wasn't cleaned up. Note the last words near the end of this video, 'We've got to be more careful in the future.'
Yes please be more careful when you are distorting the news and deceiving the public. Be more careful when you are rigging primaries for the Democrats to dump Sen. Bernie Sanders (who is not my idol) or demonizing leaders of nations that are on the 'regime change' list. Or lying about how safe an experimental vaccine is or how the economy is rebounding.
The people just might get confused - and angry once they figure out the game being played on them.
Let's hope these agents of Mr. Big in the media will be exposed for the hacks they are.
Dr. Dave Webb on space travel, environment and militarism
Dr. Dave Webb lives in Leeds, England and is the board convener of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He is an engineer by training. At one time he worked for the British Ministry of Defense (MOD).
For many years Dave served as national chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the UK.
He's been with the Global Network since the late 1990's. He also serves as the webmaster for our website at www.space4peace.org
In this interview Dave talks about the growing damage to Earth and the orbits around our planet by unrestrained and unregulated launches for 5G and other military applications. Tens of thousands of these mini-satellite launches are punching a larger hole in the ozone layer as well as emitting toxic exhaust during rocket launches.
He warns about the coming Kessler Syndrome which predicts increasing collisions and creation of more space debris in orbits above the Earth. At some point scientists fear that there will be a cascade of orbital crashes taking out the satellites that bring us GPS, cell phone, Internet banking, weather prediction, air traffic control, cable TV and more. At that point life on Earth could grind to a dark halt.
Dave also talks about the many problems associated with the rapidly expanding network of rocket launch facilities in the UK, the US, and other places like New Zealand and beyond. Usually the locals are promised that the launch sites will be for 'civilian' purposes but in locations like Kodiak, Alaska, Rocket Lab in New Zealand and inside the UK they turn out to be primarily for military uses. One common denominator appears to be the entry of Lockheed Martin.
RAND Corporation study calls for regime change in Moscow
Imagine how Moscow felt when they first read this RAND Corporation study. When we look at current events can we notice the direct connection to the points from this study listed below? Whether it is US-NATO military expansion right up to Russian borders or efforts by Washington to kill the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany - it is clear that there is a method behind US-NATO madness. If you were sitting in Russia's shoes how would you react to these proposals below - many of which have been or are now being implemented?
Despite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, Russia remains a powerful country that still manages to be a U.S. peer competitor in a few key domains. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of “cost-imposing options” that could unbalance and overextend Russia. Such cost-imposing options could place new burdens on Russia, ideally heavier burdens than would be imposed on the United States for pursuing those options.
Increasing Europe’s ability to import gas from suppliers other than Russia could economically extend Russia and buffer Europe against Russian energy coercion. Europe is slowly moving in this direction by building regasification plants for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Encouraging the emigration from Russia of skilled labor and well-educated youth has few costs or risks and could help the United States and other receiving countries and hurt Russia, but any effects—both positive for receiving countries and negative for Russia—would be difficult to notice except over a very long period. This option also has a low likelihood of extending Russia.
Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.
Undermining Russia’s image abroad would focus on diminishing Russian standing and influence, thus undercutting regime claims of restoring Russia to its former glory.
Reposturing bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets has a high likelihood of success and would certainly get Moscow’s attention and raise Russian anxieties; the costs and risks of this option are low as long as the bombers are based out of range of most of Russia’s theater ballistic and ground-based cruise missiles.
Deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia could heighten Russia’s anxiety enough to significantly increase investments in its air defenses.
There are also ways to get Russia to extend itself in strategic competition. In terms of benefits, such developments would exploit Moscow’s demonstrated fear of U.S. airpower capabilities and doctrines. Developing new low-observable, long-range bombers, or simply adding significantly more of types that are already available or programmed (B-2s and B-21s) would be worrisome for Moscow, as would developing autonomous or remotely piloted strike aircraft and producing them in high numbers.
Increasing U.S. and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas could force Russia to increase its naval investments, diverting investments from potentially more dangerous areas.
Increasing naval R&D efforts would focus on developing new weapons that allow U.S. submarines to threaten a broader set of targets or enhance their ability to threaten Russian nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), which could impose anti-submarine warfare costs on Russia.
Checking the Black Sea buildup would involve deploying strengthened North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) anti-access and area denial over the Black Sea—perhaps in the form of long-range, land-based anti-ship missiles—to drive up the cost of defending Russian bases in Crimea and lower the benefit to Russia of having seized this area.
A general increase in NATO ground force capabilities in Europe—including closing European NATO member readiness gaps and increasing the number of U.S. forces stationed in traditional locations in Western Europe—would have limited risks.
Incremental investments in new technologies to counter Russian air defenses and increase U.S. long-range fires could significantly improve defense and deterrence while compelling increased Russian investment in countermeasures.
Obama's ambassador to Ukraine made a trip to US-NATO training base in western Ukraine (where the Nazis predominate). US Special Forces are rotated into the base from Ft. Carson, Colorado to train the Kiev regime's Army. Many of the Nazis have been brought into this 'new military unit'. More than 27 million people in the former Soviet Union died during Hitler's WW II invasion. Imagine how Russians today feel when they see the US arming, training and directing Nazi forces to attack the Russian-ethnic citizens living in the Donbass region of Ukraine, right next to the Russian border.
Even if the Army were not directly involved in extending Russia per se, it would play a key role in mitigating the possible blowback. All the options to extend Russia incur some risk. As a result, enhancing U.S. deterrence posture in Europe and increasing U.S. military capabilities (e.g., an enhanced Javelin or active protection systems for Army vehicles) might need to go hand in hand with any move to extend Russia, as a way of hedging against the chance of tensions with Russia escalating into conflict.
The most-promising options to “extend Russia” are those that directly address its vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. In that regard, Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports.
Most of the options discussed, including those listed here, are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counterescalation. Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes.
