With an eye on dramatically revising the timeline of what has actually happened in Eastern Europe in the past few weeks, Pentagon officials are slamming Russia with a series of allegations that Russia is building up in the region as a simple act of aggression.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work accused Russia of threatening further nuclear deployments in Eastern Europe as “the ultimate escalation,” and vowed to prepare US responses, while Gen. Philip Breedlove accused Russia of plotting further actions in Eastern Ukraine.
In reality, Russia’s announcements of deployments and potential redeployments in Eastern Europe have been entirely reactionary to NATO announcements in the days prior. The US has announced massive “pre-positioning” of battle tanks and artillery along the Russian border, and is pushing a NATO force of 40,000 troops to be set up right on the Russian frontier.
Even Russia’s discussion of a deployment of 40 nuclear warheads in the area didn’t come out of the blue, but came just two weeks after British officials revealed ongoing talks with the Obama Administration about deployment an unspecified number of US nuclear weapons in Britain, a move they explicitly tied to tensions with Russia.
Gen. Breedlove, for his part, has been predicting an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, and potentially Europe ni general, for almost a solid year now, and treats every shift in deployments along the Russia-Ukraine border as a sign that the war is about to be launched.
Russia, however, seems much more interested in sustaining the ceasefire in Ukraine, and reports of Russia sending aid to the eastern rebels have come amid repeated NATO announcements of further military aid to the Ukrainian government. In this case again, Russia seems to be purely reactive, and trying to forestall a Ukrainian invasion of the ethnic Russian east by keeping the rebels formidable enough to resist.
Ultimately, the Pentagon allegations don’t hold water, and that they’re targeted so heavily at Congress suggests they are in many ways a cynical attempt to coax more funding for various pet projects out of the lawmakers by scaring them with boogeymen of generations past.
Russia could drive NATO bonkers just by shifting troops around and promenading armor along the border. Overexited military brass and politician would see their head explode like Pez dispensers while massive protest action would go down in West-Yuropean capitals.
Does "The Pentagon" make statements which are not approved by the White House?
I think its the other way around.
Salivating for them Shekels…
What`s striking is the hopelessness of Mr Ditz`s tone. Putin has no idea what to do next. He just hangs on and retaliates blindly. In other words, exactly the same tactic as Israel. But Putin`s Russia isn`t Israel. It has no diaspora to support it and it doesn`t control the US. All Putin has are his US neocon friends and since the more he defies the US and gets away with it, and the more he highlights Israel's dishonest negotiating tactics, the more he damages Israel. Sooner or later, the mainsteam Israel Lobby will have to force the neocons to drop Putin. That seems to be what`s happening, slowly but surely, as Putin makes mistake after mistake.
I don't know what planet you're on. Not a single sentence in your comment above has a factual basis.
Woa yet another Kenny missive from an alternate reality. No need to read InterZone.