Adm. Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s Military Committee, said that NATO is “ready” for a direct confrontation with Russia, citing the alliance’s recent efforts to boost its presence in Eastern Europe.
Last year, NATO placed new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia on top of the ones that have been deployed in Poland and the Baltic states for years. The US also deployed troops on its own, sending tens of thousands more to Europe, including many that are stationed near the Ukrainian border in Poland and Romania.
Bauer, a Dutch naval officer, also said NATO countries should discuss shifting to a “war economy,” where civilian factories started producing military goods, similar to what the United States did during World War II.
“We have to increase defense industry production, and there are already more and more talks on the subject at the national level,” Bauer said in an interview with Portuguese TV.
“This could mean prioritizing certain raw materials, certain production capacities needed for the defense industry rather than the civilian one. Those priorities should be discussed about, partially, a war economy in peacetime,” he added.
The US is taking measures to ramp up arms production to keep arming, including a Pentagon plan to increase artillery ammunition production by 500% over the next two years. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act granted the Pentagon wartime purchasing powers to speed up arms deals, but the US has yet to take any measures as drastic as Bauer suggested.
Couldn’t resist repeating it here comment elsewhere:
Daniel Ellsberg’s book on US policy re nukes, The Doomsday Machine, lays out America’s policy throughout late 20th C very clearly. And this policy was very deliberately kept entirely secret from all civilians: total nuclear annihilation of all cities in both USSR and China with populations of 25,000+ was called for if there was “any armed conflict with the USSR.” Total deaths (not counting Soviet response, fallout, etc) exceeded more than half the population. My question is: what is current policy? We have no way of knowing. Its top secret.
Ukraine may well be the end of us all.
Did you write that fanfic?
Madness.
NATO is a cancer to the planet and peace.
Rabid lunatics the lot of them. Just as the old guys who remember a world war have all died off.
A World War that Russia won (European theater), at the cost of 20 million people. As in WWI, the U.S. was the Johnny Come Lately who grabs the headlines.
A war they fought with US aid, you stooge, and now were applying that aid to Ukraine.
Outstanding point. I think that the people most inclined to send other people’s children to war… are those who have never seen it themselves.
“people most inclined to send other people’s children to war… are those who have never seen it themselves.”
plus it’s not them or their own children
I’m curious how are they going to sale this to their citizens. Fear angle? “Work hard for us or Russians will nuke you” type of propaganda?
Yes, of course, fear of the Putin monster, “responsibility” to fellow Europeans in need, and at the same time a sense of inevitable victory and safety for them personally, because daddy NATO would never lose.
As Goring said back in WW2, “Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country”.
they will simply blow up hoover dam or something and blame it on russia/china/iran. every american will immediately start waving a patriot flag.
Yeah, the invasion of Ukraine already did that
utter complete insanity
I cannot believe the number of Dr. Stangeloves there are in the upper levels of the administrations of Western countries. Lunatics all! My G-d in Heaven!
Why is the US and NATO willing to gamble with Nukes and continue and support the massive slaughter that this war in Ukraine has turned into and why does NATO say all is lost if Russia is not defeated ? What has this war turned into ? In a Nutshell, it’s the fact that Russia is the mother of all resources and China is the worlds only industrial giant, put the two together and the US and NATO are in a league by themselves, losers .
Could it be because allowing nations to go to war to annex territory is going to lead us to far more wars than we would otherwise have as this kind of war makes war a much more attractive proposition for nation states in many places all over the world?
Thus not opposing this kind of war would lead us to far more resources being diverted to arms and actual wars – not a good prospect for anyone actually against wars or for living in a richer world.
“Could it be because allowing nations to go to war to annex territory is going to lead us to far more wars than we would otherwise have as this kind of war makes war a much more attractive proposition for nation states in many places all over the world?”
No. Or the USA is the world’s biggest hypocrite who should be spending a hundred billion dollars in reparations to our own victims instead of this.
“It’s the right thing to do…” As the motive of this war is only accepted by people who want this war so bad they are willing to pretend to be morons.
The US has not annexed territory the last many years – so no parallel. Preventing nations from gaining territory is paramount if we want to avoid making war a much better idea as a solution to many problems that confront many nations across the globe.
A 20 year occupation, the massive green zone in Iraq, continued support for Israel….
We annex land, we just pretend we don’t.
No the US has not annexed territory and the US will leave if the Iraq so desire – like the US did Afghanistan. There is a huge difference between the US presence in Iraq and the Russian presence in Crimea.
Oh yeah, after we destroy the infrastructure and leave a puppet in charge, we leave a decade or so later, after taking their oil and building pipelines…
What about Israel, are we giving the Palestinians rocket artillery next?
Russia left Georgia after sorting out the civil war there.
The difference is as obvious as to be undeniable – here to justify your position you engage in pure whataboutery;
that Russia did not annex Georgia does not justify that it does parts of Ukraine, that Israel after having had wars fought against it has taken control over the Golan heights, the Gaza strip and the west bank and that the US is not supplying the Palestinians with rockets does not mean that they should not support Ukraine which has been attacked.
So not only whataboutery but a pathetic variant.
For the record I would very much like to apply sanctions to Israel until they left all the occupied areas.
Yeah, ignore the hypocrisy and use a trendy word that fraudulent American politicians use to avoid talking about their own failures.
No trendy words needed, only the base understanding that the US doing something very bad, but very costly is not going to make other states seeking to copy the costly and often morally reprehensible deeds of the US, while Russia invading and annexing the valuable eastern parts of Ukraine most certainly will.
I would argue that’s exactly what we are seeing. Our invasions generally follow a bit of a formula, and we were well into the formula with Russia before Ukraine was even invaded. We surrounded them with “defensive” positions that were heavily armed, started likening them to Nazis, fired up our propaganda about how a war was inevitable…
The Russians knew what we were doing. After all, they’ve been selling oil in Rubles. So our prior invasions did impact this one.
Furthermore: They probably also believed that since attacking a nuclear power is suicide, and nobody at all tried to resist our transparent resource grabbing in Iraq and Syria, at least in part because of our nukes, that they could pull off something similar. So we put them in a position where they knew major sanctions at best, regime change of a neighbor leading to a world war at worst we’re already coming their way, so they had very little to lose. If the USA was willing to risk a nuclear war, we were already signalling our belligerence, and invading Ukraine or not wouldn’t stop it. If the USA was bluffing, then taking Ukraine gave them rich resources and pushes the US back, calling their bluff.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Democrats have gone dangerously insane post Trump, and are willing to risk the world and all known life to dominate fossil fuel markets and the global economy, which locks us into apocalyptic climate change even if we don’t start WW3. There are no good actors in this war. Our evil dwarfs theirs.
Really – the Russians are the ones talking about de-nazification – not the west. As for surrounding the Russians with defensive positions – well that came about by the Russians making their neighbors fear them – NATO only expands by nations applying for membership and they only get to be members if they are democratic and none of the existing members object – so not the US doing but the nations wanting to join.
The US has not annexed any parts of Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan – the Russians might have gotten away had they limited themselves to what the US did, but then they did not and what they did was very inept.
Invasion is invasion. Stop drawing pointless differences, we spent 20 years in Afghanistan, well after they asked us to leave, I doubt the Afghanistan drew such distinctions.
Invasion is invasion, and war, and as such if it does not lead to annexation most often a very expensive proposition for the tax payer – so not at all a pointless difference. The Afghans so far have been lucky that few if any country has actually wanted to annex them. If you have problems with the distinction then ask the Mexicans about Texas.
How would you annex Afghanistan? Please explain.
Really, you walk right up to it, then pivot away.
I would not, nor has most other countries in the recent history wanted to – that is kind of the point!
You’re a credit to the credible populace.
What oil or resources have we taking out of Iraq or Syria? what are you talking about, bro.
I really feel sorry for you. Have a nice evening.
“Could it be because allowing nations to go to war to annex territory is going to lead us to far more wars than we would otherwise have as this kind of war makes war a much more attractive proposition for nation states in many places all over the world?”
I would imagine the vast majority of countries on earth wouldn’t be off to wars of conquest if Russia happens to be “allowed” to annex parts of Ukraine. They aren’t sitting on 6000 nukes. And if the US pushes China far enough, they aren’t going to care how the Russia/Ukraine war turns out as far as that being a deterrent to them taking action on Tawain. So, I’m not so sure it is imperative that WW3 should take place before Russia is allowed to make Crimea a permanent part of the Russian Federation.
Only the ones with weaker neighbors with attractive resources or a need to divert attention from domestic mismanagement – Argentina and the Falklands war being one such example.
Nukes are not a weapon that allows wars of aggression, they are only a weapon that prevents such wars from leading to the invasion of the aggressor.
The Chinese have a clearly formulated strategy wrt Taiwan – if they have explored every peaceful way to get it they will escalate to was – US provocations do not enter into that reasoning, so…
It should not and had Russia not invaded Ukraine then you might have noticed that their annexation of Crimea had not escalated beyond sanctions – they chose to escalate not the West.
“Only the ones with weaker neighbors with attractive resources or a need to divert attention from domestic mismanagement – Argentina and the Falklands war being one such example.”
That’s your “proof” that “this kind of war makes war a much more attractive proposition for nation states in many places all over the world?”
“Nukes are not a weapon that allows wars of aggression, they are only a weapon that prevents such wars from leading to the invasion of the aggressor.”
So, you think if Saddam was sitting on 6000 nukes or even 600 nukes, the US would have still done what they did in 1991?
“The Chinese have a clearly formulated strategy wrt Taiwan – if they have explored every peaceful way to get it they will escalate to was – US provocations do not enter into that reasoning, so…”
I don’t even know what you are trying to say there. Other than ignoring US provocations as having anything to do with the situation.
“It should not and had Russia not invaded Ukraine then you might have noticed that their annexation of Crimea had not escalated beyond sanctions – they chose to escalate not the West.”
Right. And nothing happened after they annexed Crimea. Just sanctions. Ok.
It’s really all about the US — NATO is tagging along like a train of freight cars — the US is the engine and the engineer. And the crisis for the US is that China has grown to be a full-fledged rival for global economic power, and Russia has come back from the low times of the Yeltsin years. Since 1992, after the collapse of the USSR, the US has viewed itself as the sole superpower in the world. Now, the US faces both Russia and China as rivals, plus Europe as another economic rival. It’s all best understood as Great Powers politics. John Mearsheimer is a good resource on this.
” Why is the US and NATO willing to gamble with Nukes and continue and support the massive slaughter that this war in Ukraine has turned into”
Why has Russia by starting this war? And I guest in your world there are no other resource rich or industrial giants, outside of China or Russia, certainly not the US right?
Sociopathy is insanely high among Western Nations and the idiotic populace. People just can’t see the truth even if it hit em in the face.
Honestly, I was a kid in the early 80’s, terrified of nuclear war. I was a college kid in the 90’s studying history and geopolitics. In the 2000’s, during the Iraq war, I realized we’ve forgotten that war is bad and that poor outcomes and accidents happen to rich countries too. At that time, I figured that when the next generation of neoliberals and neoconservatives got into power, we were all going to die, because they’d be too greedy to fear bad outcomes.
Now here we are.
All the talk about abolishing the FBI, what about abolishing the CIA, NATO, and the entire MIC? Defund the Pentagon?
“NATO Official Says Alliance Is ‘Ready’ for Direct Confrontation With Russia Adm. Rob Bauer Says NATO countries should discuss shifting to a ‘war economy’ to increase weapons production”
Big words from a little man from a little country with no military to speak of.
How about asking the people of Netherlands if they are ready to become ground zero in an extinction war in Europe.
I wonder … the people of Netherlands likely couldn’t/can’t conceive of getting hurt really, so they will likely accept the risk. After all, “Russia must be stopped”, no?
Why?
All of those countries are within minutes of Russian ICBMs. Minutes.
How about asking the Ukrainian people if they want to be invaded by Russians? Or is your critical thinking only applies to the west.
Very foolish and childish Ukrainian troll. If NATO had not moved east to Russia’s boarder, Ukraine’s elected government not been overthrown by America (Vitoria Nuland and the CIA) , and had America failed to negotiate diplomatically with Russia 200,000 Ukrainian young men would be alive.
Get educated before make ludicrous comments. Your comments are juvenile or you are a Ukrainian troll!
Ah I see, just a straight up Russian stooge huh, no critical thinking at all. NATO does not move anywhere, nations request to join it, maybe if wasn’t a threat to it’s neighbours it wouldn’t grow so easily.
He would be. Of course. Any surprises?
Now, all the war mongering corporations, individuals, assiciations or rhink-tanks should set example. Their money should be FIRST donated to the war economy and their children in the first line of fire against Russiia. Mr. Bauer to lead the way. .
It’s not the lost lives, the loss of a major distribution hub, or the big hole in his primary line of defense so much. It’s the embarrassment of very publicly losing Soledar and Bakhmut that has Zelensky scrambling for yet another escalation in support from NATO countries. He is also said to already be planning an invasion of Crimea in a desperate effort to convince the media that Ukraine is “still winning” the war.
Career nincompoops such as Bauer are more than happy to lend their voices to the cause.
But Ukraine is bankrupt. The sensible people, who could find the means to do so, have already left. Every day that passes increases the odds that more of them won’t be coming back. The only thing certain about these theatrics is that more people will die, and more property will be destroyed. And I can’t help but wonder if Bauer is the kind of man who would do this to 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒘𝒏 people.
If Ukraine does not prevail they are most certainly not coming back – why would they!?
Why? Because it’s their country and when the active war is over they should go back and live in it like people have done since forever. Ukraine w/o the east and Crimea is still a very large country, and more uniformly ethnic Ukrainian than before.
Kind of missing the point, if Ukraine does not prevail there is very bad future economic prospects for the country and the Ukrainians who have fled have refugee status so a path to a much better life – so a negative incentive to return.
I’m missing the point? These folks fled the dangers of war, well and good. Most were women and children. Once the war is over, they should go back and rebuild. That’s what true Ukrainian patriots would do.
Refugees are or should be refugees only for the duration of the extraordinary event that caused the crisis. Once it’s over, they should go back.
That is however not how things work, if Ukraine does not prevail then they are free to stay as their refugee status will not be changed and they are furthermore free to apply for family reunion and thus get reunited with their missing husbands or fathers (that is how it works in EU at least) – which is the picture I though you were missing.
Only if Ukraine is not free then the notion that we can reverse their refugee status is not supported by previous examples.
What examples?
Wars in plenty of African countries, in the middle east Afghanistan and Iraq – very few of the refugees from those conflicts have been repatriated when the wars were over – and none are being send back to Afghanistan now.
As long as things are tolerable, it is human nature to want to stay where you are. Refugees who take new jobs and make new homes for themselves will want to keep them…. whether Kyev ultimately prevails or not.
Yes partially true, recent refugees are however much more likely to return if their prosperity and future prospects are likely to be better in their former home.
If Ukraine prevails there will b a lot of investments in building up infrastructure to develop Ukrainian gas and oil fields as-well as other natural resources – to the extend that there will be fewer Ukrainian refugees returning there may very well be other Europeans wanting to exploit the possibilities in a free Ukraine – there were e.g. Danish farmers in Ukraine and Russia before 2014.
With jackasses like these, who needs Satan?
NATO Official Says Alliance Is ‘Ready’ for Surrender to Russia
… and The Merchants of Death smile.