Why NATO Is Terrified of Russia

Someone get NATO a tissue!

by Pepe Escobar

source:
http://rt.com/op-edge/254213-nato-eu-russia-economy-swift/
http://russia-insider.com/en/why-nato-terrified-russia/6359

The twin-pronged attack – oil price war/raid on the ruble – aimed at destroying the Russian economy and place it into a form of Western natural resource vassalage has failed.

Natural resources were also essentially the reason for reducing Iran to a Western vassalage. That never had anything to do with Tehran developing a nuclear weapon, which was banned by both the leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The ‘New Great Game’ in Eurasia was always about control of the Eurasian land mass. Minor setbacks to the American elite project do not mean the game will be restricted to a mere “war of attrition”. Rather the contrary.


All about PGS

In Ukraine, the Kremlin has been more than explicit there are two definitive red lines. Ukraine won’t join NATO. And Moscow won’t allow the popular republics of Donetsk and Lugansk to be crushed.

We are coming closer to a potentially explosive deadline – when EU sanctions expire in July. An EU in turmoil but still enslaved to NATO – see the pathetic “Dragoon Ride” convoy from the Baltics to Poland or the “Atlantic Resolve” NATO show-off exercise – may decide to expand them, and even try to exclude Russia from SWIFT.

Only fools believe Washington is going to risk American lives over Ukraine or even Poland. Yet let’s plan a few steps ahead. If it ever comes to the unthinkable – a war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine – Russian defense circles are sure of conventional and nuclear superiority on sea and land. And the Pentagon knows it. Russia would reduce NATO forces to smithereens in a matter of hours. And then would come Washington’s stark choice: accept ignominious defeat or escalate to tactical nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon knows that Russia has the air and missile defense capabilities to counter anything embedded in the US Prompt Global Strike (PGS). Simultaneously though, Moscow is saying it would rather not use these capabilities.

Major General Kirill Makarov, Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces’ deputy chief, has been very clear about the PGS threat. Moscow’s December 2014 new military doctrine qualifies PGS as well as NATO’s current military buildup as the top two security threats to Russia.

Unlike non-stop Pentagon/NATO bragging/demonizing, what Russian defense circles don’t need to advertise is how they are now a couple of generations ahead of the US in their advanced weaponry.

The bottom line is that while the Pentagon was mired in the Afghanistan and Iraq quagmires, they completely missed Russia’s technological jump ahead. The same applies to China’s ability to hit US satellites and thus pulverize American ICBM satellite guidance systems.

The current privileged scenario is Russia playing for time until it has totally sealed Russia’s air space to American ICBMs, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles – via the S-500 system.

This has not escaped the attention of the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) – as it gamed sometime ago whether Washington might launch a first strike against Russia.According to the JIC, Washington might go rogue if “a) an extreme government were to take over in the United States, b) and there was increased lack of confidence by the United States in some if not all of her Western allies owing to political developments in their countries, c) and there was some sudden advance in the USA in the sphere of weapons, etc. that the counsels of impatience may get the upper hand.”

US ‘Think Tankland’ spinning that Russian military planners should take advantage of their superiority to launch a first strike nuclear attack against the US is bogus; the Russian doctrine is eminently defensive.

Yet that does not exclude Washington doing the unthinkable the next time the Pentagon thinks of itself to be in the position Russia is now in.


SWIFT changes

The whole game used to be about who ruled the waves – the geopolitical gift the US inherited from Great Britain. Control of the seas meant the US inheriting five empires; Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands. All those massive US carrier task forces patrolling the oceans to guarantee “free trade” – as the hegemonic propaganda machine goes – could be turned against China in a flash. It’s a mechanism similar to the carefully choreographed “leading from behind” financial op to simultaneously crash the ruble/launch an oil war and thus smash Russia into submission.

Washington’s master plan remains deceptively simple; to “neutralize” China by Japan, and Russia by Germany, with the US backing its two anchors, Germany and Japan. Russia is the de facto only BRICS nation blocking the master plan.

This was the case until Beijing launched the New Silk Road(s), which essentially mean the linking of all Eurasia into a “win-win” trade/commerce bonanza on high-speed rail, and in the process diverting freight tonnage overland and away from the seas.

So NATO’s non-stop Russia demonizing is in fact quaint. Think about NATO picking a fight against the constantly evolving, complex Russia-China strategic partnership. And in a not so remote future, as I indicated here, Germany, Russia and China have what it takes to be the essential pillars of a fully integrated Eurasia.

As it stands, the key shadow play is Moscow and Beijing silently preparing their own SWIFT system while Russia prepares to seal its air space with S-500s. Western Ukraine is doomed; leave it to the austerity-ravaged EU – which, by the way, doesn’t want it. And all this while the same EU tries to handicap the US commercially with a rigged euro that still doesn’t allow it to penetrate more US markets.

As for an irrelevant NATO, all it can do is cry, cry, cry.

Source: The Vineyard of the Saker 03-05-2015

Russia Outplays the West

Bloomberg commentator Leonid Bershidsky confirms what we always said would happen: Ukraine is in a bind, Russia holds all the cards, and the Russian economy is bouncing back as Western investors flood back in.

Alexander Mercouris

Regular readers of Russia Insider will know that since we began publication we have consistently made two claims:

The first is that in the Ukrainian conflict Russia holds all the cards.  

Ukraine’s economy is so interconnected with Russia’s that Ukraine cannot function economically without Russia, while the exceptionally tight links between Ukraine and Russia mean that any attempt to distance Ukraine from Russia is certain to fail.

Beyond that, in the ongoing conflict, Russia holds all the military cards, since the Ukrainians simply cannot overrun the Donbass against Russia’s opposition.

Our second claim is that the West misunderstands and has gravely underestimated Russian society and Russia’s economy.  

We refused to buy the crisis talk so widely current at the end of last year. On the contrary we said the ruble was being oversold, that claims Russia would default or that its economy was in meltdown were nonsense, and that the devaluation of the ruble was ultimately good for Russia.

More and more people are gradually coming round to these views.  The latest article by Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg (“Putin Needs Neither War Nor Peace in Ukraine”, Bloomberg, 29th April 2015) is a case in point.

Bershidsky is one of the shrewdest and most intelligent writers on the Russian economy. He is a pro-Western liberal and a known critic of Putin. He is scarcely someone who is going to give Putin or the Russian government the benefit of the doubt, so when he takes the same view as us, that should be considered definitive.

Here is what he says about Ukraine:

“The government is Kiev is stuck. It can’t make a military move to reclaim its territory, because it can’t risk another defeat. President Petro Poroshenko will probably end up tacitly agreeing to freeze the conflict for now, because Ukraine also stands to benefit from the psychological effect that a relative peace would have on investment.”

We have consistently said that the key reason there is no progress towards a negotiated peace in Ukraine is because Kiev refuses to implement the political part of the Minsk Memorandum. Here is what Bershidsky has to say about that: 

“Ukraine, at the same time, has been unwilling to grant more autonomy to rebel-held regions, as prescribed by the Minsk deal, until local elections are held there in accordance with Ukrainian law. That’s a dead end: There won’t be any elections until the rebel commanders — and their masters in Moscow — are satisfied with their new powers.”

And here is what Bershidsky says about who wins from this situation:

“It makes sense for Russian President Vladimir Putin to find this kind of equilibrium, allowing his country’s investment rebound to gain momentum, while keeping Ukraine on the hook. That implies a frozen conflict scenario, in which there is no war and no deal, a situation that could be maintained more or less indefinitely – as Transnistria, the unrecognized state in limbo between Ukraine and Moldova since the early 1990s, shows. 

For Putin, the advantage is clear: Keeping the conflict unresolved may hinder Ukraine’s integration with Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”

As for Russia’s economy, Bershidsky has recently made known his view that the worst is over, but here is what he says in his latest article:

“The ruble is the best-performing major currency so far this year, having gained 14 percent against the U.S. dollar. That’s mainly because the oil price, all-important for Russia’s fiscal health, has stabilized at a higher level than doomsday prophets predicted – above $60 a barrel of Brent crude. And Russian economic data, while hardly encouraging, don’t indicate an impending collapse.”

As for sanctions:

“Western sanctions against Russia didn’t inflict much economic damage, because when they rendered big Russian state companies unable to borrow in Western markets, the government stepped in to help them. Yet, for some time last year, the sanctions did succeed in scaring investors away. That was a mainly psychological effect, which is now wearing off thanks to the truce.”

And as the scare factor of the sanctions starts to wear off, as Bershidsky reports, Western investors are coming back:

“According to the global fund tracker EPFR, the influx of cash into mutual and exchange-traded funds targeting Russian securities so far this year has almost wiped out last year’s outflow.”

Even lending to Russian companies has now resumed:

“Why not give Russia a chance, especially since it promises higher yields than most other big markets?

International lenders led by Societe Generale, ING and Natixis have just provided $530 million to Uralkali, Russia’s world leader in potash production, at 3.3 percentage points above the Libor benchmark rate. European companies with similar credit ratings pay less than half that premium now.”

We don’t agree with Bershidsky about everything. He assumes that Moscow is behind the conflict in Ukraine. We say it is a civil war into which Ukraine, aided and abetted by the West, has dragged Russia. We think he is wrong that Ukraine will choose stalemate over war. We expect fighting to resume soon. He attributes Russia’s recovery this year to the higher oil price and the truce in Ukraine. We say it is due to Russia’s strong economic fundamentals.

The point however is that on these questions, whichever of us is right,  the end result is the same. Both in Ukraine and on the economy it is Russia that today looks far stronger than the West expected, and which has the advantage.

And as to that, all we can say is: we told you so.

Source: Russia Insider 02-05-2015

Militia leader: Donetsk republic has established itself as state

The militia leader praised the people of the war-torn region for their diligence and patriotism and for being an example of unity, bravery and spiritual strength

MOSCOW, May 1. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has established itself as a state, its leader Alexander Zakharchenko said in his speech on occasion of Labour Day on Friday.

"Today we are building our young state enthusiastically. Still not everything comes easily, but despite the intention of our enemies to destroy the republic, I want to state firmly - we have established ourselves as a young state, we are developing and we have won!" the Donetsk news agency quoted him as saying.

The self-proclaimed republic’s authorities are currently restoring infrastructure facilities creating conditions for economic development, Zakharchenko said.

In his congratulatory message, the leader also praised the people of the war-torn region for their diligence and patriotism and for being an example of unity, bravery and spiritual strength.

"I am sure that by our joint efforts we will soon turn our dream into reality and establish a strong, independent and prosperous state created by people and for people," he said.

The Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics declared themselves sovereign states in April 2014 in response to Kiev’s attempts to suppress the opposition in south-eastern Ukraine. After the May 11, 2014 referendums, both regions signed an agreement on creation of the Union of People’s Republics, Novorossiya.

Source: ITAR-TASS 01-05-2015

Banning Bikers: The Double Standards Of NGOs

by Andrew Korybko

Germany and Poland’s rejection of visa issuance for the Night Wolves patriotic bikers is politically motivated and speaks loudly about the West’s double standards towards NGOs. The group wanted to partake in a commemorative pilgrimage across Eastern Europe en route to Berlin in order to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day, and they were entirely transparent about their routes and itinerary. In the context of the New Cold War, it was obvious that if they would have been granted access to the EU, they’d have been watched over like a hawk and had every one of their moves monitored, thus ensuring that none of the ‘provocations’ that the Western mainstream media scared their citizens about would have had any chance of coming to pass even if the bikers wanted them to (which they didn’t).

So what in effect happened was that the EU fear mongered about and banned non-political private citizens who were planning to pay homage to the tens of millions of Europeans that perished in World War II. The Night Wolves are essentially a Russian NGO, in that they’re literally a non-governmental organization, meaning that the EU banned a foreign NGO at the last minute after embarrassingly exposing its members to hours-long interrogations and searches. The EU was so against the Russian NGO that they wouldn’t even allow them across the border under the Orwellian observation that they obviously would have been exposed to during their entire trip. Let that sink in for a moment, and then imagine if the shoe was on the other foot.

Russia has never treated a foreign NGO in this manner, not even those which are politically oriented and clearly engaged in regime change destabilizations. Rather, Moscow simply stipulates that NGOs receiving financing from abroad need to register as foreign agents in order to legally conduct their affairs in the country. It doesn’t force their members to undergo humiliating searches and interrogations at border crossings, and the harassment techniques practiced by the EU against the Night Wolves are noticeably absent in the case of their Polish counterparts’ yearly commemorative visit to Smolensk and Katyn. Russia doesn’t treat any foreign political, social, or historical NGO members in the same hostile manner as the EU treats Russians, nor does Moscow ban private individuals like the EU has de-facto done against the bikers. Despite this, Russia is constantly smeared in the Western press as being ‘authoritarian’, ‘xenophobic’, and ‘nationalistic’, but the irony is that these labels actually describe the West itself, as is clearly evidenced from their treatment of the Night Wolves.

In fact, the EU epitomizes all the socio-political negativities that it accuses Russia of, and actually behaves worse than it ever accused Moscow of acting when it comes to the Brussels’ own practice in this regard. It’s not the pot calling the kettle black, but more like a burned-out kettle having the audacity to level that label against a stainless steel pot. Such a comparison is delusion and devoid of reality, but the EU’s hypocritical criticism of Moscow’s NGO treatment testifies to the ideological rigor in which politics is practiced in the EU. The only reason that such a narrative is even espoused and surprisingly believed by many in Europe is because of the heavy information war that Brussels is waging against its own citizens.

People living in the EU are brought up in the belief of their own civilizational exceptionalism, not unlike the American indoctrination that has been ongoing for decades already (the proxy learns from its master, evidently). From the cradle to the grave, they’re led to believe that Europe is the proselytizing ‘force of good’ in the world, and that its people have an obligation to ‘civilize’ their Russian and Arab neighbors, including through the use of EuroMaidan and “Arab Spring” Color Revolutions. Solely through the narrow dialectic belief that one’s ideas represent the only ‘true good’ in the world can the hypocrisy of the EU’s treatment of Russian NGOs and private citizens (to say nothing of Syrians) appear ‘acceptable’ to the European populace, while the comparative lack of harassment by Russian and Syrian authorities can be used to fuel a ‘human rights’ crusade against those two countries that continues to this day.

Source: The Vineyard of the Saker 30-04-2015