An Armageddon for NATO Expansion

Woodward claims, citing the usual unnamed source, in charging that Trump has had seven calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin in what is a clear attempt to revive the Trump as Putin puppet paranoia – an October surprise of sorts. ‚Of sorts‘ because the revival of this old saw was entirely predictable (www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/us/politics/trump-putin-woodward-book.html and https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-biden-putin-war-ukraine-russia-zelenskyy-ce9c59f689d3f438264a64b2bfa0aa39). One of the leaders of the Democrat Party-State revolution from above against the American republic and as well of the coup that were the original ‚Russiagate‘ allegations‘, now proven false, Susan Rice characterized the alleged calls as „an apparent crime,‘ indicating how the DemParty-State is planning to undermine any new Trump presidency (https://thehill.com/policy/international/4924145-susan-rice-trump-putin-logan-act/).

Woodward’s book also tells us just how bad US intelligence is and how important NATO expansion to Western and US global elites. It claims – and just as with the ‚seven calls‘ claim, this one also needs to be taken with large grains of salt – that US intel assessed the possibility that in autumn 2022 Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine was 50/50 if Kiev‘s Western-backed forces encircled 30,000 Russian troops. First of all, there was no danger of such an encirclement at that time or any time during the war. Second, Russian nuclear doctrine does not allow for the use of nuclear weapons unless there is an existential threat to Russia’s survival or sovereignty as an integrated state (https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-scrambled-urge-putin-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-woodward-114618626).

But more importantly, this claim, if true, demonstrates just how much Washington and Brussels – the U.S., the E.U., and NATO – are willing to risk in order to guarantee NATO’s ‚right‘ to expand along Russia’s borders. First, should not such a risk assessment been made when the West convinced Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to fight rather than make peace with Russia in March-April 2022? It did so be denying Ukraine security guarantees under any agreement with Putin and promising him massive military and financial assistance ‚for as long as it takes‘ to defeat Moscow. Second, since then the West has done all it could to continue the war and level a ‚strategic defeat‘ against Moscow. Could not this strategic defeat lead, directly or indirectly, to an existential threat to Russia’s stability and so survival and sovereignty and thereby provoke the leadership into using ist nuclear forces in order to eliminate that threat? For the U.S., E.U. and NATO, it is worth risking nuclear war, not to mention Ukraine’s survival as an independent state, for the sake of preserving their ‚right‘ to expand NATO at the expense of Russia’s national security, as it has persisted for three decades.

This is not the first time that US intel has dropped the ball on Russia and Ukraine. When supporting the February 2014 Maidan putsch in Kiev, prior thought should have been given to what Moscow’s and Russian Ukrainians‘ reaction might have been: the latter sought to separate Crimea from Kiev, as did their co-ethnics in Donbass, and Moscow backed them, leading Russia’s accession of Crimea, Kiev’s civil war on Donbas, and the latter’s secession and incorporation into Russia. Two decades of Western meddling along Russia’s Western borders had led to predictable results. Anyone who understands Russia and its political and strategic cultures – and they are few – could have told CIA analysts what today’s CIA chief, William Burns, told Washington back in 2008. In the now somewhat well-publicized memorandum he dispatched as the U.S.‘s ambassador to Moscow, the then honest Burns reported back to Washington:

„Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic” issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene….

„Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face….

„Russia’s opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia’s interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia’s adversaries and to use NATO’s outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990’s was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests.“ (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html).

Respond Moscow did: first in Georgia in August 2008 and then in March 2014 in Crimea and Donbass and in February 2022 in Ukraine more generally. Unfortunately, the pull of the swamp is powerful, and Burns is now a fervent believer in hitting Moscow with a ‚strategic defeat.‘ And he reiterates America’s narrow Putinism — the idea that everything regarding is about Putin; the Russian president is not a product of Russia’s deep political and strategic cultures, as he intimated in the noted memo. No. Now Ukraine is “Putin’s fixation” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQishfXtFs). This is a childish view reminiscent of Kamala Harris’s ‘analysis’: “Ukraine is a country in Europe. It is exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine so basically that’s wrong” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6pIxbS5dc).

U.S. state and media actors resort to the nuclear scare when they want to paint Putin as a dangerous leader, but downplay the nuclear risk when the context is the potential for escalation to Armageddon. Thus, in March 2024, years after an event, in one of many efforts to further damage Putin’s reputation among U.S. voters, CNN and the Biden administration to issue various nuclear scares regarding the ‚unstable dictator.‘ They harkened back to autumn 2022, claiming U.S. intel had sensed the possible danger of Russia reverting to tactical nukes: ‘If significant numbers of Russian forces were ­overrun —​­ if their lives were shattered as such —​­ that was a sort of precursor to a potential threat directly to Russian territory or the Russian state,’ the first senior administration official said.

“’In Kherson at that time there were increasing signs that Russian lines could collapse. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were potentially vulnerable.’

“Russia was losing ground inside Ukrainian sovereign territory, not inside Russia. But US officials were concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin saw it differently. He had told the Russian people that Kherson was now part of Russia itself, and, so, might perceive a devastating loss there as a direct threat to him and the Russian state.

“‘Our assessment had been for some time that one of the scenarios in which they would contemplate using nuclear weapons [included] things like existential threats to the Russian state, direct threats to Russian territory,’ the first senior administration official said” (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/09/politics/us-prepared-rigorously-potential-russian-nuclear-strike-ukraine/index.html).

They added that there was a risk of Russia considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the coming months, even as Russian forces cut through eastern Ukraine like a hot kinbife through butter: “(W)e could be confronting at least the rising risk of this again in the months ahead”(https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/09/politics/us-prepared-rigorously-potential-russian-nuclear-strike-ukraine/index.html).

But months later, CIA Director Burns, now reduced to repeating the DC/Deep State mantras such as „Putin’s unprovoked, brutal war against Ukraine,“ fed the policy that risks us all with nuclear war and annihilation, by somewhat downplaying the risk of nuclear war over NATO and Ukraine in a recent discussion of continued assistance to Kiev: “I don’t think we can afford to be unnecesarily intimidated by that saber rattling or bullying, but we’ve got to be mindful of it” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp5PeoAW6mI). The time to be mindful of such things was in 2010-2014. Burns should have persisted in his warnings when the West began targeting Ukraine with a ‚color revolution‘ in order to pave the way for the now beleaguered country’s accession to NATO. Instead, the West finds itself in the perilous position of escalating in ordert o ensure NATO expansion by way of handing ‚Putin‘ a strategic defeat in Ukraine but controling escalation so it does not approach nuclear levels. Still, new NATO Gen Sec Mark Rutte reiterated Burns‘ less cautious sentiment on October 1st, saying Putin’s „nuclear horrors“ should not be taken seriously (www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/news/2024/10/1/7195274/). Still, he announced that on October 14th NATO would be conducting nuclear exercises, doing so after a meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskiy (www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/news/2024/10/10/7195960/).

Now Washington is considering allowing Kiev to attack deep inside Russia with American long-range ballistic missiles, moving a little bit closer to that existential threat that drives Russian decisionmaking on the use of nuclear weapons. It is of interest that the episode regarded in the West as a case of Russia brandishing the nuclear threat came during the first broaching of Zelenskiy’s idea of garnering long-range missiles capable of hitting targets beyond the post-2014 territories seized by Moscow. It is in response to this threat that Russia issued the first vague warning about Russia’s nuclear potential. At a 15 September 2022 Russian Foreign Affairs press briefing, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted: „We would like to stress that the United States and its allies that supply weapons to the Kiev regime are actually becoming accomplices in its war crimes. If Washington decides on supplying longer-range missiles, it will cross the red line and become a party to the conflict. We reserve the right to protect the Russian territory by all available means“ (https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1829920/?lang=en#5). At the time, Russia raised the specter of a Ukrainian dirty bomb not in order to use this as cover for its own tactical nuclear attack, as the CIA supposedly feared, but in response to the long-range missile threat possibly emerging in Ukraine at the time. Now, some in Russia are making more overt calls fort he use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to the new push to allow Ukraine to use its Western-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against targets deep inside Russia (https://ctrana.news/news/471914-v-rf-predlozhili-primenit-jao-v-otvet-na-ljubye-udary-po-territorii-rf.html). Indeed, Burns‘ September 2024 discussion of Putin’s nuclear threats is noted in the context of the vague 2022 threat (www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp5PeoAW6mI). That ostensibe threat and the dirty bomb claims – alarmist and propagandistic, perhaps, albeit — were a response to Ukrainian attempts to take back control of the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant by firing at it, prompting IAEA inspections (www.csis.org/analysis/six-days-october-russias-dirty-bomb-signaling-and-return-nuclear-crises).

A paradox is that the CIA can only imagine aggression and perfidy from Russia, but Burns recommends merely that we avoid fear and intimidation and be only „mindful“ of Russian assertions. All the Western attention to Russia’s ostensible loose nuke talk ignores Kiev’s numerous attacks on the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant and its incursion into Kursk in the direction of the Russian regions’s nuclear power plant and nuclear weapons storage facilities. The problem, of course, is not Burns. He is but one symptom of innumerable ones that have resulted from America’s blindfold syndrome, the lack of self-awareness of which ignores the ways that Western NATO, Ukraine, and Russia policies provoked almost everything that has happened since the eve of Maidan. 

Crucially, Putin has repeatedly rejected the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Europe in response to such provocations. At the same time as he rejected the idea at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum this summer, he certainly waved around the threat in what might be called a wide-ranging discussion of Russia’s capabilities (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74234 and https://ctrana.news/news/466224-itohi-835-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html). More recently, however, he has adjusted Russia’s nuclear use doctrine to allow for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries that initiate an existential threat to Russia in union with nuclear powers. This opens up the possibility of use against Ukraine and all NATO member-states assisting Ukraine as nuclear powers such as the U.S., U.K. and France are NATO members and NATO is assisting Ukraine. It seems this doctrinal change was a not-so-veiled threat. 

Conclusion

So it seems the avoidance of nuclear war hinges on Russia’s interpreting any would-be ‚strategic defeat‘ as just that, a strategic defeat, and not as an existential threat. Some may think it wise to escalate military means towards a Russian strategic defeat and the ceiling of conventional weapons and to hope Moscow does not interpret matters differently and/or overreact. This seems to be an exceedingly risky venture fraught with grave danger, particularly given the Western ruslological and intelligence communities near complete lack of understanding of the Russian security mindset. 

Understanding international relations and Russian foreign policy requires both the realist perspective that no major power can tolerate the establishment of a powerful military alliance along hundreds of miles of its borders and the constructivist perspective that Russians view through a prism of security vigilance informed by centuries of interference, incursion, and invasion from the West. Russia’s existence was threatened by each of this history’s most epic watershed moments – the Polish-Vatican support for invasion of Russia, Moscow‘s subordination to Rome, and the real threat of Russia’s loss of sovereignty and national identity; Napoleon’s invasion, and Nazi Germany’s invasion. The West’s broken promise at the first Cold War’s end that there would be no NATO expansion beyond reunited Germany and the alliance’s expansion and attempt to expand all along Russia’s western borders all seem eerily familiar to Russians who know their history. Opposition to NATO expansion is a cause of the war and the basis of continuing support for it among Russians. Thus 72 percent oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO as a condition of a peace agreeement, despite the fact that a majority would prefer peace or a ceasefire (https://www.levada.ru/2024/10/09/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-vnimanie-podderzhka-otnoshenie-k-razlichnym-usloviyam-mirnogo-soglasheniya-v-sentyabre-2024-goda/). These considerations lay bare the stunningly misleading and numb-minded formulations that U.S. leaders, including CIA’s own, regarding ‚Putin‘s unprovoked, brutal war against Ukraine.‘ Again referencing Burns, we can find the CIS chief, channeling US VP Kamala Harris declaring that „big countries don’t get to swallow up smaller countries just because they think they can“ (at about the 4:30 mark, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQishfXtFs).  

If at least some in West’s corridors of power understood an iota of this Russian perspective, they would have shied away from entering onto and now advancing along the road of Armageddon. They also would have been very, very ‚mindful‘ of Russian fears of conventional military annihiliation and would have eschewed anything — such as NATO expansion, color revolutions in countries neighboring Russia to achieve it, support of anti-Russian ultranationalists and neofascists, fake negotiating processes (February 2014 in Kiev, 2015-2022 in Minsk, December 2021-January 2022 talks on basing ballistic missiles in Ukraine, and February-April 2022 in Minsk and Istanbul), arming and running Ukraine’s military efforts against Russia, and supplying long-range ballistic missiles to Kiev to target deep inside Russia — that potentially threatens Moscow in such a way.

Never mind. The US/NATO goal is to support driving Russia back to the kind of strategic defeat that they thought Russia was suffering in autumn 2022 and that they thought had driven Moscow into a situation where it was 50-50 whether they would use tactical nuclear weapons. This growing threat of nuclear confrontation comes in the wake of the dismantling of the entire nuclear arms control and conflict resolution infrastructure established during the previous Cold War. But alas, NATO expansion and Western hegemony seem to be the highest value and requires running the risk of Armageddon quite high.