Russia:
an “Existential Threat”? - (PART 8)
by Gary
Leupp
First of
all, the NATO advocates, however often they repeat that “We’re
not against Russia, this isn’t about Russia,” do indeed posit
an enduring Russian threat. Thus General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, the
most senior British officer in NATO, stated last February that Russia
poses “an obvious existential threat to our whole being.”
Gen. Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command told
the Aspen Security Forum in July that “Russia could pose
an existential threat to the United States.”
House
Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) warned
Obama to sign a military appropriations bill because Russia poses “an
existential threat” to the U.S. Philanthropist George Soros (who
likes to finance “color revolutions”) wrote in the New York
review of Books in October that “Europe is facing a challenge
from Russia to its very existence.”
These are
wild, stupid words coming from highly placed figures. Isn’t it
obvious that Russia is the one being surrounded, pressured and
threatened? That its military budget is a fraction of the U.S.’s,
its global military presence miniscule in relation to the U.S.
footprint?
But anyone
watching the U.S. presidential candidates’ debates—and who can
perceive the prevalence of paranoia about Russia, the unthinking
acceptance of the “Putin as Hitler” theme, and the obligatory
expression of determination to make America more “strong”—can
understand why the expansion of NATO is so horribly dangerous.
People who
do not think rationally or whose minds are twisted by arrogance can
look at the maps of NATO expansion and think proudly, “This is
how it should be! Why would anyone question the need for nations to
protect themselves by allying with the United States? It’s
alliances like NATO that preserve peace and stability in the world.”
(Some are
able to believe that, perhaps, but the fact is the world has become
less peaceful and far less stable than it was during the Cold War
when the two superpowers checked one another’s moves. Thereafter
the U.S. emerged as what a French diplomat has called an
“hyper-puissance” or hyper-power intervening with impunity in
multiple countries and producing new, often ugly forms of
resistance.)
People
looking at the NATO map of Europe can mentally color in Montenegro
too. A tiny republic on the Adriatic with under 650,000 people, it
was formally invited by NATO to submit its membership application on
December 2. What other countries have yet to sign?
As
mentioned, in 2008 NATO announced that Georgia and Ukraine would
join. But their cases actually seem to be on hold. Belarus, wedged
between Poland and Russia, has been under the self-styled
“authoritarian” President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994. The
regime, considered close to Moscow, was targeted by an abortive
U.S.-funded “color revolution”* in March 2006. The U.S. favored
Mikhail Marynich, a former ambassador to Latvia and proponent of NATO
membership. (He participated in a closed-door NATO “War and
Peace” conference in Riga in November 2006.)
Then there
is Moldova, the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic located
between Romania and Ukraine. To its east is the breakaway republic of
Transnitria, where ethnic Moldovans are a minority and Russians and
Ukrainians make up almost 60% of the population. It is a “frozen
conflict” zone. The neocon dream is to ultimately change all their
regimes and draw them all into the warm embrace of NATO.
One ring
to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring
to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
in the
Land or Mordor where the shadows lie
What do
you do after you complete the western encirclement of Russia? Why,
you destabilize the country itself, hoping to slice it up!** Russia
remains a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural nation. There are tensions and
secessionist movements to exploit in the Caucasus particularly, but
also on the Karelian Peninsula and in Siberia.
If Russia is
an existential threat, its own existence is a threat, right? So why
not cut it up?
Doesn’t
the logic of NATO expansion require an enemy, and doesn’t America
lead the world in defeating enemies?
Or if not,
isn’t NATO itself the real threat? (After all, didn’t it, in its
last major project, totally wreck the modern state of Libya, and as a
result destabilize Mali?)
Shouldn’t
we welcome tensions within NATO, and failures of member states to
devote the required 2% of GDP to military expenses? Shouldn’t we
welcome resistance to further expansion, complaints about U.S.
arm-twisting, and calls for cooperation with Russia rather than
confrontation and destruction?
Source:
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*
The US will probably continue to arm
militants in Syria, keeping Putin busy, at least until 2016
presidential elections. With a more willing puppet than Obama to
follow neocon agenda (any GOP, or Hillary), Washington may then
open a new front in the Russian borders. Western media focused on
the recent win
of Alexander Lukashenko,
while insist to call him 'last dictator of Europe'. It
is not accidental that Lukashenko
opposed
Western-backed "shock therapy"
during the post-Soviet transition. The one
that under IMF mafia destroyed Russian economy in the late 90s.
Maybe the various US think tanks design another 'color revolution'
in Belarus this time, as the game in Ukraine appears to be lost
for now.
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** What we see in Ukraine
is probably another failure of various think tanks, mostly from
Washington, which they are funded, of course, by the international
capital. It seems that, apart from the fact that they have
underestimated Putin's abilities, they have also wrongly estimated
that Russia had passed permanently in the neoliberal phase and
would be ready to become an easy victim to promote their plans.
According to these plans, the ultimate goal would be probably to
dissolve the vast Russian territory in future and bring in power
Western-friendly puppet regimes, in order not only to conquer the
valuable resources, but also to impose permanently the neoliberal
doctrine on "unexplored" regions and populations.
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