Washington the One Telling Kiev to Launch Attacks Deep Into Russian Territory

NATO is willing to escalate, but Russia isn't.

I remember scratching my head and not understanding just what the hell was going on with these bizarre Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory. The attacks on the Crimean bridge, the airfield, the constant raids into Russia near Belgorod that the MoD tries to cover up out of shame … all of it made no sense to me.

The Russian response was to launch hundreds of missiles and to inflict far more damage than what the Ukrainian provocation caused. I argued that the incentive structure for Ukraine was completely abnormal. Turns out they were also just straight-up being ordered by Washington to attack Russia in Russia proper.

RT:

The US has quietly given Ukraine the go-ahead to launch long-range strikes against targets inside Russian territory, The Times reported on Friday, citing sources. The Pentagon has apparently changed its stance on the matter as it has become less concerned that such attacks could escalate the conflict.

According to a US defense source interviewed by the outlet, the Pentagon is now “not saying to Kiev, ‘Don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea].’

“We can’t tell them what to do. It’s up to them how they use their weapons,” he said, adding that Washington only demands that Kiev conforms to international law and the Geneva conventions when using US-supplied weapons.

The language being used here is, of course, soft newspeak. “Now not saying don’t strike”? C’mon. A double negative + an implied negative in one sentence is just a deliberate attempt to bamboozle anyone with a sub 120 IQ. But if we put on our tinfoil thinking hats and read between the lines, we can figure out that someone in Washington is telling Kiev to continue provoking Russia. Furthermore, we have to admit that it doesn’t make much sense for Ukraine to escalate against Russia if they were pursuing their own realpolitik military or geopolitical aims. It only makes sense if the motivations and influence of an extra actor are taken into account - namely, NATO and the US predominately. Here, allow me to quote the greatest living Russia blogger on the topic:

I’m puzzled by this tit-for-tat game that Kiev and Moscow are playing. Ukraine hits a Russian target and gets hit much worse by Russia’s retaliatory strike. It keeps happening and it begs the question: why does Kiev continue to play this dangerous game? What do they gain by it?

After all, Russia’s counter-strikes hurt more than their little mosquito bites.

I suppose it serves as good PR at home to show that Ukraine is hurting Russia or something like that. Also, the retaliatory strikes make it easier to ask for more money from the West. And more Ukrainian suffering leads to a hardening of hearts against Russia, I suppose.

The point is that the incentive structure for Kiev is rather unconventional.

Trying to analyze, predict and influence Kiev’s decision-making means having to understand their incentive structure. They seems very willing to incur huge damages that they would otherwise not need to occur to achieve propaganda goals and to secure funding from the West. Needless to say, no normal country would behave this way.

Now, Joe Biden’s stated position (for what it was worth) used to be that the US was hesitant to send big guns to Ukraine because of the possibility of the Ukrainians using them to target Russia proper and escalate the war. My working theory is that it was one of those rare lucid moments when the old Joe Biden personality from the 90s briefly surfaced and spoke some common sense.

It’s scary to consider, but Joe Biden really doesn’t really seem like the worst actor in all of this. Like I’ve mentioned, he seems to be capable of waking up and speaking sense on occasion until he’s quickly corrected by his handlers.

Also, the escalation situation might be explained by considering the possibility that NATO no longer fears escalation from Russia, because they’ve seen Russia’s inability to mobilize and the division within the ruling class’ ranks. The CIA and the Pentagon and the think tanks used to think that Ukraine would fall to Russia in weeks. They were planning on funding a Galician insurgency, not fighting the Russians head-on. But, it quickly became apparent that Russia’s FSB had led the Russian military into a costly blunder. The only question at this point was whether the Kiev offensive mishap was deliberate on the part of the FSB or not. Now NATO is not scared of escalating anymore because, basically, they think that Russia is run by pussies.

However, the Pentagon has revised the evaluation of threats linked to the Ukraine conflict, particularly on whether providing Kiev with arms might trigger a direct clash between NATO and Russia, the report says.

“We’re still using the same escalatory calculations but the fear of escalation has changed since the beginning,” a US official told the outlet, arguing that the calculus had changed due to “brutality the Ukrainians are being subjected to by the Russians.”

Against this backdrop, Pentagon officials are now reportedly “seriously” considering Ukraine’s requests for long-range weapons that could be used for strikes deep inside Russia. “Nothing is off the table,” a senior US defense official told The Times.

It’s not the “brutality” of the Russians that convinced them to start sending the good stuff to Ukraine, but the lack thereof.

In September, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned the US that, should it provide Kiev with long-range weapons, this would cross a “red line” and make America “a direct party to the conflict.”

Grrrrrlboss Zakharova yapping and growling at the podium and setting her old lady jewelry a-jiggling will be sure to fill the hearts of NATO’s generals with fear, I’m sure. But do you know what would convince the West that Russia was serious? Imagine Gref or Miller or some other oligarch standing in front of a camera, sweating profusely and threatening the West with nuclear armageddon in a scripted speech laced with racial slurs and direct legally-actionable threats against personalities in the West.

Once the West saw that Putin had decided to get serious with his errant, misbehaving oligarchs and force them to publicly burn bridges, thereby dashing any hopes of future convergence, they might start taking Russia seriously again and back off. And before you get all huffy at me in the comments section, feel free to first point out why I’m wrong. Where is the missing link in my logic? The scenario is a bit goofy, sure, but that’s all that it is and goofiness aside, it’s logically consistent. Now, I’m sure that there’s probably something that I didn’t consider and that my prognosis isn’t 100% airtight. But whatever givens I’m working with and the logic I use to string them together into a coherent worldview seem to be seem to have been pretty goddamn accurate so far, no?

For his part, Putin is actually doing the right thing by going up there and talking about how he’s itching to push the big red button and how NATO niggas best not push him too far.

Maimunka News @MaimunkaNews

‼️🇷🇺 Russia’s retaliatory strike would involve hundreds of missiles that are impossible to intercept. If anyone strikes territory of #Russia response will be overwhelming, but they will only be used if someone attacks Russia first. #Putin

Putin’s threats still have a shred of credibility because he did, despite all the later setbacks, make good on this threats when he sent the army into Ukraine after warning that he would do so.

Furthermore, despite the fact that he’s lying (at least I hope that he knows that he’s lying and that he isn’t just delusional) about the success of the SMO, it’s important that he continue to do so lest Russia’s threat credibility completely fall apart and the West be given a green light to just go all out with funding, equipping and maybe even reinforcing Ukraine.

Francis Scarr @francis_scarr

Putin says there are "no issues or problems" with how his "special military operation" is going at the moment

Russia is in big, big trouble and, paradoxically, the only way to deter NATO at this point is to somehow reassert Russia’s strength. That means that escalation on Russia’s part now might stave off escalation on NATO’s part. In contrast, continuing to fall back and half-ass this war will only embolden Russia’s enemies more. Furthermore, the more threat credibility Russia loses, the bigger the show of force that will be required to gain their credibility back. We are quickly barreling towards a scenario in which Russia is forced to use a tactical nuke somewhere to get NATO to back off.

Also, personally, I do believe that Putin has the means and the fortitude to push the button should he be forced to. Say what you will about Bible-thumpers, but their belief in doomsday prophecies made by Jewish schizophrenics writing in the Middle Ages makes them more willing than most to let the nukes fly and thereby bring us all a step closer to Judgement Day. It’s the thumpers’ super-power actually - they have been metaphysically convinced that the worse things get, the closer we all are to final salvation, so they’re actually kind of cool with hitting their ult and letting things getting pretty fuckin’ grimdark before they get any better.

Funny enough, the Americans believe that the Norks are psychopaths dead set on ending the world with nuclear missiles. But North Korea doesn’t believe in doomsday end times prophecies like, say, American Evangelical Zionists do. Or like any adherent to one version or another of the Abrahamic faiths does, frankly.

Theologically, the only difference between the Orthodox position and the Evangelical one regarding the end times is that Orthodox priests are quick to point out that nothing we do can quicken or affect the appointed date for when the end of the world will begin in earnest. In contrast, Evangelicals believe that they can expedite the end times by supporting Israel, triggering a nuclear war, followed by the Rapture, the return of Jesus, the dead rising from their graves like zombies and so on.

But I digress.

…

Sadly, I have nothing else to say on this topic for now. No neat conclusion to put a bow on the post. Now we know that NATO will escalate in Ukraine. The only question is whether Russia will as well, or whether they will vacillate, bluster, drag their feet and continue doing less than the bare minimum like they’re doing now.

Place your bets in the comments below.