WASHINGTON, DC, Apr 25 – The protracted Ukraine-Russia war is beginning to suggest that an all-out NATO-Russian conflict could soon follow. It’s all about the fact that the NATO pact declares that an attack on one member nation is an attack on the alliance as a whole—including the U.S. In March, Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Ukraine’s neighboring countries, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all of them members of NATO, and assured them that the pact is “sacrosanct” and that, “We are bolstering our shared defense so that we and our allies are prepared. We will defend every inch of NATO territory if it comes under attack. No one should doubt our readiness; no one should doubt our resolve.”
Poland, for example, shares a border with Ukraine and has been a critical channel for the delivery of weapons that are being supplied by NATO members, weapons that have helped Ukraine defend itself against overwhelming Russian forces, according to National Public Radio correspondent Joanna Kakissis. The Polish government and its citizens are alert that they may be next on Vladimir Putin’s hit list. However, in an interview with political affairs professor John Owen reporters at the University of Virginia’s UVA Today, Owen explained that “Putin does not want a war with NATO (that is, with the United States); indeed, his fear of NATO is one reason why he attacked Ukraine. So I doubt that he would deliberately attack Poland. Still, many doubted that he would attack Ukraine to begin with. Putin likes to surprise his adversaries, and he may sense that in crossing the line into NATO territory, he would be calling our bluff. I’m sure he would be wrong about that, but here again, he was wrong about Ukraine’s capacity for resistance to Russian might.”
However, consider the warning of Thomas Graham, who served as Senior Director for Russian Affairs for President George W. Bush and is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In a recent analysis, he explained that “The large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine now underway could quite plausibly precipitate a wider conflict in Europe. The United States is focused primarily on raising the costs to Russia with punishing sanctions and reassuring North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies neighboring Russia of its commitment to collective defense. Less attention has been given to containing the war to Ukraine and preventing its escalation into a broader European conflict…The stakes are enormous. The ripple effects of a wider conflict in Europe would spread across the globe, stressing the geopolitical, economic, and institutional foundations of the international order the United States has fashioned and underwritten since the end of the Second World War. It would test the resilience of the U.S. global system of alliances, the international financial system, global energy markets, arms control regimes, and global institutions in the face of ever more violent great power competition.”
A report by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) found that NATO allies in Europe have a shortage of armaments—enough of a shortage that it would be difficult to prevail should the need arise to counter a Russian attack. However, military analysts tell us that the U.S. could make up for Europe’s military disadvantage. But taking the Russians on would not be a sure thing. In an interview, Russian journalist and military specialist Pavel Felgenhauer told the German state-owned broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, that should it come down to a war, it would be like watching and predicting the outcome of soccer match. “Yes, basically, Brazil should beat America in soccer, but I have seen Americans beat Brazil in South Africa, at the Confederations Cup. You never know the result until the game is played.”
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Russia has 2 options: take Ukraine, Moldova then keep moving west OR breakup into a dozen much smaller “republics”. Putin will either be remembered as the great leader or an idiot.
Putin is going to take Odessa, land-lock Ukraine and end it at that.
You are assuming he can actually take Odessa. His army isn’t performing well enough to do that yet, and he is short both men and weapons. He might have to use nukes, and the prevailing winds from Ukraine blow over Russia, making any victory from use of nukes very Pyrrhic.
As Russia can’t handle the undermanned and underequipped Ukraine military it is hard to believe they would pose a challenge for NATO. The Black Sea and Baltic navies would be wiped-out in a single day. NATO will control the air all the way to Moscow. The American Pacific Fleet will control the far eastern Russian ports.
The real question is: how psychologically damaged is Putin, and how cowed is his military by him, that they will do irrational and illogical things. Perhaps not nuclear but, just one step below that: wantonly committing atrocities and killing civilians as they have done in Ukraine, before the NATO ground forces crush the Russian troops.
If this war continues another month, I will not be shocked if a Russian patriot sacrifices themself and takes Putin out before the whole country suffers irreparable harm.
China has no reason to get involved directly, except to receive cheap oil and wheat from Russia.
“China has no reason to get involved directly, except to receive cheap oil and wheat from Russia.” China already receives both from Russia under existing long-term deals agreed upon over the last 12 months. So there is no incentive for China to put themselves on the front line with Russia at this point. They will continue to sit back and study how the West reacts or doesn’t react to Russia with respect to Ukraine, so they can better prepare for the eventual move on Taiwan.
Finally fighting back at someone who continually pokes you with a stick does not make you psychologically damaged. The person poking you is psychologically damaged. NATO is staying out of the war because Putin ordered them to. And he has an 83% approval rating at home.
83%…pfff.
AMAC is receiving Dark Money to support Convention of States, This will Destroy America. Amac is supporting the Globalist, the Great Reset, The One World Order. Shame on AMAC. We don’t have a Bad Constitution, we have bad people not following the constitution. Writing or re-Writing the Constitution does not correct this. Frankspeech/Lindelltv
Where is the proof?
There is none. If they had any they would produce. Just a pathetic desperate troll in need of attention.
One factor that is often not mentioned is China….who is adept at sitting back and letting things play out and then stepping in to manage a new order……I cite VietNam as one example……in the end communism succeeded, and the “allies” were sent away with their tails between their legs. Confrontation via the Chinese is usually indirect, but often decisive…..Putin and NATO will play out their roles, and China will be more than happy to “pick up the pieces” and move on toward world domination.
Afghanistan is yet another sore spot, where America dropped the ball via Biden, and China sees an opportunity to “build back better” their influence in the region. “Big picture” viewpoints are lacking in our own nation’s leadership…..and those who do see are few, and often weak, both in numbers and resolve. My optimism is low when it comes to good outcomes in all these areas…Taiwan will be the next proving ground for the Chinese as they slowly build up their assets while we in the West are quibbling amongst ourselves, failing to see the threat on the horizon.
Very well said D.P.. Good to see someone else thinking beyond the obvious lazy tropes that many of these authors try to steer the readers towards. At the end of the day, Russia is nothing but a stalking horse for the Chinese to gather information and probe for how the western powers of today react to various challenges placed in front of them. To assess their weakness and strengths and then develop successful strategies to either nullify their strengths or amplify their weaknesses to allow China to prevail against them.
Paul…..there is no shortage of information about the activities of China over the years. They persist in building assets that counter the west. It has been long term, and it seems they are the only ones thinking long term. They even gave it a name….their 100 year plan…..and they are well on the way to being far more powerful overall….and America, along with the rest of the west twiddles their thumbs with rhetoric, double talk, weak willed ploys and outright stupid actions even a child could see are absurd on the face. The time is coming when confrontation will be actual, and you can see, as they say, “the writing on the wall….” Not a message I want to read….but I must.
When I saw last week’s latest decision from the Biden administration to kill the submarine launched cruise missile program initiated under DJT, designed to help offset the Russian and Chinese advantage in medium range nuclear capabilities we are badly behind on, I immediately knew this was yet another way in which Team Biden was helping to weaking our armed forces for any future engagement between U.S. and China. All being done while Team Biden is diverting the public’s attention on useless “woke” issues of little value or long-term consequence.
We as a nation have been and continue to be the leader in short sightedness….and that’s the dilema….even if the administration changes, we may have already succeeded in putting ourselves so far behind, we may as well be France.
Important military matters continue to remain off the radar plot.
Agree.
globalism dog and pony show
NATO can’t risk the annihilation of cities like Paris, Berlin, Brussels or London. I’m sure that in their six hour meeting two weeks before the war started, Putin told Marcon to keep NATO out of it or else. So Putin is getting what he wants and the west is getting what they want… a cash grab. With North Korea, Iran and now Ukraine gone, the Deep State is running out of places to hide. They are the losers. And that is a good thing.
This is the only way that DICTATOR Beijing biden and LOSERS can implement their New World Order with Communist China coming out on top for we know for a FACT that DICTATOR Beijing biden is in COMMUNIST China’s back pocket and is long time compromised for over40 years.
But SWAMP QUEEN pelosi won’t IMPEACH DICTATOR Beijing biden cause she’s in COMMUNIST China’s back pocket too and she doesn’t want to give up her Dictatorship.
I agree with you 100%, and people had better wake up to the facts about what’s really going on. Putin’s destroying the NWO.
There are several types of warfare. Direct military confrontation is merely one form of warfare. As an example, both Russia and China have been fighting an economic and geopolitical war against the West for decades and achieving substantial wins for decades now. Actually, it’s been more a series of massively poor decisions by several of our political leaders, largely over the last 30 years, who just unilaterally decided to hand over large parts of our economy and financial independence to countries that were neither our friends, allies nor shared our common values and goals. So rather than warfare, it has been more along the lines of voluntary, unilateral surrenders without the other side ever having to concede to anything or fire a single shot.
Just look at the situation that the West, as a whole, has put itself into with respect to our dependency on both Russia and China in terms of energy, purchase of not only our Treasury debt, but that of much of the Western world’s total debt obligations, to fund reckless and wasteful spending initiatives here at home and around the world. Today we have put ourselves into a situation where are now nearly total dependent for our nation’s supply chain to overseas actors.
As to the likelihood that Russia would ever engage in a direct military war with NATO, the odds of that are rather low as long as Putin believes the United States would come to NATO’s aid. For the first time since NATO was founded, we now have a presidential administration in office where Putin might consider this a viable, although very expensive opportunity for him given his correct reading of the Biden administration as being both grossly incompetent and weak. Still, Putin has his hands full right now with Ukraine, so an escalation to taking on NATO isn’t in the cards.
As the author does correctly point out, NATO has been a paper tiger since most European nations massively downsized their respective militaries so they could dramatically increase the size of their social welfare states starting in the 1970s. As such, without direct assistance and aid from the United States, even Putin’s ill trained army could easily prevail against them. For now, this is simply an academic exercise for inside the beltway authors to write articles about. Something to pass the time as they search for something more substantial to write about.
I think Russia will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine long before they try invading NATO countries. Russia’s army is overextended in Ukraine as it is. If they want a bigger war, they need a much bigger army. But if Ukraine is forced to surrender after nuclear bombardment, watch out !!!
Russia will NOT resort to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Banned chemical weapons maybe. Anti-personnel weapons like cluster bombs and other ordinance designed to inflict mass casualties? Sure. However, Putin will neither use strategic nor tactical nuclear weapons, because as poorly as his military personnel have performed to date in just conventional military actions, his own troops would likely suffer devasting loses from being either positioned too close to the detonations or downwind from any resulting fallout.
You are correct with this analysis.
Yea, I guess the CIA did not like the last word of the comment.
Oh No!! The approval monster is back (LOL). It has been awhile for such a short comment.
15 hours, still awaiting approval for a 6 word one liner. HILARIOUS !!
It usually takes 24 hours for mine to get approved. They want to ensure no one actually reads the comment.
As we have stated before, no rhyme or reason except those KEY words that catch the attention of national censors.
It’s not just keywords Max. AMAC doesn’t like certain discussions about various topics they don’t approve of. As long as folks keep their comments to mindless name calling and other useless posts, those all seem to just fine by the AMAC censor. However, if you go deeper into a subject than what AMAC wants discussed, you get the hook. If you want a serious discussion on this site, it is nearly impossible to do with the current censorship. Less and less worthwhile with each passing day to bother posting here, which is why I post much less here than I used to.
Understood.