Only three days before NATO military chiefs met in Brussels, they saw in a ferocious display what would happen if they continue pumping weapons into Ukraine. A key base used by the U.S.-led alliance for training and as a hub for weapons supply to Ukraine was completely destroyed.

What’s more, the devastating airstrike on the Yavoriv base only 25 kilometers from the Polish border was carried out with cruise missiles launched from Russian airspace. That means the missiles traveled up to 1,000 km across Ukraine from east to west and were able to pinpoint the target.

The destruction of the large installation occurred on March 13. The NATO defense chiefs met in Brussels on March 16. Subsequent rather flat statements from Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, on what the alliance would offer Ukraine in further military support suggests the Russian strike hit home.

NATO has been pumping weapons and trainers into Ukraine over the past year. The facility at Yavoriv in the western Lviv Oblast was a major training center where troops from the United States, Britain, Canada and other NATO members had been mentoring Ukrainian forces. This relentless weaponization of Ukraine by Western powers and the undermining of a peace deal with Russian separatists in the Donbass region inevitably led to the ongoing military intervention by Russia, now in its third week.

Only hours before the air raid on the NATO staging post in Yavoriv, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that any arms shipments into Ukraine from neighboring NATO countries would be viewed as legitimate targets.

The Russian military claimed that the airstrike killed 180 foreign mercenaries as well as a large amount of NATO weaponry. Western media reported “35 people” dead and over 100 injured. Note how Western media seem to play down the otherwise well-documented presence of Neo-Nazi mercenaries who have come from all over the world to Ukraine to fight as NATO foot-soldiers.

It is not known if NATO officers were among the dead. The alliance claims that it has no personnel currently in Ukraine, having withdrawn them in mid-February before the Russian intervention began on February 24.

It can be gleaned, however, from Western media reports that the flattening of the large base was a fearsome display of Russia’s modern firepower. Reports cited Ukrainian military sources as claiming that most of the incoming missiles were shot down. That seems implausible considering the images in Western media reports of widespread destruction at the large facility.

A Reuters report quoted a Ukrainian officer Colonel Leonid Benzalo who survived the strike. He told how the dormitory and dining area were destroyed and how he was thrown across the room.

Another person, Dukhnych Vitalii, a 19-year-old student, who lives near the base told the BBC how he was awakened by the explosions and the “sky turning red”. He said there were no warning sirens before the attack.

Those observations indicate the base was hit in surprise. No sirens, no defensive systems triggered. All missiles struck the target. The cruise missiles flew across Ukraine from Russian airspace undetected and hit their target with spectacular precision. That’s consistent with earlier Russian claims of having knocked out all Ukrainian air defenses.

The fact of Yavoriv base being so close to the Polish border and the Russians carrying out the strike suggests they were confident that there would be no stray missiles. If one had hit Poland by mistake then that could be invoked as a casus belli for NATO to get involved under its collective defense provision.

What this means is that Russia just gave the U.S. and its NATO allies a clear and grave warning. Any weapons or mercenaries being sent into Ukraine no matter how far removed from Russia’s main forces in the east of Ukraine and no matter how close to NATO borders, we will destroy – completely.

That warning seemed to have been registered with the NATO military leaders. Their summit in Brussels this week produced mealymouthed platitudes of supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia but not much else in practical measures.

This leaves the United States and its allies with a huge conundrum. This week President Joe Biden announced another $1 billion in military aid to the Kiev regime. This “unprecedented” support is on top of an estimated $1 billion in military aid that the Biden administration has already funneled into Ukraine over the last year. The president said there would be thousands more units of long-range anti-aircraft munitions and anti-tank Javelin missiles on the way.

U.S. government-owned Radio Free Europe reported: “Biden said Ukraine will receive an additional 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 9,000 anti-tank weapons, 7,000 light weapons, and 20 million rounds of ammunition.”

Following the shock-and-awe Russian air raid on Yavoriv, the White House also indicated that foreign fighters sent to Ukraine may be trained in “third countries”.

That still leaves Washington and NATO supporters of the Kiev regime with a massive logistical problem. How to get all those weapons and would-be foreign fighters into Ukrainian territory without being blown apart by Russian cruise missiles?

Unless, of course, the calculus is a willingness by the U.S. and its allies to go to war with Russia. That seems remote because Washington knows it would lead to nuclear annihilation. Hence the continued rejection of Kiev’s appeals for a NATO-enforced No Fly Zone in Ukraine.

In that case, there is only one viable course to take. The United States and its NATO allies need to stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine and let the Kiev regime know that it must negotiate a peace settlement with Moscow.

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The baptism of fire from western analysts and newsrooms is that the “invasion” of Ukraine is unjust and that “Putin will stop at nothing now” in his so-called quest to retake former Soviet bloc countries.

“Where will it end? Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic?” one harped, while millions nod their heads in a gang bang of blinded dogma and bigotry. Few care to look at the history and the nuances of what has happened in recent years which provoked such a reaction from Putin. From as far back as a decade ago when the West overthrew Ghadaffi and created a war there which it then backed with its own jihadists (which threw a major spanner in the works for Putin’s ambitions in Libya) to missiles placed strategically by NATO in Romania and Poland, for example, reported on as recently as 2018, which were wrapped in a sugar coating of narrative from the op-ed writers in the West who talked about Russia no longer being the threat, as the new enemy is Islamic terrorism etc etc.

Western newsrooms are still trying to pull the wool over our eyes about Ukraine, simplifying and distorting the facts, simply so as they can get on with their jobs of producing the fodder to keep them busy, while serving their masters in government who chuck them a bone every now and again with a leaked report.

The so-called “revolution” in Ukraine is always reported as a victory for the West as “democracy” finally slayed the evil powers of Soviet-esque influence as the latter is always painted as corrupt and the former candida.

But there are enough voices out there which call what happened in Ukraine back then as a U.S.-backed coup d’etat and Zelensky as the new useful idiot of the west. Even the Los Angeles Times put the boot in recently when, just days before the invasion, it painted a picture of the new president as a near-useless cretin masquerading as a political hero who had lost a colossus of political capital in recent months when the tensions started to be palatable last year.

Will any western hacks examine this further and look at the different accounts? Unlikely, as this “grey zone” is what nearly all western journalists hate as it represents masses of work and going against the grain of both the narrative from their own governments but also the grey-haired chiefs’ views in the newsroom. We saw this with Syria. Kudos to Peter Hitchens for standing alone and trying to offer a more objective point of view about the Ukraine invasion. I doubt if anyone will follow him.

The story for western media has already been written and neatly divided into two binary portions of tainted narrative which is an egregiously cruel part of war: truth usually is the first casualty when the bullets start flying.

But what about the promises of support from the West towards the Zelensky government? Isn’t that a morose act of sublime cruelty in itself? To promise to help, but in reality only offer token support of relatively small amounts of cash and military hardware? Will NATO send one soldier to the Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers there? Will any EU member state do the same?

Yet the narrative continues and you can see the strain on Zelensky’s face in his social media posts and his anger towards Washington, NATO and the EU.

As those sanctions start to bite, who really are the winners and losers? The embarrassing press conference given by Biden where, after finishing the painful autocue speech, he declares to one reporter that “sanctions won’t prevent anything” is baffling. The truth is that sanctions are really all that the EU and US has to fill in the widening gap, the radio silence from NATO which talks a great talk on supporting allies but looks more and more weak, ineffective and pointless as the days go on. Building up NATO troops in neighbouring countries will soon be seen for the empty gesture it is when the bloodbath starts as Ukrainians show resistance against Russian advances. As the whole world watches, soon NATO’s credibility will plummet even further as the implications of doing nothing but merely acting as a spectator will make the organisation tumble to an all-time low. The argument from many at NATO that Putin’s aim to push NATO back has backfired as it has only resulted in more troops being stationed now in Poland, for example, is a lame one at best. What is likely to emerge in the coming days and weeks is that the West is likely to become a bigger enemy of most Ukrainians when they see what the real deal is and Zelensky’s rallying call to the masses, if he is not toppled, will be a scathing attack on these so-called western values, with the EU itself being in his crosshairs – a win-win for Putin, many will note. War is cruelty on a level most of us can’t process. But even more cruel are those who orchestrate it and then run away and hide the moment the knife is drawn from the sheath. 

As the first waves of at least 2,000 US troops began arriving in Poland at the start of this week as part of the mission to bolster NATO’s ‘eastern flank’ amid Washington fears that Russia is poised to invade Ukraine “any day now” – the Western military alliance says its mulling a longer term military presence in Eastern Europe.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg indicated Monday that a “longer term” presence may be needed in Eastern Europe and that Brussels is reviewing the strategy as part of its force posture in face of Russia.

“We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within NATO,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Talking ‘tough’ at a moment France’s Macron was seeking a diplomatic breakthrough in his Monday summit with Putin in Moscow, Stoltenberg said, “If Russia really wants less NATO close to the borders, they get the opposite.”

This would mean that NATO troops rotated into the region would stay longer, or on a more permanent basis. Stoltenberg described NATO is considering the “deployment of additional battlegroups to the south-eastern part of the Alliance” a reference to Black Sea countries of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

While meeting with President Duda, Poland confirmed that troops from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division began arriving near the country over the weekend, touching down at a base near the Poland-Ukraine border.

Stoltenberg hailed the fresh US deployment as “a powerful demonstration of American commitment to our alliance. Other allies are also contributing more forces to NATO on land, in the air, and at sea.” This also as the UK has committed a few hundred additional troops to Poland.

Ministry of National Defense of Poland: Successive transports of U.S. equipment and troops reach Poland https://t.co/HAaUGp04XQ via @MON_GOV_PL pic.twitter.com/tNX9kwieDa

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) February 8, 2022

So far, however, a matter of a few thousand extra troops Biden has ordered deployed to Eastern Europe is still just enough for symbolic posturing, and could do little to deter an actual Russian invasion of Ukraine if it ever materialized. The Kremlin has insisted there are no plans for such an offensive.

zerohedge.com

Yesterday evening, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration is discussing plans to deploy thousands or tens of thousands of troops to the borders of Russia and Ukraine. Despite the Biden administration’s threadbare attempt to present this as a defense of Ukrainian sovereignty against Russia, it is apparent that Washington is preparing a military escalation aiming to provoke Russia, a major nuclear power, into a war.

Biden apparently discussed plans with Pentagon strategists to deploy 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Romania and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This could be increased up to tenfold, to 50,000 troops. This comes after Washington announced plans to provide the Ukrainian government with armaments to build bases for missile systems that could launch strikes on Moscow in a matter of a few minutes.

The New York Times’ story on the report acknowledged that this would be a “major pivot for the Biden administration … moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.” It also cited calls for a former top Pentagon planning official, Jim Townsend, calling for a massive military build-up across Europe predicated on the assumption that war with Russia would erupt.

“It’s likely too little too late to deter Putin,” Townsend claimed. “If the Russians do invade Ukraine in a few weeks, those 5,000 [US soldiers] should be just a down payment for a much larger US and allied force presence. Western Europe should once again be an armed camp.”

Yesterday, Washington ordered US diplomats’ families and advised US citizens to leave Ukraine, “due to the continued threat of Russian military action,” a measure usually taken if war is imminent.

US Colonel Alexander Vindman, an officer involved in top-level talks between Washington and the Ukrainian regime, bluntly spelled out US calculations yesterday. Calling for provocative NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine, directly on Russia’s border, Vindman told MSNBC: “These things are already moving. It’s almost certain that this is going to occur, and now is the time to take those last-minute steps.”

Declaring that NATO is “almost locked into a course of action,” Vindman endorsed plans for war with Russia. He said, “Why is this important to the American public? It’s important because we’re about to have the largest war in Europe since World War II. There’s going to be a massive deployment of air power, long-range artillery, cruise missiles, things that we haven’t seen unfold on the European landscape more than 80 years, and it is not going to be a clean or sterile environment.”

The pretext on which this war is being launched—that NATO is defending Ukrainian democracy and national sovereignty—is a fraud. The far-right Ukrainian regime in Kiev was installed by a US- and German-backed putsch in February 2014 that toppled a pro-Russian government. Since then, Washington and the other NATO powers have been systematically moving to arm Ukraine as a base for operations against Russia. These plans are now being dramatically escalated.

Today, NATO is beginning war games in the Mediterranean, “Neptune Strike 22,” that will last until February 4, involving the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman. US defense department spokesman John Kirby on Friday claimed it had nothing to do with “scenarios” that “could play out with regard to Ukraine.” However, he then made clear the exercise aims to threaten Moscow over Ukraine.

Russia’s positioning of troops on Russian soil near the Ukrainian border, he said, “continues to be concerning … We’re going to make sure that we have options ready to reassure our allies, particularly on NATO’s eastern flank. If there’s another incursion and if they need that reassurance, if they need the capabilities to be bolstered, we’re going to do that.”

Neptune 22 is one of a series of NATO war games surrounding Russia with vast forces. On February 20, the “Dynamic Manta 22” anti-submarine exercise in the Mediterranean will begin, and on February 22 the “Dynamic Guard” exercise in Norway. This will transition into Cold Response 2022. The largest Norwegian-led military maneuver since the 1980s is to involve 35,000 troops from 26 nations, including 14,000 soldiers, 13,000 seamen, as well as 8,000 air force personnel and staff. The first troops are reportedly already on site and have begun exercises.

NATO claims that Russia is driving this confrontation are absurd on their face. It is denouncing Russia for having troops located on its own soil, while it is sending NATO troops and lethal weaponry up to Russia’s borders. A substantial faction of the ruling elite in the NATO countries is pushing for a war with Russia, speculating about Russian intentions while fabricating accusations in order to concoct a case for war.

The British government, reeling from a scandal over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, launched a further provocation against Moscow yesterday. On Saturday, UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss and the British Foreign Office released a statement accusing Moscow of preparing a coup to install a pro-Russian regime in Kiev. This charge, for which London released no evidence, was a provocation that fell apart under the weight of its own incoherence.

“We have information that indicates the Russian government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine. The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate,” Truss declared.

Truss’ statement continued: “The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking. … As the UK and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.”

This claim was soon discredited: Murayev, the supposed leader of London’s hypothetical coup, pointed out that he faces a state ban in Russia and his assets there have been seized. “You’ve made my evening. The British Foreign Office seems confused,” he told Britain’s Observer. “It isn’t very logical. I’m banned from Russia. Not only that but money from my father’s firm there has been confiscated.”

Nonetheless, the US National Security Council embraced this claim to again denounce Russia. Its spokeswoman, Emily Horne, said, “this kind of plotting is deeply concerning. The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.”

The Russian foreign ministry, for its part, denied the story. “The spread of disinformation by the British foreign ministry,” it declared, “is one more piece of evidence that NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, are escalating tensions around Ukraine. We call on the British foreign ministry to stop its provocative activities.”

The campaign is not only a continuation of US-NATO interventions against Russian allies in Ukraine and in Syria, where NATO has fought a decade-long proxy war. It is also a reckless attempt to deal with internal class and social tensions that are reaching explosive levels as the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Desperation increasingly dominates the calculations of major capitalist governments.

The NATO powers as well as the post-Soviet capitalist kleptocracy in Russia have all imposed a disastrous policy of “living with the virus” on the working class. There have been over 2 million COVID-19 deaths in the NATO states and over 326,000 in Russia. Last week alone saw over 13 million new cases and 28,000 COVID-19 deaths in NATO, and at least 270,000 cases and 4,799 deaths in Russia. Yet governments across the region are ending public health measures to restrict the contagion and instead allow the virus to spread even faster.

Since the year began, mass protests and strikes have erupted against official pandemic policies in the United States, Greece, France and Italy. It is clear that, as they seek to impose further policies of mass infection and death upon rising working class opposition, the major imperialist powers are accelerating a turn towards militarism, police-state rule and wars that could threaten millions or billions of lives.

To prevent the ruling class from plunging the planet into the abyss, the growing opposition among workers and youth internationally must be mobilized based on a socialist perspective in a movement to oppose war and to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Control over the resources of society must be taken out of the hands of an irresponsible and historically condemned ruling elite. This requires the revolutionary mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system.

wsws.org

In Paris on December the 7^th, Parisians were phased by the motorcade and the middle-aged lady appearing from the limo. But Ursula von der Leyen’s arrival in the French capital, although a downbeat and certainly rare event, has significant overtures to both France’s role in international peacekeeping and Macron’s future as a second-term President who will lead the EU into a new dawn.

Both Macron and the EU chief spoke about the need for “dialogue” with Russia and the need for a new defence initiative which should be worrying NATO chiefs who are already grappling with the realities of being practically a defunct organisation entirely impotent in the face of the showdown with Russia over Ukraine.

EU chiefs don’t normally make visits to EU member state leaders. There is a time and place for that, which is Brussels itself and EU summits where photographers capture them making small talk in the EU Council of Ministers building. Von der Leyen’s visit to Paris and her joint podium scripted speech signal that, to some extent at least, Brussels is backing Macron with his initiative to lead some sort of defence pact, made up of a handful of EU member states in peacekeeping and at least talking tough on Russia and Ukraine. Of course, the idea that such a pact would actually do anything against Russia and its troops is entirely ludicrous and far-fetched and Macron talking (unscripted) about the need to “talk to Russia” is a lucid indication where he is going with his own EU army initiative. Clearly, the most realistic option of all the “EU army” ideas – which will cost the least and give the EU its own so-called “defence policy” – is the watered down idea, which simply involves an informal coalition of EU governments agreeing to be one, on defence policy on behalf of the EU. Given how the subject is so divisive, this group will not be run by Brussels, but led by one EU member state while its soldiers sport the EU armband. France is emerging as that country which will break the stalemate which has plagued EU federalists in Brussels as to how to move forward with the plan, which many in the Belgian capital have convinced themselves is the silver bullet to restore credibility to the EU project as it scrambles to survive from the ashes of failed Covid initiatives, twenty years of the single currency and an immigration policy which is failing on every level.

For Macron, it’s what will anoint him in his second term, putting France on the world stage as a leading nation of some kind as the “EU pillar” within NATO. The idea is pulled out of the windowless bunkers of the Elysee, dusted down and given a new lease of light. And it is Biden’s breathtaking impotence as a U.S. president who runs away from confrontation on the world stage, whether it be Ukraine and Russia or Afghanistan, the Middle East or elsewhere, which is driving the Macron EU army idea. The origins of this blueprint can be traced back to a buffoonish French General who found himself held hostage by Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1993 who decided that his endearing promise to protect them from the Serbs wasn’t worth the price of a cigarette. Morillon’s word that his UN soldiers would protect them amounted to nothing and the Srebrenica Massacre followed in 1995 where 8000 mainly Muslim men were slaughtered.

Morillon later became and MEP and in the European parliament in 2008 lobbied hard within the EU institutions for an “EU pillar” within NATO so that EU governments could work “alongside but not under NATO” forces [read American].

And so, the idea is hardly new and if France 24 journalists are being briefed by Macron’s team to use this term “EU pillar” then we can be sure this is where Macron and von der Leyen are heading. They are both banking on the outfit, if it were ever to get off the ground, it will largely be a talk shop and provide the gilt edge to any threatening narrative which they feel Russia would take seriously, given the vacuum at present and reports of Biden pulling troops out of Eastern Europe in a deal with Putin. It’s unclear how, if the mighty U.S. hasn’t got the guts to face Putin in Eastern Europe, a weasel French President and his fancy plan on paper will fill the gap. Much of the thinking is delusional and about promoting Macron himself as a world leader and he is following tradition. Mitterrand, Chirac and Sarkozy all went down the rout of self-promotion on the international stage when the French economy was imploding and so Macron follows the trend. But the interesting takeaway is how this plan has no endorsement whatsoever by the EU as an autonomous body. In great tradition, when the EU can’t get any support itself democratically for a bold plan, it turns to member states to do its bidding for it. And there is no shortage of servile French leaders who are happy to capitalise on the situation. Talk is, after all, cheap on the EU circuit. But whether Putin himself will want to talk to Macron, is another matter altogether.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

When the EU starts to panic, it reaches out in a feral manner for bigger ideas. The EU army, although an idea which has been flogged to death, is still buzzing around like a fly looking for a turd to land on. But one other idea which eurocrats cling to when a real political calamity starts to cast a shadow over Brussels is expansion. During October there was much talk about ushering in a new wave of candidate countries from the Balkans, as the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, personally promises to help these countries enter the EU club.

Yet there can never be anything in Brussels more idiotic and disingenuous than this idea that the more members that the EU has, the taller it stands around the world. In 2004, the EU expanded from 15 member states to 25 as Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, joined – a move which Romano Prodi, the EU Commission president personally took the credit for as the crowning moment of his five-year term in office. He explained to me in an interview then how important it was, but in reality what I sensed was that EU expansion was all about keeping senior EU officials happy, as it calmed there tormented brows and gave them new tasks, objectives and a whole new ‘raison d’être’.

Yet expansion is really just self-indulgent nonsense. In 2004, when a wave of Eastern European, former Soviet bloc countries joined, some EU mandarins confided to journalists like me that it was also a very good way to rebalancing the EU, so that the old ‘Franco-German axis’ could be dissolved. In fact, nothing of the sort ever happened as the power struggle between these two EU giants and founding members of the EU has been resolved by Germany simply taking all the power and letting France believe that it is a much respected deputy in the decision making process and big thinking.

Macron himself welcomes the idea of Balkan countries joining as it will swell the ranks and make him look bigger as he plays the role of unpaid EU President.

But the reality of poorer, backward eastern countries joining the EU is that a darker ‘edge of Europe’ syndrome actually threatens the EU project with corruption, organised crime and the Muslim contingent all playing a role in giving far right groups a larger slice of the electoral cake.

The hypocrisy is outstanding. Especially from MEPs who have a voice and can talk about the problems in countries which are more or less ruled by the mob.

Romania and Bulgaria are both countries which have broken the mould on corruption, particularly in their judiciary systems. In Romania’s case, its elite promised to do something about graft to appease some EU officials’ worries. The result was simply the farcical creation of waves of anti-corruption agencies leading one top journalist in Bucharest to tell me that “we have so much anti-corruption activities now that we can more or less bottle this shit and sell it to the rest of the world, thanks to the EU”.

Balkan countries joining the EU will be the final blow for the EU, in reality. What we have learnt about Romania and Bulgaria joining is that the old idea banded about in Brussels that “we need to get them here in Brussels as members, then we can work on their governance deficit” which was a narrative I heard over and over again when I was based in the Belgian capital, is folly.

The idea that Albania is going to embrace the EU’s model of democracy and adopt literally thousands of EU directives on everything from workers’ rights to the length of car windscreen wipers is of course far-fetched. Or environmental legislation. Or women’s rights. The list is endless. Or that North Macedonia is going to become an EU utopia and tell those naughty mafia gangs to stop raking in billions from nice EU taxpayers who want to save money and buy fake cigarettes from a business which eclipses the national debt.

Like so many of the European Commission president’s ideas, this one is really crackers but it’s one which MEPs and member states will allow her to cradle. In the meantime, just as Turkey’s membership bid to join the EU was shot down by France and Germany, whose political elites didn’t like the immigration implications, the EU commission itself will work its dark magic internally to remind the German EU boss that if these Balkan countries are let in, then for the first time ever in the history of the EU, the institutions in Brussels would have to welcome and integrate thousands of Muslims in the EU bodies themselves and begin to look at the Muslim element in almost everything the EU does. The grey-haired, obscure, middle-aged Masons who really run the EU, will put their foot down at some point and no doubt use the criminal argument and the need for the “accession process” to be taken on board first. But this idea by VDL herself gives an indication about just how much of a crisis the EU is in, if it can stoop this low just for a few press releases and video handout footage to the call centre journalists in Brussels. With Poland grabbing the headlines in recent weeks about the very real possibility of following Britain in leaving the EU, it’s hardly surprising that this sort of PR stunts are presented to the media. In Brussels, they are, after all, practically on the payroll.

Can Poland’s leaders never learn? In 1939, they made World War II and their own destruction by the Nazis inevitable by refusing the only thing that could have saved them — a military alliance with the Soviet Union as well as the West that Moscow was ready to offer. Today, they are eagerly urging the West towards a nuclear confrontation with Russia that would destroy Washington, New York, London and Paris.

Yet their own army is as much a joke today as it was in 1939.

As my friend, retired senior Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong has documented on this platform, Poland’s political and military chiefs — ludicrously eager to impress Washington and urge the United States into some disastrous confrontation with Russia — have eagerly offered their supposedly elite units to attack the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. And Kaliningrad is crucial to Russia: It guards the invasion routes to St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, that Nazi armies followed to slaughter multiple millions in 1941.

As Patrick noted, NATO — including its Polish components — also slavishly follows the 21st century American fashion of puffing itself up to repeatedly claim it is “professional,” “competent” and “serious” when instead, the actual military activities of its senior member nations from Ukraine to Afghanistan eerily echo the Keystone Kops.

In their dreams of rapidly eliminating Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, NATO experts cited by Patrick assure us, “if that would ever come to fruition, we’d be ready to execute.” It would be “a multi-domain, very timely and effective capability”. “The best Polish military units, numbering 30,000 soldiers, should take part in the quick offensive.”

As Patrick commented: “Multi-domain, best Polish; in the imaginations of the strategists of Laputa, the Russians passively await the blow.”

However, Patrick, a citizen of what insistently demands it still be called “The Real World,” goes on to also recall that 2020 Winter virtual military exercises “ended with the complete defeat of Polish troops: on the fifth day of the virtual conflict, the enemy reached the banks of the Vistula and surrounded Warsaw.”

Reading this devastating expose of Polish and NATO military fantasies exposed by their own assessments, I was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of deja vu: Been there: Done that. Seen it all before. Nothing New Under the Sun.

For it has all happened before, just over 80 years ago in fact.

As the excellent U.S. popular historian Gene Smith noted in his heartbreaking, beautifully written book on the outbreak of World War II “The Dark Summer,” the Polish government of the time flatly blocked every (half-hearted) effort by the British and French governments to negotiate a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.

In the frank assessment of British historian Paul Johnson in his classic work “Modern Times,” Poland in 1939 was ruled by an ugly racist junta that practiced extreme policies of apartheid against its Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish citizens alike.

Soviet leader Josef Stalin had for years made clear he was eager for such an alliance. But as the memoirs of Soviet Ambassador to Britain Ivan Maisky vividly document, Winston Churchill alone among leading political figures in London was eager to have one.

Polish junta leader Colonel Josef Beck was an idiotic buffoon who regarded himself as a genius. He liked to say that only three men counted for real power in Europe: “There is Hitler. There is Stalin. And there is — Beck.”

The Polish general staff were just as bad. Without any armored force or useful artillery, and an air force consisting only of old biplanes, they imagined they would proudly march into Germany and conquer Berlin in only a few weeks. Then their cavalry would wheel around and charge straight to Moscow.

The price of this crass stupidity was paid by the entire Polish people. Around six million out of Poland’s prewar population of 30 million were slaughtered by the Nazis — a death toll of 20 percent or one in five. At least 87 percent of Poland’s prewar Jewish population of three and a half million were slaughtered in the Nazi genocide. Ethnic Russians and Gypsies were also murdered without number.

Yet it could all have been so easily avoided. Beck and his clownish generals refused to recognize that the Soviet Union remained the dominant military power of Central and Eastern Europe. They refused to admit that Russia was essential to lasting peace and stability in Europe — just as it is today. They also refused to recognize that Stalin wanted peace rather than war. Is this also starting to sound familiar?

Eighty million people died in World War II. Up to half of them were slaughtered by the Nazis across the Soviet Union. Yet today, a new generation of Polish self-styled “patriots” and “strategists” — ludicrously and appallingly encouraged by the political buffoons of Washington and Brussels are hell-bent (the term is literally appropriate) — on fomenting war between Russia and the West.

It should be sobering enough for any country to face its responsibility for failing to deter World War II. It is vastly worse when the leaders of that same country actively and even enthusiastically openly try to provoke a confrontation that can only end in a thermonuclear World War III.

U.S., British and other NATO leaders need to grow up fast: Instead, they witlessly allow themselves to be trapped in their own infantile rhetoric.

Winston Churchill worked tirelessly in the 1930s to forge an alliance with Moscow to prevent the outbreak of a world war. Yet today, all his supposed admirers in the West remain hell-bent on provoking a catastrophic war with Russia that can only end in their own destruction.

But then, with Poland’s leaders on their side, How can they lose?

– George Orwell

NATO contemplates Kaliningrad: “We think through those plans all the time, and… if that would ever come to fruition, we’d be ready to execute.” It would be “a multi-domain, very timely and effective capability”. “The best Polish military units, numbering 30,000 soldiers, should take part in the quick offensive“. Multi-domain, best Polish; in the imaginations of the strategists of Laputa, the Russians passively await the blow. But now we must leave the empyrean realms of pure thought and float down to earth; there we find that “The largest headquarters military exercises Winter 2020 in Poland ended with the complete defeat of Polish troops: on the fifth day of the virtual conflict, the enemy reached the banks of the Vistula and surrounded Warsaw“.

Moscow has just told us (in the guise of a “suggestion” from two scientists) what it would do while NATO was polishing its multi-domains. Andrei Martyanov summarises it. Russia knows that US/NATO attacks start with a heavy air bombardment. And very effective it is too. Against Iraq or Libya which had poorly-coordinated, poorly-maintained, obsolete air defence systems. Or against Afghanistan which had none at all. Went well until the Serbs sent the F-117 into premature obsolescence. But Russia has excellent air defences. But more to the point, which is what our two professors are talking about, it has a host of highly effective missiles, many of them hypersonic and it knows where to aim them.

In order to disrupt the bombardment and frustrate ground-based operations, the analysts say, Russia should launch a colossal counter or pre-emptive strike to wipe out enemy hardware. This could be achieved, they argue, with the combined use of drones, missiles, cyber warfare and new weaponry, destroying Western equipment before it can even get airborne.

As soon as Moscow decided that a real war was inevitable, there would be a rain of hypersonic missiles which would swiftly overwhelm NATO’s mediocre air defences and destroy airfields, aircraft hangars, ammunition dumps, logistics and C3I facilities. And the Defence Minister has just ordered more of them. The “Suwalki Corridor” would be the quietest place in Europe. Russians, through their brutal experience, know Orwell is correct: war is about destruction and killing.

In the West, however, other matters predominate. An American Rear Admiral heads a group to “have a deeper inclusion and diversity conversation in our Navy“; it will “acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every Sailor in the Navy“. The German Army is far ahead as are many Western militaries. “America is stronger around the world when it is inclusive“. “Diversity, inclusion and respect are at the heart of the British Army’s values and ethos“. Diversity makes the Canadian Armed Forces stronger. NATO has “mainstreamed” “gender balance and diversity“.

Is transgenderism a “mental disorder” with very high suicide risk as at least one credentialed psychiatrist says, or is it a perfectly normal position on a flexible spectrum as many other credentialed psychiatrists say? Whatever, let’s try it out in the military and see what happens. Women have gradually moved to full combat roles in the US military. And, no matter how one might want to play with the meaning of the word “stronger”, men are physically stronger than women. And the infantry have to carry heavy loads: one of the more famous efforts was the Royal Marines’ “yomp” in the Falklands – 90 kilometres, three days, average load 36 kilograms. It is said that modern soldiers in the British Army are loaded down with even more. Perhaps weight itself should be made gender-neutral: “The Army Combat Fitness Test, ordered gender-neutral three years ago, is under evaluation by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command“.

Western militaries are lab rats for the latest woke diktats. But there are consequences: “Overall, 11 percent of female service personnel scheduled to ship out were not able to in the previous year because of a pregnancy.” “Research suggests that veterans who identify as members of marginalized populations (e.g., women and racial/ethnic minority groups) carry far greater risk for developing PTSD.” “Sexual violence remains pervasive. In 2018, 20,500 service members were sexually assaulted or raped including 13,000 women and 7,500 men. The rate of sexual assault and rape jumped by almost 40% from 2016 to 2018, and for women veterans, the rate increased by over 50% to the highest level since 2006.” Meditate on the corrosive effect on morale and trust of this: “Of women who reported a penetrative sexual assault, 59% were assaulted by someone with a higher rank than them, and 24% were assaulted by someone in their chain of command.” At some point, the US military will no longer have the levels of trust, cohesion, morale and readiness that distinguish a real fighting force from a parade army.

Lots of money spent, little to show for it. Weapons seem to have been designed to produce cost over-runs, not victories. The US Navy’s latest aircraft carrier, long over due and over budget still has “problems getting jets off the deck and issues with the landing systems“; problems indeed for an aircraft carrier. “[T]he F-35 currently has 871 software and hardware ‘deficiencies’.” The years-long and stunningly expensive super destroyer program has fizzled out: three built without the weapon they were originally designed around. Brand-new military equipment unuseable in Germany. Engine troubles in the UK’s new warships. AEGIS ships that don’t know where they are: HNoMS Helge Ingstad, USS Lake Champlain, USS John McCain, USS Fitzgerald; or maybe it’s only bad seamanship. German aircraft not ready. USAF bombers ageing out. Cost over-runs in Germany. USAF training ranges inadequate. A third of the RAF’s fighters unfit to fly. F-35 not very ready. Crumbling skin on F-22. NATO air defence is inadequate (video this). “Only five of the U.S. Army’s 15 armored brigade combat teams are maintained at full readiness levels“. Where is the money going? Into woke projects like tanks with solar power? (Bit of a heat signature, but more money can be squandered fixing that.)

The experience of fighting “forever wars” – two decades of bombing and shooting from safe distances, kicking in doors and hoping there are no IEDs on patrols – have sapped preparation for a real war against first-class enemies. The truth is that Western militaries have been fighting – unsuccessfully – against minor enemies. They strike from secure bases confident in air supremacy and assured communications. (Can the Russians spoof GPS signals? What will that do to all the systems relying on GPS?) NATO is not winning against determined poorly-armed enemies; what makes it think it’s ready for determined well-armed enemies? And who wants to join a losing army? No wonder only one British infantry battalion is fully staffed.

The “forever wars” have enormous morale effects. In 2019 the US Army asked “how has serving impacted you?” and got back a host of answers about suicide and PTSD. The US military now publishes an annual suicide report: about 700 members and family a year. But, it says, deployment doesn’t increase the risk; no, that comes afterwards: over 6000 US veterans commit suicide every year. There are similar results in allied forces: German and British. Not surprising really: wars that last for generations without visible success are bad for morale: “For Afghanistan, 58 percent of veterans said that fight was not worthwhile“. NATO has already spent twice as long in Afghanistan as the USSR did and there isn’t anything to suggest it will be leaving: despite the agreement to be out by 1 May 2021, “no decision”. Meanwhile, NATO wants more troops in Iraq. Can’t end them, can’t win them. But NATO keeps looking for more: add China to the list.

Given skilful diplomacy and policies that didn’t threaten neighbours these things wouldn’t matter very much. Your inclusive and intersectional army would give good parades and your air force noisy flypasts, your navy could glisten at the dock. But the USA and NATO are not such: they believe they should be everywhere, interfere everywhere and enforce everywhere.

NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations… in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

Has NATO ever solved any dispute, anywhere, any time with anything but bombs and threats? Certainly not since the USSR went down: bombs in the Balkans (22 years), Afghanistan (20 years), Iraq (19 years), Syria (9 years), Libya destroyed, run out of Somalia. Its principal member has 800 military bases in 70 countries. Here is the famous meme that Russia must want war because it puts its country close to our bases. (Not just a meme, actually, NATO complains about “provocative military activities near NATO’s borders“; or, as others might say, “inside Russia”.) Iran, a country that last attacked somebody in 1795, also. The British Navy joins the US Navy in “freedom of navigation” cruises in the South China Sea. Both navies would suffer from shortages in a real war. Maybe better to stay at home and let Beijing worry about freedom of navigation to and from China. Not content with the fact that the USA has no competent icebreakers, Washington is contemplating FON cruises in the Russian Arctic. The US regularly flies B-52s near countries it wants to overawe – “sending a message” they call it. Some message – 31 were lost in Vietnam. Or was it 34? At any event, given that it’s spent years thinking about what to do if the USAF comes, it’s unlikely that Tehran sees two B-52s as anything other than a derisory provocation.

Some US generals get it – World War II loss rates. Maybe even most generals get it, but they’re not making the decisions. People who call it “the greatest military in the history of the world” (Obama) “best trained, best equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known” (Hillary Clinton) with the “greatest weapons” (Trump) part of “the most powerful military alliance ever assembled“, “America’s forward operating base for democracy” do. And, just as if the last twenty years had not been a record of overextended failures, here’s a cheerleader calling for more of the same: A Superpower, Like It or Not.

NATO isn’t a paper tiger, it’s a paper pussycat. Lab rats in the latest woke experiment; bad morale and fading cohesion; low readiness levels; exhausted by forever wars; expensive weapons that don’t work; pawns in the fantasies of belligerent braggarts: that’s a recipe for catastrophe.

NATO would be severely defeated in a war with Russia or China and probably with Iran. If it can’t secure Afghanistan or Iraq after two decades, if it takes 226 days to overthrow Qaddafi, 79 days in Kosovo, what makes it think it can casually provoke countries that know they’re on the hit list and have been preparing for two decades? Do the Polish players in Winter 2020 still think it will be “timely and effective“?