| Russia Insider1 day ago
After the President of the Russian Federation decreed that Russia was
suspending implementation of the agreement with the US on disposal of
weapons-grade plutonium, and after submission of a draft law to parliament,
the media started to argue about whether this was related to the breakdown
of cooperation on Syria. The second question was why Russia, knowing that
the United States was not fulfilling its side of the deal, responded only
after several years.
Some nuclear experts say that the deal benefited Russia. That’s possible;
I’m not an expert so I can’t say whether they’re being objective. Besides,
what’s profitable for the nuclear industry can be non-beneficial for security.
Although I think Russia has no special security problems, it has enough
nuclear power to strike a deathblow to the USA, and Washington has admitted
that. There is also enough material to make new warheads. In case of a
major nuclear exchange, it would be no use to produce another batch of
warheads, aside from that being impossible. The problem would be to preserve
what remained of civilization at the level of the Stone Age.
As for the Syrian issue, this is not the first time the US signs agreements
and then breaks them. Russia’s response could clearly not be compared
to the US’s official refusal to continue cooperation.
Although Putin has withdrawn Russia from the reprocessing agreement, he
announced that it could be restarted, under certain conditions, including
canceling all sanctions against Russia, compensating Moscow for losses
resulting not only from those sanctions but from Russian’s counter-sanctions,
canceling the Magnitsky Act, reducing the American military presence in
NATO countries near Russia’s border, and ending the policy of confrontation
with Moscow.
Putin’s demands can only be defined as an ultimatum.
This happened once before, in 1861, when Great Britain delivered an ultimatum
to Washington in relation to the Trent Affair, during the American Civil
War. Back then, though in severe straits, America only partially satisfied
British demands, although there was nothing humiliating about them. The
US had violated International law, arresting people on neutral (British)
ships, infringing the sovereignty of Great Britain, nearly provoking a
war. After disavowing the captain and releasing the arrested people, America
refused to apologize.
Now Putin demands not just apologies and the release of a couple of prisoners,
but a change of America’s entire policy, besides compensation. This is
an impractical and insulting demand for unconditional surrender, in a
hybrid war which Washington does not consider irreparably lost.
Only Great Britain claimed something similar from the US, before the end
of the American Revolution, when it was still a rebellious subject. During
the last hundred years, no one could imagine talking to Washington like
that. Putin clearly and intentionally humiliated the US, showing that
it could be talked to the way it speaks to the rest of the world - only
more so.
What was Putin responding to? Did he really think the US would carry out
the agreement between Kerry and Lavrov on Syria? Was he really disappointed?
Russia was aware that Washington had not been adhering to the Plutonium
Pact for years, but this benefited its nuclear industry, which practically
became a global monopoly and didn’t care about the technical limitations
that prevented the US from disposing of its weapons-grade plutonium as
stipulated in the agreement.
Russia’s tough and almost immediate response followed an announcement
by the US State Department that Russia would be sending body bags home
from Syria, losing its planes, and that terrorists could attack Russian
cities.
Immediately following that statement, the Pentagon announced its readiness
to strike a preventive nuclear blow on Russia, and the Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs said Moscow was aware of the US intention to start
an air war against Syrian troops and Russia’s legal presence there.
What other reasons are there for Putin’s ultimatum?
Missile defense, air defense and Strategic Missile Forces training to
repel a nuclear attack on Russia, including a launch under attack, took
place six months ago. Exercises of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations
(involving up to 40 million civilians), are announced for the coming days
to check the readiness of the civil defense apparatus for nuclear war
and to inform the population of emergency measures.
If we put all this together, we see that the US has long unofficially
intimidated Russia with the threat of nuclear conflict, while Moscow let
it be known that it was ready and was not going to retreat.
Now, the Washington hawks have decided to raise the ante during the last
months of Obama’s presidency, uncertain of Clinton’s victory. They have
come to an extremely dangerous point, when conflict has begun to develop
independently. At this stage, nuclear Armageddon could occur at any moment,
due to the inadequacy of Pentagon and White House personnel.
Moscow seized the initiative and raised the stakes, transforming the confrontation
in another way. Unlike the United States, it did not threaten war, but
gave a tough political and economic response, which, rather than making
Obama’s dream come true, threatens to ruin the US economy should it misbehave.
Russia’s action has seriously undermined US international prestige of
the United States, showing that America can be beaten with its own weapon.
As you give, so you receive. With this sequence of events, we could see
hundreds of American elites in the dock in the Hague, not just in our
lifetime, but before the end of the first term of the next American president.
The US must choose either to implement its threats and launch a nuclear
war, or put up with the fact that this is no longer a unipolar world,
and begin to behave accordingly.
We do not know what Washington will choose. There are enough ideologically-driven,
stupid people in the American political establishment ready to immolate
themselves in a nuclear fire together with the rest of humanity, rather
than accept the end of US hegemony. They will have to choose, because
the longer Washington pretends that nothing happened, the more its vassals
(who are called allies but are actually dependents) will ignore American
ambitions and defect to the new multipolar power.
The US can wait till it is no longer even one center of a multipolar world.
Not only Africans, Asians and Latin-Americans but also Europeans will
take revenge on the former hegemon for past humiliations. And they are
not so considerate as Russia.
Finally, Putin’s ultimatum was a response to all those who asked indignantly
why Russian tanks had not captured Kiev, Lvov, — and Warsaw and Paris
— back in 2014, wondering what Putin’s plan was.
I wrote then that if you are going to have a confrontation with the world
hegemon, you need to make sure that you will be able to respond to anything
it does. The economy, the military, the government and society all need
to be ready. If you’re not ready, you need to play for time.
Now everything is ready and the cards are on the table. We’ll see how
the US responds. But the geopolitical picture will never be the same again.
The world has already changed. The glove has been thrown down at the United
States, and it has not had the courage to immediately pick it up. |
