Russia and the West: Piercing the Fog of Hysteria by Pepe Escobar for Strategic-Culture
The fatal mistake committed by Brussels in 2014 was to force Kiev o make an impossible choice between Europe and Russia.
A specter haunts the collective West: total zombification, courtesy of an across-the-board 24/7 psy ops imprinting the inevitability of “Russian aggression”.
Let’s pierce the fog of hysteria by asking Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov what’s going on:
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“I can absolutely say that to date, the Russian armed forces have not created a strike group that could make a forceful invasion of Ukraine.”
Well, Reznikov is obviously not aware that the White House, with access to arguably privileged intel, is convinced that Russia will invade “any-minute-now”.
The Pentagon doubles down: “It’s very clear the Russians have no intention right now of deescalating”. Thus the necessity, expressed by spokesman John Kirby, of readying a multinational NATO response force (NRF) of 40,000 troops: “If it is activated…to defeat aggression, if necessary”.
So “aggression” is a given. The White House is “refining” military plans – 18 at the last count – for all manners of “aggression”. As for responding – in writing – to the Russian proposals on security guarantees, well, that’s far too complex.
There is no “exact date” when it will be sent to Moscow. And the proverbial “officials” have begged their Russian counterparts not to make it public. After all, a letter is not sexy. Yet “aggression” sells. Especially when it may happen “any-minute-now.”
“Analyst” hacks are yelling that Putin “is now almost certain” to deliver a “limited strike” in “the next ten days”, complete with an attack on Kiev: that configures the scenario of an “almost inevitable war”.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Council Committee on International Affairs, prefers to get closer to reality: the U.S. is preparing a provocation to push Kiev to “reckless actions” against Russia in the Donbass. That ties in with foot soldiers of the Luhansk People’s Republic reporting that “subversive groups prepared by British instructors” arrived in the area of Lisichansk.
Luminaries such as the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg and “leaders” from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland announced, after a video call, that “an unprecedented package of sanctions” is nearly ready if Russia “invades”.
They billed it as “international unity in the face of growing Russia hostility”. Translation: NATOstan begging Russia to please invade a.s.a.p.
Of the EU 27, 21 are NATO members. The U.S. rules over the whole lot. So when the EU announces that “any further military aggression against Ukraine would have very serious consequences for Russia”, that’s the U.S. telling NATO to tell the EU “what we say, goes”. And under this strategy of tension environment, “what we say” means applying raw, imperial Divide and Rule to keep Europe totally subjugated.
The West’s fatal mistakes
One should never forget that Maidan 2014 was an operation supervised by Obama/Biden. Yet there’s still plenty of unfinished business – when it comes to bogging down Russia. So the viscerally Russophobic War Party in D.C. now has to pull all stops ordering NATOstan to cheerlead Kiev to start a hot war – and thus trap Russia. Zelensky The Comedian even went on the record wanting to “go on the offensive”.
So time to release the false flags.
The indispensable Alastair Crooke has outlined how “‘encirclement’ and ‘containment’ effectively have become Biden’s default foreign policy.” Not “Biden”, actually – but the amorphous combo behind the earpiece/teleprompter-controlled puppet I have been designating for over a year as Crash Test Dummy.
Crooke adds, “the attempt to cement-in this meta-doctrine currently is being enacted out via Russia (as the initial step). The essential buy-in by Europe is the ‘party-piece’ to Russia’s physical containment and encirclement.”
“Encirclement” and “containment” have been exceptionalist staples, under various guises, for decades. The notion entertained by the War Party that it’s possible to carry both across a three-way-front – against Russia, China and Iran – is so infantile to render any analysis idle. It does call for a drink and a good laugh.
As for extra sanctions for the imaginary “Russian aggression”, a few benevolent souls had to remind Little Tony Blinken and other “Biden” combo participants that Europeans would be much more lethally affected than Russians; not to mention these sanctions would turbo-charge the collective West’s economic crisis.
A short recap is essential to frame how we ended up mired in the current hysteria swamp.
The collective West blew the chance it had to build a constructive partnership with Russia similar to what it did with Germany after 1945.
The collective West also blew it when reducing Russia to the role of a minor, docile entity, imposing that there’s only one sphere of influence on the planet: NATOstan, of course.
And the Empire blew it when it targeted Russia even after it had allegedly “won” against the USSR.
During the 1990s and the 2000s, instead of being invited to participate in the construction of the “common European home” – with all its glaring faults – post-Soviet Russia was forced to be outside looking in on how this “home” was upgraded and decorated.
Contrary to all the promises made to Gorbachev by assorted Western leaders, the traditional Russian sphere of influence – and even former USSR territory – became objects of dispute in the looting of the “Soviet heritage”: merely a space to be colonized by NATO’s military structures.
