What would you say if I told you that Russia and Mexico agreed to carry out a joint military exercise in the northern states of Mexico that
include forcible entry, air and missile defense, live-fire, and a command post exercise, all intended to improve readiness and the ability for Russian soldiers to work with Mexican forces easily in the event of a crisis.
Pretty outrageous, right? That would be crossing a line. Russia has no right to put its troops on our border. Wouldn’t we consider that a potential threat? Absolutely.
So why do we think we can do the same thing to Russia and not expect pushback or blowback?
According to the Washington Examiner:
U.S. military forces in Europe started an exercise Tuesday that will put 28,000 troops from 26 countries near Russian territory for over six weeks, with a focus on the Balkans and Black Sea region.
European Command’s largest multinational exercise comes on the heels of an alleged Russian military exercise involving some 100,000 troops massed on the eastern border of Ukraine and in occupied Crimea. The long-planned American exercise will test infrastructure and interoperability in NATO’s southeastern flank, home to the former countries of Yugoslavia and the European Union’s poorest member states but also some that spend big on defense.
But this exercise is not happening in a vacuum. The Russian political and military leadership are listening to a perpetual tirade of anti-Russian propaganda. Remember when Biden said this in March?
I think the issue with U.S. interactions around the world is the level of fear that Americans harbor about everything. We can’t let people fuck up anything anywhere without our permission. Why do we feel we have the right to tell everybody how to do things or we will bomb them? Even when they do what we want there is still the threat of either bombing or destroying their economy. This threat is double for Russia. True not only for Neoclowns in DC but the whole congress and white house. The whole f**king gov. should get f**ked up.
We need to discontinue the word “elites” in reference to “our leaders.”
“Greedy, barbaric, lying madmen” would do much better.
Well said Larry.
Lt. Gen. Berrier’s statements make it clear he is fully signed up to the PNAC/Neocon agenda. How dare Russia defend her “vital national interests”. Helpfully Berrier also states what is really driving such policy, defense not of the US homeland but “US global primacy”.
Andrei Martyanov just wrote an excellent post highlighting his long-held fear that these kind of people might just get us all killed. I agree and pray something stops this hubristic belligerence before Russia is provoked into a response – one I feel sure will be a devastatingly unequivocal demonstration of the means and motivation available to defend those vital national interests.
This morning I emailed both of my senators. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) received the following message:
It has come to my attention that a 300 million dollar military aid package for Ukraine is working its way through the Senate.
Why are we giving any military aid to Ukraine?
The last time I checked, Ukraine was not a member of NATO. Ukraine and the U.S. do not have any formal mutual defense treaty. The U.S. has no critical national security interests in the Ukraine.
Giving Ukraine this kind of support just encourages them to not come to the table with the Russians to negotiate a settlement of their differences (none of which are any of our business).
What is the U.S. going to do when the Ukrainians get in over their heads? They are never going to be able to match the Russians militarily, no matter how much aid we provide them with. Are we going to send U.S. troops to Ukraine to assist them? I doubt it!
Getting into a proxy war with Russia, using the Ukrainians as our proxies, is a very bad idea.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just came out with their 2021 review of the Russian nuclear arsenal. Moscow has approximately 1600 thermonuclear strategic weapons, the overwhelming majority on land-based ICBMs and SLBMs on nuclear submarines. Ten percent of these weapons would end life in America as we know it. Brush up on your physics: thermonuclear weapons have anywhere from 100 to 1000 times the explosive yield of the bombs we dropped on Japan.
It is time to end this nonsense. What happens in the Ukraine is an existential national security issue for the Russians, and they will behave accordingly. It is none of our business.
It is past time to end all military aid for the Ukraine. I urge you to vote against military aid for Ukraine.
It is deeply depressing that it is necessary to point out to one’s elected representatives that antagonizing the one country on Earth which can annihilate America may be a bad idea. Bravo for doing so so eloquently.
I found your letter inspiring and thought to emulate until I remembered that one of my senators is Chucky-boi Schumer. The other is a completely ridiculous woman with a name too long to bother remembering. At least I don’t live in AOC’s district, though I, an old man, was nearly killed or injured last year by one of the convicts released onto the streets due to the enlightened policies of people such as her (daughter of a multi-multi millionaire Westchester county dwelling architect) and mayor bill deblasio who painted “black lives matter” on the boulevard facing Trump’s former high rise tower residence. Painted it twice if I recall. During a pandemic for which the governor found time to send over ten thousand elderly to death in nursing homes.
While we continue to discover that good doctor Fauci is actually a germ warfare doctor who promoted (possibly illegally, or so one might hope) gain of function research specifically on Corona viruses in order to make them either more deadly, more infectious or both. And they call Trumpy a crook! He certainly is, but the competition is fierce.
Let’s see .. Dear Senator Chuckee Schumer, I, long resident of the glorious state you and the various mafias keep snugly in your hip pocket, would like to bring to your attention..
Short answer and you all know it: Because we (still) can and the Russians have not yet found a way to deter it and/or are amused and unbothered by these provocations.
Institutional and cargo-cultish Russophobia detracts from pursuing real national interests. A little bit of wokeism can explain this.
‘The Battle of Russia’ in the ‘Why we fight’ series of movies produced by the US Dept. of War in the lead up to WW2 must be made compulsory viewing. In addition to being a quick primer in Russian history and national character, the movie talks in glowing terms about Russia’s natural resources. And clearly they have more than their ‘fair share’.
I think the Russians know these exercises are nothing more than Kabuki Theatre and a parade of 28000 troops and their equipment isn’t a serious threat to Russia. Now if we were to start pouring hundreds of thousands of additional troops and their full complement of equipment into the same area? They’ve seen that before, after all, and they would understand the difference.