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“Neither we nor our allies are ready to wage an all-out war with Russia, regionally or globally”

“Neither we nor our allies are ready to wage an all-out war with Russia, regionally or globally” says retired colonel Douglas Macgregor in The American Conservative newspaper. We’ve translated the text from this former adviser to the Trump administration’s secretary of defense, a decorated combat veteran and author of five books.

Until its decision to confront Moscow with an existential military threat in Ukraine, Washington limited the use of American military power to conflicts Americans could afford to lose, wars with weak adversaries in the developing world. , from Saigon to Baghdad, that posed no existential threat to US forces or the US homeland. This time, a proxy war with Russia is different.

Contrary to initial hopes and expectations, Russia has not collapsed internally and has not yielded to the West’s collective demands for regime change in Moscow. Washington has underestimated Russia’s societal cohesion, its latent military potential and its relative immunity from Western economic sanctions.

As a result, Washington’s proxy war against Russia is failing. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was uncharacteristically candid about the situation in Ukraine when he told allies gathered in Germany at Ramstein Air Base on January 20: “We have a window of opportunity here between now and spring.“, admits that” it is not long”.

Alexei Arestovich, adviser to recently fired President Zelensky, was more direct. He expressed his own doubts about Ukraine’s ability to win its war against Russia, and he now wonders whether Ukraine will survive the war at all. Ukrainian casualties – at least 150,000 dead, including 35,000 missing in action and presumed dead – have fatally weakened Ukrainian forces, resulting in a fragile Ukrainian defense position that is in danger of breaking under the crushing weight of attacks by Russian forces during the next couple of years. weeks.

Ukraine’s material losses are equally severe. They include thousands of tanks and armored infantry fighting vehicles, artillery systems, air defense platforms and weapons of all calibers. These totals include the equivalent of seven years of Javelin missile production. In a context where Russian artillery systems can fire nearly 60,000 rounds of all types – rockets, missiles, drones and hard shell munitions – per day, Ukrainian forces are struggling to respond to these Russian volleys of 6,000 rounds per day. New platforms and new ammunition sets for Ukraine may enrich Washington, but they cannot change these conditions.

Predictably, Washington’s frustration with the West’s collective inability to contain the Ukrainian defeat is growing. In fact, frustration quickly gives way to despair.

Michael Rubin, a former member of the Bush team and a strong supporter of America’s ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan, expressed his frustration in a 1945 article in which he argued that “ if the world allows Russia to remain a unitary state, and if it allows Putinism to survive Putin, then Ukraine should be allowed to possess its own nuclear deterrent, whether or not it joins NATO.”. On the face of it, the proposal is reckless, but the statement accurately reflects the concern in Washington circles, which believe that Ukrainian defeat is inevitable.

Although sympathetic to the Ukrainian people, Berlin did not support an all-out war with Russia in Ukraine’s name. Today, Germans are also troubled by the disastrous state of the German armed forces.

Retired German Air Force General (four-star equivalent) Harald Kujat, former chairman of NATO’s military committee, has harshly criticized Berlin for allowing Washington to drag Germany into a conflict with Russia, noting that decades of German political leaders actively disarmed Germany , thereby robbing Berlin of any authority or credibility in Europe. Although he was actively suppressed by the German government and media, his comments resonated strongly with the German electorate.

The fact is that in its efforts to secure victory in its proxy war with Russia, Washington is ignoring historical reality. From the 13th century, Ukraine was a region dominated by larger and more powerful national powers, whether Lithuanian, Polish, Swedish, Austrian or Russian.

In the aftermath of World War I, Poland’s failed plans for an independent Ukrainian state were designed to weaken Bolshevik Russia. Today, Russia is not communist and Moscow is not seeking to destroy the Polish state as Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin and their followers did in 1920. So where is Washington going with its proxy war against Russia? The question deserves an answer.

On Sunday 7 December 1941, US Ambassador Averell Harriman was dining with Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill at the latter’s home when the BBC broke the news that the Japanese had attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. Harriman is visibly shocked. He simply repeats the words: The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. »

Harriman need not have been surprised. The Roosevelt administration had done virtually everything in its power to induce Tokyo to attack American forces in the Pacific through a series of hostile policy decisions, culminating in Washington’s oil embargo in the summer of 1941.

During World War II, Washington was lucky with timing and allies. This time it’s different. Washington and its NATO allies advocate total war against Russia, the destruction and dissolution of the Russian Federation, and the destruction of millions of lives in Russia and Ukraine.

Washington plays on emotions. Washington doesn’t think. Neither we nor our allies are prepared to wage an all-out war with Russia, either regionally or globally. The fact is that if a war breaks out between Russia and the United States, Americans should not be surprised. The Biden administration and its supporters in Washington are doing everything they can to make it happen.

Douglas Macgregor (the American Conservative)

Photo credit: DR (illustration photo)
[cc] Breizh-info.com2023, shipments free for copying and distribution subject to attribution and link to the original sourcee

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