The United States is conducting military drills with its allies near the South China Sea as a congressional delegation visits Taiwan in America’s latest attempt to undermine its official one-China policy.

“Marines from the US and the Philippines have been carrying out ominous war games on small islands a short distance from Taiwan,” according to British media, citing reporting by the Wall Street Journal from correspondents embedded with a US military regiment.

“The developments are a disturbing glimpse into the perspective of US military leaders… Any direct conflict between the US and China could easily spiral into World War Three, with both nations in possession of nuclear weapons that could destroy the planet.”

The United States’ historical position on intervention in Taiwan has been one of so-called “strategic ambiguity,” with the country refusing to clarify whether it would send armed forces to the territory. However, President Joe Biden has broken with tradition by affirming he would be willing to send US troops.

US media correspondents reported from an attachment to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, which has undertaken numerous exercises on Philippine islands after being created two years ago. American armed forces are restructuring to prepare for a major war in the Pacific after decades of combat against irregular forces in the Middle East, it has been reported.

“We’re moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, referring to roles which have been in high demand in US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. “We want to be postured for large-scale combat operations.”

America prepares for war with China amid latest provocation from US Congress (Part 2)

Figures within the US armed forces have predicted the United States must confront China militarily within the next fear years in order to stem its economic rise.

“Rand Corporation warned about 10 years ago that they needed to go to war with China by 2025 in order to prevail,” noted analyst KJ Noh. “General [Mike] Minihan [said] that we will go to war in 2025. Admiral [Philip] Davidson said we’ll go to war in 2027. Whatever it is, the question in Washington right now is not if we will go to war, but when, and they want it sooner rather than later.”

Meanwhile, a delegation of lawmakers has arrived in Taiwan to meet with local authorities in the United States’ latest provocation over the thorny issue of the territory’s status. The bipartisan group was led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The visit comes amidst cross-strait tensions, with China conducting military drills after Taiwanese politician William Lai Ching-te made statements perceived as promoting separatism. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin urged the United States to “seriously abide by the one-China principle” and “not arrange for any visit by members of the Congress to Taiwan.”

The United States officially adopted a “one-China policy” regarding Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, issued amid former President Richard Nixon’s efforts to normalize relations with the PRC.

The policy was reaffirmed in the 1979 Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, with the US recognizing the government of the PRC as the sole legal government of China and Taiwan as a part of it. The position was affirmed once again in a joint agreement reached in 1982.

via Sputnik

via RT

NATO is trying to surround Russia with a network of cyber laboratories as part of its hybrid war against the country, the Special Representative of the Russian President for International Cooperation in the Field of Information Security, Artur Lyukmanov, has said.

The US-led bloc has long been working on developing ways to take on Russia in the infosphere, Lyukmanov said in an interview with RIA-Novosti on Saturday.

Ukraine has been its “main testing ground,” with hackers from the country “carrying out acts of electronic sabotage under the close guidance of the curators from NATO,” he said.

Russia is aware of “entire units of Western intelligence services and armed forces being sent to Kiev” to assist the Ukrainians with hacking activities, the diplomat, who also heads the Department of International Information Security at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, added.

“It’s no secret that the alliance is forming a whole network of cyber laboratories along the Russian borders – in Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Romania,” Lyukmanov pointed out.

According to the diplomat, in the future NATO also plans to open such facilities in Georgia and Moldova, who are not members of the bloc.

“Under the auspices of the Pentagon, cyber exercises are being carried out systematically, during which scenarios of confrontation with [Russia] in the digital realm are being tested,” he said.

Earlier this month, the US Cyber Command staged the Cyber Flag 2024 exercise, at a base in Suffolk, Virginia. The drills involved American cyber operators and their counterparts from 18 NATO members and partner states, who trained to detect cyber threats and identify solutions to protect networks.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a state-run data protection system should be set up as the number of cyberattacks on the country has been on the rise since the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict.

“Today we can already say that the cyber aggression against us… failed. In general, we were ready for this attack, and this is the result of the systematic work that has been carried out in the field in recent years,” Putin said.

via RT

There’s little time left to conclude the Ukraine conflict, which risks escalating out of control and inciting a global war, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.

The president made the remarks on Friday to the broadcaster Prva Srpska Televizija. The world is standing on the brink of an all-out global conflict, and it is likely already too late to avoid it, the Serbian leader suggested.

“I am afraid that there is little time left for the war in Ukraine to be stopped. I hope it’s still possible, but I’m afraid it’s actually not. I’m afraid that the train has already left the station, started moving, and no one will stop it,” Vucic stated.

In my opinion, things will get worse and worse, and it may happen that we will have a greater tragedy than World War II. I’m afraid we are heading towards a great world conflict, and few want to stop it.

Explaining his doomsday prediction, the Serbian leader said the conflict is being pushed by the global military industry, war profiteers who are interested in expanding and prolonging it rather than seeking a resolution.

“When the war machine starts to heat up, then there is a military lobby and a military industry lobby who want it to intensify, and then there will be no more [peace] effort, it is difficult to stop,” Vucic said.

The president also urged “someone” to do something “real” to stop the hostilities instead of “just shifting the blame to the other side.” He warned that “if this doesn’t happen, I’m afraid we’re headed for disaster.”

While Russia and Ukraine sought to reach a peace deal early on during the ongoing conflict, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was successful in pressuring Kiev not to do so, suggesting it should just keep fighting instead of striking any agreements with Moscow. While Johnson has denied such allegations, his involvement was confirmed by senior Ukrainian officials later on.

While Moscow has repeatedly expressed a readiness to negotiate, Kiev has refused; Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has explicitly banned himself from entering any talks. The prospects of somehow restarting negotiations have now apparently become even slimmer since Zelensky’s presidential tenure expired.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow’s readiness to engage in meaningful negotiations must be based on “common sense” and an acknowledgement of “realties on the ground.”

by Geoffrey Roberts

Geoffrey Roberts is a British historian of World War II working at University College Cork. He specializes in Soviet diplomatic and military history of World War II. He was professor of modern history at University College Cork in Ireland and head of the School of History at UCC

1. Russian Casualties: the BBC-Mediazona research indicates that Russia has lost 40,000-50,000 soldiers – three times as many as during 10 years of war in Afghanistan and almost as many as the Americans in Vietnam. Russia’s force conservation tactics and strategy are designed to minimize casualties but completing conquest of the Donbass may cost thousands more Russian lives. Capturing Kharkov and Odessa would be even more costly. Over-running and occupying Western Ukraine would require mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of additional troops. Ukraine’s casualties are far higher than Russia’s – a minimum of 150,000-200,000 and perhaps as many as 400,000 military dead. A precipitate Ukrainian military collapse is possible but Kiev just might, with Western support, be able to fight on for some time.

2. The Nuclear Danger: atomic war threatens the very existence of Russia as well as the rest of the world. The war’s escalation into an all-out NATO-Russia conflict remains a real possibility. Never so high has been the danger of nuclear hostilities or of a catastrophic incident involving Ukrainian (or Russian) nuclear power stations.

3. Regime-Change in Kiev: the current Ukrainian regime will last as long as the war. Peace negotiations will be its downfall. Its replacement by an even more ultra-nationalist government is possible but would further weaken Western support – without which Ukraine cannot survive as a state. The odds favour a successor regime that will swallow the bitter pill of a peace settlement that suits Russia – an outcome that Ukrainian public opinion will hate but accept as the least bad alternative.

4. Russian Public Opinion: Polling data indicates that the majority of Russia’s citizens will support the war for as long as it takes but would also like to see a ceasefire and peace negotiations as soon as possible. The westernising sections of Russian elites are quiescent but they, too, will push in the same direction if and when a possible peace settlement appears on the horizon. A small, but vociferous and not insubstantial, minority of Russians favour totalwar and complete victory over Ukraine and the West. Putin’s power and popularity means he can over-ride these so-called turbo-patriots, though they could hamper any peace negotiations.

5. Pressure from the Global South. Russia’s friends, allies, partners and wellwishers in the Global South oppose a long war and want a ceasefire as soon as possible. If and when Ukraine and the West begin to court peace, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other independent actors will be a formidable lobby urging Putin to pick up the ball and run with it.

6. Reconstruction of Incorporated Territories: the retention of Crimea and the four other incorporated provinces are the minimum Russian war aim. While its achievement is now virtually guaranteed, it will be a pyrrhic victory if Moscow is unable to rapidly reconstruct and re-populate the devasted lands of southern and eastern Ukraine. The longer the war, the more mammoth that task. Putin went to war to destroy the growing Ukraine-NATO military bridgehead on Russia’s borders but also to protect pro-Russia Ukrainians. Ending the war may be the best way to guarantee their lives and livelihoods

7. Slavic Solidarity: Putin’s July 2021 claim that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially the same people provokes outrage in some quarters, even though it was a statement that at the time was supported by 40% of Ukraine’s citizens. Russia has fought the war under the banner of multi-nationalism not mono-ethnic nationalism. It has, for the most part, treated its Ukrainian opponents with respect. The identified enemies are Ukrainian neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists, corrupt officialdom, exploitative oligarchs and sell-outs to Western interests. Ideologically, Russia is committed to healing the wounds of war it has inflicted on what it still considers a brother nation. At best, healing will take a very long time; a long war could make the gulf between Russia and Ukraine unbridgeable for generations.

8. Restoration of Russo-Western Commerce: Russia has weathered the Western sanctions war very well. Russia’s war-economy is booming and significantly out-performing Western arms manufacturers. New relationships and markets have been forged with the Global South. Russia has more economic and technological sovereignty than it did before the war. China, Russia and the non-Western world are challenging US global financial hegemony. But Western sanctions do hurt – ordinary Russians most of all – and the pain will likely intensify in the medium to long-term. Detached from and in conflict with the West, Russia can survive and even thrive, but greater prosperity and opportunity lies in ending Western sanctions and restoring commercial and trade ties.

9. Global Co-operation. Russia and the West need each other to resolve a multitude of mutually pressing problems – nuclear proliferation, cross-border crime and international terrorism, dire environmental challenges, world health threats, global poverty and inequity.

10. Birthing a New World Order: Russia aspires to an international system based on sovereignty, multipolarity, multilateralism, mutual security, international law and the re-balancing and re-invigoration of global and regional institutions. Immanent in Russia’s vision of the future is an implicit preference for benign spheres of influence in which great powers provide stability and order and help secure justice for all states. A new global order is within Russia’s grasp – provided it avoids the nightmare of a forever war that begets the Orwellian dystopia of a permanently divided world of warring blocs

There are disturbing signs that the West is serious about making this a “forever war.” The idea is even worse than it looks at first sight.

By TARIK CYRIL AMAR

Tarik Cyril Ama is s historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

https://tarikcyrilamar.substack.com/p/what-if-russia-does-not-win-the-ukraine

At this moment (and for quite a while already), Russia clearly has the initiative in the war between it, on one side, and Ukraine and – de facto – the West on the other. High Ukrainian officials and military officers – including the commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky and the deputy head of Kiev’s military intelligence service Vadim Skibitsky – are admitting publicly that their country is in deep trouble. Realistic observers in the West, such as Brian Berletic and the Duran’s Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou, correctly point out that the West’s injections of aid cannot turn this situation around, partly because there is no way to compensate for Kiev’s lack of manpower and partly because the West itself does not, actually, have industrial resources to render support at a scale that would make an effective difference.

We also know that Russia has built up large reserves, which it has not yet committed to the fight. Moreover, there has been an intriguing shift in Russian terminology: While the term “offensive” has been avoided for a long time – with Russia categorizing its territorial gains as the result of a strategy of “active defense” – it has now popped up officially. The Russian Minister of Defense is reported to have spoken of the need to step up supplies to the front in order to “maintain the required pace of the offensive.” This may or may not have been a deliberate signal. It could also be a simple way to keep Ukraine and the West guessing. Yet, taken together with recent Russian advances and other operations – such as air strikes on Odessa and Kharkov/Kharkiv – it could mean that Moscow will launch a major offensive either this spring or summer, as many observers are expecting.

In one scenario, then, the war could end this year, with a Russian victory. The extent and precise political shape of that victory cannot be predicted. Capturing all of Ukraine east of the Dnepr/Dnipro River (plus those parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions (oblasts) to its west? Seizing major cities such as Odessa and Kharkiv? Another strike at the capital Kiev/Kyiv? Likewise, we can’t forecast what kind of Ukraine would emerge from such a Russian victory: A neutralized and regime-changed rump state? A rump state bent on revenge and continuously subsidized by the West?

In a highly unlikely – given the West’s persistent refusal to consider a real compromise as a way out – the war could end with a negotiated peace, which, given the realities on the ground, would have to be shaped in Russia’s favor and thus would amount to victory by another name.

But it would be unwise to rule out a third possibility. It is true, that the West does not have the means to make Ukraine win. Yet it is crucial to distinguish between this fact and what Western leaderships are ready to acknowledge. The West, in short, is not rational, and it has displayed an enormous capacity for wishful thinking.

Hence, we should pay close attention to signs that the West is seeking to prolong this unnecessary war for years by any means it can. Recently, in particular, there have been several such worrying signs. Here, I would like to highlight three of them:

First, the Biden administration National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has declared that Ukraine should, in essence, hold out this year, so that in 2025, the West can use it again to launch another offensive against Russia. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr/Vladimir Zelensky has also spoken of trying to attack again, provided his country will receive more Western weapons. Both statements are unrealistic – not a first from either Sullivan or Zelensky – suggestion, but let’s set that aside for a moment. Our question here is what harm policies based on unrealistic assumptions can still do.

Second, the Italian newspaper Republicca has published an article – most likely based on deliberate leaks – that purports to report internal NATO thinking on “red lines” in Ukraine. That is, under what circumstances NATO would intervene directly – and, conversely, under what circumstances it would not do so. In essence, the reported “red lines” – as summarized in the Ukrainian publication Strana.ua boil down to two: NATO, so this article claims, considers intervening directly, if Belarus joins the war on Russia’s side (or if Russia launches another major attack from Belarussian territory) or if Russia goes beyond Ukraine’s borders to attack either a NATO member state (duh, frankly) or Moldova, which is not a member but a target of NATO expansion policy. Once again, let’s not immediately get sidetracked by dismissing these purported NATO “red lines” as nothing but a reflection of NATO’s exaggerated sense of its own capacities. They may well be that, but that does not mean that they are not meant seriously or that they can’t do great damage. As they are, they seem to reflect a desire to keep the war in Ukraine and to deter Russia from one of its most devastating conventional options, namely a fresh strike on Kiev/Kyiv from Belarus. That points to an intention to both “cage the war in” and keep it going.

Third, the USA is continuing its push to confiscate Russian state assets of about 300 billion dollars that are currently frozen in Western banks. It has not yet succeeded in persuading the Europeans to join this operation, and on its own, Washington cannot seize – really, steal – more than a few billion. It is, however, the intention that counts here, and that is to find the equivalent of a fairytale pot of gold to go on paying for the proxy war in Ukraine.

Taken together, such Western signals remain hard to read with confidence: They could be no more than a façade of bluffs, meant to distract Russia from pursuing its clear advantage on the ground to full extent. In that interpretation, this is, in essence, a desperate West trying to cheat its way out of a clear, incontrovertible, and very discrediting defeat.

Yet, despite the fact that all of these ideas are deeply unsound, they could also reflect an earnest intention to drag this war out. Behind this could be an idea that Russia’s successful economic mobilization also has costs and may, in its current form, not be sustainable for years. That is, incidentally, the message of a recent Financial Times article that, we may be confident, does not lack political inspiration. The key fantasy here is, in short, to make the war last long enough so that the West can turn the logic of attrition against Russia.

Once again, the key question – in terms of the harm all of this can do – is not, actually, if it could “work.” It very probably cannot. The key question, instead, is what can happen while the West tries such a policy, and it fails. And there the greatest single risk is that if Moscow should ever come to believe that the West might succeed in applying a new combination of proxy war and long-term attrition, it would be sorely tempted to cut that scheme short, including by a limited nuclear strike to make clear that it will simply not accept such “new rules of the game.”

Once a “small” nuke is used, there is, of course, no telling where the escalation will end. It is a bizarre idea to think that we could end much of humanity because Ukraine needed to have an “open door” to NATO through which, however, it was not really supposed to actually ever walk.

I started writing this post before I saw a new piece of news: The Russian President has just ordered forces near Ukraine to drill for the launch of tactical nuclear weapons. I cannot say I am surprised. But we should all be very scared indeed. And, ideally, we should finally sit down and negotiate a realistic compromise.

Nuclear escalation. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, directly stated that Russia conducts tactical nuclear weapons exercises taking into account two new factors.

1. Statements by the President of France about the beginning of the massive sending of NATO troops to Ukraine.
2. Statement by the British Foreign Minister that long-range missiles will be transferred to Ukraine and Britain is lifting the ban on strikes at strategic depths in Russia. They plan to fire missiles at Moscow.

In return, with the threat of tactical nuclear weapons, Russia is trying to stop a new stage of NATO aggression.

Moscow emphasizes that tactical nuclear weapons will strike not only against NATO troops on the territory of Ukraine, but also against military facilities on the territory of NATO countries. Dmitry Medvedev stated this. And this was stated by Dmitry Trenin, one of the leading military-political experts, who is close to the Ministry of Defense, as many believe.

What kinds of tactical nuclear weapons does Russia have?

Russia’s military is planning tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) drills in response to “provocative threats” by NATO about deploying troops in Ukraine. 

What are tactical nukes? 

TNWs, or ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons are a class of nukes first developed by the US in the 1950s for use against enemy troops and other ‘tactical’ targets. The USSR created its own lineup of TNWs, many of them standardized with conventional weapons systems. 

Modern TNWs’ explosive power ranges from fractions of a kiloton to about 50 kilotons. For comparison, the US nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotons. 

How many TNWs does Russia have? 

The size of Russia’s TNW stockpile is kept under wraps, but the Federation of American Scientists estimates it to be between 1,000-2,000 nukes total (down from 22,000 in 1991). These weapons are not subject to treaty restrictions that affect strategic nuclear arsenals. 

What means does Russia have to use its tactical nukes? 

Russia has an array of means to deliver TNWs, including: 

ground-based Iskander-M missile systems 

ship and air-launched Kalibr and Kh-59 cruise missiles 

missiles and free-fall bombs launched from warplanes including the Su-34, Tu-142, Tu-22M3, Su-24, Su-25, MiG-31K and Su-57. 

Yasen-class cruise missile subs can theoretically carry TNWs. 

Smaller TNWs can be fired by standard 152 mm Russian howitzers, like the Msta-S/B, Akatsiya and Giatsint-S. Specially-developed nuclear artillery rounds for the 203 mm Pion/Malka cannon and 240 mm Tulpan mortar system were created. 

by Stephen Bryen via weapons.substackAn honor guard from the French army’s 6th Battalion stands at attention as they await the arrival of Lt. Gen. Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, commander of Joint Forces in Saudi Arabia, during Operation Desert Shield. The soldier in front is holding a 5.56mm FA MAS rifle, equipped with a bayonet.

France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine. They have been deployed in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in Slavyansk. The French soldiers are drawn from France’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is one of the main elements of France’s Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère).

In 2022 France had a number of Ukrainians and Russians in the Foreign Legion. They were allowed to leave the Legion and, in the case of the Ukrainians, return to Ukraine to join Ukrainian forces. It isn’t clear if the Russians returned home.

The Legion today is run by French officers but the rank and file are all foreigners. Under the curren anonymat (being anonymous) a volunteer who joins the Legion can decide whether to keep his given name or adopt a new one. Legionnaires serve for three year terms, after which they can ask for French citizenship. If a legionnaire is wounded, he is entitled to gain French citizenship without any waiting period. There are no women in the Foreign Legion.

Troops of Third Infantry Regiment French Foreign Legion in Africa

The initial group of French troops numbers around 100. This is just the first tranche of around 1,500 French Foreign Legion soldiers scheduled to arrive in Ukraine.

These troops are being posted directly in a hot combat area and are intended to help the Ukrainians resist Russian advances in Donbas. The first 100 are artillery and surveillance specialists.

For months French President Emanuel Macron has been threatening to send French troops to Ukraine. He has found little or no support from NATO countries outside of support from Poland and the Baltic States. Allegedly the US opposes sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine (other than as advisors).

One of the questions to immediately arise from France’s decision to send soldiers from its 3rd Infantry Regiment is whether this crosses the Russian red line on NATO involvement in Ukraine? Will the Russians see this as initiating a wider war beyond Ukraine’s borders?

France itself does not have many troops to put on Ukraine’s battlelines, should the French government want to do so. According to reports, today France cannot support an overseas deployment of a full division and won’t have this capability until 2027 at the earliest.

The decision to send Foreign Legionnaires is, itself, a peculiar French compromise. France is not deploying its home army and, besides the small number of officers, the men sent are not French citizens.

France’s decision has two meanings, beyond the obvious one of potentially triggering a pan-European war.

First of all, it allows Macron to send troops to Ukraine and act like a tough guy without encountering much home opposition. That’s because no French army soldiers are being sent and there is no consequent conscription or other measures in the offing. This clearly reduces the potential fury of Macron’s political opponents.

French Foreign Legionnaires in the desert. Photo: Vanity Fair

The second reason is Macron’s anger at seeing French troops, almost all from the Legion, getting kicked out of Sahelian Africa and replaced by Russians. Control of Francophone Africa, and the riches it provides to French politicians, has been broken by the revolt and revolution in Africa and a decisive tilt to Russia – either directly or through PMC Wagner (the Wagner Group). now clearly under Vladimir Putin’s direct control.

This “humiliation” is felt in the Élysée Palace and particularly by Macron who, his opponents say, has lost France’s influence and harmed France’s overseas mining and business interests.

A particular blow is in Niger, an important supplier of uranium to France. France gets 70 percent of its electrical power from nuclear power generators. Global uranium supplies are tightening and prices rising. With Russia and Kazakhstan, along with Niger, on the top of the heap in terms of supplying uranium for nuclear reactors, France has a home economic security problem. The US decision to ban Russian uranium (but probably not realistically, in the next few years) the Russians could deal a serious blow to France and the United States by cutting off supplies.

French Troops Departing Niger

Given the risk of losing access to uranium, or at least enough of it to supply France’s reactors, Macron has to hope that his troop deployments to Ukraine won’t trigger a Russian embargo on sales to France.

It isn’t clear how the Legionnaires can help the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians know how to operate artillery, and they have sophisticated intelligence support, some of it generated by their own FPV drones and spies and some of it thanks to US and other NATO intelligence and surveillance assets supporting Ukraine.

Anyway, the Ukrainian issue is not about how to use artillery but where the ammunition is supposed to come from. Ukraine continues to complain it lacks adequate supplies for 155mm howitzers.

The decision to put the Legion soldiers in Slavyansk is extremely provocative and goes against statements from the French side, including Macron, to the effect that if France sent troops they would replace Ukrainian army units in western Ukraine who could, therefore, be moved eastward to fight the Russians. As Slavyansk is on the front line, this French image of a soft deployment is turning into a war with Russia directly.

A key question is how NATO will react to the French decision to deploy. As France is acting on its own without NATO’s backing, the French cannot claim support from NATO under its famous Article 5, the collective security component of the NATO Treaty.

Should the Russians attack French troops outside of Ukraine it would be justified because France has decided to be a combatant, and forcing an Article 5 vote would seem to be difficult if not impossible.

Of course, NATO members individually could support the French, either by sending their own forces or by backstopping the French logistically and in communications. For example, there is no way Foreign Legion soldiers can go to Ukraine without passing through Poland. Will the Russians see this as evidence they are at war both with France and Poland?

Right now no one can answer any of these questions with any degree of certainty. It is unlikely the Russians will long tolerate a buildup of French army troops, even if they are Foreign Legion soldiers. What Russia will do in response is not certain.

Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.

“The US is the number 1 warmonger in the world.

US has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, blatantly interfered in elections in at least 30 countries, and attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.”

— The Chinese Foreign Minister

Ed. Note: This article confirms what we also believe. The war in Ukraine is far from over; this was just the warm-up phase. As usual, the Western strategy is to move towards the big conflagration in fits and starts. War, no war? Hot and cold. Hopes for peace only to be replaced by more escalation. This is the phase when the Western war machine is testing the enemy, probing it weak spots, wearing down its population, setting in the psychology of the inevitability of war, and, of course, setting up its own war economy.

For the West, the alternative to war, at this point, is an economic wipe out. By starting a new war, they postpone the inevitable while theoretically maintaining a chance of winning.

We haven’t seen anything yet.

*******************************

The Iran-Israel clash has served as a catalyst for renewed escalation by Western leaders, and World War III cannot be ruled out

By Timur Fomenko, political analyst, via RT

The events of recent weeks have produced a sudden jolt in Western politics. From a lethargy that was starting to creep into US and western discourse over the Ukraine war, Iran’s attack on Israel suddenly seemed to have had the effect of awakening Ronald Reagan from his grave and leading to a surge of neo-conservativism on steroids, on both sides of the Atlantic.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson did a complete 180-degree U-turn and proclaimed himself a “Reagan Republican” passing a series of aid bills for astronomical overseas spending that he had otherwise blocked for months, as he denounced an “axis of evil.” Along with that, a proposed TikTok ban bill came out of nowhere too and was quickly signed into law.

Then the UK decided to devote its largest ever aid package to Ukraine, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warning of an “axis of authoritarian states” and amplifying ideologically combative rhetoric. At the same time, it was then revealed Biden had sent 300km long range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine despite having pledged not to do so for years, fearing escalation. Finally, EU President Ursula von der Leyen has suddenly dramatically increased economic warfare on China, pushing the European Commission to open probes on scores of Chinese exports. Where exactly did all this come from?

It’s almost as if the US and its allies seized upon the tensions between Iran and Israel in order to “whitewash” their slate and double down on a series of objectives they are otherwise losing public support for, including the war in Ukraine, but also Israel’s invasion of Gaza. One has to wonder if the Israeli attack on the Iranian compound in Damascus, which provoked Tehran’s response, was deliberately staged, coordinated and planned for this purpose. It served the mutually convenient goal of letting both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Western governments off the hook for whatever opposition they had otherwise faced.

It should be abundantly clear now that the current powers that be, in London and Washington, have absolutely no intent of letting up on the wars they have provoked, while also pushing for a potential third one with China, and seem indifferent to the consequences, even if for example, the Israel-Gaza war is shattering the West’s claims of moral superiority. In each case, the stakes are very high, Western foreign policy at large has taken on a very zero-sum and ideological character which bemoans the loss of hegemony, and seeks to uphold it at all costs. It is reactionary to the extent it does not have a vision for improving the world, but wants to take backthe world to the way it was. It is a sense of entitlement and privilege that wants to suppress an emerging multipolarity.

Because of this, it has become impossible for Western leaders to ever consider the concept of compromise in these respective theaters, and they refuse under any circumstances to make concessions which could be deemed strategic. This has produced a position where the only outcome they are willing to accept in Ukraine is what they deem “the defeat of Putin,” and have been subtly escalating ever since, edging ever closer to the point where a “proxy war” becomes a direct one for all intents and purposes. NATO military advisors are already on the ground, and Ukrainian attacks are being guided by NATO intelligence or even coordinated by British admirals.

The media in the West, especially in Britain (there is more dissent in the US) are effectively in war mode. The BBC amplifies non-stop Ukraine propaganda, pushing any claim that will help Kiev irrespective of its empirical worth or evidence, and all voices of dissent have been shut down. It seems evident that the decision may have been made to risk a full-on war with Russia, rather than to consider any negotiation scenario. Thus, the shockwaves from the Iran-Israel saga have been used to pursue a new and sudden round of escalation on every front, which can have only been bolstered by the prospective elections looming in both the US and UK.

Because of this, it is fair to say that the world faces a more dangerous and uncertain outlook than at any point since the end of World War II. This current crop of Western leaders are not pursuing a more restrained and calculated mindset, as seen for most of the Cold War, but an aggressive and evangelistic one that does not prefer stability but affirms hegemony as an absolute right, thus more resembling a pre-1914 world. Because of this, we should draw the conclusion that Western leaders are not truly seeking to avoid war, but are prepared to embrace it if necessary. The British military establishment and the media have long been making noises about conscription. In the US, if Joe Biden wins re-election, we can assume that he will unapologetically escalate on every single front. World War III is no longer a dramatized specter of farfetched panic, but an actual possibility that should not be ruled out.

Today the United States is presenting an ultimatum to China. This is happening in closed negotiations between US Secretary of State Blinken and the Chinese leadership. The US is demanding a stop to trade with Russia, which the US views as a violation of US sanctions and as helping Russia in the war in Ukraine.

They also demand to take part in a conference in Switzerland to put forward an ultimatum to Russia called the Zelensky Formula.

If China does not bend under US pressure, sanctions against China will soon begin.

At the same time, Putin is going to China on a visit in May. 

Which way the wind is blowing?