President Putin just sent the belligerence-crazed United States a warning — will American leadership pay sensible attention?

© 2018 Peter Free

 

01 March 2018

 

 

Disclaimer

 

I hold no serious hope of persuading the average American mouth-foamer that their evidence-lacking, disproportionate anti-Russian paranoia is misguided.

 

What follows is intended for people who retain an ability to think in objectively sane fashion.

 

 

What just happened?

 

Consider this 'tone it down or else' warning from Russian president, Vladimir Putin:

 

 

Putin used the state of nation address to announce that Russia has developed missiles that no other country has, as well as a new supersonic weapon that cannot be tracked by anti-missile systems.

 

Russia has tested new nuclear weapons, he said, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile and a nuclear-powered underwater drone that cannot be intercepted by enemies.

 

NATO buildup on Russia's borders and the US anti-missile system would be rendered useless by Russia's own military buildup, Putin said, adding that Russia did not intend to attack any other country and that the country's military buildup was designed to guarantee peace globally.

 

He also said the use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies would be regarded as an attack on Russia and would be answered with an immediate response.

 

© 2018 News Agencies and Deutsche Welle, Vladimir Putin: Russia must halve poverty rate, DW.com (01 March 2018)

 

 

Provocative, yes — but why?

 

Putin is, objectively speaking, not a particularly provocation-oriented leader. This, despite what air-headed American chest-thumpers have to say.

 

That Putin would wave the Nuke Fist in such a public fashion indicates, I suspect, the depth of his concern that the United States' anti-Russian hysteria has completely gone off geopolitical sanity's rails.

 

Even though Putin's speech was made in domestic campaign mode, I do not doubt that he intended Western eyes to read what he had said.

 

In that regard, I have pointed out a number of times (here, for instance) that repeated American and NATO provocation of the Russian Federation is self-destructively dangerous.

 

The Democratic Party's idiotically created — and Deep State-supported — fantasy blaming Russia for (pretended egregious) meddling in the 2016 presidential election adds to this fuel.

 

Now, throw in special counsel Bob Mueller's politically motivated, legally ridiculous indictment of a handful of Russian civilians for their preposterously immaterial influence-spreading.

 

In short, the United States' deliberately manufactured lunacy may take the world deadly places that no one really wants to go.

 

 

Putin's intent — I infer — is to warn us against constantly pounding the war drums

 

From his perspective, our mushroom trip (a psychedelic pun) has to stop before our own serially provocative actions force Russia to defend itself.

 

The United States' slavering militarists need, we can deduce, to settle down.

 

I use the word "slavering" advisedly.

 

Just last week, yet another of the frequently strategically obtuse general officers at the United States helm was trying to ratchet up anti-Russian feelings — apparently forgetting that the Russians are in Syria by lawful invitation and the US is not.

 

This paranoid fear-mongering comes as if American leadership itself had had nothing to do with creating and fueling continued violence there and myriad other places.

 

Then, to top this fount of cascading bubble skulls, you have idiot American Congress people saying that the Russian civilians' (objectively trivial) US election meddling was an act of war.

 

 

Does no one on our side of the Atlantic possess . . .

 

. . . a sense of proportion?

 

Is the constantly meddling United States really pointing the finger at some incompetent Russian saps as defining the gold standard for intrusiveness abroad?

 

Our humor-lacking hypocrisy would raise any competent strategist's eyebrow.

 

 

Nuance atop nuance

 

Since the Joe McCarthy era, I cannot recall a time in which the United States was so obviously and dangerously nuts.

 

Putin's warning to cool our jets comes atop similarly delivered cautions from North Korea and China.

 

The U.S. public may readily (but inaccurately) discount North Korea's Kim Jong-un as a loon. But most of us recognize that China's President Xi Jinping is not.

 

If we reevaluate our ignorantly biased assessment of President Putin to better accord with reality, we might intuit that it is something that we have been doing that is setting everyone else off.

 

Better to have that realization now. Rather than just before a potential combination of Russian, Chinese and North Korea ICBMs squash and fry us.

 

That said, I am fairly certain that the American Military Industrial Complex will (instead) pounce on President Putin's words as an excuse to go into arms race mode.

 

What could be more profitable?

 

Putin may even have intended such a result. Empires crash when they overextend resources. Already stretched, an added economic and military burden will weaken the United States still further.

 

President Putin's actual intent aside, an ever-patient Chinese leadership will be watching the intelligence or stupidity of our reaction to the Russian leader's speech.

 

In my estimation, Putin continues to play his weak geopolitical hand with risk-aware skill.

 

 

The moral? — Hysteria is not our friend

 

American anti-Russian feeling has intentionally been needled up.

 

Ordinary folk, like you and me, should be wondering why.

 

Who profits?

 

Who pays?

 

Who dies?