Not So Good News: Transitioning to WW3

Just how flippant was Macron's musing on another French march into Russia?

Published: 2024-02-08

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Resolution

The naming of a thing gifts it a reality. While no other change has occurred, the conceptualization realizes it.

French president Macron recently stated that there may be a circumstance in which French troops may be involved in the proxy war in Ukraine. i.e France should consider direct involvement in the war with Russia. The immediate response from Germany, Britain and NATO via Scholz, Sunak and Stoltenberg was no, no, no. But, Macron had already laid the counter to this in observing that two years ago Germany had stated that it would not send weapons to Ukraine, just helmets and blankets, whereas it has now sent Iris-T anti-missile defense systems and Leopard Tanks. Britain's equivalents are Challenger tanks and long rank precision missiles. The US is sending everything it can convince its military to gift or its Congress to fund.

The Macron's statement and the responses call for a reassessment.

I am reminded by the sudden horror of becoming aware that geopolitics can be a very serious matter. At around this time of year, two years ago, Russia overtly engaged in the civil war which had been running in the Donbas for 8 years. Articles which had been published at this newsletter all of sudden felt irresponsibly trite.

The Russian engagement was prompted by a sudden 10 fold increase in shelling which this newsletter was reporting based on statistics from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) who were observers in Ukraine of the civil war. What Russia saw was the preparation for a sudden assault on Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia has since published what it claims were Ukrainian plans for this assault. This, believed Russia, would amount to a genocide in the Donbas. Those alleged plans were published a few months into Russia's engagement. In retrospect, their assessment seems reasonable.

Whatever the case, the consequence of Russia's engagement was that a civil war, a provocation for a proxy war, transitioned into a real proxy war. Based upon statements by Sec. of Defence Austin and Senator Graham, the USA is fighting this war to weaken Russia via Ukrainian cannon fodder. It is reasonable to assume that the provocation, the ten fold increase in shelling, achieved its desired result, that Russia was forced into the trap set by the USA.

The comments by Macron, with responses by Scholz, Sunak and Stoltenberg signal a potential coming transition from a proxy war into a fully declared NATO war.

This behooves us to zoom out, to consider the wider geopolitical scope.

A Proxy War with Whom?

Firstly, Russia and China described their relationship as 'closer than allies'. Thus, we should understand the proxy war in Ukraine as between NATO and Russia and China. This aligns entirely with the USA's declared strategic doctrine to fight 'near peer competitors'. There is one peer, China. Weakening Russia is a pre-cursor to taking on China.

It was just after the meeting between Putin and Xi in Beijing at the Olympic Games, in February 2022 just before Russia declared its overt involvement in Ukraine, that the partnership was announced. This, as described by various commentators, including Ray McGovern, was because China saw the proxy war in Ukraine as an attack on Russia, and as an example of exactly the plan which the USA intended to run against itself via Taiwan.

That plan, the USA using Taiwan as a battering ram and causus belli against China, is quietly running. A USA China-hawk has just visited Taiwan as the USA continues to supply arms and training to Taiwanese forces and the USA's congress continues to issue funds to gift more armaments to Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Israel's oppression, disenfranchisement and slaughter of Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories has recently evolved into an overt genocide. The USA has done and is doing nothing to stop its ally doing this.

Recent diplomatic efforts by Russia and China have changed the diplomatic complexion of southeast Asia. First was Syria's reentry into the Arab League. Then the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This was soon followed by the entry into BRICS to form BRICS10 of both of these regional powers, and Egypt. Egypt and Turkiye have just settled their previous diplomatic dispute in the face of this USA proxy's inhumanity.

All of these regional powers are outraged at Israel's genocide and at the USA for not stopping it. Israel has been attacking Lebanon and Syria on top of running their genocide. The only way to characterize Israel's actions are a provocation of a full regional war in southwest Asia. The USA could stop this with a phone call and has chosen instead to permit Israel's actions. The USA is complicit in both a genocide and the attempted fomenting of a regional war. (The USA is also being humiliated morally and militarily by Yemen’s ʾAnṣār Allāh.)

To sum up, we have a proxy war of NATO versus Russian and China in Ukraine, and a USA proxy, Israel, generating a regional war in the Middle East with implicit USA support which would be against the local members of BRICS10.

There is a name for parallel wars in Europe and southwest Asia. What we have is an undeclared third world war via proxy.

This is the context in which one should consider the statements by the leaders of France, German, the UK and NATO. They amount to declaring the onset of a potential transition from proxy to full war between NATO and Russia/China in Ukraine. The outbreak of a regional war in the Middle East would be a war between NATO and BRICS10.

These combined are an overt WWIII.

NATO Has Signaled Its Desire to Mobilize Industrial Capacity

Russia was shocked at how successfully it managed to avoid extended damage to its economy from EU and US economic sanctions. It was support of nations outside of the NATO/EU block via which Russia withstood the sanctions. Nations outside of the Western block saw the economic attacks on Russia and were uncomfortable with them. They also saw the $2 billion of Venezuelan Central Bank gold impounded by the Bank of London, and the $7 billion of Afghan Central Bank assets impounded, and now allocated for spending, by US banks. They have just heard US Treasury Sec. Yellen recommending that the $100+ billion of Russian Central Bank assets are given to Ukraine (i.e stolen). Only one conclusion could and can be reached. NATO banks steal the assets of non-NATO Central Banks.

Russia has partially transitioned its economy onto a war footing. It re-instated its council from WWII to direct its economy for this purpose. Capable military analysts acknowledge that Russia has been successful in this transition.

These analysts, whose analysis has proved more reliable than the propaganda being spewed by the West's media, also believe that Russia has no intention of advancing into Europe, whatsoever. Their analysis is that Russia does not even want to get involved in western Ukraine, or central Ukraine if possible. Russia has secured Sevastopol in Crimea and protected Russian ethnic and speaking people in what was southeastern Ukraine.

Russia sought to avoid the war via the Minsk II Accords, unanimously passed by the UN Security Council, which were then undermined by France and Germany. Russia issued draft security treaties to both NATO and the US before Ukraine escalated in mid-February 2022. Russia's initial efforts, when it committed its own troops to the conflict, were to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table. Russia succeeded, with negotiations beginning within days of the war, in Belarus. The extensive treaty reached in late March between Russia and Ukraine, facilitated in Istanbul, was undermined by Boris Johnson, presumably on behalf of the USA. Russia has always been ready to discuss an end to hostilities and remains so.

The Ukraine crisis was provoked by the West. The conflict has been maintained by the west; funding and arming Ukraine and blocking all efforts to resolve it.

We have heard from both UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps and Germany's highest ranking soldier General Carsten Breuer that they are expecting to be fighting a war with Russia (or China/Iran) in 5 years.

Driving Industry for an Ideological Agenda

History teaches us that another European war to conquer Russia will fail. Europe's great General Bonaparte failed. Europe's greatest combined arms army, the Wehrmacht failed. Russia is neither a communist state, nor the dilapidated state it was in the 1990s. It is revived, proud, formidable and has allies.

If anyone tells you that China can be conquered by 'the West', just shake your head and walk away. This is a fantasy.

The psychopaths involved in fueling these conflicts which could suddenly escalate into an overt WWIII are driven by ideology and war profiteering. Some mystical belief in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) without a manufacturing component but based in an AI driven cyberspace of ones and zeros has infused the policy bureaus of the West. Do they envisage that some mystical army of Terminator robots will magically appear to march across the plains of Russia and China to kill all of the evil brown skinned communists? Recently, their AI diplomats chose nuclear war.

Really, I've no idea in which fantasy world they live.

Prudence

One could look at the strengths of the USA/NATO/EU and Russia/China/BRICS10/SCO blocks militarily and economically and evaluate that the NATO alliance cannot win a world war. If the war goes nuclear, nobody wins. One could note that the USA's prized aircraft carrier groups are mostly moth-balled or stuck in dry dock, or they don't have the crews to sail them or that they are vulnerable to hypersonic missiles.

One could also examine the careful manner of escalation management being used by members of the BRICS10/SCO group and have confidence that they will do their best to avoid escalating into an overt world conflict.

Prudence would demand that a far better strategy, rather than relying on accurate analyses to be followed, would be for these existing conflicts to be negotiated to settlement, even a tentative settlement.

The term is ceasefire. We need ceasefires and diplomacy and we need them now.

There are too many unknowns which could trigger a disastrous escalation of the current situation into a hot WWIII.

What is truly needed is for investments to be made in life rather than death.

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Sources

US Congressional Delegation Led by House's Top China Hawk Visits Taiwan, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-02-22

NATO Chief Gives Ukraine Green Light for Attacks Inside Russia, Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar, 2024-02-25

European Official Says Everyone Knows There Are Western Special Operations Forces in Ukraine, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-02-28

Yellen Calls for Frozen Russian Central Bank Funds to Be Given to Ukraine, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-02-27

NATO Chief Says No Plans to Send Combat Troops to Ukraine, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-02-27

AI models chose violence and escalated to nuclear strikes in simulated wargames, Oceane Duboust, Natylie's Place: Understanding Russia, 2024-02-27

An Anglo-Euro-Russo Rift, YesXorNo, 2024-02-16

Ongoing Report: Escalation of Conflict on the Line of Contact in Eastern Ukraine, YesXorNo, 2022-02-21

A Litany of Insanity and Failure, YesXorNo, 2023-01-08

Actively Complying with the Genocide Convention, YesXorNo, 2023-11-27

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US Misunderstands Russia, Napolitano interviews Sachs, Judging Freedom, 2024-02-29

Col. Douglas Macgregor： How Close Is WWIII?, Napolitano interviews Macgregor, Judging Freedom, 2024-02-29

Scholz & Macron fight. FT, Western forces in Ukraine. Elensky road trip. Biden loses to uncommitted, Alex Christoforou, 2024-02-28

Culture

Australian Crawl - Reckless (Don't Be So...) (Official Audio), from the 1983 EP Semantics, uploaded 2021-11-07

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