Standing Down for Putin?
Mid-week of the week of September 8-14, many analysts, including myself, had expected with a high degree of certainty that the US would greenlight the use of Western precision-guided long-range missiles on targets in Russia.
At the time of writing on September 20 this had not yet occurred. The main reason for this reluctance to proceed has been widely interpreted across alternative medis as a Western reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement in Saint Petersburg on Thursday September 12 in which he declared, in effect, that any such greenlighting of long-range missiles on Russian targets would be considered by Russia to be a direct participation by NATO in its otherwise proxy war against Russia over Ukraine. Only NATO, he pointed out, is capable of using these weapons, only NATO has the satellite reconnaissance capability necessary to navigate them, and the engineering skills to maintain, launch and fire these systems.
In short, NATO would have embarked on World War Three, and Russia would respond accordingly.
Did Washington back down after Putin’s statement? Was it reluctant to proceed knowing that Israel was about to trigger mass murder and mayhem in Lebanon on September 17 and 18, which has so far caused 3,400 casualties and 34 dead as a result of Israeli-rigged pagers (a form of booby-trapping that is a violation of an international treaty to which Israel is a signatory), and that the US might very soon find itself engaged in a war on Iran on behalf of Israeli Zionists?
Did it simply decide not to go public but to give the green light anway, at least to the British? Does Russia think that the West will provide this green light? Yes, Moscow generally assumes that Washington has already given the green light or will do so soon.
Did Washington already actually respond to pressure for use of long-range missiles by ordering or permitting the firing of some form of successful ballistic missile attack on Russia’s ammunition depot at Toropets, 400 kilometers west of Moscow on September 18? Ukraine claimed this was the result of a 100-drone attack. But many if not almost all of these would have been shot down, and drones typically do not have anything like the impact as was inflicted on Toropets. Even less likely is it that drones would inflict significant damage on sophisticated concrete bunkers, reinforced at Toropets in 2018 to withstand even a nuclear attack.
The nearest NATO country to Toropets is not Ukraine but Latvia, and Latvia is a much more logical source for the attack, thus suggesting that NATO’s direct participation in what was formerly its proxy war with Russia over Ukraine is now established.
The reported use by what the Houthis in Yemen claimed was a hypersonic missile (others say it was a long-range ballistic missile) for an attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on September 15 may be a signal from Russia of how its supply of weapons to the West’s enemies, in retaliation for any Western move towards the use of long-range missiles against Russia, will quickly reconfigure global geopolitics to the West’s disadvantage.
Some western analysts take comfort from the fact that Russia, they say, has not yet retaliated to Western escalation, and that this indicates not just Russian weakness but that the West can proceed towards its long-term goal, defined by NATO’s think tank, the RAND corporation, as the disintegration of the Russian Federation and the opening up of its territory and economy to Western neocon entrepreneurs.
An alternative, more sagacious point of view argues that just because somebody has not retaliated against provocation does not mean that they will not in the future. It may also suggest that they choose not to engage in war simply at the convenience of their opponent. In this case, I would argue that Russia does retaliate, but not in the obvious ways that Western analysts recognize as retaliation, and that Russia does not need an overt declaration of war to pursue what has so far been a highly effective war of attrition both against Ukraine and the West generally.
Previous Long-Range Missile Attacks
In the Russia-Ukraine context, Western long-range weapons (but not hypersonic – the West simply does not have them) have already been used in the past, copiously, against targets in Crimea. And without success. Most notably, perhaps, these included an ATACMS missile – or, at least, missile fragments scattered after an ATACMS missile had been intercepted by Russian missile defense or by Russian electronic warfare. This killed a party of beachgoers in Sevastopol in June this year. And there have been comparable attacks against targets either within Novorussiye, or just beyond it.
But these attacks have not figured prominently in the Western conversation recently, given that the focus now is on the firing of missiles “deep” into Russia, and given previous US agreement for Ukraine to use such weapons against sources of Russian fire directed to Ukrainian positions in Kharkiv, following the Russian offensive centered on Vovchansk in May this year.
Anxiety in Washington, where it is widely understood that the Pentagon is not enthusiastic about, and is even hostile to, the use of long-range missiles (a statement by US Secretary for Defense, Lloyd Austin, to this effect was issued before Putin’s statement of September 12) created an expectation that Russian targets for NATO missiles might be limited to certain categories, or that Washington would allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadows but not US ATACMS. Nonetheless, some kind of positive indication of permission for the use of long-range missiles had been expected during or in the immediate aftermath of a meeting between President Biden and UK Prime Minister Starmer on Friday, September 13, even if there has so far been no such statement. There was not even any indication that the White House would approve the use by Britain of its Storm Shadow missiles, even if the US decided to hold back its ATACMS missiles from use by Ukraine.
From East and West
In the meantime, I had observed that Japan had permitted the stationing in Japan of the US Typhon land-based intermediate range cruise missile system which suggested a further escalation of US preparations with its allies in Asia, South East Asia and Australasia for war with China over either Taiwan (on the pretext that China might threaten to invade Taiwan (highly unlikely, in my view) or over contested ownership over any of dozens of islands in the South China Sea.
White House Stalled or Stalling
On the issue of long-range missiles against Russia, Widespread mainstream press commentary has tended to the view that the Biden White House “kicked the can further down the road” by waiting until the visit of Zelenskiy to New York for the UN General Assembly, whose major discussions will run from September 24 through to September 30.
At that time, it is being suggested, Zelenskiy could better explain to Washington what is Ukraine’s overall strategy for victory. Zelenskiy’s current proposal calls for the use of long-range missiles against Russia, more weapons of every kind to Ukraine and the positioning of NATO troops in the rearguard of Ukraine in order to facilitate the release of more Ukrainian troops to the front lines. These demands do not command credibility in a context in which Ukraine is clearly losing the war, its President illegitimate, and which has run out of reserves even as Russia plans to increase the size of its own army by 200,000 – to a total of one and a half million, making Russia’s the second largest army in the world after China.
Zelenskiy might introduce some kind of resolution to the Assembly in a bid to secure majority approval for an escalation to long range missiles against Russia. This would not be binding, and it might not even capture a majority of votes. The strength of world opinion, therefore, might become a factor influencing Washington’s final decision. The substantial support, expressed already in the General Assembly for a motion requiring Israel to withdraw from all the occupied Palestinian territories within a year, might counsel Zelenskiy against pouring fuel on the fire of world anger with the reckless evil of US imperialism and its Israeli protege.
This is not to say that it is impossible that a decision in favor of long-range missiles has indeed been taken but simply not disclosed. This seemed unlikely in view of expressions of great disappointment in the British Sunday Times on September 15 that the Starmer government had not been given the green light for the deployment of Storm Shadows, and expressions of angry dismay by five former Defense Ministers and by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who has recently proposed that Ukrainian forces could “back fill” for NATO if the US withdrew). These seemed to raise the prospect of a campaign to pressure Starmer to “go it alone.”
Britain to Go It Alone?
There are several reasons why this is unlikely:
(1) First of all, and for many decades now, the British have been Washington’s poodles, allowed only to bark and attack on Washington’s command. (Which is not to rule out the possibility that Washington has given a secret but deniable permission to London).
(2) Secondly, it would be highly inadvisable for Starmer to give the appearance of any such bid in advance of the UN General Assembly.
(3) Thirdly, the threat of use of Storm Shadows is in itself facile. The weapon is an Anglo-French-Italian production, that the French call the “Scalp.” A year ago it was reported that production of the Storm Shadow would be halted. In any case, stocks of these missiles are limited. The same is true, incidentally, of stocks of ATACMS available for use in Ukraine, as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has explicitly said. If their production is indeed continuing, then their numbers are nowhere near comparable to the volume and speed of Russian production of equivalents and cannot possibly meet Ukrainian consumption. Furthermore, Russia has long ago developed its electronic warfare capability to shoot most of them down.
(4) Even a few hundred of these are not going to change the course of the war. Besides, Russia has already withdrawn many of its most valuable military assets well behind the 300 kilometre range of the Storm Shadow. American JASSM air-to-surface stealth missiles would be far more of a threat, but there are unlikely to be a large inventory of these for some time, if ever. Russia has its own equivalents for almost all Western categories of weapon and more besides, although for the time being Russia has set itself only one direct target – Ukraine.
(5) The Storm Shadow depends on US satellite surveillance and contains US components, of which perhaps the most significant is one that would reportedly overcome Russian electronic hacking of the Storm Shadow’s current reliance on GPS positioning. In other words, in the event that Washington was truly opposed to British or Ukrainian use of Storm Shadows, it could simply bring production lines to a sudden halt.
(6) If the UK Starmer government really does try to “go it alone,” it is doing so at a time when Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and even the US, are showing indications of reducing their military engagement in the conflict; that is to say, they are reducing the scale of their promises to supply weapons. Germany has again refused to supply Taurus missiles; the Netherlands is no longer going to supply Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine; Italy is opposed to the use of long-range missiles against Russia; and there is growing opposition to the idea in France, despite Macron’s habitual anti-Russian bellicosity.
Plans to raise money for Ukraine in the form of loans based on the interest earned on seized Russian assets in Europe (primarily) will likely encounter stiff legal resistance outside of Europe, are unpopular with potential bondholders who know that Ukraine will never repay the debts, and will forever scare off the Global South from parking their money in Western banks. European enthusiasm for this wobbly project is in part sustained by the ambitions of the European Commission under neo-empress Ursula von der Leyen to further centralize power in Europe, acquire the power to raise money on its own and to issue its own bonds, and to raise its own army.
Soundings of Congress by the Biden administration are advising there is a distinct cooling on Capitol Hill for the idea of any further major aid package for Ukraine of the scale that we saw earlier in the year. There is talk of $6 billion, way down on the $40 billion approved in May.
In short, if Starmer persists with Storm Shadows now, or if he engages in a lobbying campaign on Washington for Britain to be allowed to deploy them, he is swimming against the tide in a fashion that may mark him out for ridicule and render the UK peculiarly vulnerable to Russian retaliation (as in Russian supply of weapons to enemies of Britain around the world).
(7) On the eve of the US November presidential election it is likely that neither the incumbent, Biden, nor his vice-president and possible president-to-be, Kamala Harris, actually wants to rock a boat that might just about be able to float by itself until after the election. Anyone intelligent left in Washington – a diminishing fraternity, perhaps – now understands that a country with $3.5 trillion debt, its economy perhaps long surpassed by China in terms of purchasing power parity, and a foreign policy that commits the US militarily to fighting on at least three fronts – Russia over Ukraine, a regional war on Israel’s behalf against Iran, and a war with China over Taiwan as proxy – is a country whose existential future is in grave doubt.
On the other hand, it is perhaps precisely the scale of the debt that is making Washington so fatally reckless. Without command of the global economy through the dollar, and the widespread manipulation that this status has allowed up until now, the USA and the Western economies could implode.
Pressure to Negotiate
We can debate whether the intent behind lobbying for long-range missiles is to put further pressure on Russia to make it more amenable to negotiation. If so, the endeavor is hopeless because Russia will make no concessions in the direction of anything that the Neocon West wants and certainly nothing short of Ukrainian neutrality and Russian retention of Crimea and Novorussiye.
Because Russia is winning on the battlefields in the Donbass and because it looks increasingly as though Ukraine will be kicked out of Kursk at the cost of very heavy casualties, there is little incentive for Russia to enter into negotiations at this point of time.
Russia will be paying attention to the attitude of its allies in the BRICS, and this is indeed a factor that may end up being more important than anything else in persuading Russia to re-enter negotiations. Even in that eventuality, there can be no doubt whatsoever that Russia will insist that the starting point of any such discussion must be “Istanbul Plus.” The more time that elapses between March 2022 (when Ukraine and Russia signed a draft agreement that was then sabotaged by the likes of Victoria Nuland and Boris Johnson on behalf of the Neocon crazies in NATO) and the restart of negotiations, the greater is going to be the “Plus” in “Istanbul Plus.”
Pressure from India and Brazil on Russia towards what some might describe as “moderation” of Russia’s stance on negotiation is tempered somewhat by China which, under the partnership of Xi Xinping and Wang Li, clearly has a deeper understanding than either India or Brazil as to why Russia has had to fight this war and for how long it has been fighting it – definitely since the Western instigation of a coup in Kiev in 2014, but, more reasonably, since 2008 when Putin first “read the Riot Act” to the West on NATO encroachment on Russian border security.
Both Russia and China now realize that the Neocon West has no “reverse gear,” and that the West, under US tutelage, will never give up its hegemony, even, it sometimes seems, at the expense of launching World War Three and igniting nuclear Armageddon.
A Nuclear Response?
We can debate whether the escalation that the supply of long range missiles to “Ukraine” (i.e. NATO) for attacks on the Russian mainland represents would provoke Russia into a nuclear response. While we have several times heard Russian people of influence say that the West will only ever listen to the reality of a nuclear explosion, I don’t expect Russia to commit to anything so reckless that would usher in World War Three and nuclear annihilation of the species.
Given the miserable quality of Western leadership we might expect the West to resort to nuclear weapons before Russia does. Yet no matter how deep the anger, I think it prudent to assume that nobody at the helm of national governments, at the end of the day, is quite stupid enough to trigger global suicide. It remains the case that there is a very big risk of the triggering of nuclear war by accidental signalling and misinterpretation.
For the moment we should anticipate that in response to any move to greenlight long-range missiles on Russian targets, there will be fiercer Russian attacks on Western missile systems in Ukraine (whose data, servicing and operation depends considerably on NATO personnel); together with release by Russia of more lethal weaponry to Western enemies in countries such as Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela; and ever closer strategic coordination between Russia, China and Iran.
Israel’s plunge this week into mass murder of Lebanon citizens, and the bombing of Southern Lebanon and Beirut increases the likelihood of a regional war against Iran.
Russian weapons will strengthen the backbone of Islamic retaliation against Israel for the Gaza and West Bank genocides, and of responses by Iran, Syria and Iraq to daily Israeli murder and other aggression, even as the US reduces its aircraft carrier presence in the region down to one (with the return home of the Eisenhower and the Roosevelt, perhaps to be redeployed to the Pacific in a game of diminishing imperial returns).
Russian missiles will sustain Houthi crippling of Western international trade (trade through the Red Sea already down 80%) and precipitate the economic collapse of Israel. But Israel’s plunge this week into mass murder of Lebanon citizens, and the bombing of Southern Lebanon and Beirut increases the likelihood of a regional war against Iran. The West can no longer presume the automatic rallying to Western defense of Israel by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are now part of the BRICS, or that Turkey will persist in its deft balancing between East and West, or that King Abdullah in Jordan can restrain the massive pressure of his people (who include several million Palestinians) in favor of Palestine, which lies right next door. Or that Egypt’s military-friendly, authoritarian, pro-Western regime under Abdel Sisi can do the same.
In a further demonstration of the extent to which the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern fronts are now integrated, Ukraine’s special forces are planning or are already executing a plan to provide drones to Al Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in the Turkish protectorate of Idlib in Syria and to provide advisers who will train militants to use them against Russian bases. These are there legitimately at the request of Damascus and have been critical to Assad’s ability to withstand Muslim Brotherhood hostility to Assad’s multi sectarian system of governance. The decades’ old Muslim Brotherhood extremist Sunni war against Damascus has been exploited by Qatar and the UAE and other authoritarian Arab regimes in collaboration with Western powers anxious to diminish the strength of Russian allies in the region.
The Iranian Factor
The greenlighting of long range missiles from Ukraine is premised in part by what US Secretary of State Tony Blinken claims is Iranian supply of ballistic missiles to Russia. Iran denies this (Russia has not denied the claim explicitly), and also says that in the past it has refused Russian requests for such missiles. There is little doubt in my mind that Russia has found it useful in the past to import Shahed drones from Iran but I am skeptical that Russia is in any sense dependent on Iran for missiles, given what we know of the extent and sophistication of Russian manufactured missiles, Russian manufacturing capacity and expertise.
Perhaps Iran can provide certain categories of missile more cheaply. And perhaps Iranian supply of weapons to Russia has the symbolic advantage of demonstrating to the peoples of both countries the degree of political, military and economic solidarity between these two important members of the BRICS.
Blinken’s unlikely claims about Iran are merely a pretext that justify yet more Western sanctions on that country and continue the West’s decades-old demonization of Iran on one false pretext after another, disguising how this vindictiveness sustains a divided Middle East to US advantage. More worryingly, Western propaganda against Iran may make it easier for the US to succumb to Netanyahu’s provocations which are designed to lure the US into a regional war that Israel cannot possibly fight and win on its own.
A country that has for so long been falsely accused of wanting to develop a nuclear weapons capability should now surely realize the advantage of prioritizing the acquisition of just such a weapon. It is not impossible that Russia has already supplied Iran with nuclear warheads; nor is it impossible that, under the terms of a join defense treaty that both sides are still working towards (this delay, by the way, deserves more consideration in a future post) Russia might assist Iran towards this objective. Either way, we should take serious note of Iran’s denial of any such intent or ambition, and recent history would counsel respect for Iranian declarations on this matter.
In a possible bid to distract Chinese attention to the gathering crisis in the region of the world on which China depends for a substantial proportion of its energy supply, the US is ratcheting up anti-Chinese tensions in East and southeast Asia, pretending that China is about to invade Taiwan, or do something else that the US deems problematic in the South China Sea. Perhaps the US should be more mindful of China’s own ramping up of its nuclear force. Ahead of what almost certainly will be the end of START early next year and the demise of restraints on nuclear weapon production by both the US and Russia.
The most important thing about Iran to weigh into the analysis at this time is that Russia and Iran have now publicly confirmed their commitment to a comprehensive mutual defense which now only has to be signed into law by President Putin.
Conclusion
I have long argued that the current global tension is the direct outcome of the determination by increasingly plutocratic, pseudo-democratic – but in reality, authoritarian – neoliberal Western powers to do whatever they must to sustain their hegemony over the “rules-based” (or “we-make-up-the-rules-as-we-like-without-any-accountability-whatsoever “) order.
They are trying to suppress the emergence of a more democratic, pluricentrist world whose order is underwritten by a system of international law and which may eventually be monitored and regulated by a profoundly reformed United Nations, whose current Security Council will be summarily dismissed. A more tightly articulated and formulated BRICS structure will be of paramount importance in facilitating this transition.
Unless the Western powers succeed in their desperate bid to cling on to hegemonic advantage, they will no longer be able to keep plugging the dam that protects them, ever more leakily, from the flood of debt that may finally swallow the West’s so-called civilization. The Western struggle is currently playing out along three front lines: the war with Russia over proxy Ukraine; the war with Iran over proxy Israel; the war with China over proxy Taiwan. The front lines are closely intertwined. The situation is explosive, more dangerous for the world than any that has been encountered before, ever.
(Featured Image: “Storm Shadow p1220865” by Copyright © 2007 David Monniaux is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.)