{"id":263464,"date":"2024-06-03T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=263464"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:19:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:19:53","slug":"the-west-is-hell-bent-on-provoking-russia-into-hot-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/06\/the-west-is-hell-bent-on-provoking-russia-into-hot-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The West Is Hell-Bent on Provoking Russia into Hot War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>

\u00a9 Sputnik \/ Stanislav Krasilnikov<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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31 May 2024 – The warning by President Putin could not be starker: \u201cIn the event of the use of long-range weapons, the Russian Armed Forces will again have to make decisions about expanding the sanitary zone further (\u2026) Do they want global conflict? It seemed they wanted to negotiate [with us], but we don\u2019t see much desire to do this.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then came up with the appropriate metaphor to designate NATO\u2019s ramped-up military outbursts: not only NATO is raising the degree of escalation but delving into a warlike “ecstasy”.<\/p>\n

It does not get more serious than that. \u201cThey\u201d, as Putin alluded to, do seem to want \u201cglobal conflict\u201d. That\u2019s at the heart of NATO\u2019s new suicidal \u201cecstasy\u201d strategy.<\/p>\n

For all their circumlocutions, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg<\/a>, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have effectively greenlighted Kiev using Western weapons for attacks deep inside the Russian Federation. The alleged debate, still ongoing, is just a \u201csmokescreen\u201d for the real objective: a pretext that could lead to WWIII.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/SputnikInt\/status\/1795605659234259108<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no reason to think Kiev will stick to \u201climited\u201d strikes against relatively unimportant targets. Instead, it is likely to target critical security infrastructure in hopes of provoking an unrelenting Russian response, which in turn would pave the way for NATO to invoke Article 5 and de facto engage in a Hot War.<\/p>\n

Already on the Edge of Doom<\/h3>\n

The escalation \u201cecstasy\u201d defined by Peskov went out of control since a \u2013 secret – new batch of ATACMS was dispatched to Kiev earlier this year, complemented with longer-range ATACMS. Kiev has been using them for serious hits on Russian air bases and key air defense nodes. These ATACMS fire missiles at Mach 3 speed: a serious challenge even for the best Russian air defense systems.<\/p>\n

All that seems to point to a crucial decision enveloped in several layers of fog: as the incoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the black soil of Novorossiya becomes self-evident day after day, the Western elites who really run the show are betting on provoking a full Hot War against Russia.<\/p>\n

Richard H. Black, a former US senator from Virginia, offers a sobering analysis<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a continuation of the pattern in which the NATO forces recognize they are losing the war in Ukraine, with the fragile lines of defense breaking, and the NATO response is to escalate. This is not accidental, but very deliberate. It is not the first attack on the Russian nuclear triad. The ideological folks are seeing their world crumbling, after flying the rainbow flag over conservative countries and [waging] perpetual wars. They are frantic and could escalate to nuclear war to get out of the bind. They are taking a series of baby steps, and respond that \u2018they don\u2019t do anything in response,\u2019 and so they keep taking baby steps until one of them lands on a land mine and we are into World War III. (\u2026) Putin is very aware of the disconnect in the West, who keep saying he is just saber rattling, but he is not\u2014he is informing the West of the dangerous reality.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Russia, Senator Dmitry Rogozin, a former head of Roscosmos, directly warned Washington: \u201cWe are not just on the threshold, but already on the edge, beyond which, if the enemy is not stopped in such actions, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of the nuclear powers will begin.”<\/p>\n

General Evgeny Buzhinky advanced an ominous scenario: \u201cI am sure that if the strikes of Taurus of ATACMS are very harmful for Russia, then I presume we will at least strike the logistical hub in the territory of Poland in Rzesz\u00f3w\u201d where the missiles are staged for delivery to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The connection in this case would be irreversible: Russia hits Poland; NATO invokes Article 5; WW3.<\/p>\n

Be Careful What You Wish For<\/h3>\n

NATO warlike \u201cecstasy\u201d is predictably cloaked in cowardice. For all the rhetorical garbage 24\/7 about \u201cwe don\u2019t want a war with Russia\u201d, the facts point to NATO using Kiev to attack and try to destroy a wide range of Russian military assets. There\u2019s also no denying the US Deep State\u2019s role in enabling Kiev\u2019s terror attacks against Russian civilians in the Donbass, Belgorod, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Considering the serious debate finally on across several Russian platforms, all of that might constitute a reasonable pretext for a tactical nuclear drop on the \u2013 legally illegitimate \u2013 Kiev gang. At least that would finish a war that is dragging for too long.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/SputnikInt\/status\/1795844556589600910<\/p>\n

Yet that would be totally out of character when it comes to legalistic Putin \u2013 who deals with Armageddon-laden issues with the patience of a Taoist monk. Yet Russia has an entire arsenal of asymmetric tools \u2013 both conventional and nuclear — that can deliver a painful blow to NATO<\/a> in places where the alliance least expects.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not there yet \u2013 even as we get ominously closer day after day. Dmitri Medvedev has issued the umpteenth red line: a US strike on Russian targets, or the US letting Kiev hit targets within Russia using American missiles and drones would be the \u2018start of World War\u2019.<\/p>\n

And Foreign Minister Lavrov, once again displaying his trademark Taoist patience, had to come up with another serious reminder: Russia will regard the deployment of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine \u2013 which de facto can only be operated by NATO pilots \u2013 as \u201ca deliberate signal from NATO in the nuclear field to Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

And still the gaggle of armchair Dr. Strangeloves \u2013 lavishly rewarded by the rarified Atlanticist plutocracy holding real power, funds, influence and mass media control – is not listening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at <\/em>Asia Times and<\/em> columnist for<\/em> Consortium News and<\/em> Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he\u2019s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books. Pepe was contributing editor to <\/em>The Empire and The Crescent and<\/em> Tutto in Vendita in Italy and is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 sputnikglobe.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

31 May 2024 – The warning by President Putin could not be starker: \u201cIn the event of the use of long-range weapons, the Russian Armed Forces will again have to make decisions about expanding the sanitary zone further (\u2026) Do they want global conflict?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":205220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1161,1268,291,2571,253,278,639,961,70,172],"class_list":["post-263464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-arms-industry","tag-european-union","tag-military","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-uk","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263468,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263464\/revisions\/263468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}