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https://socialistincanada.ca/how-the-u-s-is-planning-a-full-scale-war-with-russia/
Essay by Victoria Nikiforova (columnist at RIA Novosti), Dec 12, 2022. (Translated and published into English here on A Socialist In Canada,
Dec 12, 2022. The original in Russian is here. You can read the essay
here in pdf format: The US is planning a full-scale war with Russia.
Find more recent translations from Russian media further below.)
The influential and well-informed U.S. publication Foreign Policy has
recently revealed a curious conflict taking place between the Pentagon
and the U.S. Congress. Officially, this conflict is denied by both
sides; the squabbling takes place only on the sidelines. However,
Foreign Policy spoke to high-ranking military officials and a number of legislators. On condition of anonymity, they tell a lot of interesting
things.
The Foreign Policy article is titled ‘U.S. plans for a hypothetical war against Russia are limiting aid to Ukraine amidst the real one’. It was published on December 9.
It turns out that General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, is unhappy that Congress is sending too many weapons to Ukraine.
Has the general decided to become a peacenik? Oh come on. No, Mark
Milley is afraid that at such a pace, the Americans will exhaust their
main stashes of weapons, which are otherwise stored for the sake of the ‘operational plans’ (OPLAN) of the U.S. Department of Defense.
‘Do you have a plan, General?’ ‘Why, yes, I have an entire OPLAN!’
The operational plans of the Pentagon involve military aggression in
almost all parts of the world. One of those plans is dedicated to a
full-scale war by NATO (read – the American army) against Russia. Under
it, there are specific standards for the storage of equipment, missiles, ammunition, etc. But now the warehouses are empty and the Department of
Defense does not have time to replenish stocks.
Members of the U.S. Congress, in turn, do not understand why bother
stocking up in case of a future, big official war with Russia when
Ukraine is actually fighting the same thing right now. In a fit of
enthusiasm, the Congressional representatives are ready to empty all warehouses. “It’s already ten years old, this operational plan [war with Russia],” grumbles a Foreign Policy congressional source.
The Pentagon believes that Ukraine is using up the ammunition sent too
quickly, and this promises huge problems for the Armed Forces of Ukraine
during the coming winter. “We are worried about the too-rapid
consumption of ammunition [in Ukraine)] says Jim Townsend, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia and NATO. “It will become even
more difficult for us to supply them [the Ukrainians] if they think that
we have big warehouses full of ammunition. That’s not the case at all.”
Now, as Foreign Policy admits, Ukraine is simultaneously complaining
about the lack of weapons and ammunition supply. Mark Milley is also complaining about the same thing. What can we say about the European
allies in NATO – they swear by their mother that, in general, they have already distributed everything they have. So the partners, too, have a
shortage of ammunition and weapons.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian fighters are not showing any success on the battlefield. All the inhumane quantities of missiles, shells and other ammunition are flying around like a shiny, pretty pennies in the sky,
and 100,000 or more unfortunate lads have died. For what? Ukraine has
lost vast territories with millions of inhabitants. What kind of result
is that?
Congresspeople, for the most part, do not understand where all this is
leading. Miley sees, as a military man, that Ukraine is not coping. No
matter how much money is poured into it, no matter how many weapons are shipped, the Armed Forces of Ukraine cannot fulfill the combat missions
that Washington is setting before it. This means that the operational
plan for the NATO war against Russia is not some old trump card that
Milley puts on the table every year, seeking an increase in defense
spending from Congress. It’s a completely real plan for a very real, big
war.
That is why officials in the Pentagon deny such a thing in every way
possible. They deny any large-scale war plans until the time when they
are ready to openly reveal them, that is, until the time when NATO and
the United States are at war with Russia according to Washington’s
timing. But behind the scenes, as we can see, the topic of a large-scale confrontation with our country is being worked out very actively. The
funding is already being put in place—the most recent U.S. U.S. defense budget is almost 860 billion dollars, and most of that is dedicated to “containment of Russia”.
New production facilities of the U.S. military-industrial complex are
being launched. The Department of Defense is increasing the production
of its 155-millimeter caliber artillery ammunition. By next spring,
instead of the current 14,000 shells per month, 20,000 shells should be manufactured. By 2025, (note The Pentagon’s planning horizon) that will
rise to 40,000 shells per month. The latest strategic bomber, the B-21
Raider, has just been unveiled with much pomp and ceremony. By 2027, at
least 149 of such ‘birds’ should be built, capable of delivering nuclear bombs to the other side of the planet.
At the same time, the U.S. economy is being mobilized and rebuilt on a
war footing. Shortly before the latest defense budget was passed on
December 8 [by 350 votes to 80, CNN], the U.S. Senate gave to the
Pentagon certain wartime purchasing powers. A senior Congressional aide
told Defense News, “Whether you want to call it wartime contracting or emergency contracting, we can’t play around anymore. We can’t pussyfoot around with minimum-sustaining-rate buys of these munitions. It’s hard
to think of something as high on everybody’s list as buying a ton of munitions for the next few years, for our operational plans against
China and continuing to supply Ukraine.”
[Read: War industry in U.S. is ‘celebrating Christmas early’ as House of Representatives passes $858 billion for military spending, by Brett
Wilkins, Common Dreams, Dec 8, 2022.]
Meanwhile, more and more new units of the American army are being
transferred to Europe, and large-scale deliveries of weapons and
equipment are being carried out there. The idea of sending representatives of the U.S. Army to Ukraine is being openly discussed. Officially, military advisers will have to train the Ukrainian troops in handling valuable imported equipment. In reality, that is also to ensure
that the equipment is not plundered on an industrial scale.
The American military has been fighting in Ukraine for a long time and
with might and main. It’s just that it is being done unofficially, as
though it were soldiers of fortune from Texas and Oklahoma involved. All
the frank escalation of the conflict, inexorably leading the world to a
larger war, is accompanied by lulling speeches saying that Washington
wants to avoid an open confrontation with Moscow. To be frank, it is
simply not believable. The fig leaf called ‘Ukraine’ which was supposed
to cover up Washington’s plans for war with Russia slipped a long time
ago and is now gone.
The Suwalki Corridor (map in Financial Times in 2018)
It would be interesting to know what, exactly, is spelled out in Mark Milley’s ‘operational plan’ for the NATO war against Russia. However,
the Pentagon does not share such information with anyone. Foreign Policy magazine mentions only one of the possible scenarios under this plan,
according to which NATO could start hostilities against Russia in the
Suwalki corridor, a 100 kilometer-wide zone on the borders of Poland and Lithuania that separates Belarus from the Kaliningrad region.
However, the operational plan is more than ten years old. It is obsolete
and is unlikely to be useful to anyone, especially after Russia’s
special military operation commenced. But even without direct access to
secret U.S. plans, it is clearly visible how U.S. strategy is directed
towards a possible confrontation with Russia.
Everything speaks for the fact that the matter will not be limited to
one theatre in Ukraine. Washington is diligently seeking to drag Georgia
and Moldova into the conflict, and it is stoking conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is active in Central Asia. Altogether, we see U.S.
planning aiming at turning all the post-Soviet countries into future, anti-Russian fronts.
This past summer, the defense ministers of Japan and South Korea took
part in the NATO summit. These are the people being sought out to
pressure Russia from the east. And let’s not forget about Finland and
Sweden joining NATO, with regular reports about how American nuclear
bombers may be deployed there.
Then there is the Arctic. There, Russia is planning to develop rich
mineral resources and to expand the use of the Northern Sea Route. All
of this in itself is unacceptable to the West
Most importantly to note, the shortest route for Russian nuclear
missiles to America lies across the North Pole. Accordingly, NATO
Secretary General Stoltenberg has openly declared that the military
alliance should deepen and expand its presence in the Arctic.
Altogether, the threat of attack by NATO forces or NATO-friendly forces
can be expected practically along the entire perimeter of Russia. We
remember the pictures from the history textbooks of the period of
foreign intervention and civil war in Russia following the 1917
Revolution. This lasted from 1918 to 1921 and was followed by an
economic blockade that was only lifted due to the exigencies of World
War Two. At the beginning, Germany occupied Ukraine, the Americans
invaded the Far East and the British killed and tortured massive numbers
of people in our North. That’s not to speak of the international
occupying force gathered in Crimea. It, too, had to be kicked out.
The fate of Ukraine and other post-Soviet lands in the event of a
confrontation between Russia and NATO is obvious. It was vividly
described by Carl von Clausewitz in his 1832 book On War. In it, he
described the partitioning of Poland, under discussion for more than a
century by the largest European powers. The country, he wrote, “had
become like a public highway which foreign armies could use whenever and however they pleased”. But who would put a stop to that? “The European states were concerned about saving Poland, but they realized that it
would simply be a waste of effort to try and protect what was a nearly inhospitable steppe [a flat, unforested grassland].
The fate of Russia is in our hands. We have nowhere to retreat.
Recently translated from Russian media and published on the World news’
page of A Socialist In Canada:
* Ukraine brings hunger and repression to Kherson, by Alena
Zadorozhnaya, published in the Russian daily Vzglyad (Vz.ru), Dec 9,
2022 (Translation to English by A Socialist In Canada; read it here in
pdf format: Ukraine brings hunger and repression to Kherson. The
original in Russian is here.)
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