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by Rick Rozoff
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Global Research, May 14, 2009
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“Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008….[A] possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.
“The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia’s soonest joining of
the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.
“Under the new realities, Georgia’s war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO’s war against Russia. This would be a third world war.” (Irina Kadzhaev, South Ossetia political scientist, South Ossetia Information Agency, April 2009
On May 12 James Mattis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation [ACT] and commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, spoke at a three-day symposium called Joint Warfighting 09 in Norfolk, Virginia, where NATO’s Allied Command Transformation is based, and stated: “I come with a sense of urgency. The enemy is meeting like this as well.” [1]
A local newspaper summarized his speech:
“Mattis outlined a future in which wars will not have clearly defined beginnings and ends. What is needed, he said, is a grand strategy, a political framework that can guide military planning.” [2]
He failed, for what passes for diplomatic reasons no doubt, to identify who “the enemy” is, but a series of recent developments, or rather an intensification of ongoing ones, indicate which nation it is.
Last week the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chilton, told reporters during a Defense Writers Group breakfast on May 7 “that the White House retains the option to respond with physical force – potentially even using nuclear weapons – if a foreign entity conducts a disabling cyber attack against U.S. computer networks….”
An account of his talk added “the general insisted that all strike options, including nuclear, would remain available to the commander in chief in defending the nation from cyber strikes.”
Chilton “said he could not rule out the possibility of a military salvo against a nation like China, even though Beijing has nuclear arms,” [3] though the likely first target of alleged retaliation against equally alleged cyber attacks would be another nation already identified by US military officials as such: Russia.
In late April and early May of 2007 the government of Estonia, which was inducted into NATO in 2004 and whose president was and remains Toomas Hendrik Ilves, born in Sweden and raised in the United States (where he worked for Radio Free Europe), reported attacks on websites in the country which were blamed on Russia.
Over two years later no evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim that Russian hackers, much less the government itself, were behind the attacks, though it remains an article of faith among US and other Western officials and media that they were.
The response from American authorities in the first place was so sudden and severe, even before investigations were conducted, as to strongly suggest that if the attacks hadn’t been staged they would need to be invented.
Right afterward Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne stated, “Russia, our Cold War nemesis, seems to have been the first to engage in cyber warfare.”
The US Air Force news source from which the above is quoted added that the events in Estonia days earlier “did start a series of debates within NATO and the EU about the definition of clear military action and it may be the first test of the applicability of Article V of the NATO charter regarding collective self-defense in the non-kinetic realm.” [4]
NATO’s Article 5 is a collective military defense provision, in fact a war clause, one which first and to date for the only time has been used to support the protracted and escalating war in Afghanistan.
References to it, then, are not to be taken lightly.
On a visit to Estonia last November Pentagon chief Robert Gates met with the country’s prime minister, Andrus Ansip, and “discussed Russian behavior and new cooperation on cyber security….”
It was reported that “Ansip said NATO will operate under the principle of Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all,” and “We are convinced that Estonia, as a member of NATO, will be very well defended.”[5]
That the repeated mention of NATO’s Article 5 continued a year and a half after the alleged cyber attacks when none had occurred in the interim is revealing.
At the beginning of this month the Pentagon announced that it was launching what it called a “digital warfare force for the future,” at Fort Meade in Maryland under the control of the U.S. Strategic Command, whose chief, Gen. Kevin Chilton, was quoted earlier as threatening the use of force up to and including nuclear weapons.
The initiative was characterized in a news report as follows:
“Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, also the Pentagon’s leading cyber warfare commander, said the U.S. is determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat enemies….” [6]
The Pentagon is a synecdoche for the Department of Defense and everything related to its activities is cloaked in the same euphemism, so when pressed the US will insist its new cyber warfare project is intended for defensive purposes only. Any nation which and people who have been on the receiving end of US Defense Department actions know better. The new US cyber warfare command, its rationale based on a supposed Russian threat emanating from a non-military incident in the Baltics over two years ago, will be used to cripple the computer systems of any nation targeted for direct military assault, thus rendering them defenseless, and will be particularly effective for space-based and Star Wars (missile shield, interceptor missiles) first strike plans.
On the same day the report of General Alexander’s pledge to “defeat enemies” appeared another news item reported that “A quasi-classified satellite that will serve as an engineering trailblazer for ballistic missile tracking technologies flew into space Tuesday [May 12].” [7]
It was a Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) satellite, which “is part of a space-based system for the Missile Defense Agency.
“Sensors aboard the STSS-ATRR satellite and on the ground will communicate with other systems to defend against incoming ballistic missiles.” [8]
A few days earlier the California-based manufacturer Ducommun in a news report titled Ducommun Incorporated Announces Delivery of Nanosatellites to U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command announced that “its Miltec Corporation subsidiary delivered flight-ready nanosatellites to the U.S. Army pace and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) in Huntsville, Alabama on April 28, 2009.”
The delivery was “the completion of the first U.S. Army satellite development program since the Courier 1B communications satellite in 1960.”[9]
Military satellites used for neutralizing the potential of a rival nation not so much to launch a first strike but to respond to one blur the distinction between so-called Son of Star Wars missile shield projects and full-fledged militarization of space.
A recent Russian commentary saw it in just that manner:
“Withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty signified a switch to the testing and deployment of a global missile defense system, with a view to fully removing the deterrent potential of China, and partially that of Russia.
“Washington [is] still trying to eliminate international legal restrictions on the formation of a system, which would theoretically make it invulnerable towards an act of retaliation, and even a launch-under-attack strike.” [10]
Added to which is another “quasi-classified” subterfuge related to a prospective resumption of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks between the US And Russia.
American Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller stated this week “that the US is not prepared to cut warheads removed from delivery means and kept in storage.” [11]
So in addition to US plans to deploy ground-, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile systems primarily around and against Russia (Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Britain, Japan and Alaska to date), the Pentagon will hold in reserve nuclear warheads for activation without a monitoring mechanism provided to Russian inspectors and arms reduction negotiators.
On May 6 Euronews conducted an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who warned, “The way it [the US anti-ballistic missile shield] is designed has nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program. It is aimed at Russian strategic forces, deployed in the European part of the Russian Federation.” [12]
To add to the concerns of Russia and other nations, On April 30 the US established a Navy Air and Missile Defense Command (NAMDC) at the Naval Support Facility at Dahlgren, Virginia.
“NAMDC is the lead organization for Navy, joint and combined Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD). NAMDC serves as the single warfare center of excellence to synchronize and integrate Navy efforts across the full spectrum of air and missile defense to include air defense, cruise missile defense and ballistic missile defense.” [13]
The past two weeks has been a fertile period for stories in this vein and, to bring attention nearer the Earth, the US-based Strategy Page reported from a Russian source that “The United States has bought two Su-27 fighter jets from Ukraine” to “be used to train American military pilots, who may face opponents in them” and that the “US military will use them to test its radar and electronic warfare equipment.” [14]
This was at the very moment that the US client in Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko, his national poll ratings plummeting to near 1%, signed a directive to prepare for full NATO membership and a few days after a US military delegation visited the country to inspect a tank unit and to plan “reforming the system of combat training….” [15]
In terms of US training for warfare against the Russian Air Force, the Ukrainian development is only the latest in a number of such activities.
Immediately following the nation becoming a full member of NATO, the US 81st Fighter Squadron flew to Constanta, Romania (in which nation the Pentagon has acquired four new bases since) to engage in combat training against Russian MiG-21s.
According to one US pilot present, “It was pretty neat – you’re sitting in a MiG-21 that will be airborne with a MiG-21 pilot within days. This was an arm of the Soviet Union. These pilots were flying before the Soviet Union fell. They have quite a bit of perspective.” [16]
In July of the next year the US 492nd Fighter Squadron was deployed to the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in neighoring Bulgaria to insure the opportunity for “Air Forces from multiple nations to learn about each other’s aircraft tactics and capabilities.
“The pilots of the F-15E Strike Eagles and the MIG-29s and MIG-21s are sharing knowledge of aircraft and tactics as the exercise wraps up its first week of training.”
A US Air Force colonel was quoted as saying, “Only two of the 38 aircrew members have had a chance to fly against MIGs. By the time the exercise is over, everyone will have had a chance to either fly in a MIG or fly against one.” [17]
A month afterward the US Air Force 22nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron arrived in Romania for the Viper Lance exercises which “marked the first time U.S. F-16 pilots have trained in Romania” and “where “MiG-21 and F-16 pilots [flew] integrated formations to conduct basic fighter maneuvers, dissimilar air combat training and air-to-ground strike missions….” [18]
This time the quote is from an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot:
“My flight in the backseat of a Lancer [MiG-21] is a good opportunity to look at different aircraft and it’s a real privilege and an honor. I want to see what they see from their cockpit, and view a new angle of understanding against our adversaries.” [19]
Two weeks ago a US Air Force fighter squadron flew to the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria where an American airman said, “This is the first time a USAFE [United States Air Forces in Europe] fighter squadron has deployed to this location….The most rewarding part of this experience is knowing that I am helping the pilots train for war.” [20]
To prepare the US for air combat against the full range of Russian military aircraft, India was invited to the annual Red Flag air combat exercises in Alaska in 2007, war games “meant to train pilots from the US, NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations.
“This includes the use of ‘enemy’ hardware and live ammunition for bombing exercises.” [21]
India provided six Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighters which were “particularly interesting to the exercise as [they are] Russian-made, thus
traditionally considered ‘hostile.'” [22]
May 1st, on the occasion of the Czech Republic taking over the six-month NATO air patrol rotation in the Baltic skies over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – five minutes flight from Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg – a Czech official boasted “The area we are protecting is about three times larger than that of the Czech Republic. This is a NATO outpost.”
Lithuanian Air Force Commander Arturas Leita announced that “the Baltic countries would probably ask for the prolongation of the air force mission within NATO until 2018.” [23]
From June 8-16 Sweden will host a NATO drill, Loyal Arrow, described as “biggest air force drill ever in the Finnish-Swedish Bothnian Bay,” [24], also not far from St. Petersburg, with a British aircraft carrier and more than 50 fighter jets participating.
That exercise will begin exactly a week after the US-led NATO Cooperative Lancer 09 war games end in Georgia on Russia’s southern flank.
In speaking of the dangers of the last-named but with equal application to all that has preceded it, the South Ossetian Ministry for Press and Mass Media website recently quoted political scientist Irina Kadzhaev as warning:
“Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008. The then threat endangered only South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but after Russia’s recognition of these states’ independence and the conclusion of agreements envisaging the presence of Russian armed forces on their territories, a possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.
“The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia’s soonest joining of the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.
“Under the new realities, Georgia’s war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO’s war against Russia. This would be a third world war.”[25]
Notes
1) Virginian-Pilot, May 13, 2009
2) Ibid
3) Global Security, May 12, 2009
4) Air Force Link, June 1, 2007
5) U.S. Department of Defense, November 12, 2008
6) Associated Press, May 5, 2009
7) Space Flight Now, May 5, 2009
8) Pratt & Whitney, May 5, 2009
9) Ducommun Incorporated, April 29, 2009
10) Russian Information Agency Novosti, May 7, 2009
11) Russia Today, May 5, 2009
12) Euronews, May 6, 2009
13) Navy News, April 30, 2009
14) Moscow News, May 11, 2009
15) National Radio Company of Ukraine, April 29, 2009
16) Air Force Link, August 2, 2005
17) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, July 24, 2006
18) Stars and Stripes, August 26, 2006
19) Air Force Link, August 17, 2006
20) Air Force Link, April 28, 2009
21) Indo-Asian News Service, November 26, 2007
22) Avionews (Italy), November 28, 2007
23) Czech News Agency, May 1, 2009
24) Barents Observer, May 7, 2009
25) Ministry for Press and Mass Media of the Republic of South Ossetia, April 27, 2009
Also See:
NATO War Games In Georgia: Threat Of New Caucasus War
THE THIRD WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
Project 2012: Predictions Coming True? Nuclear War Begins Soon? Updated
I am a citizen of the ‘evil West’, but I’d like to say that this plan is of no more benefit to us than it is to you. Nor does it benefit the average American. The only people this plot benefits is America’s shadow rulers, the big men with the money, who’d love to see a new world order in which they become the lords of the earth while everyone else becomes SERFS. I’ll now express the widespread Western dissatisfaction with the one-way American Corporate Empire.
It is sad that NATO, which was intended to protect it’s partners against Soveit aggression, has been turned into a group of economically enslaved nations to do the Corporate Empire’s neo-con bidding. The Soveit Union is gone – so should NATO be as a result of that. It did it’s job, now it is time to retire it. But the coldblooded American corporatist imperialists that rule a now non-democratic America need it to continue their godless agenda of destruction and butchery for rabid war profits.
Consider this:
– NATO forces, primarily American, are deployed in every Western and Arab country that either is nearby a current adversary, or contains resources that are essential to the upkeep of America’s consuming-obsessed way of life. That should say clear as a bell what America thinks of it’s allies; we are either there simply to surrender our soveigrnty and resourses to them, or we are merely cannon fooder to take the place of US civilians when harm might come their way. Why should they care, if bombs fall on Poland, Britain, or Canada? They will be safe, after all.
The media is also guilty of imperial bigotry; 3 NATO soldeirs die? A tragedy. 1000 innocent Afghan civilians are murdered? No one in the West cares! Hypocracy, I say! Also, everytime a government or individual advocates for public human services in America, the neo-con media immediately accuses them of ‘Socialism’, so to prevent a cutting-in on the profits of Big Buisness, while the downtrodden suffer.
– America’s neighbours have been renderred spineless. The current state of anarchy currently prevailing in Mexico can be (at least partly) attributed to the past actions of the US and to the current American Corporations by insuring that the current gap between rich and poor continues. America’s economic and thus political control over Canada is like a trick knot wrapped around her neck – try as she might to break free, Canada’s struggling only serves to make her noose tighter. The embargo on Cuba has crippled that country’s livelihood. The USA has in the recent past covertly installed ruthless right-wing dictatorships throughout South America to protect their companies’ interests while tens of thousands died. While all of this happens, the mainstream media ignores it, the innocent American public is ignorant of it, and the corporatists rake in all that matters to their shrivelled little black hearts -huge war profits.
– Americans don’t like this arrangement either. The poor Yanks are probably among the guiltiest-feeling people in the world. They know, by and large, that their way of living is largely sustained by corporate malpractice. So do most Westerners. They boast about their democracy and their righteousness and their freedom, trying to kill their anguish that they no longer have any of those. Most right-thinking Americans have come to realize that the machine of American democracy has rusted and seized up. For the record, the rusting really took off after the start of the Cold War. The clearity of corporations and mercanary armies (Blackwater) hijacking the Americans` country for their own evil ends is too transparent to ignore. All the while, they are daily loosing the vaunted freedoms that their forefathers fought to have and sustain.
— This travesty must not be allowed to endure. If the corporatists succede in conquering all peoples and nations, then one day we really will wake up to be greeted by a New-World- Order-or-Illuminati-like-or-nouveau-feudalism-nightmare world.
Then everyone, including Westerners, will be very sorry.
Hindoo population in India is not 90% of 1.2 Billion.
It is just a big fat lie in summated by West and India!
West and India are lying about Indian population to keep Muslims suppress in India and others under hindoos control.
Why West will do this??? Well it was hindooo who helped West to destroy Muslim empires. So naturally West will do anything to protect their poodles, hindoos, wont they?
They are saying hindoo population is >>> 83 percent Hindus India
Muslim population is mere >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>120 million????
Nothing adds up.
There is no info on other people in india to work out; only everywhere they are saying and info available about hindoos only saying…. hindooos…… hindoos….hindoos…….
Consensus reports on population rate are the one doing this biggest fraud on the world.
The more west acknowledges the more ppl from around the world will believe that Indian hindooo population is 1.2 billion.
So if we take 10 minorities by 100 million each it will only make 1000 million rate of full population growth.
Also other thing that doesnt add up is how than handful Muslims ruled near one billion populations who are your blood thirsty????? Just dont add up?
It is all a lie of Indian hindoos and the West to grab world resources on the name of biggest population and then its poverty, so they can propagate India is the biggest democracy, so we feel jealous and follow the same path that West have invented the ((democracy)), that has been laid out for us to get caught.
This is why some of these scum bought out Muslim countries don’t get tired by keep repeating to all other Muslims about west created democracy and all about the bull about the democracy.
This fraud also is to let China know that west has 1.2 b population next to it to destroy China.
It is all a fraud.
There is no 1.2b Indian population. Maybe they are only half of it or maybe not even that, no one knows the exact figures of Indian population?
Muslims are not doing grain amount of work to find out the truth. All Google and Search Engines are taken up by Indians. So if you are looking for ((Mars)) info, it will say India is going mars next month to land its first man??? Meaning it is going crazy and lies out there and no one is paying any attention to it???
It is a biggest fraud and we must do something to counter it. No way can hindoos make near 90% of 1.2b if there is this much population in india. It just doesn’t even sound right.
Haven’t you observed an increase in NATO’s ‘complains’ over the number of ISAF casualties in Afghanistan?
They are planning to withdraw from Afghanistan and focus on addressing the ‘crisis’ in South Ossetia & Abkhazia. Similar crises may be heading toward Tibet and Taiwan.
That should keep Russia and China away from South Asia and Middle East as we enter the next round of this game.