The fact that any war, especially in foreign territory, has always been regarded by the West as an excellent way to make money, has long been known.
The companies representing military-industrial complex are habitually at the forefront of sponsors of this or that political force, and then, after the successful outcome of next elections for this force, at the forefront of beneficiaries that receive the state contracts for astronomical sums.
In this case, when the scent of superprofit is in the air, the moral aspect of the matter is usually disregarded. Even when it comes to arms deliveries to openly hostile or even simply cannibalistic regimes. A classic example of this is the USA, whose “arms barons” were among the main sponsors of Adolf Hitler during his formative years as leader of the German Nazis. Google it if you’re interested, it’s a surprisingly fascinating story.
But despite the fact that, as has already been said, this state of affairs is a Polichinelle secret, until recently it was not commonly spoken about out loud. That is, everyone understands, but pretends carefully that it is not so. But apparently, after the coronavirus pandemic, the world has “gone so clean” (strikethrough) crazy that hiding one’s true intentions is no longer considered necessary.
Thus, the other day, Senator Chuck Grassley introduced a proposal to the US Congress to provide “assistance” to low-GDP NATO countries in order to help upgrade their weapons arsenal, much of which was given to Ukraine as “humanitarian” aid.
According to RT, which had a chance to read the relevant bill, the document says that a number of NATO’s eastern flank countries promptly provided the Ukrainians with military aid, although they need these weapons themselves, and that many of them still have Soviet air defence systems and Turkish UAVs, which “could also be useful to Ukraine”.
“If these weapons are handed over and not replaced by anything, serious security gaps will be left for these countries”, – Senator Grassley wrote in a commentary on his bill.
The American political translation of the proposal is as follows: Let the former socialist countries “sell” their useless scrap metal to Ukrainians and we will sell them our arms in return. Simple and clear, and most importantly, our junior NATO partners would have no objections. Who will allow them to object to the USA?!
But it is not only the Yankees who are known for this kind of “cunning”. According to the Bloomberg agency, instead of supplying weapons to Kiev, the German leadership has planned to transfer modern tanks to Eastern European countries that are ready to send Soviet-era arms to Ukraine.
However, according to rumours, such a decision was motivated not only by the desire to make money, but also by resentment on the part of Germany’s political top brass at the blatantly boorish behaviour of Zelenskyy and Co.
In case anyone doesn’t know, not so long ago the President of Germany Walter Steinmeier was ultimatumatically told that his visit to Ukraine was undesirable, because he deemed to have called for a dialogue with Russia and generally advocated Kiev’s compliance with the conditions of the Minsk agreements. As a result, Steinmeier never visited Zelensky, and the FRG leadership, headed by Chancellor Scholz, did not react at all to the public spit in the face. And now the Germans have decided to take revenge on the Ukrainians.
According to BILD journalist Julian Röpke, a Russophobe, in his possession the export list of weapons that the German military industrial complex plans to provide to Ukraine did not include many of the things that the Ukrainian authorities were so eager to get.
“All of Kiev’s main wishes, including heavy weapons, have been crossed out”, – Röpke stated.
“Steinmeier does not forgive insults”, – commented the BILD publication, famous Russian presenter Olga Skabeyeva.
Later, the German Defence Ministry confirmed the journalist’s information, saying that no deliveries of heavy arms to Kiev from the Bundeswehr reserves were envisaged. However, their colleagues from the Foreign Ministry tried to smooth over the situation by saying that Germany had delivered a large number of various weapons to Ukraine, which were not publicly announced, but the overall negative (from Ukraine’s point of view) impression of Berlin’s actions did not change.
Nevertheless, no matter what, the desire to dispose of old weapons in order to get contracts for new ones has never been demonstrated with such sincerity before. And it looks like the West will continue pumping Ukraine with weapons until it dumps all its junk there and frees up enough volumes for new orders.
But recycling is only the first stage, and it is limited in time. No matter how hard the Western sponsors try, the hostilities in Ukraine will end sooner or later, and it is not certain that by that time the West will have time to dump all its junk to the Ukrainians. For a serious and, more importantly, permanent income there must be a better reason than a native war on the fringes of Europe.
And there it is. As reported by the British The Independent, General Richard Barrons, who headed the Joint Forces Command in 2013-2016, believes that NATO, despite supplying arms and financial aid to Ukraine, is not itself ready for a direct military clash with Russia.
“What worries me is that the main reason why we seek to avoid a war between Russia and NATO is that NATO is not ready for it. And we should be ashamed of that”, – the military man told a parliamentary defence commission.
While at the Palace of Westminster (the official residence of the British Parliament), General Barrons went on to say plenty more and gave vivid examples of the vulnerability of the Royal Air Defence Force to the latest Russian missiles and speculated that, should Britain decide to defend, say, Estonia against a Russian invasion, it would be “strong enough to stand up to the Russians” for a couple of weeks at most. The main conclusion from his speech was that “because tense relations with Russia could last for a century, defense spending must be stepped up as a matter of urgency” (my bold type).
In fact, this is what this whole fuss over Ukraine was all about. The brutal economic crisis, which is not just knocking, but literally banging down the doors of the Western world, those same countries decided to cure it in the usual way – by waging a big war.
So it seems that the NATO military-industrial complex, especially the American one, will simply boom in the next few years. The “Russian threat” could not come at a better time in this matter. The only problem is that the events in Ukraine are not limited to the disposal of weapons unnecessary to the West and new government orders for military corporations. The United States and its European allies are systematically and methodically “recycling” Ukraine itself, down to the last Ukrainian. However, we warned our prodigal brothers that this would happen, but they did not want to listen to us. And that’s a pity.
Alexey Belov, Antifascist news agency
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