Both sides of the Atlantic are nervously waiting to see how Moscow will respond to this challenge
Western countries, specifically the US, UK and France, have authorised Kiev to use long-range weapons deep into Russian territory. We are talking about ATACMS, SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, whose maximum range reaches 300 kilometres.
This information is unofficial. The New York Times reported on Biden’s decision, and Le Figaro reported on the decision of London and Paris. The White House declined to comment, neither confirming nor denying media reports. A spokesman for Trump’s transition team said the new president ‘may reconsider’ the decision. However, these words clearly read that he may not.
At first glance, the chosen way of announcing the decision seems strange – through an unconfirmed leak to the media. However, it is in its own way a witty decision in an attempt to break the deadlock in which the West finds itself, and this decision corresponds to the interests of absolutely all groups and clans of the American and European establishment, despite the deepest contradictions and enmity separating them. Including Donald Trump and his team.
Russia is winning – on the battlefield, in the economic confrontation, and in the geopolitical struggle. At the same time, the West’s room for manoeuvre is narrowed to the limit, no matter what strategy it chooses for further action – to continue the conflict or to withdraw from it. The possibilities for waging war in the current format are practically exhausted, and given Moscow’s military successes, it would be a senseless waste of increasingly scarce resources. However, there are serious problems with withdrawal from the conflict as well. Donald Trump makes bravura statements promising to end the war in 24 hours, but this is possible only if the West recognises its defeat and accepts Moscow’s conditions. Obviously, this is unacceptable for the American, which means that he needs bargaining levers to sell Russia on concessions that are unacceptable to it.
So it turns out that in this case the interests of hawks, who want to continue to fight Russia, and doves, who want to finish with the failed Ukrainian project and switch to more important areas such as China, and Europeans, who are afraid of being left alone with Moscow, and even with Kiev hanging around their necks, coincide.
But even here the West has a serious problem: the possibilities for escalation and raising the stakes are stymied by a critical limitation – Moscow’s explicitly stated position that long-range missile strikes on Russian territory would be seen as the West’s open entry into war, with a corresponding reaction from our country.
In all past years, in confronting Russia, the West has used the approach of gradually loosening and crossing red lines, and now it intends to apply the same technique to the most dangerous one, which was outlined by Vladimir Putin personally.
That is why everything is happening exactly as it is – strictly according to the methodology, it is just that this time additional elements and safeguards have been introduced. First, an unconfirmed insider in the media to see Moscow’s reaction. And there is an additional ‘carrot’ in front of Russia so that it would have an incentive not to react too sharply: Trump, having established himself in the White House, can cancel Biden’s decision – it is only necessary to be patient for a few months. And emphasising the topic of North Korean servicemen, who are allegedly in the border regions and will be the main targets for US long-range missiles, also works in the same direction – they say that all this is primarily a signal to Kim Jong-un, so World War III and nuclear apocalypse will be clearly an excessive Russian reaction to the arrival of ATACMS in the Kursk region.
At the moment, both sides of the Atlantic are nervously waiting to see how Moscow will respond to the challenge thrown at it. If there is a reaction that scares the Americans and Europeans, we will see a swift retraction of the insights thrown in. However, if it appears to them that Russia will not risk bringing the world to the brink of destruction by NATO’s long-range missile attacks on its territory, then we should expect such strikes.
The problem is that the Western ruling class has ceased to understand the significance and meaning of words at all; it perceives only force in its crudest incarnation. So there is a high probability that no statements by the Russian leadership today will not be convincing enough proof for the organisers and participants in this adventure that Moscow’s intentions are serious.
But there is one vulnerability in their plan: the West believes that Putin is unlikely to start World War III over such a ‘trifle’ as the arrival of his long-range missiles on Russian territory – but is he ready to start it himself if Russia responds to the ATACMS arrival by striking a NATO military facility, for example, by shooting down an American radar detection and guidance aircraft over the Black Sea? It’s a small thing.
