NATO: A dysfunctional alliance challenging the Russian Bear

No one wants war, only victory and domination over the vanquished, this is the human/mammalian condition, a species driven by the promise and allure of conquest. A war is won or lost in the mind first. The effective use of psychological tools to intimidate an opponent or potential opponent is a key component in the game of carrot-n-stick diplomacy that the West has mastered over the decades since Western Allied victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. The tactic has served the West well, requiring only occasional, small-scale and/or limited military intervention to back up the threat of violence. However, the world has changed and the old victors over Nazi Germany have spent their last round of moral ammunition in, first, the fight against global communism, and second, in their fight against global terrorism, now they seriously intend to challenge the Russians! Today, the world is more alert to the moral ambiguities of Western foreign policy than ever before, especially as it pertains to Ukraine and with regards to Syria and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to name only a few.

The righteous 'white hats' of Western moralizing had a tough time selling Vietnam, they had an even tougher time selling Iraq in 2003, and it seems that their new/old vocation is selling bad ideas and questionable policies to their electorate. This is dangerous for a world that is policed by the victors of WWII, it means the populations of these democracies are less and less inclined to go to war when it really counts. You cry 'terrorism' or 'rogue state' one too many times and when the danger is really real and imminent no one trusts you or believes you any more. Take for example the Saddam conundrum: the world is a better place without that asshole, but, was it worth all the lies, the countless Iraqi dead and maimed and scared for life, was it worth the billions spent to remove him and destroy the roots of the Baathist State, all of which spawned a new terror factory, ISIS and an almost pathological distrust of Western governments by their electorate?

Syria's regime was since 1970 a very well known quantity. Its brutal tactics and bloody reprisals against opponents were well documented and feared. Their staying power was admired, their robust alliance with the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation was always a factor defining Western response to this regime in the region. Then, suddenly, all that changed.

Maybe sensing its own declining world power broker status, the Western alliance decided it was time for another major victory to prop it up, not against some sickly-skinny terrorist leader hiding in a cave, not against an oil-wealth-propped-up dictator like Gadhafi, not against HIV Aids in Africa or victory over cancer or world hunger, they needed a victory that all the other violent mammals in the world would respect, a victory against Russia. Now this was an old enemy that was clearly defined, an enemy that the world could embrace as a righteous target. Enter a worthy opponent: the erstwhile ally in the fight against global fascism, the old Cold War adversary, the inheritor of the Soviet Union, a Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin that was reasserting its trans-continental role from the North Pacific to the Mediterranean. This was an adversary that could galvanize the electorates of the Western nations to back a real war, or at least support a costly sabre rattling campaign in the hope the Russians would cave in and go back to being the docile, dysfunctional anachronism of the Yeltsin days!

The war in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine are not independent or distinct conflicts at all, but rather they are separate sections of a single frontline in one war; a war against the rising military might of the Russian Federation. A war started and funded without the permission of the electorate of the Western alliance.

Recent military exercises along the Russian border in the north east of Europe, a NATO spy plane intercepted by a Russian fighter, another US spy plane intercepted in the North Pacific, are all evidence of a Western alliance in crisis and in need of a war and a victory to sustain itself. NATO needs a war or at the very least a victory. NATO was always an ambitious alliance, its namesake, the North Atlantic, is further from the Ukrainian border than Moscow. Its components never quite fit together very well: The US, now increasingly concerned with the Pacific as a potential future theatre of conflict and less concerned with the Mediterranean, Turkey, a country led by a megalomaniacal latter day Sultan bent on keeping Syria a burning inferno, and Europe, a continent of independent minded national democracies trying to put on a united facade to the world.

NATO is like the crazy, bearded guy with 20 guns living in a cabin in the woods ranting about freedom and railing against the government and taxes! It’s a deluded alliance of states, each state with very different goals, ambitions, aspirations and agendas. Russia, on the other hand, has not changed much since the people rose up in 1917 and deposed the Tsar/despot Nicholas and went on to blunt the Nazi spearhead and occupy the German capital in 1945. The most beautiful national anthem in the world according to many, 'Hymn of the USSR', was written and composed by a people who were pushed as hard, and beaten and bloodied as bad as any people can be pushed, beaten and bloodied by an aggressor without ever breaking. That soaring music is an expression of their victory and herculean struggle that came at a huge cost and for which they sacrificed greatly. This is not a nation easily broken. And yet, NATO seems to be oblivious to this fact.

Today, the machinations of the Western alliance are laid bare for all to see if they wish to see. First, they start by focusing on one man, a proto-villain, Putin in this case. This is similar to what both Bush Presidents did: they would continually say that their enemy was Saddam not the Iraqi people. Second, the alliance would continually put pressure on Russia from all quarters, blaming it for all manner or atrocities, blacken its reputation even in sports, go as far as to accuse Putin of pulling the trigger on the system that launched the missile that shot down the Malaysian airliner. Putin, in fact, was blamed for everything, from ordering the assassination of a defector/traitor in London to the killing of a journalist in Moscow. Such tactics do not need anything as inconvenient as evidence or proof, such things are for a dull courtroom to contend with; all that such tactics need is a compliant and complicit news media. Third, the Western alliance would fund and arm third parties that would make war against the Russians or against their allies, just like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are doing against Syrian government forces, or more clandestinely and deviously against Iran and Iraq. The aim here is two fold, to test the response of the Russians and to bleed them financially and deplete their capacity to fight and make war through a long-term strategy of mini wars of attrition.

The Western alliance has largely failed in its tactics. The plan to deplete the Russians by forcing them to increase their military spending spurred on by multiple security challenges while simultaneously lowering global oil prices, a major source of funding for the Russian State, has backfired. Instead of Russia feeling the pain, its Turkey and Saudi Arabia that are feeling the pain, which are funding or facilitating Islamist anti-Syrian State factions in the war in Syria. Saudi oil revenue has reached anaemic levels, while the war in Syria has caused a major refugee problem in the EU, a problem currently being returned to Turkey! The war in Syria is dragging on, the Russian air force in concert and coordination with Syrian Army forces on the ground has helped increase the amount of territory the Syrian State controls. The more territory the state controls the more credible it becomes in the eyes of the world, a world that at one point was almost certain of the regime's collapse. Now, no one talks of regime collapse, but rather they talk of preserving the territorial integrity of the Syrian state and preserving state institutions to avoid an Iraq-like outcome and to help stem the terrorist threat. While social media exploded in condemnation of 'the regime' over recent events in Aleppo, the adult world of diplomacy and practical thinkers, a little less dynamic in their condemnation, which forced many to ask loudly where the world was.

Aside from the Syrian and Yemeni and Iraqi and Ukrainian debacles, all of which remain bleeding soars on the body of the world, the matter of a planet-wide, civilization ending war looms large today.

First, NATO could not defend Europe, Eastern, Central or Western without a major infusion of US military and financial assistance. Russian land forces have historically been superior to NATO land forces, while the latter had more or less naval superiority and more advanced fighter and bomber aircraft. Second, Russia, aka the Soviet Union, actually had a plan of invasion for Western Europe drawn up back in the day. In fact, a rather complicated map of this invasion plan was published in Newsweek back in the early 1990s as I recall. A copy I believe had been found in some East German government office. Third, the Russian military and the Russian people are more adaptable to wartime privations than the rest of Europe. Which leaves one asking the inevitable question: how far does NATO and the Western alliance intend to push the Russians?

Another question on many people's minds is: who will be the first to use nuclear weapons, in what quantities and what targets will be hit first if at all? The answer to this one is more complicated and uncertain. It all depends on the psychology of the belligerent nations and more specifically on the psychology of the leaderships. The one that perceives the greatest advantage in pushing the button or perceives a greater threat from not pushing the button will likely be the first to push the button! Good luck world, this is called nuclear roulette!