(LifeSiteNews) — The United States has given the green light to long range strikes inside Russia. This was a measure which was effectively off limits to the Ukrainians before last week, which saw drone strikes take place deep inside Russian territory.
Another strike came last week, on a civilian hotel in Russian-held Melitopol. This betokens a change in policy by the United States, whose former refusal to supply long range HIMARS missile capability has now been effectively rescinded. It is a decision which has heightened the chances of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
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The Russian leadership has warned that attacks on Russian territory will be met with an overwhelming response. These attacks, hitherto prohibited, constitute a serious provocation to the Russians and can be understood as a deliberate attempt to escalate the war in a measure which may lead to open conflict between Russia and NATO.
The head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, remarked yesterday on the likelihood of a full scale war with Russia:
‘I fear that the war in Ukraine will get out of control, and spread into a major war between NATO and Russia,’ he said, adding that ‘if things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong.’
So why do these attacks come at this time? Contrary to the blanket reportage in the West, which presents an image of Russian failure and suggests victory is inevitable for Ukraine, there are serious problems in Ukraine. The Russian assault on Bakhmut is described as a Ukrainian Verdun, with reports of the loss of a battalion a day on the Ukrainian side in dead and wounded.
The Russian missile campaign is seriously debilitating the Ukrainian energy grid, which could collapse by Christmas. The recently mobilized 300 000 Russian military reservists are now largely in situ. The Russians say around half are committed to forward operations, with 77 000 in the front lines and the rest in reserve with units in Ukraine. The remaining 150 000 are in training, awaiting what promises to be a Russian assault once the black soil of Ukraine has frozen solid.
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Our media has made little of the changes in Russia’s warfighting posture in Ukraine. What began as a limited ‘Special Military Operation’ has become a serious military campaign. Russia has appointed a supreme commander in the region, “General Armageddon”, Sergei Surovikin, to coordinate the war. Secondly, the enormous concentration of force in the region more than doubles Russia’s initial combat estimate. The signs all indicate a major offensive, which will be given more impetus by the commencement of long range strikes deep in to Russia.
Should this Russian offensive come, the pressure will mount for US and NATO troops to enter the war directly. The article notes how carefully the West avoided such a confrontation in the past, and why:
Generations of Western leaders worked successfully to avoid direct military conflict with the Soviet Union. They recognized that, unlike Moscow, the West has very little strategic interest in who controls Donetsk. They were certainly unwilling to risk a nuclear war for Kharkiv. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and the alliance has no obligation to defend it. Nor has Putin threatened any NATO member, but he has made clear that any foreign troops entering Ukraine will be treated as enemy combatants. Sending NATO troops into the Ukraine would thus turn our proxy war with Russia into a real war with the world’s largest nuclear power.
This article in Newsweek, by a former US diplomat and a former Central Command adviser, argues that the Ukrainians cannot win the war. It was the entry of the West into a proxy war in March which halted the negotiations for peace, providing Ukraine with the money it desperately needs to function, and the armaments and training to sustain its military campaign.
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Elsewhere, tensions are rising. A delicate balance of competing powers in Syria is threatened by another Turkish land invasion, which may further destabilize a region crisscrossed by competing international and regional factions. The US, Russia, Iran, the Gulf States and Turkey all have proxies or military commitments on Syrian territory. Turkey, a NATO partner, has attacked US Kurdish allies in the region, promising further attacks. The actions to isolate Russia have seen them further cementing ties with Iran, in what has been termed a full scale military partnership. Whilst attention is focused on Ukraine, this dangerous flashpoint may see the opening of a second proxy war without some careful diplomatic horse trading.
There is a sense that things may indeed spin out of control, as the secretary general of NATO remarked yesterday. The time has come for the West to consider the prices of peace or of escalation. It would appear for the time being they prefer the latter.