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November 20, 2024 - 10:00am
Assuming that the damage just inflicted on internet cables beneath the Baltic Sea was the work of Russia (for which there is yet no direct evidence), this should be seen in conjunction with the decision by the Biden administration to allow the Ukrainians to fire US missiles deep into Russian territory. The British and French governments are reported to be following suit. American ATACMS missiles have already struck the Russian region of Bryansk.
Russia has repeatedly declared that because these missiles are guided onto their targets by US technology under US control, such strikes would be regarded as a direct attack by Nato on Russia, to which Russia would have to respond. Vladimir Putin has come under strong criticism from Russian hardliners for allowing previous “red lines” to be crossed.
A number of factors are however inhibiting a Russian response (let alone an escalation towards the use of nuclear weapons). First, although damaging, these missiles will not seriously affect the course of the war, which is now running strongly in Russia’s favour. Second, precisely because they remain under US control, the Kremlin seems fairly confident at present that they will be restricted to the region around the Kursk battlefield, and not directed against civilian targets in Russia. Last, and most importantly, Moscow is anxious not to fall into the trap that it thinks has been set for it by the Biden administration: that of retaliating against US targets, and thereby wrecking the chance of an advantageous peace deal with the incoming Trump administration.
At the same time, it would be surprising if Putin did not feel the need to do something in response, if only to deter the West from reducing its present limitations on Ukrainian use of Western weapons. One obvious strategy, which has been discussed by Russian commentators, would be to help America’s enemies in the Middle East with missiles and satellite intelligence to guide them. On the other hand, this would also endanger talks with the Trump administration; for while President-elect and his team seem genuinely anxious for a peace deal in Ukraine, they are slavishly attached to Israel and possessed of an almost feral hatred of Iran.
The Russians therefore might see sabotage attacks in Europe, and especially against Britain, as a way of sending a warning without unnecessarily alienating Trump — for whom concern for the wellbeing of allies has hardly been a leading characteristic. Recent months have seen a series of sabotage actions in Western Europe, though these have been very small and ineffective. It has been reported that a Chinese ship was tracked in the waters near where the most recent cable cuts took place. But given the coming tariff war the US will wage on China, and the threat that the EU may join the US, China has nothing to gain from a move like this.
If these were the work of Russia and not “false flag” operations by Ukraine to provoke greater hostility to Russia in the West, then it seems likely that they were intended not to do damage, but as warnings to the West. If so, Russia may now feel impelled to make good on those warnings and engage in serious sabotage against European Nato members, and especially against the UK and France.
This raises the question of why, after worrying obsessively about the risk of a Trump administration “abandoning Europe”, the British and French governments want to stick their countries’ necks out in this way just before Trump actually takes power. After all, Trump’s supporters see Biden’s move as a wholly illegitimate pre-emptive strike (by an administration that now lacks a democratic mandate) to wreck the President-elect’s future Ukraine policy and bequeath him a deeper crisis with Russia, and they see the British and French as Biden’s accomplices in this.
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SubscribeSo Russia feels free to rain death and destruction indiscriminately down on the independent, sovereign state it has brutally invaded, but is upset that Ukraine wants some capability to strike the source of those attacks because they come from across the border. Why would Ukraine want to strike “civilian targets in Russia” when what they want to do is defend themselves from military attacks?
And Russia has around 10,000 NK troops in the field not to mention Iranian, BK and Chinese weapons/components.
For those who downvoted that, yes indeed Ukraine should just surrender asap and let Russia take back that part of its empire (or what’s left of it after a couple of years of indiscriminate bombardment) it foolishly let return to the natives. It can then carry on and take back the rest of its former empire. How silly of me to suggest otherwise!
it was downvoted for being built on straw men, as if nothing ever happened before Feb 2022. The West did not spend decades further expanding NATO and coveting Ukraine as a member. Russia got involved where this began due to Ukrainian actions against ethnic Russians in a couple of provinces. But this is not in keeping with the “Russia bad” narrative.
Russia got involved where this began due to Ukrainian actions against ethnic Russians in a couple of provinces
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Clear lie
I have never been clear as to why it is Russia’s business what international organisations Ukraine joins. After all, Finland (which, like Ukraine, has a long border with Russia) joined NATO recently, and Russia didn’t seem that bothered. In fact, Putin pretty much facilitated the occurrence.
This is just nonsense. Russia ‘got involved’ in Ukraine shortly after its independence and that grew over time. Think about Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution. I
More recently, Russia annexed Crimea before the (concocted) allegation about ‘actions against ethnic Russians’. The Maidan crisis was a response to Putin blocking Yanukovich’s signing of an EU trade agreement.
As for the expansion of NATO, consider why the new members would want to join. And that is entirely Russia’s fault. It’s demonstrating the same hopeless brutality in Ukraine now.
With respect that is not the point. The West has been fighting a proxy war against Russia. The West cannot really expect to sit on the sidelines supplying and funding Ukraine and claim non-combatant status.
It might not be in Russian interest to get drawn into open conflict with the West, but if they can sabotage us economically and damage our technological infrastructure or even arm and finance our enemies, including terrorists we cannot really have any cause for complaint
I take your point, but part of me wishes the West would give Ukraine a missile that could reduce the Kremlin itself to rubble.
The Lieven family has served Russia for over three centuries. Nothing has changed.
More information please.
Read Wiki about Lieven family:
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The House of Lieven (Latvian: Līveni; Russian: Ливен; Swedish: (von) Liewen) is one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of Nordic and Baltic-German origin (Wiki).
They have served Russia since the time of Catherine the Great.
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It is quite possible that the author’s father is Dominic Lieven, who wrote the excellent book Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814. This is one of the best books on the Napoleonic Wars. Russia’s role in defeating Napoleon is generally downplayed by Western historians, and Dominic corrects this shortcoming. I can say this with some confidence, since even before the annexation of Crimea I devoted several years, albeit at an amateur level, to studying the history of Europe at that time and read quite a few good books about this period.
I respect the European aristocracy and Anatol Lieven’s natural bias towards Russia does not bother me at all.
But unfortunately, as it is written here, he is the Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC. The word Eurasia is a marker, and even without additional research one can assume that the said program exists on the Kremlin’s money and its goal is to create a civilized image of modern fascist Russia.
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But you can reproach me for being uneducated and having unfounded hatred towards Russia or Anatol. I will calmly accept this, hate crimes are very popular today, why should I be an exception?
Deleted
Have it now. Thanks.
Putin think a lot about internet / communications in his tactical and strategic planning. One example that I find quite funny is when the EU (and then other countries) started implementing privacy laws like GDPR. Putin clearly already controls any element of “privacy” for Russian citizens, but nonetheless saw this as an opportunity to shore up his readiness for various war scenarios.
He knew way back then that many key industries in Russia are run by global companies. There are various ways in which the Russian economy and capabilities could be seriously degraded, such as if the west decided to block them from access to the internet. So Putin introduced his own “privacy” laws that were nothing to do with privacy at all. If you want to understand Russian “privacy” laws, they can be summarised something like this: All company systems must store all critical data on servers based in Russia, such that if access to the global internet was cut off, the company could continue to function locally.
So whilst we were worrying about whether people had consented to cookies being written to their browser cache, or people’s name and address being stored somewhere other than in a phone directory, Putin was preparing for various war scenarios. Both Putin and China are usually planning decades ahead, while our politicians are barely able yo plan 2 years ahead. Would I like to live in China or Russia, hell no. I’d prefer incompetent freedom over totalitarian rule. I guess the question is more about how long we can bumble along the path of continual decline until enough of the population starts to envy the competent dictators who aren’t spending all their time trying to destroy their own countries and their own history.
“Competent dictators”? Who are we talking about?
For several years (many, in fact) we have been learning that the West is populated by angels, while in the East (i.e. in Russia) all the devils have gathered. When something bad happens, anything, even when a housewife’s cooking fails, the Russians are to blame. Putin is to blame.
From a psychological point of view, it is extremely tiring and can generate the opposite effect…
Russia knows it has been let of the hook so far by the west.
Really? Is it your view that a major nuclear armed power will lose and not resort to the use of those weapons?
Of course it wouldn’t. Putin was told his army would be obliterated by Western strikes if he used a tactial nuke.
Whereas politics has taken its revenge on western military intervention, this need not be the case in Russia. The regime would present a loss as a win, say it got the result it needed, and carry on (given it is based on authoritarian violence). Russia lost in Afghanistan and didn’t nuke it, too.
Putin isn’t stupid: he wouldn’t turn a local setback into either (1) utter pariah status incl with China (2) global strategic nuclear war, because neither would be good for him. He’d just wait, rebuild, and try to ‘win’ another way later, telling himself it’s all part of the plan.
But if said nuclear power’s army was already being obliterated ie losing, I very much doubt that such army would NOT resort to the use of nuclear weapons, or indeed that the political leadership would be in a position to stop it.
The West’s response would then presumably be similar action. If it wasn’t, the West would be seen as weak and its threats, and promises, worthless.
It should be remembered that during the Cuban Missile Crisis the Soviet tactical nukes were “live” and under control of the local Soviet commander. Had the USA launched an invasion of Cuba they would certainly have been used against the invading forces.
Unfortunately I don’t share your optimism that the world would be so lucky again.
The ‘obliteration’ would only happen if Russia used nuclear weapons, and (from what I understand) the US then did fully intervene directly in the war. That’s a theoretical scenario of course and may not be accurate. So let’s leave it to one side.
Consider the current situation in which Russia is currently winning, but hardly ‘destroying’ the Ukrainian army. If that were reversed – as was the case early in the war when Russia’s early attacks were pushed back – and Russia found itself conceding ground amid sustained and even higher losses, then this is hardly an ‘extreme’ scenario but at some point Putin’s calculations would lean towards how he could end the war and leave Ukraine – and of course survive politically. As I said before he could do this due to his ability to pay everyone enough to keep himself in power. That’s the carrot in Russia: it’s a giant kleptocracy and patronage system. The stick is windows or poison. There is nothing to suggest his position is vulnerable.
It seems very unlikely that if Putin wins anything in Ukraine, he will not push the limits again: perhaps the rest of Ukraine, perhaps a Baltic state or Moldova. There is an expansionist logic in his behaviour: he fears nearby democracy and would need some countries under his direct control and a buffer of countries under his indirect control to achieve what he wants. The old Cold War structure. The nuke threat helps this. So it can’t be seen to work.
The expansion is surely by NATO…which promised it wouldn’t.
Russia is simply reacting to a CIA coup in Ukraine which would allow NATO on Russia’s doorstep.
The USA didn’t allow this in Cuba. Russia won’t allow it in Ukraine.
The “promise” about NATO expansion was denied by Gorbachev himself. Putin raised no objection until after it happened. He even speculated that Russia may join one day in 2004.
There was no ‘CIA coup’. Of course, the west had interests in Ukraine. But Russia had been trying to subvert the country for at least a decade before the Maidan crisis.
There has never been any consensus in NATO that Ukraine would join. Obama wasn’t interested, nor was Merkel. Ukraine very obviously did not qualify in 2013/14. So the events of that time did not ‘threaten to put NATO on Russia’s doorstep’.
The USA reacted to Soviet missles in Cuba (by removing its own missiles from Turkey in return for the Soviets taking them out of Cuba). Putin reacted to a legitimate political direction in Ukraine under which one day it may have qualified for NATO.
NATO is a defensive alliance. It prevents Russian expansion. The new NATO members joined voluntarily. Now, why would they do that? Because of Russian hostility which is structural due to its failure to reform politically.
The Baltic cables were cut several days prior to Biden’s missile announcement, so couldn’t have been caused by it unless Russia had advance knowledge. As for further sabotage, it certainly looks possible. Dirty tricks could put pressure on the West, as a useful alternative to an unwinnable nuclear war.
> they are slavishly attached to Israel and possessed of an almost feral hatred of Iran.
Sorry, which country has the destruction of the US and the genocide of the Jews baked into its constitution and as a the core pillar of its foreign policy?
The US only has a feral hatred of Iran in the same way that a man who has fallen into a pit at the zoo has a feral hatred of bears.
The irony that no one wants to discuss is how the US and England conspired to create the Iran that exists today. The country had a democratically elected leader in the 50s, but he dared to believe Iran should reap some reward from its oil industry. The CIA and MI6 engineered his ouster, replacing him with the West-friendly Shah, who reign included a nasty secret police and paved the way for the return of the Ayatollah.
Listen I’m not going to pretend that the CIA is the good guys or that the US didn’t make some serious mistakes during the Cold War when it comes to foreign relations. I’ll even go so far as to agree it was US intervention that caused some of the problems we have in Iran today.
But to pretend it was just about oil is reductvist and anachronistic. It had a lot more to do with geopolitics and this little cold war that was going on, you may remember it 1/3 of humanity was under the rule of a totalitarian slave state that had the destruction of the west as the stated goal. The concern was about the alignment of Arab nationalism with the Communist block, oil wasn’t much of a concern at that time.
I disagree and don’t see the connection that you do to the cold war other than a general excuse afterwards as the US saw Mosaddegh as anti communist and were planning to support him in 1952.
I’m sure it was more about looking after British (Anglo Iranian oil, now BP) interests after building an oil refinery there. MI6 persuaded the CIA to support the coup and reinstall the Shah a more manageable prospect.
Yes, but Mossadegh nationalised foreign oil interests. If he didn’t realise that would end badly for him, he couldn’t have been too bright.
We do not know that they did, but why would the Russians not have cut undersea telecommunications cables between NATO countries? Finland and Sweden wanted NATO, and this is it. Yet a negotiated settlement is now majority opinion in Ukraine.
‘[Trump and his team] are slavishly attached to Israel’
Or in less partisan terms, ‘Trump and his team support Israel’.
This piece seems about right.