Russia-West relations took a downturn this week when Moscow warned that any stationing of military equipment along its border with Europe could have “dangerous consequences” and President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would add more than 40 ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year.
At a military and arms fair on Tuesday, Putin announced the addition of the intercontinental ballistic missiles which, he said, were able to overcome “even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems,” Reuters reported.
After the announcement, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said that Putin’s statement was one reason why the international military alliance was upping its deterrence measures, according to Reuters.
Kirill Kudryavtsev | AFP | Getty Images
“The emergence of such information confirms that the U.S., in cooperation with its allies, apparently has serious sights on ultimately undermining key provisions in the ‘NATO Russia Founding Act’ of 1997, in which the alliance pledged not to deploy substantial combat forces on the territory of the countries mentioned in the permanent basis,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
“We hope, however, that reason will prevail and that the situation in Europe will be able to keep from sliding to a new military confrontation that could have dangerous consequences.”
An U.S. Pentagon official told the NYT that no decision had yet been made and that NATO, to which many European countries belong, would have to ratify such a move.
“The U.S. military continues to review the best location to store these materials in consultation with our allies,” said a Pentagon spokesman said, cited by the NYT. “At this time, we have made no decision about if or when to move to this equipment.”
UNDERSTANDING THE U.S. RUSSIAN DIVIDE
Eastern European and Baltic states shares a border with Russia—which include Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine—have become increasingly nervous about recent, seemingly provocative military exercises by Russia, especially after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region. The move by the U.S. to station military equipment along the border was part of a propaganda plot to turn Europe against Moscow.
The way Russia sees it, is that since the European Union was in shambles given the terrible economic problems of Southern Europe, so adding the weak Ukraine to the EU was preposterous, but making it in the Russian sphere of influence will prove an asset for Russia in the future. This angers the U.S.
While many in the U.S. fear the Russian sphere of influence, especially that it strengthened Iran, fact is Russia is fighting Muslim Sunnis in the northern Caucasus and fears the strengthening of radical Sunni Islam anywhere, particularly in the larger Sunni-dominated republics in Russia. [1]
Also, an Iranian sphere of influence would threaten Saudi Arabia and would compel the United States to re-engage in the region to protect Saudi Arabia and by that will also be inclined to defend Israel. After all, the Americans remain rightly obsessed with the Islamic world.
What Russia is doing is to create a strategic crisis for the United States who fears Iran more than the Russians who are buffered from Iran by the Sunni Caucasus states. The Russians do not really have an interest to attack Israel as many in the Prophecy mania proclaim. No serious analyst would see any reason for Russia to invade Israel, one just needs to look at Russia’s support for the Armenians, and neither does Russia want the Iranians to gain nuclear weapons. What they do want is an extended conflict in Iraq, extended tension between Iran and the United States, and they wouldn’t much mind if the United States went to war with Iran as well. [2]
Turkey and Iran have a common interest in preventing an independent Kurdish nation. The more the United States supports the Iraqi Kurds there will be a greater danger of an Iranian-Turkish alliance which is what we project will happen.
The bigger danger for the United States is Turkey and it has a vested interest in being viewed by the United States as the stabilizing agent in the region and no longer regards the United States as a stabilizing force, and it sees Europe as a collective entity and individual nations as both hostile and impotent and has plans to expand its Islamist agenda into Europe.
The U.S. today wrongly views the Russians as a long-term threat to its interests and sees Russia’s potential return to Turkey’s frontier as a long-term challenge. [3] Considering the future of the region, the only power in a position to assert its consistent presence is as we have been saying for two decades is Islamist Turkey. [4]
Turkey is ready to revisit its relations with Iran. Turkish experts believe that competition with Iran for regional dominance is futile. They argue that leaderships of both nations have come to realize that striving to secure an undisputed leadership in the Middle East was pointless. [5]
Iran’s ambitions in the region will then succumb to Turkish dominance. The primary reason being that the Sunni-Shia strife in the region would eventually acquire a content conforming to the geopolitical interests of the U.S. and despite Ankara’s insistence and is why Washington refrained from resorting to plans of total regime dismantling in Syria.[6]
Most do not understand U.S. policy in the region and why the U.S. Administration are behind the Sunni-Shia divide. The U.S. needed a region equally treacherous both for Turkey and Iran. Current balance of forces between extremist religious groups prevents Turkey and Iran to feel comfortable, whereas Washington reaps geopolitical dividends from the situation. [7]
The only problem with this policy is that it undermines the situation for the Christians in the region, who are becoming highly persecuted. Such persecution will extend to the future in which the entire Christian population in the Middle East will have to flee or be slaughtered. To Christians, this issue should be the highest priority. Please help us rescue Christians.
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