{"id":5263,"date":"2022-01-23T08:44:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T13:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5263"},"modified":"2022-01-23T08:44:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T13:44:57","slug":"on-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/01\/23\/on-the-brink\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Brink"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

False Flag<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the late days of August, 1939, tensions grew on the German\/Poland border.  According to the Nazis governing Germany, there were a series of Polish military \u201cincursions\u201d into the German province of Silesia, including an attack on a radio station near the border.  A Polish \u201csoldier\u201d was killed in the attack, his body displayed in full uniform to underline the \u201cfacts\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a complete Nazi plot, codenamed \u201cOperation Himmler\u201d.  The body was actually a German citizen arrested for supporting the Poles.  He was not in the Polish military, and in fact his sole crime besides his support was to get arrested at the exact time the Nazis needed a body as evidence.  He was drugged, dressed in a Polish Army uniform, then shot and killed.  His body became the \u201cflagrante delicto\u201d, the primary evidence of a \u201cPolish\u201d attack, that triggered the German assault on Poland.  Russia soon invaded Poland from the East, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the Second World War began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s called a \u201cFalse Flag\u201d operation, when one country operates under the \u201cflag\u201d of another in order to place blame.  It comes from ancient battles on the sea, when a ship would fly the flag of an allied or neutral country in order to get close in to the enemy, then \u201crun up\u201d it\u2019s \u201ctrue colors\u201d and open fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soviet Dreams<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is determined to rebuild the old Soviet Union.  At the end of World War II, the Soviet Russians \u201cincorporated\u201d several formerly independent states into their \u201cUnion\u201d, including Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Other would-be nations were part of the old Russian Empire before the Soviets:   Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia.  With the fall of Communism in December of 1991, all of these nations broke away to form their own individual countries.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of Ukraine had been a part of the Russian Empire dating back to 1793.  And Russia\u2019s main access to an ice free seaport both for shipping and Naval operations is in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula.  When Ukraine broke away from Russia, the Russian Navy continued to lease the port as the headquarters of their Black Sea Fleet.  In 2014, President Putin sent Russian troops to occupy Crimea and  maintain control of the port.  They are still there today.  He also invaded other Ukrainian provinces, sending \u201cfalse flag\u201d troops dressed as partisans, to control parts of Eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past eight years, Russia has maintained control of Crimea and  the two provinces in the East.  And today, Putin has poised 100,000 Russian troops on the Eastern and Northern Borders of Ukraine, clearly threatening to invade.  He only needs a pretext, but, like the Nazis on the Polish border, he can always create a \u201cfalse flag\u201d whenever he chooses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cusp of War<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think this is the eve of World War III, despite the dire predictions of some experts (Alexander Vindman, of the Trump phone call fame, for one).  NATO stands to support Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and the rest of Eastern Europe, and the Ukraine is not part of the that treaty.  A Russian invasion of Ukraine does not invoke \u201cArticle Five\u201d, the clause of the NATO treaty that triggers military retaliation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while Russia still has the second most powerful military in the world (Global Firepower<\/a>), they are 11th in the world economically, behind Canada and just ahead of South Korea (Economist<\/a>).  In a long term conflict, Russia would be at a complete disadvantage against the NATO powers, led by the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vladimir Putin may be a lot of things, but he is not foolish.  He can gain advantages and prestige by \u201cplaying around the edges\u201d, but there is no advantage for him to start a full scale land war in Europe.  He knows that, and so do the NATO allies.  Putin may dream of the return of the Soviet Union, but remembers the 24 million deaths of World War II that allowed for that expansion.  Putin is a cold, calculating technocrat, not a Stalinist, an \u201cat all costs\u201d empire builder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calculations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

 Russia also represents a major source of energy, particularly natural gas, and that dependence requires NATO to act carefully.  The Nord Stream pipeline runs through the Baltic Sea, far from Ukraine.  There are \u201cstop valves\u201d at both ends.  Sure Russia could dramatically impact German life by cutting off the gas.  But Germany could just as effectively impact the Russian economy by turning off their end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Putin\u2019s calculations are narrow.  How much can he indulge his desire to re-acquire Ukraine (and the other former Soviet Republics)?  Will NATO offer only economic sanctions in response?  At what point will Russian actions trigger a military response along the lines of that terrible day in 1939 when the world descended into war?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s little room for miscalculation on any side:  Russian, Ukrainian, NATO, or the United States.  And here in America, still focused on Covid, Insurrection, and the politics of 2024, it would be easy to miscalculate, or just ignore the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do so at the world\u2019s peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

False Flag In the late days of August, 1939, tensions grew on the German\/Poland border.  According to the Nazis governing Germany, there were a series of Polish military \u201cincursions\u201d into the German province of Silesia, including an attack on a radio station near the border.  A Polish \u201csoldier\u201d was killed in the attack, his body displayed in … Continue reading “On the Brink”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the Brink : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Russia stands at the "cusp" of invading Ukraine. 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