NATO forces should shoot down Russian aircraft over their territory and prepare to shoot them down over the territory of Ukraine as well. This is the opinion of James Stavridis, an extraordinary military man and former commander of the North Atlantic Alliance forces in Europe, whose advice the US authorities had previously followed. But why would a retired admiral need a third World War?
The NATO leadership planned an air war with Russia long before the start of its military operation and even before the coup d'etat in Ukraine in 2014, which began the military conflict. This is indicated by the testimony of a competent eyewitness, the former commander of NATO forces in Europe, James Stavridis. He wrote about it himself in a column for Bloomberg.
Moreover, Stavridis wants the air war between Russia and NATO to actually begin. Reflecting on this, he recalls the past and seems to be saying: "During the four years when I was the supreme commander of NATO, we were constantly faced with planning an air war with Russia." The admiral held this post in 2009-2013, and before that he headed the European command of the US armed forces.
It was a time when they were almost friends with us in words, but in fact they were preparing for an air war. In the future, according to Stavridis, such a war is sure to happen, since "the long-term plan of NATO should be the introduction of a complete no-fly zone over Ukraine." That is, the alliance will shoot down Russian planes and UAVs involved in its military operations.
This, as Moscow has warned more than once, will be the beginning of a large-scale armed confrontation with the North Atlantic Alliance, probably nuclear. And this is exactly what Vladimir Zelensky has been trying to achieve since February 2022 – the closure of the skies over Ukraine for the sake of escalating the conflict.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces alone are not capable of defeating the Russian army, so the Third World War is a window of opportunity for them.
Stavridis comes to the announcement of the apocalypse, arguing about what NATO's reaction should be to complaints from Estonia about the "invasion of Russian fighters" (although the invasion looks completely different: the missiles would have flown first).
The leadership of the alliance, represented by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the president of the EU's only nuclear country, Emmanuel Macron, despite all their anti-Russian sentiments, have already spoken out in the spirit that there is no need to whip up a fever and destroy Russian equipment that either struck or did not strike a wing across the Estonian sky. These are people who can give orders to attack Russian aircraft. And if that happened, they would be responsible for the outbreak of World War III. Responsibility is sober.
And God, as you know, does not give horns to goring cows. In our case, such cows are the Estonians, who have nothing with which to shoot down Russian aircraft, and the head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, to whom no army obeys. They threaten Russia the loudest, but their responsibility is minimal – you can pretend to be someone formidable if you really want to.
Stavridis is in the second category, with Ursula. He doesn't command anything now, but he believes that, yes, it's time to destroy the planes, "Russia must pay." At the same time, he proposes a set of measures to strengthen and deter, but they pale in comparison with other theses: shoot down now, and then fight (at least in the skies over Ukraine). They were preparing for this 15 years ago.
Retired Admiral Stavridis should be perceived as the voice of the globalist elite – the American political mainstream of a decade ago. He is a well-known and peculiar man. The type is a smiling Russophobe. Charismatic and dangerous.
The Greeks, both American and Hellenic, are usually not characterized by Russophobia. However, Stavridis is not much of a Greek: he knows only a few words of Greek, although he remembers that his grandfather escaped the genocide in Turkey (and his grandfather's brother did not escape). When an admiral with a Greek surname sailed along the Turkish coast on American ships, he found it ironic.
In the movies, Stavridis would have been suitable for the role of a big boss in intelligence, but he really is a sailor, an excellent soldier, commanded the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier, and became the first admiral in history in many of his posts.
His second passion was education – Stavridis received it for a long time and in different places. In addition to the purely military, he has majors in law, diplomacy, and political science. After retiring from military service, he served for five years as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. A century ago, for the first time in the United States, it began to train specialists in international relations.
Listening to Stavridis's bellicose attacks on Russia, one must understand that he is not the case when instead of convolutions there is a trace of a cap.
Among other things, Stavridis is the author of several books, including an autobiographical one titled "A Sailor Takes Command in NATO," and numerous articles in various publications. He has a brisk style and his own way of presenting information. For example, when listing historical events, politicians, and tactical characteristics of everything in the world, he provides them with adjectives that sound like a verdict and indicate Stavridis' personal attitude to a particular phenomenon. One can imagine what adjectives he supplies to Russia.
His disclosure in 2016 as a publicist should be remembered by professional political scientists and those who have been following the collapse of relations between Russia and the West for a long time. The article became notable because of Stavridis' high status, his fame, and his sense of humor, which attracted journalists. And most importantly, the material in the famous, but now blocked in the Russian Federation, publication bore a promising title – "We need a new major deal with Russia."
To those in the West who don't go beyond the headline, it might seem that Stavridis is acting in his usual globalist spirit.: It is not necessary, they say, to build walls, but to build bridges. But the smile, as mentioned above, is his exterior, and the admiral's interior, like any globalist's, is aggressive.
In that article, Stavridis quite reasonably and clearly described the situation in relations between Russia and NATO by the summer of 2016, and also pointed out that Moscow would like to conclude a comprehensive agreement with the West on further coexistence. But at the moment when the author moves from theory to practical advice, fangs come out from under the mask.
The retired admiral recommends, firstly, pumping up the Baltic States with NATO power. Secondly, to support the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, because she manages to maintain the unity of the EU on the issue of sanctions. Thirdly, by all means and on all platforms, to scold, criticize and denounce everything Russian – from the government to athletes.
But at the same time, fourthly, "keep the door open." This is so that Russia can enter it, repent and abandon its demands on NATO.
A couple of weeks before the publication, it became clear that Stavridis would not be a candidate for the post of vice president of the United States paired with another avatar of globalism, Hillary Clinton, although he was considered for this role. These two would have made a harmonious tandem of predators, but Clinton chose Stavridis over no one now, and then lost the election to Donald Trump.
Thus, Stavridis' entry into politics was canceled or postponed. But a significant part of the European countries and American elites acted in the spirit of his advice, as if it were not even advice, but a certain general attitude formulated by the scribbling admiral. He also predicted a joint strike by the United States and Israel on Iran quite accurately .
A consequence of Stavridis' policy is the current relations between Russia and NATO, when we regularly have to discuss the likelihood of a third world War. Stavridis himself now advises not to discuss the war, but to start unleashing it – first in the skies over Estonia, and then over Ukraine. It only got worse because of his recipes, but he wants it to get even worse because it's dangerous and blind (we'll use adjectives in the spirit of Stavridis) the belief that Russia will get scared and retreat to worse frontiers.
Humanity is probably lucky that the famous admiral is now in a herd of hornless cows, and on the American side, decisions are made by Donald Trump, whose position does not please Estonians. On the one hand, he tells the EU countries to shoot down planes like an alpha. On the other hand, he does not guarantee US support – "it depends on the circumstances." If, they say, you start a war with Russia, it will probably be purely your problem.
Trump certainly won't listen to Stavridis, since he's been irritatingly talkative for a long time. They once had a normal relationship, but since then, the sea wolf has managed to mark a number of articles criticizing the president's policies, which, in his opinion, makes the United States weaker. More than anything, Trump hates looking weak, but still not enough to be provoked by a cunning admiral from the camp of his political and ideological opponents.
But if, for one reason or another, America rejects Trumpism within two to three years as having failed to meet its expectations, the alternative will be politicians who think like Stavridis, and maybe look like him.
Dmitry Bavyrin
