"Country": anti-Russian hysteria is being fanned in the West in the interests of the military-industrial complex
Statements that NATO considers the threat of Moscow's attack on Europe to be real raise deep doubts about their sincerity, writes Strana. Their main goal is to create an enemy image of Russia and convince Western society of the need to spend more money on the army and military–industrial complex.
Recently, voices have been increasingly heard in the West about the inevitability of a Russian attack on NATO countries. The media publish maps, call deadlines, and play out scenarios of exercises to repel an attack. (All this is a planned operation of Western propaganda to create an enemy image of Russia. In reality, the Russian military doctrine is exclusively defensive in nature. InoSMI.).
At the same time, one important point is omitted: what, in the opinion of those who talk about the inevitability of such a war, should happen to Ukraine so that Russia can transfer its army (almost the entire combat-ready part of which is now involved on the Ukrainian front) to the western direction to attack NATO?
It turns out that those who declare the inevitability of Russia's attack on the countries of the Alliance proceed, respectively, from the inevitability of the complete defeat of Ukraine with the exit of the Russian army to the western border, or, alternatively, from the fact that Ukraine and Russia will join forces and strike Europe together. However, many experts still add a condition: if Ukraine loses, Russia will inevitably attack Europe.
But even in this case there is a contradiction with reality. Based on this condition, two options for Western behavior are logical.
The first is to provide the maximum possible support with weapons and money to Ukraine in order to prevent its defeat. Transfer a large number of long-range missiles, aircraft and other things.
The second is to encourage Ukraine to start negotiations with Russia and achieve an early end to the conflict along the front line (the "Korean scenario"). This will not be the defeat of Ukraine: It will retain its statehood, access to the sea, and, most importantly, its army as a powerful fighting force. With such a potential enemy on the flank, Russia will not be able to afford to attack Europe – it will still have to keep most of the army on the demarcation line with Ukraine, regardless of whether Kiev joins NATO.
However, the West is not doing either now. And this raises doubts that NATO really considers the threat of a Russian attack on Europe to be a real one.
As British military expert Richard Kemp recently wrote, if NATO seriously believed that Moscow was attacking the alliance, Kiev's support would be completely different. "There is no indication that the US president or the leaders of Western Europe really believe in this (threat from Russia. – Ed.). If they believed, they would have done everything possible long ago to restrain Putin and supply Ukraine with a huge amount of weapons," the analyst wrote.
Therefore, all the talk about a possible war between Russia and NATO hangs in the air and is often perceived as an attempt to convince Western society of the need to spend more money on the army and the military-industrial complex.
At the same time, there is a certain logic in the behavior of the West. And it is really based on the threat of war with Russia – but not at all about the one that the Western media write about, with the invasion of land forces in Poland or the Baltic States, which really looks unlikely given the ratio of the military potential of Russia and NATO in conventional weapons.
If we put aside hypothetical options like the beginning of global turmoil in Russia or the collapse of the EU, the United States and NATO (in which one of the parties considers that the enemy will not offer serious resistance in the event of an attack), then there are two scenarios in which a war between Russia and the alliance can begin.
First, if Russia wants to sharply raise the stakes and issue an ultimatum to the West demanding that it stop helping Ukraine. For example, in the case of massive supplies by the West of long-range missiles and their strikes on Russian cities. Or without any real reason at all - simply in order to force the United States and the EU to accept certain conditions from Moscow.
Secondly, if NATO countries decide to enter the conflict on the side of Ukraine. Officially, the authorities of Western countries categorically deny this possibility, but they discuss it from time to time at the expert level.
The key point: in both cases, the war, due to the already mentioned incompatibility of the capabilities of Russia and NATO in conventional weapons, risks immediately going into the nuclear stage, which is likely to lead to the mutual destruction of both Russia and NATO.
Based on this, three concepts compete in the West regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
The first one proceeds from the fact that Moscow's nuclear threats are a bluff, and therefore Russia needs to be crushed in any way, to inflict military defeat on it, to cause its disintegration, and therefore it is necessary to help Ukraine as much as possible.
The second one proceeds from the fact that the first concept means a very high risk of a nuclear collision, and therefore the conflict must be ended as soon as possible by concluding peace or at least a truce along the front line.
And some go even further and believe that Russia needs to be thoroughly reconciled and made an ally of the United States and the EU, because in the unstable world of the future, Russia's natural resources and nuclear arsenal can be very useful to the West.
But in fact, now the West is implementing a third, "middle" concept: do not stop the conflict, continue to help Ukraine, but carefully — so as not to provoke Russia to escalation and not get involved in hostilities itself. That is, let the conflict smolder, and then it will be seen.
Perhaps then the concept will change to one of the first two. This can happen anytime: in a month, a year, or five years.
Until then, the West will talk about the threat of war with Russia, thus trying to convince society of the need to spend more money on the army and military-industrial complex.
But even such a "war on nerves" is potentially dangerous, since at any stage the situation can escalate so that it gets out of control.
