Russia/Encirclement

Russia/Encirclement (War/Preparation,  mid-level deep event)
Interest of	• 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine • William Engdahl • NATO • Jochen Scholz
An effort driven by the United States to place military capability in countries neighboring Russia.

The encirclement of Russia is a tactic by the United States, utilizing NATO, to place military capability (not necessarily through many soldiers or equipment) close to the territory of Russia. The encirclement of Russia is mirrored by the encirclement of China. The IfS appears to have played a role in stimulating a narrative for the need of this encirclement.

Official Narrative

There is no encirclement, argument to the contrary can only be Russian propaganda.

Concerns

Ukraine War: Why Putin fears NATO expansion - Sky News Australia

“We have made it clear that Nato’s move to the east is unacceptable (...) The United States is standing with missiles on our doorstep. Is it an excessive requirement not to install shock systems at our house? How would the Americans react if missiles were placed at the border with Canada or Mexico”
Vladimir Putin,  The Guardian (2021) 

During the Cold War the NATO armies in Western Europe had a much higher number of soldiers than at present. But this is almost irrelevant, as a war between NATO and Russia does not need not be fought with conventional forces to begin with, but could start with a surprise first strike against leadership and nuclear forces. Whatever remains from the retaliatory capability of Russia's nuclear forces will be dealt with, with the missile defense shield that has been planned for Europe since the 2000s; adding to that is the US nuclear force modernization program.

Nuclear Strategy For Beginners - Part 1 (1984) - the documentary notes (~17:30 min): [...] In response to Sputnik, the US speeded up its own missile program to close what it saw as a missile gap. By the late 50s it was able to begin basing these intermediate-range missiles in Italy and Turkey, encircling the Soviet Union. Sputnik also forced a re-evaluation of massive retaliation [...]

Some outright dismissed Russia’s worries about “NATO encirclement” by correctly citing that the United States withdrew the majority of its military forces from Europe in the years following the Cold War. However, such thinking overlooks other concerns held by the Kremlin. As it withdrew conventional troops, the United States exited the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and promised the establishment of a ballistic-missile defense (BMD) system in Europe which would leave Russia vulnerable in the event of nuclear war.

“Though it is clear that present-day Russia poses no threat to them, Nato is methodically and persistently building up its military machine.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (April 2006) 

“preparing to completely encircle Russia and deprive it of its sovereignty”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (April 2006) 

NATO expansion

Declassified Promises

Did NATO promise Russia never to expand to the east?

A map for the "complete and irreversible Decolonization of the Russian Federation" as the Free Nations of PostRussia Forum calls for - a partitioning of Russia into 41 smaller states.

Since 1990 NATO has expanded eastward. This includes determinedly building a strong pro-NATO faction in neutral Sweden, Finland and even Austria. Part of this effort includes drawing these three countries in through EU security cooperation and partnership agreements.

For instance, in 1999, the Clinton administration accepted that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic join NATO. In 2002, George W. Bush accepted seven more eastern countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) into NATO. In 2009, it was Albania and Croatia’s turn to join. The most recent adhesions to NATO are Montenegro, in 2017, and North Macedonia, in 2020.

“Unfortunately, it’s US “diplomacy” which brought the US, Russia, Ukraine, and NATO to the current standoff. As the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and the Soviet Union collapsed, US encouragement for those events included pledges that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wouldn’t take advantage of the situation to expand eastward. Since then, NATO has inexorably pushed in that direction, nearly doubling the number of member states. Thanks, US “diplomacy.”

Things began coming to a head with the US-sponsored coup in Ukraine that replaced its “Russia-friendly” regime with a “US/Europe-friendly” regime in 2014, courtesy of Barack Obama. Thanks, US “diplomacy.”

Then in 2019, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which forbade the US to place missiles within surprise strike distance of Russia, and Russia to place similar missiles within surprise strike distance of NATO. The US followed up by placing exactly such missiles in Poland, courtesy of Donald Trump. Some “diplomacy.”... Then the US went into overdrive (courtesy of Trump and Biden) against the opening of a pipeline (Nord Stream 2) which would have supplied Russian natural gas to Germany. The pipeline would have been a force for peace insofar as Russia likes to sell natural gas (at a fraction of prices the US can offer), and Germans like to not freeze to death.”
Thomas Knapp (2021) 

US diplomatic cables

A diplomatic message sent by ambassador William J. Burns from February 1, 2008, highlights the fact that Ukraine's and Georgia's aspirations for NATO membership are seen as major problems by Russia and that the diplomat is well aware of their position:

Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

2019 RAND Report

The 2019 RAND report suggested several dozen ways of "unbalancing" Russia

In 2019, the deep state think tank RAND published the report Overextending and Unbalancing Russia. It listed a number of strategies for getting "Russia to extend itself in strategic competition." It is noticeable that a number of the suggestions in report has been followed by policy makers. Discussing "Providing lethal aid to Ukraine" it "would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine	“I asked them – are you with us?” Zelensky said. “They answered that they are with us, but they don’t want to take us into the alliance. I’ve asked 27 leaders of Europe, if Ukraine will be in NATO, I’ve asked them directly — all are afraid and did not respond We were left by ourselves. Who is ready to go to war for us? Honestly, I don’t see anybody. Who is ready to give Ukraine guarantees of NATO membership? Honestly, everybody is afraid”	Russia Today Volodymyr Zelensky	24 February 2022
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine/Preparation	“Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.” Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.”	Brookings Institution Russia Beyond	November 2014
Yossef Bodansky	“According to Yossef Bodansky, then Director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Washington was actively involved in "yet another anti-Russian jihad, seeking to support and empower the most virulent anti-Western Islamist forces." Bodansky revealed the entire CIA Caucasus strategy in detail in his report, stating that US Government officials participated in "a formal meeting in Azerbaijan in December 1999 in which specific programs for the training and equipping of Mujahideen from the Caucasus, Central/South Asia and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon, culminating in Washington's tacit encouragement of both Muslim allies (mainly Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and US "private security companies'. . . to assist the Chechens and their Islamist allies to surge in the spring of 2000 and sustain the ensuing Jihad for a long time…Islamist Jihad in the Caucasus as a way to deprive Russia of a viable pipeline route through spiraling violence and terrorism".”	William Engdahl Yossef Bodansky	2015
Cold War II	“The United States remains the world’s leading power with global interests, and it cannot afford to choose between Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Instead, Washington and its allies should develop a defense strategy capable of deterring and, if necessary, defeating Russia and China at the same time.”	Atlantic Council Matthew Kroenig	18 February 2022
Nigel Gould-Davies	“For Azerbaijan, [the reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh] is a total victory won by the cruel, hard methods of military force and economic blockade, together with training and equipment from Turkey....But the key question is how relations between the west and Azerbaijan will develop. The west's energy ties with the oil and gas-rich country are more important than ever as it weans itself off Russian supplies. Now there are new security possibilities, especially in light of the war in Ukraine. Azerbaijan is the only country that borders both Russia and Iran, two western adversaries whose ever-closer relations evoke growing alarm. Azerbaijan’s ties with Turkey, a Nato member that also provides weapons support to Ukraine, means that it is receiving military training according to the alliance's standards. All this offers the potential for a deeper relationship, if the west has the strategic imagination to grasp it.”	Nigel Gould-Davies	5 October 2023
Ben Hodges	“The Russians have zero, zero positive outcomes if they use a nuclear weapon. There's no benefit for them if they use it...The Army, the Air Force, all of our services are constantly training, preparing, maintaining a level of readiness to send the signal to the Kremlin that we are ready, that we are prepared....The apocalyptic sort of ending is not going to happen because even the Russians know that there's no positive outcome for them if they do that...The only benefit they get is from threatening to use it because they see that we are so concerned that they might do it; that we stop from doing things that Ukraine needs such as providing long-range weapons...After the British and the French provided long-range precision weapons to Ukraine, Russia did nothing. There was nothing they could do. And that's why I think it's just very unlikely.”	Ben Hodges	21 August 2023
NATO	“Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.” Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.”	Brookings Institution Russia Beyond	November 2014
Vladimir Putin	“Whoever would try to stop us and further create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and lead you to such consequences that you have never faced in your history. We are ready for any outcome.”	Vladimir Putin ThePrint	21 February 2022
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer	“It is not likely. But he is unpredictable and consumed by resentment and rancour. So, you should not exclude the possibility that he'll be creating a problem between Kaliningrad and Belarus. That area is the gateway from Western Europe to the Baltic countries. If he closes that passage, it would be a reason for war for NATO.”	Jaap de Hoop Scheffer NOS	24 February 2022
Jens Stoltenberg	“Two World Wars and the Cold War has taught us that there is no real security in Europe without a strong transatlantic bond. Standing together in NATO, Europe and America will continue to keep the peace and protect our democratic way of life. As we have done for more than 70 years. NATO is a defensive Alliance. We are not threatening Russia or anyone else. But we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies. This is why in response to Russia’s pattern of aggressive actions, we have been strengthening our deterrence and defence across the Alliance. To avoid any miscalculation or misunderstanding about our ironclad commitment to defend each other. So if Kremlin’s aim is to have less NATO on Russia’s borders, it will only get more NATO.”	Jens Stoltenberg	19 February 2022

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:F-16 for Ukraine - An open letter to Joseph Biden	open letter	8 May 2023	Anders Åslund Karel Schwarzenberg Eerik-Niiles Kross Jarno Limnéll Andreas Umland Vytautas Landsbergis Nathalie Tocci Alberto Alemanno Roderich Kiesewetter Anton Hofreiter	Open letter to US President Joe Biden from European deep state minions, pleading for an escalation in Ukraine, and NATO membership. Lo and behold, a week after the letter, Biden approved F-16s, indicating that the letter was astroturf to make a decision already decided seem like done by European demand... Includes barely hidden threatening of those that blocked NATO accession in 2008, who bear "a grave responsibility" and "will be careful not to hinder it again."
Document:National Missile Defense-Jochen Scholz	interview	30 January 2011	Jochen Scholz	Excerpted from a NuoViso interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Jochen Scholz on the American missile defense in Europe and the real reason why it is placed there.
Document:Why US missile defense is not a defensive but an offensive weapons system	article	10 March 2019	Thomas Röper

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