The Russian Wild Card: Two Invasions for the Price of One

As the world’s eyes focus on the Ukraine crisis and a potential disaster in Taiwan, the question must be asked, what if Vladimir Putin is about to double cross the inept Western intelligence apparatuses by instead of just resolving the Ukraine problem, Vlad “cures” the NATO expansion threat in one bold, dramatic move.

Interestingly enough a presentation dared to display a somewhat crazy version of this idea on Russian television Thursday night:

Russian presentation of how to take the Baltic states:
1. Russian airborne troops take Gotland & install S-400 air defense missiles.
2. Russian troops from Kaliningrad &
Belarusian troops close the Suwalki gap between Lithuania & Poland.
3. Full Russian attack on 3 Baltic states https://t.co/pXSZeO7ye1

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) January 22, 2022

While the Suwalki gap has been a sore spot for the Russians ever since the dissolution of the USSR, there is no logical reason for the current Russian government to engage NATO on such a sweeping scale so as to start a global war with the inevitable ending.

The truth is probably something much more haunting and there are petrodollar and geopolitical issues which will push Europe further into the “tolerating Russia” camp than promoting a dinosaur of a political alliance which is a shell of its former self. NATO was created to buffer the USSR not to become the world’s central banking police force by imposing peace on nations thousands of miles from its borders. As it expanded east, it began to threaten the Russian republic but due to a decade of corruption and collapse in the 1990’s, there was little Moscow could do about NATO.

Once Putin become President however, the idea of re-establishing the remnants of the old USSR into a loose confederation became more appealing. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was formed as a buffer but now has demonstrated the viability of the group by assisting the Kazakhstan government crush a recent “Green” revolution. With Russian troops rolling into Belarus as this is being typed, it is quite obvious that this buffer group to NATO is about to demonstrate something far larger than Western groupthink ever considered and as a result, the world might well wake up soon without a US centered foreign policy dominating global affairs.

This brings us full circle to the long memory that the Russian government, and many hard core extremists in the Russian leadership, have towards the United States and the West. The clumsy images of the 2008 Russian invasion of the Republic of Georgia were seared into the minds of our military leadership and to this day, many view Russia like the old Soviet Union. That erroneous line of thinking may well lead to a much larger event than just the invasion of and occupation of the Ukraine.

The Petrodollar Monopoly Must be Destroyed

Deep down inside the depths of the financial hell of Wall Street, there is a dark fear that Russia, China, OPEC+ and worse, their old “allies” that the Biden regime has betrayed like Saudi Arabia are conspiring to find an exit from dependency on the US dollar.

The best method for the Russian government to destroy this monopoly has been their current exercise in veering their oil sales into local currencies of trading partners and limiting, if not outright banning, acceptance of US dollars. Thus if say all natural gas and petroleum products under control via pipelines emanating from the East were under Russian control, that would have a dramatic impact on the Euro currency, perhaps pushing for more calls to have the Euro replace the dollar as either a partner to, or completely as the global reserve currency. One nation not under Russian influence holds that key, and unfortunately, a quiet military buildup has been occurring on its northern border also in recent months.

By seizing control of this pipeline, via the occupation of the Republic of Georgia, Putin could seriously make the case that a declining nation like the US can not be trusted for use as a global reserve currency in petroleum transactions. The consequences of conversion to the Euro or even back to the Pound would shift the economic axis from New York back to London or Brussels almost immediately.

NATO’s Failure is the Opening Putin Needs

NATO’s failure as an organization to sustain it’s obligations to meet minimum military spending requirements along with various US sponsored adventurism from Chad to Libya, Afghanistan to Iraq has weakened not only the purpose of the union, but created distrust of its original purpose by many citizens in Europe.

The failure to follow President Trump’s lead to de-globalize the NATO purpose and focus on joint European defense only will resonate for decades to come. Germany has zero desire to engage in a conflict with Russia and rightly recognizes that the affairs outside of NATO treaty members has nothing to do with the economic and political well being of their nation.

Thus I fear that once and for all, the idea of “NATO Expansion” in Europe may well be checked in quite a short order on a more permanent basis as the organization could fracture and re-establish itself as a Franco-German Euro force as already proposed.

The Russian Military Visits Tbilisi

Lastly, there are hints, as I alluded to in a previous article, that this might be much larger than just breaking NATO, but in fact putting the United States back into a foreign policy box it has never seen in the modern era. This hint was indeed dropped on Russian television tonight:

It truly is much, much larger and the deception from a geopolitical, military, and intelligence operation point of view is brilliant.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard highlighted this in his article for the UK Telegraph tonight:

Putin will never have another chance like this to overthrow the European strategic order

In the article he states the same beliefs that this author does in a very direct, eloquent manner (excerpted):

The Kremlin enjoys the same partial advantage on the politico-military front. European Nato disarmed through the austerity years and is now near rock bottom, while Russia has been rearming for a decade.

The White House is perceived to be a pushover after waiving its objections to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline last July in a shabby deal with Germany, which undercut Ukraine’s vital interest in what may be viewed by historians as a latter day Munich.

China’s sabre-rattling over Taiwan leaves Mr Biden facing the risk of two continental crises at the same time.

Mr Putin does not have to worry about serious economic retaliation.

More, from his conclusion:

It is a fair bet that Europe will roll over as it did over Crimea. A despairing Washington might accept a fait accompli and cut its losses. Such a squalid outcome is all too plausible.

Thus why not go for two at once? The apparent movement of units into the Baltic state’s region appears to be a feint, designed to keep NATO occupied while enraging Finland and Sweden as they spend money better allocated for their economies instead of on snap military deployments inside their own territories.

Georgia is akin to Ukraine from a political perspective. It is run by corrupt autocrats who have done everything asked of them to bow down to the Lords of the European Union only to have NATO membership refused due to Russian threats. Add in the fact that Turkey will have guaranteed energy supplies from Russia via this region as a rebuke for refusing Ankara’s request to join the EU. Russia might provide the security guarantees necessary to have Ankara give such an occupation of Ukraine and Georgia the full blessings of Erdoğan.

As the offensive begins in the Ukraine later in February, look for the Black Sea to become a naval zone overwhelmed by almost all of the Russian Navy which appears to be leaving the Baltics and heading towards the Black Sea:

After a brief exercise with Iran and China, the movements of other vessels from the Pacific fleet into the region may well be happening shortly, if not already. This is an overwhelming amount of naval firepower for an invations of a nation as small as Ukraine and seemingly unnecessary unless they are planning something much larger.

Hence, this is why monitoring Russian military movement into the Caucasus, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia are almost required daily reading at this point in time.

The order of battle will be substantially smaller than the invasion of Ukraine but the combination of troops from its Far East units plus reserves should prove sufficient to overwhelm the Georgian military on the pretext of alleged Georgian actions against South Ossetia. Add in a naval blockade and invasion in addition to an inept American administration and the formula for a shock like 1939 is in place.

But why do this now?

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard indicates above, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to restore Russian power and dominance, eradicate US influence in Eastern Europe, and if I am correct with the actions in the South China Sea, end US global hegemony economically, militarily, and politically for the next two decades at a minimum.

The balance of power will shift so dramatically that it will take the United States at least two election cycles to react and restore any semblance of what has been the Pax Americana over the past seventy years.

Remember folks, sometimes in history, the King, or Emperor is taken down as the new powers that be have not missed their target.

O caesar, mi caesar!

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