STRATEGIC RISK

What is the rationale for the Russian Federation to reactivate its strategic missile tests?

 

By Charles H. Slim

Things are getting very complicated for Zelensky and his regime of far-right supremacists and this was something that his own “friends” in the West knew would happen at some point.

According to reliable sources, the regime is reeling from the cut-off of Western financial aid and internal bickering between Zelensky and his military commanders is increasingly virulent. Surrenders are increasing as the weeks go by and already an estimated 10,000 Ukrainian men have surrendered their weapons. Remarkably paranoid and with a very altered mood, Volodymyr Zelensky is reflecting in his own flesh the failure of a war that he himself accepted to provoke believing in the promises of his western sponsors, especially the USA and Great Britain.

The latter have already thrown in the towel and it is no longer a secret that NATO commanders already recognize the impossibility of defeating the Russian Federation. In addition to this, Washington is going through a critical situation that does not allow any more waste and is even trying to negotiate a settlement with China. Ukraine has reached a crossroads.

Its army is very weakened and has only elderly men and teenagers who cannot contain the progressive advance that Russia has been making from three directions. In addition to this, the discontent among the Ukrainian population is already undeniable. The outbreak of the war in Gaza put Joe Biden and the establishment in a complex financial situation that would translate into a simple question: Who do we help first?

The equation is not simple: Washington cannot deal with two costly wars at the same time and Biden is in a real dilemma, pressed between the Zionist lobby of AIPAC and others to give unlimited support to the state of Israel and the pro-Ukrainian lobby which, by the way, has shrunk with every bad news coming from the front.

To make matters worse, his administration and the entire government will face a wave of political and judicial questioning for cooperating with the human rights violations and war crimes and crimes against humanity that the IDF has committed (not that allegedly) against the Palestinian population and especially for the murder of journalists, the vicious brutalities against doctors, health personnel and the patients themselves in all the hospitals attacked.

At the same time Washington does not seem to learn from its own history and it is possible that the Netanyahu regime will use a False Flag operation to -in view of the costs it is incurring- directly engage the US inside Gaza.

In short, the Kiev buffoon has been sacrificed for a bigger bully in the form of Benjamin Netanyahu because, despite all the aid and military support that has been pouring into Israel since October 19, not only has it failed to defeat the Palestinian resistance, but it is this military aid that is exterminating its civilian population.

The surprise visit of CIA chief William Burns on November 15 is part of this situation, which Washington is apparently no longer willing to sustain.

This does not mean that the US and its NATO partners are giving up their plans to attack the Russian Federation, much less to unseat China. The fact that the snake is coiled in the opposite direction to the prey does not mean that it is abandoning the attack, but rather that it is preparing to strike.

It is clear that Moscow is interpreting these signals very well and especially President Vladimir Putin himself, who, already accustomed to the psychological games and the double bottoms of the speeches of his Anglo-American colleagues, will not lower his guard but, on the contrary, has begun to take broader and more solid measures to guarantee the territorial security of the entire Federation.

The Atlanticist movements that in recent months have been taking place in the Nordic countries and especially in Norway and Finland, have put Moscow on alert, which had already been working on strengthening the entire Arctic region, of high strategic importance for the economy, trade routes and security of Russia and which the US and NATO have been trying to infiltrate with naval missions, especially with nuclear submarines.

In addition to this, NATO's persistence in continuing its provocations of strategic scope and involving the detonation of US nuclear tests (in the Pacific Ocean), its provocative maneuvers in the South Sea and the movement of nuclear warheads in Europe with the worrying intention of redeployment to other launching points in a hypothetical “preventive” action against Russia and Belarus, led Moscow to decide to abandon the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), as a measure of reciprocity towards these Anglo-American moves.

As soon as this was put into effect, the Russian Navy began its tests with the “R-30 Bulava” intercontinental missiles mounted on its submarines, which are equipped with a fourth generation technology and which, due to their operational characteristics, are keeping defense advisors and Pentagon military officials awake at night. 

These tests go hand in hand with a reinforcement of the Russian presence in the Arctic circle in view of the constant troop movements that have been taking place in adjacent countries such as Norway where some 35,000 NATO soldiers have been deployed in anticipation of containing the Russian deployment.

But what will happen to Zelensky and his regime? That already seems to be a secondary issue for Washington and even many within Congress are already talking about an inexorable end.

What really worries the Americans and their British partners is Russia's deployment and testing of nuclear-capable strategic weaponry and, knowing that the Russians do not do things without reason, speculation with some intelligence information is keeping the White House administration on edge.

The reasons for this concern are well founded. Generals and defense advisors know that there is no way to stop Russian hypersonic missiles since (as demonstrated in Ukraine), the “MIM-104 Patriot” systems are obsolete for that purpose and even the “Iron Dome” systems of their Israeli allies are no match for such missiles.

In conclusion, the White House should lower the decibels and seek to decompress the situation, starting by sitting down with its counterparts in Moscow and reaching an agreement to put an end to the calamitous situation in Ukraine.

For the time being, Moscow is well aware that Washington and its British partners are up to something and not being prepared for any provocation would be too high a risk not to consider. If the US were to plan a strike or incursion through the Arctic, Russia already has its missiles calibrated and once fired there will be nothing to stop them on their way to the target.