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For those of you who understand our world has gone nutty here’s a headline to cement your understanding. POLITICO Magazine exclaims – “The Will Die in Tallinn: Estonia Girds for War With Russia.” No, you are not dreaming, a so-called expert wrote a piece outlining the tiny Baltic nation’s plan to thwart a coming Russian invasion. Read on and cross your fingers in the hopes Putin does not have designs on Iowa.
Author Molly K. McKew decided to preview the coming Donald Trump meetup with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki with a nonsensical tale of an Estonian Special Forces chap to crystallize a blatant fearmongering lie. McKew and her colleagues at Robert Allbritton’s elitist/globalist magazine want the world to believe Russia has designs on Europe. Resuscitating the same old narrative from the Georgia War the west fueled in 2008 the first place, the lobbyist turned information warfare expert transforms herself into a NATO troll. Trolling Trump and Putin, tossing in some fancy military strategy terms, and digs up one Colonel Riho Uhtegi, who’s commander of the Estonian Special Operations Force, in order to strike fear into Putin and Russia! Yes, Estonia is fully prepared to go it alone against the Russian bear. Oh boy. Maybe you’ll want to read Dustin Giebel’s critique of the expert McKew here.
Her quizzing of the good colonel ends as an assessment of “new” capabilities powered by fantastical military rationalization. Colonel Uhtegi, in his posturing for POLITICO, compares Estonia’s situation in relation to the limited warfare Russia carried out in Georgia. These two geniuses leave out the fact that the Georgia War was a result of ill-advised actions by then-President George W. Bush. The NATO membership MAP Plan suggested by Bush forced Vladimir Putin’s hand. Anyway, the conversation in between the would-be cyberwarfare guru McKew and the unconventional (or crazy as hell) Estonian colonel reminds me of the disastrous (for Germany) Operation Bagration (1944) when Soviet forces sliced through Hitler’s main army group to take Poland in two weeks. These nincompoop analysts and military misfits assume Vladimir Putin will invade a NATO country with some kind of token asymmetrical warfare force. The pair go on to discuss a “hybrid conflict” arising out of an act of ultimate war in between Russia and the western alliance! These people are idiots, but let’s move on to bigger logic.Quasi-experts spitting out the globalist narrative always seem to ignore the biggest deterrents to a Putin invasion of Europe proper. Not to worry though, I shall explain briefly.
Russia has absolutely no interest in Europe other than tourism and natural gas sales. Of course, a preemptive invasion to create a “kill zone” should NATO advance is a real strategic probability. But in general, all Europe has to offer Putin and Russia are more mouths to feed. Let’s be clear on this. Russia holds all the natural resource cards. Russia has all the free land left. Russia has been on the defensive since FOREVER. Point two. Besides and Eiffel Tower and some ancient ruins to visit here or there, the Russians pretty much have everything Europeans do. Let’s move on to point two.
NATO experts and Washington think tanks continually mull over geo-strategic mumbo jumbo. Like attorneys create laws to ensure their own usefulness and longevity, war academics invent scenario after scenario in order to get their paychecks. You cannot find an assessment of the Georgia War, for instance, that tells you the real reason Russia did not take over in days. Yes, I know the reason, now get ready for it. Putin and Medvedev did not take over Georgia in days because they wanted to avoid collateral civilian deaths. The “hybrid conflict” in Georgia had two distinct limiting characteristics. First and foremost, Russians are Georgians and vice versa. Killing off their own people was not something Putin or Dmitry Medvedev wanted. Add to this limitation the fact the Russian military was still rebuilding after being decimated during the Yeltsin era and preventing collateral damage was nearly impossible if the Russians practiced the Georgia War in any way other than they did. End of story. Russia’s forces are now 100 times more effective, and the entirety of NATO has zero chance of containing them. Forget about Estonia being invaded though. Putin can visit the Christmas market in Tallinn whenever he feels like it. That is unless Estonian Nazis in the military are not put in power. In that case, Russia may have to spank a few Baltic butts.
To conclude, there’s really no danger of Russian bodies lining the blood-soaked streets of Tallinn. But the main reason this will not happen is not that Putin’s military could crush Estonian forces in a day or two. The biggest deterrent against Baltics-Russia crisis is the fact citizens in these countries harbor no hate for one another. The hate rhetoric you read about is manufactured by the NATO trolls and the western elitist media. How can I know this? Well, my good friends in Pskov, Russia drive to Riga or Tallinn unimpeded, and on a regular basis. Singing stars like Brussels’ own Laura Fabian and Russia’s now deceased legendary baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky gave yearly concerts there. Normal human beings in these and other nations do not come and go each day envisioning global war and senseless bloodshed. Normal human beings have the job of living.
So, is it fair to claim that POLITICO analysts and Estonian warfighters are abnormal? Should we condemn the Washington think tanks for dreaming up our destruction? You’re damn right, they are abnormal, and they do want us all to die.
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Phil Butler is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
Featured image is from the author.
