After the tragedy of the Vietnam war and a defeat in Iraq, now Afghanistan is demonstrating us that the US is actually incapable of winning wars. As a matter of fact, every instance of US military aggression was triggered by the unparalleled self-confidence of American authorities, who were confident that they had the necessary military capacity to take on any enemy, nevertheless, history has clearly shown us that this was not the case.
In fact, most US military failures can be explained by a number of interrelated reasons. These are: the inability of Washington to understand the complexity of the country it invades and the region where this country is located; the failure to find trustworthy partners on the ground; the opposition of the population of a country the US invades, on top of Washington’s failure to fulfill the promises it would give to its voters when an invasion is declared. Even the former US secretary of defense Robert Gates openly admitted in his memoirs published back in 2014 that the US knows how to overthrow governments, but has no idea who to replace them with.
Hence, after World War II, the United States hardly scored any victories in any of the armed conflicts it fought in developing countries. At the same time, the frustration that arose as a result of the US military incursions, both in the countries that were invaded and in the US itself, led to the rapid decline of the US authority as a primary player on the international arena. As the continuing “allied relations” with individual countries that still support Washington’s interventionist aspirations, those can hardly be described as sincere, as it’s been demonstrated by the crisis of US military alliances in various regions of the world that has been taking place in recent years.
However, the guilty pleasure of profiting from unparalleled military spending that ruling Americans elites love to indulge in, constantly pushes the US towards new conflicts. It wasn’t a coincidence that not just Russia, but China as well were pronounced “opponents of the United States”, which leads to the mobilization of the military forces of NATO member states that are now preparing for a new war. Muscle-flexing in the form of military exercises and provocations along the borders of Russia and China have already become some sort of a tradition.
With every day that goes by, Washington amasses an ever increasing number of American troops on Russian borders, with equipment that can only serve offensive purposes being transported to Eastern Europe. The New York Times has recently revealed, that the United States will not withdraw its troops from Germany, as was suggested by Trump, but instead it will only increase its military presence in this country. Five hundred more servicemen are going to be deployed to the US base in Wiesbaden. One of the units will have intelligence, cyberspace, and electronic warfare capabilities, while the other is tasked with improving multinational cooperation. During a visit to Berlin, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, stressed that these forces will ” fight and win.”
At the same time, next fall, the US Armed Forces will start transferring its fifth-generation F-35 fighters to Europe for permanent deployment on the continent. This was revealed by NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, Tod D. Wolters during a hearing in the US Senate.
It’s clear that as the number of NATO and US troops on the Russian border keeps growing, this can only lead to yet another round of tensions.
Provocative flights in the Barents, Baltic and Black seas are becoming a regular and almost daily occurrence. Those flights are intercepted by Russian military aircraft. Recently, Washington has started drawing its allies into staging such provocations, hoping that when a shooting war is triggered, those allies would be used as cannon fodder. This notion can be exemplified by the use of Norway and its armed forces in the latest anti-Russian adventures of the Pentagon.
The recent agreement between the United States and Norway will expand military cooperation between the two countries, allowing the United States to build facilities on Norwegian soil to support its operations in the region, while US troops will receive “unhindered access” to any Norwegian military facilities. This agreement grants the Pentagon rights to build anything it wants across a number of facilities, namely the Rigge and Sola airfields, located near the southern coast of Norway, as well as the Evenes airfield and the Ramsund Naval Base, which are located above the Arctic Circle in the northern part of the country. The expansion of the military cooperation between the two countries comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and Europe, especially in the Arctic. The Norwegian air force regularly conducts exercises along with US fighters and bombers, with the latter being deployed to Norway for the first time.
As the Norwegian media emphasize, local population is alarmed by the government’s decision to allow the US to establish military bases in Norway. In their opinion, this is not an element of deterrence, but, on the contrary, a step towards a shooting war with Russia. The Norwegians recognize that the areas used by the US military are bound to become primary targets in the event of a military conflict between NATO and Russia, which will entail serious consequences for Norway itself. Instead, the sitting authorities have chosen to turn a blind eye to one of the cornerstone principles of Norwegian policy: no foreign soldiers are to be allowed on Norwegian soil!
The Norwegian publication Dagsavisen explicitly states that the so-called “reliable deterrence” on the part of NATO, which has granted itself an unlimited right to conduct offensive operations far beyond its limits, leads to new wars. This is a high-stakes game, and the recent steps has made the task of defending Norway, which until recently used to be primarily a national responsibility, albeit with the support of NATO, the duty of the United States. This seems to be a particularly risky decision, the publication argues, especially if one is to take a look at the recent presidents of the US.
However, the first American nuclear submarine will soon dock in the civilian industrial port of Tromso, Norway, after which such vessels will become a common occurrence there. According to the Norwegian VG, this issue has sparked great controversy among the local population, as many are critical of the idea of allowing US nuclear submarines in. At a public meeting, Norwegian defense minister Frank Bakke-Jensen announced that local authorities will have no oversight over the possible presence of nuclear weapons on board of American nuclear submarines, only referring to the Bratelli doctrine of 1975, which obliges all foreign warships arriving to Norway not to carry any nuclear devices.
After the US submarines were allowed to dock in Tromso, local authorities started distributing iodine tablets to kindergartens and schools “for preventive purposes”, trying at least in this way to ensure the safety of their citizens in the event of radioactive substances leakage. However, experts point to yet another danger: should US submarines are to carry nuclear weapons on board, they will immediately become primary targets for a retaliation strike.
A similar critical assessment of the US attempts to get other countries involved in its military adventures is expressed by the Swedish media. They, in particular, wonder why the giant NATO exercise Defender Europe 2021 is taking place very close to the borders of Russia, shouldn’t this bother anyone? NATO, led by the United States, has been conducting such exercises against the backdrop of its constant expansion eastward and Washington’s overt desire to encircle Russia. Some of the participating countries allow the US to deploy its troops closer and closer to Russia’s borders, and this clearly illustrates that NATO’s deliberate advance is a reality, and not some sort of disinformation of the “Russian propaganda”. And Sweden’s treaty with NATO on the deployment of troops, approved by the Swedish parliament in 2016, implies that the United States and NATO will be able to use Swedish territory to wage war on Russia. “It’s a shame that Sweden is following their lead,” notes the Swedish Proletaren.
Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
