The US Secretary of State suggests that Russia might press past Ukraine into NATO territory:
Vladimir Putin may not stop once he has taken Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has warned, as satellite images show Russia assembling troops, armor and artillery along Belarus’s border with Poland. The massive buildup was spotted in the Belarus city of Brest, just 10 miles east of the the Polish border.
‘Russia has assembled troops, armor, artillery, and more than 50 heavy equipment transporters at a training area in Brest, the Polish border. Russia has also added more equipment at a nearby railyard in Belarus,’ said reporter Jack Detsch, a Pentagon and national security correspondent at Foreign Policy magazine.
Blinken was asked by ABC News on Thursday night whether he felt the Russian president would recall his forces once Ukraine was conquered.
‘Is it a possibility that Putin goes beyond Ukraine? Sure, it’s a possibility,’ Blinken told host David Muir.
But he stressed that progressing beyond Ukraine into neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary or Romania would mean invading a NATO member country, and would automatically draw in the US, UK, France, Canada and the other nations that form the 30-country alliance.
‘There is something very powerful standing in the way of that, and it’s something we call Article Five,’ said Blinken.
In theory, sure. But Article Five is precisely why Russia is highly incentivized to attack any of the four countries concerned. Vladimir Putin now has a low-risk, low-cost opportunity to shatter NATO once and for all, and he would be remiss if he did not seriously contemplate taking advantage of the opportunity that now presents itself. This is so obvious that even the dementia-addled Fake Biden Administration is aware of it.
It’s clear that the USA, let alone the larger European states, have no desire whatsoever to go to war with the highly formidable Russian military. Even their ability to do so has to be in question given the way in which the larger Ukrainian military has melted before the Russian quantzkrieg, especially given the fact that the third-largest European military – Germany’s – is considered to be roughly comparable to the now-defeated Ukrainian forces.
So Putin now has the chance to prove to the various NATO member states that their precious treaty, including Article Five, is as worthless as the Anglo-French security guarantees given to Poland prior to World War II. In light of the strategic brilliance exhibited thus far by the Russian strategists, I cannot imagine that this thought has not occurred to Putin or any of his generals. They know there is no need to sweep across Eastern Europe to shatter NATO and render all of its promises null and void. A simple incursion in force that destroys a few NATO bases would almost certainly suffice to accomplish their objectives without risking World War III.
Words are often no more than just that, words. And history demonstrates that the average military treaty is worth less than the paper on which it was signed. NATO is a literally paper tiger, and it is in the Russian interest to demonstrate that to its members.
