Pentagon Preparing for War with the 'Enemy': Russia

by Rick Rozoff
www.opednews.com
16 May 2009

“Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008…. [A] possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.

“The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia’s soonest joining of the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.

“Under the new realities, Georgia’s war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO’s war against Russia. This would be a third world war.”

On May 12 James Mattis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation [ACT] and commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, spoke at a three-day symposium called Joint Warfighting 09 in Norfolk, Virginia, where NATO’s Allied Command Transformation is based, and stated: “I come with a sense of urgency. The enemy is meeting like this as well.” …

A local newspaper summarized his speech:

“Mattis outlined a future in which wars will not have clearly defined beginnings and ends. What is needed, he said, is a grand strategy, a political framework that can guide military planning.”

He failed, for what passes for diplomatic reasons no doubt, to identify who “the enemy” is, but a series of recent developments, or rather an intensification of ongoing ones, indicate which nation it is.

Last week the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chilton, told reporters during a Defense Writers Group breakfast on May 7 “that the White House retains the option to respond with physical force – potentially even using nuclear weapons – if a foreign entity conducts a disabling cyber attack against U.S. computer networks….”

An account of his talk added “the general insisted that all strike options, including nuclear, would remain available to the commander in chief in defending the nation from cyber strikes.” …

So in addition to US plans to deploy ground-, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile systems primarily around and against Russia (Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Britain, Japan and Alaska to date), the Pentagon will hold in reserve nuclear warheads for activation without a monitoring mechanism provided to Russian inspectors and arms reduction negotiators.

On May 6 Euronews conducted an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who warned, “The way it [the US anti-ballistic missile shield] is designed has nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program. It is aimed at Russian strategic forces, deployed in the European part of the Russian Federation. …

www.opednews.com/articles/3/Correction-Pentagon-Prepa-by-Rick-Rozoff-090514-506.html