19 Minutes

The “fake news” title to this article provides a vision of where current U.S. and EU foreign and military policy towards Russia may be taking us if we do not think things through and make a course correction. My point in this article is that no one in leadership positions on this side of the New Iron Curtain seems capable of seeing beyond one move in the grand chess game of the Great Powers now proceeding before the eyes of the world. I dedicate this article in particular to the unidentified but very welcome readers in the U.S. Army who are following me on LinkedIn.

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The starting point for today’s discussion is where I left off in my expose two days ago of the conformist and ill-considered presentation of the Russian-Ukraine war by The New York Times senior diplomatic correspondent in Brussels, Steven Erlanger, at a prestigious downtown club in this city.

I closed that expose by expanding on my question to Erlanger at the start of his Q&A : why were Europe and the U.S. so unprepared for the land war that Russia unleashed on 24 February 2022 given the way they all had taunted the Russian bear ever since 2014 in a manner that could only lead eventually to war. The last insult handed to the Russians came in the period from December 2021 through early February 2022 when the U.S. and NATO rejected out of hand Russia’s demand to enter into negotiations over its proposals for a review and revision of Europe’s security architecture.

The United States and Europe gloated at the way Russia stumbled in the opening days and weeks of the Special Military Operation. They concluded publicly that Russia was far less strong than anyone had supposed. However, the Russians comforted themselves with the old folk wisdom that they as a people are slow to saddle their horses but quick on the course once mounted. Indeed, Russia’s military gradually came into stride and we began to hear from Western military observers that the war had evolved into a full-blown “land war,” a throw-back to the trench warfare and artillery battles of WWI, as opposed to tank battles or carpet bombing from positions of air superiority that the U.S. and its NATO allies have practiced over the past three decades when engaged against Third World victim countries..........