For some reason Russia doesn’t want to make joining NATO politically feasible in Ireland.
I guess.
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/29/politics/us-official-russia-ukraine-blood-supplies/index.html
This reminds me of Ben McIntryre’s book The Spy and the Traitor–
Operation RYAN (an acronym for raketno-yadernoye napadeniye, Russian for “nuclear missile attack”) was the biggest peacetime Soviet intelligence operation ever launched. To his stunned KGB audience, with the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, alongside him, Andropov announced that the US and NATO were “actively preparing for nuclear war.” The task of the KGB was to find signs that this attack might be imminent and provide early warning, so that the Soviet Union was not taken by surprise. By implication, if proof of an impending attack could be found, then the Soviet Union could itself launch a preemptive strike. Andropov’s experience in suppressing liberty in Soviet satellite states had convinced him that the best method of defense was attack. Fear of a first strike threatened to provoke a first strike. Operation RYAN was born in Andropov’s fevered imagination. It grew steadily, metastasizing into an intelligence obsession within the KGB and GRU (military intelligence), consuming thousands of man-hours and helping to ratchet up tension between the superpowers to terrifying levels. RYAN even had its own imperative motto: “Ne Prozerot!—Don’t Miss It!” In November 1981 the first RYAN directives were dispatched to KGB field stations in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and Third World countries. In early 1982 all rezidenturas were instructed to make RYAN a top priority. By the time Gordievsky arrived in London, the operation had already acquired a self-propelling momentum. But it was based on a profound misapprehension. America was not preparing a first strike. The KGB hunted high and low for evidence of the planned attack, but as MI5’s authorized history observes: “No such plans existed.” In launching Operation RYAN, Andropov broke the first rule of intelligence: never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. Hitler had been certain that the D-day invasion force would land at Calais, so that is what his spies (with help from Allied double agents) told him, ensuring the success of the Normandy landings. Tony Blair and George W. Bush were convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that is what their intelligence services duly concluded. Yuri Andropov, pedantic and autocratic, was utterly convinced that his KGB minions would find evidence of a looming nuclear assault. So that is what they did. Gordievsky had been briefed on Operation RYAN before leaving Moscow. When this far-reaching KGB policy initiative was revealed to MI6, the Soviet experts in Century House at first treated the report with skepticism. Did the geriatrics of the Kremlin really misunderstand Western morality so completely as to believe America and NATO could attack first? Surely this was just alarmist nonsense from a veteran KGB crank? Or perhaps, even more sinister, a deliberate misinformation ploy intended to persuade the West to back off and scale down the military buildup? The intelligence community was dubious. James Spooner wondered: could the Center really be “so out of touch with the real world”? But, in November 1982, Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader, becoming the first KGB chief to be elected general secretary of the Communist Party. Soon after, rezidenturas were informed that RYAN was “now of particularly grave importance” and had “acquired an especial degree of urgency.” A telegram duly arrived at the KGB’s London station, addressed to Arkadi Guk (under his alias, “Yermakov”), labeled “strictly personal” and “top secret.” Gordievsky smuggled it out of the embassy in his pocket, and handed it to Spooner. Entitled “Permanent Operational Assignment to Uncover NATO Preparations for a Nuclear-Missile Attack on the USSR,” this was the RYAN blueprint, chapter and verse on the various indicators that should alert the KGB to preparations for an attack by the West. The document was proof that Soviet fears of a first strike were genuine, deeply held, and growing. It stated: “The objective of the assignment is to see that the rezidentura works systematically to uncover any plans in preparation by the main adversary [the United States] for RYAN, and to organize continual watch to be kept for indications of a decision being taken to use nuclear weapons against the USSR or immediate preparations being made for a nuclear-missile attack.” The document listed twenty indications of a potential attack, ranging from the logical to the ridiculous. KGB officers were instructed to carry out close surveillance of “key nuclear decision-makers” including, bizarrely, church leaders and top bankers. Buildings where such a decision might be taken should be closely watched, as well as nuclear depots, military installations, evacuation routes, and bomb shelters. Agents should be recruited as a matter of urgency within government, military, intelligence, and civil-defense organizations. Officers were even encouraged to count how many lights were switched on at night in key government buildings, since officials would be burning the midnight oil preparatory to a strike. The number of cars in government parking lots should also be counted: a sudden demand for parking spaces at the Pentagon, for example, might indicate preparations for an attack. Hospitals should also be watched, since the enemy would expect retaliation for its first strike and make provision for multiple casualties. A similarly close eye should be kept on slaughterhouses: if the number of cattle killed at abattoirs increased sharply, that might indicate that the West was stockpiling hamburgers prior to Armageddon. The oddest injunction was to monitor “the level of blood held in blood banks,” and report if the government began buying up blood supplies and stockpiling plasma. “One important sign that preparations are beginning for RYAN could be increased purchases of blood from donors and the prices paid for it…discover the location of the several thousand blood donor reception centers and the price of blood, and record any changes…if there is an unexpectedly sharp increase in the number of blood donor centers and the prices paid, report at once to the Center.” In the West, of course, blood is donated by members of the public. The only payment is a cookie, and sometimes a cup of juice. The Kremlin, however, assuming that capitalism penetrated every aspect of Western life, believed that a “blood bank” was, in fact, a bank, where blood could be bought and sold. No one in the KGB outstations dared to draw attention to this elemental misunderstanding. In a craven and hierarchical organization, the only thing more dangerous than revealing your own ignorance is to draw attention to the stupidity of the boss.
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It looks like someone skipped history classes.
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Or are still under the impression that history ended in 1997.
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I fought History and History won…
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So, in general, is tweeting about stuff that’s below the fold a successful marketing tactic?
I think they are imagining a “post world war II global order”, but there probably a few counter-examples that escape all the caveats The Economist is willing to hedge.
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so, the wayback machine has the editorial in full. And three paragraphs in the middle seem to speak to this putative norm.
A successful invasion of Ukraine would also set a destabilising political precedent. The global order has long been buttressed by the norm that countries do not redraw other countries’ borders by force of arms. When Iraq seized Kuwait in 1990 an international coalition led by America kicked it out. Mr Putin, who has a nuclear arsenal at his command, has already got away with annexing Crimea; if he seizes a bigger slice of Ukraine, it is hard to see him suddenly concluding that the time has come to make peace with nato.
More likely, he would push on, helped by the newly established presence of Russian troops in Belarus to probe nato’s collective-security pact, under which an attack on one member is an attack on all. Not only would he relish the chance to hollow out America’s commitments to Europe, but he has also come to rely on demonising an enemy abroad to justify his harsh rule at home.
Other potential aggressors would take note, too. The likelihood of China invading Taiwan would surely rise. The regimes in Iran and Syria would conclude they are freer to use violence with impunity. If might is right, more of the world’s disputed borders would be fought over.
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The China Coast Guard was placed under military command in 2018. In February last year, China enforced a law authorizing its coast guard to fire on foreign ships in waters it considers to be under its jurisdiction.
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“Trump of the Tropics” indeed. May he infect Putin and cause much suffering.
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WASHINGTON — The United States has acquired intelligence about a Russian plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine using a faked video that would build on recent disinformation campaigns, according to senior administration officials and others briefed on the material.
The plan — which the United States hopes to spoil by making public — involves staging and filming a fabricated attack by the Ukrainian military either on Russian territory or against Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, the officials said, intended to use the video to accuse Ukraine of genocide against Russian-speaking people. It would then use the outrage over the video to justify an attack or have separatist leaders in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine invite a Russian intervention.
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I certainly wouldn’t put Putin above manufacturing his own “Gleiwitz incident” to justify an invasion. On the other hand, I’d prefer to see more confirmation that this was the plan besides “American intelligence officials tell the NYT…” Either way, if The Shirtless Wonder was counting on this or something like it as a pretext it’s off the table now.
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Russia is the new Tibet.
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