No matter what firepower NATO’s navies can bring to bear in Russia’s eastern backyard, they cannot prevail.
When Russia’s navy recalls both the Anglo-German naval arms race, which helped precipitate the Great War and the Great Game Tzarist Russia played in Asia against Britain, they must feel confident about the future.
Russian President Putin no doubt had those precedents in mind when he recently told Russia’s admirals that Russia’s already formidable navy would be expanded to protect her entire coastline and project power from there to wherever it is needed. Although the Norwegian, Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi, Bering, Okhotsk and Japan Seas add up to a lot of water, Russia, with the right tactics, is more than up to the job of protecting her coastlines and projecting power from them.
Not only would most of those seas be terrible vectors for any hostile power attacking Russia but NATO’s posturing towards North Korea and China has made the defensive job of the Russian navy infinitely easier. Instead of just concentrating on tweaking the tail of the Russian tiger, NATO got the brainwave of sending Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan to antagonize the entire Chinese navy. Although that is good news for NATO’s arms industry and for whoever else is in on Pelosi’s latest short trading Wall Street scam, it does indicate a major shift in the world’s strategic goalposts because-China, with Iran’s impressive navy, is now solidly and permanently in Russia’s camp. No more divide and conquer NATO games there.
And so, when the Chinese navy finishes their fun and games in the waters around Taiwan, Japan’s formidable navy will have to take stock and decide whether it should follow the U.S. 7th Fleet lemming-like into a confrontation with China or whether it should look out for number one, for Japan.
Although the Japanese Imperial Navy acquitted itself well at the beginning and the middle of the last century, next time will be very different as it could find itself standing almost alone against two blue water navies, that of Russia and the emerging one of the Peoples Republic of China. And all to satiate Americans like Wall Street inside trader Nancy Pelosi. Japan, which is in no position to project hard power, should sit this one out as there are just too many unknowns, one of which is the Russian navy.
Should matters escalate in Russia’s eastern backyard, in, say, the Sea of Japan or the Taiwan Strait, what is to stop the Russian navy placing itself in the middle of the affray as the Soviet submarine fleet did in 1971, when the U.S. 7th fleet along with Perfidious Albion’s HMS Eagle and HMS Albion stood poised to sink the entire Indian navy in the Bay of Bengal? When the Soviet submarines surfaced in front of them, the British and American navies were forced to beat an ignominious retreat, just as they and their German poodle will have to retreat from the waters around Taipei once China spits the dummy.
No matter what firepower NATO’s navies can bring to bear in Russia’s eastern backyard, they cannot prevail. As there will be no Battle of Jutland or Battle of Leyte Gulf turkey shoot this time round, the navies of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, America’s three East Asian spokes, best jump ship and tell Uncle Sam and Nancy Pelosi to fight their own battles.
So what then of this latest Great Game, this effort to project power from MacKinder’s Heartland? As numerous previous SCF reports have chronicled, economic integration is proceeding rapidly between Russia, China, Iran and the other BRI/BRICS countries. Within that larger picture, NATO’s terrorist campaigns in Syria, Armenia and Serbia are as a jackal snapping at a lion’s tail to steal a free meal. As the BRI center solidifies, attention will turn to the peripheries and holding those causing mayhem there to account.
Because Iran has much experience in that regard, her navy and her drone expertise bring much to the party. Although China and Russia may buy some of that expertise, the key point is that increased cooperation with Iran adds greatly to the strategic choices Russia and China presently possess.
Should Israel aid the U.S. by again attacking Lebanon, that will not change matters much, unless Israel wants to make her nuclear stockpile a target and thus make the Levant once more a cause of global instability. This, however, is unlikely as NATO’s Gulf despots have a good idea of which way the wind is blowing and they are making sure to keep sweet with both China and Russia.
All of which brings us back to Ukraine, which was also on Nancy Pelosi’s bucket list. For all the talk about “Putin” ravishing Ukraine’s resources, this 2014 article explains that Cargill, Chevron, Coca Cola, Raytheon and Monsanto are the true inheritors of Hitler’s Army Group South, whose photo adorns the article.
Although Hitler’s Army Group South is no more, its raison d’être remains. Its task, aided and abetted by Romania’s Black Sea Fleet, was to ravish both Ukraine and Southern Russia in the same ruthless manner Europe cannibalized India, Iran, China and Africa in days gone by. Because the countervailing forces of the Russian and allied navies are fast making those days come to an end. Nancy Pelosi, Cargill, Monsanto and America’s other quick buck trouble makers best find other ways to turn a buck before they too find themselves in Davy Jones’ locker.
