"Russia names United States, NATO as threats to its national security"
Self-Help News
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
Russia names United States, NATO as threats to its national security
By Alex Lantier
5 January 2016
For the first time since the dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism in 1991, a strategic document of the Russian state has openly designated the United States and the NATO military alliance as threats to Russian national security.
The document, “About the Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation,” was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve. It warns that Russia faces “counteraction from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs.” It predicts that this will lead to further “political, economic, military, and informational pressure” on Russia.
The document points in particular to actions NATO has taken since backing the February 2014 coup that installed a far-right, pro-Western regime in neighboring Ukraine. It cites the “intensification of military activities of [NATO] member countries,” the “further expansion of the alliance” into Eastern Europe along Russian borders, and “moving military infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders” as national security threats to Russia.
The publication of such a document is a warning that preparations for war between NATO and Russia, a nuclear-armed state, are well advanced. In diplomatic parlance, a national security threat is a threat so severe that a state is prepared to use military force to suppress it, and the strategy document states that Russia reserves the right to use military force if other measures to “protect national interests” are ineffective.
The Russian national security document amounts to an official recognition by the Russian state that its relations with NATO, and in particular with the United States, are in a state of collapse. The policies pursued by NATO over the last two years signify that war between NATO and Russia is a real possibility.
Since backing the coup in Kiev, NATO has supported the war pursued by the Ukrainian regime and allied far-right militias on Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine. Early last year, the US government proposed to openly arm the Kiev regime for war against separatist forces tacitly backed by Moscow. The current Russian national security document refers to Ukraine as a “long-term source of instability in Europe, and directly at the Russian border.”
This was part of a broad build-up of NATO military power threatening Russia. NATO posted thousands of troops and warplanes in the Baltic republics, only a few minutes by fighter flight from the Russian city of St Petersburg. It has sent troops, organized military exercises, and posted missile defense units across Eastern Europe, and deployed naval forces on missions or exercises from the Arctic to the Baltic.
The strategy document reportedly does not mention the Middle East, where NATO’s proxy war to oust Syria’s Russian-backed president, Bashar al-Assad, thus placed the Middle East and the entire world on the verge of all-out war. However, it is clearly a response to Turkey’s decision, endorsed by US President Barack Obama shortly afterwards, to shoot down a Russian jet last November over Syria, in a blatant act of war.
NATO is making even more dire threats, however. Washington in particular has shifted to open preparation of aggressive nuclear war against Russia. Last year, US officials testified before the Congress that US forces are preparing for possible preemptive “counterforce” strikes with nuclear weapons against military targets inside Russia, before any attack by Russia took place.
In its national security document, the Kremlin concludes that the NATO powers are seeking to overthrow the Russian government, on the model of “color revolutions” that produced US-backed regime change in countries like Georgia and Ukraine. It also warns that the NATO powers will seek to dissolve Russia. It lists “radical social groups which use nationalist and religious extremist ideologies, foreign and international NGOs, and also private citizens” among potential threats to Russian internal security and territorial integrity.
With the Kremlin fearing the worst, its national security document advocates a strategy of seeking to maintain good relations with the NATO powers, while relying on Russia’s military strength to deter NATO attacks. This includes above all maintaining Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The document stresses that Russia’s nuclear stockpile will be reduced only if this can be done “without damaging international security and strategic stability.”
The contents of the Russian national security strategy testify to the bankruptcy of the world capitalist system and amount to an indictment of the reckless policy of the imperialist powers. In an attempt to whip Moscow into line and assert their geostrategic interests in Eurasia, they are fueling a military escalation and an arms race that threatens to explode into a war that could claim millions or billions of lives.
The response of Putin and the Russian capitalist oligarchy that emerged from the dissolution of the USSR is however bankrupt and reactionary. They are both unable and unwilling to make any appeal to opposition to war in the international working class. Desperately trying to maintain relations with the imperialist powers and their financial and economic resources, they oscillate between trying to cut deals with the NATO countries and threatening to defend themselves by fighting a catastrophic war with them.
What emerges from the statements of the Kremlin and of Putin are the disastrous consequences of the dissolution of the USSR for Russia and the world. Surrounded by hostile NATO outposts in former Soviet republics in the Baltics, the Caucasus and Ukraine, devastated by the industrial and economic collapse that followed capitalist restoration in the USSR, Russia has been unable to rely on anti-imperialist solidarity that existed in the international working class with the USSR. The entire region has been thrown open to imperialist intervention, with catastrophic results.
The national security document itself points to the backward and parasitic character of Russian capitalism as a major national security threat. It bemoans Russia’s “lag in the development of advanced technologies, the vulnerability of the financial system, the imbalance of the budgetary system, the economy going offshore, the exhaustion of the raw materials base, the strength of the shadow economy, conditions leading to corruption and criminal activities, and uneven development of regions.”
All this makes it easier for the NATO powers to threaten Russia with financial sanctions, trade penalties, and the partition of the Russian Federation along regional or ethnic lines.
Above all, Russia is being confronted with the full brunt of the economic and geostrategic crisis of world imperialism. To the extent that the continued existence of the Russian state is emerging as an obstacle to the assertion of imperialist interests in the Middle East and Eurasia, it has become the target of ruthless military pressure from NATO.
Significantly, Putin made dire warnings about the rising danger of war between the major powers in his remarks last year to the Valdai Discussion Club.
According to Putin, “the world leaders of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and even 1980s did treat the use of armed force as an exceptional measure. In this sense, they behaved responsibly, weighing all the circumstances and possible consequences. The end of the Cold War put an end to ideological opposition, but the basis for arguments and geopolitical conflicts remained... In the past 25 years, the threshold for the use of force has gone down noticeably.”
He warned that as a result, “political, economic or military competition may get out of control.” He cited the dangers of “regional conflicts, especially in ‘border’ areas, where the interests of major nations or blocs meet,” and of “a new spiral of the arms race.” He attacked “the concept of the so-called disarming first strike [i.e., a preemptive US strike to destroy the Russian nuclear arsenal] including one with the use of high-precision long-range non-nuclear weapons comparable in their effect to nuclear weapons.”
Putin concluded that Russia’s nuclear arsenal would no longer deter other countries from attacking it, and seeking to advance their interests via global nuclear war. He declared, “The nuclear deterrent lost its value. Some probably even had the illusion that victory of one party in a world conflict was again possible—without irreversible, unacceptable, as experts say, consequences for the winner, if there ever is one.”
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How will a war between the West and Russia affect Afrika and Afrikan quest for Pan-Afrikan Unity?
Self-Help News
Self-Help News
Your response was read with deep interests. While progressive Afrikans are engaged in debates about, and strategizing for, Afrika and Afrikan unity, at home and abroad, there are variables at work, with serendipity like effects, over which we have no control. We cannot plan in isolation or in a homogeneous manner. We need friends inside and outside of the camps of our detractors’ and potential detractors’. On this basis, we are forced to be pragmatic in our outlooks and practices. Sometimes we need to sacrifice some things to gain the larger collective benefits. As Fredrick Douglas reminded us, ‘Power concedes to nothing except to a greater power.’ The ALLMIGHTY, the INFINITE SOURCE, is Almighty because She is Almighty, and even at this level , according to the ‘People of the Book’, treachery raised its destructive head.
Like the melting ice caps at Antarctica, geo-political old order is also in a type of meltdown. And Yes. ‘Africa’ is the Big Prize. And, as you implied, there is no such thing in diplomatic language, as permanent friendships. There is however – ‘permanent national interests’. In this regard, nations will make and apply national policy in accordance with their own interests. National interests first and friendships a poor second. Afrikans, at the base and capstone, must learn this crucial lesson, as we move forward progressively together. There must be room in our plans for mutually beneficial compromise. This is another lesson progressive Afrikans must learn. Throughout this process of learning, we must be our own leaders, putting in the fore always, the interests of our RACE, and our Time-tested Friends, as others are doing, and have always done.
Our twenty first century leaderships need to be perceptive, skilful, committed, rounded, excellent communicators, competent and productive. Non-aligned when it suits us, and otherwise when it also suits us. The April 1955 Asia-Afrika Bandung Conference, held in Indonesia, came when Modern China was in its infancy and the Soviet Union and the West rattled their sabres at each other. The so-called ‘Cold War’ subsided and that type of historical geo-politics moved on. But ‘Africa’ remains the Big Prize.
Let’s work together for mutual benefits.
Editorial Collective
SELF-HELP NEWS – “Giving Voice to the Voiceless.”
From: From IAM UBUNTU Na Uzulu (NY) to WADU (Ga) Minister P.D. Menelik, Co-Founder, Organizer... [mailto:amen...@aol.com]
Sent: 06 January 2016 14:03
To: selfhe...@ubol.com
Subject: Re: Response/Poor AU leadership in the main problem/"Russia names United States, NATO as threats to its national security"
Thanks for this important question. Very briefly, the best case scenario using a few historical markers for Africa is Africans to continue along the Bandung and Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) that was used for the "political" liberation of colonial slavery, but now focus on economic partnership - Mugabe is pressing this. Bandung helped fuel Nkrumah's work to liberate Africa. This is the best he could do with the Garvey vision for Africa given the mindset of Africans in Africa and the stranglehold they had on the chiefs and people to access our resources. Thus, "Black" Africa was more willing to submit to their enslavers than those in northern Africa.
Nkrumah, had to work with those who were more willing to use "all means" and northern Africa was central in dragging Africa from the bowels of slavery. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Guinea became the centerpiece for revolutionary liberation of Africa. Because they were dragged than most willing to fight, they have settled back into slave mode, like too many other Africans. To take it to the next level, we needed a Government to regulate our "African" education but we have failed this. Nkrumah who called for an immediate Government was betrayed and the compromise was the OAU, which extended our enslavement. This is the very reason South(ern) Africans are so affected more than others in terms of racial inferiority complex, like those in the USA directly under the feet of our oppressors. Southern Africa was betrayed by the Mobutu, Boigny types. Even Nyerere said he was wrong to work against Nkrumah fast-track Government agenda.
Nkrumah's experience was very much like Mama Harriet Tubman and others attempting to liberate Africans. She too had to use force and a white John Brown was ready to work with her with other strong Africans like Rev. Garnet. They started the American Civil War to end chattel slavery. Nonetheless, BRICS has attempted to be the new NAM force for the economic liberation of Africa with Russia, China and others but there are massive attacks against this economic block, including against Africa. Indeed, the best case scenario is a United States of Africa to reinforce BRICS - that would become ABRIC. This would take Africa and Africans into the stratosphere of power, respect and authority Garvey called for. Again, the best case scenario is along the Garvey-Nkrumah-Khaddafi plan. This include Khaddafi plan to include at least Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and others of the Diaspora.
The worst case scenario is a new Berlin Pact between USA, EU, China, the Russian Federation and India to govern Africa. The EU is already pushing to do this in North Africa - as neo colonial mandate from the United Nations. As you Khaddafi was ready to go to war against this formula and was attacked with the weak leadership of Nigeria and South Africa. "Black" African leaders would be very very stupid to think that the plan for them is better. Some on this platform as well as those in Africa, have demonstrated this type of slave ignorance, and their chattel (instinctive) trust of their white masters.
Russia, China and even the EU and USA will respect a Union Government of Africa, otherwise, Russia will eventually support their white brothers in Western Europe to enslave Africa because we are allowing them. The main financial and logistical sponsor of WADU with myself, Dr. Atta, had warned me that many who go to Africa do intend to do good but end up doing well because we Africans (ignorance and arrogance) allow them by not being more Organize into a Government to regulate our sacred continental space. Min. Menelik
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and still are and so he had to work .