{"id":187417,"date":"2019-04-27T05:50:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T05:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187417"},"modified":"2019-05-01T04:56:57","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T04:56:57","slug":"vladimir-putin-is-acting-like-he-wants-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187417","title":{"rendered":"Vladimir Putin is Acting Like He Wants War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 April 26, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Putin demonised as the new Hitler in the Western media. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Of course Putin doesn\u2019t want war but like any sensible leader he also knows that the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it with a credible deterrent.<\/h5>\n
The following propaganda piece from the LA Times doesn\u2019t even raise this possibility. Nor does it mention the fact that NATO and Western forces have been deploying their forces closer and closer to Russia. On occasion holding drills almost within sight of Russia\u2019s border<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
Can you imagine how the White House would respond if Russia held aggressive drills close to America’s border? It’s bad enough when Russian navy vessels sail through the English Channel. When that happens the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy despatch aircraft and vessels to monitor the Russians as they pass through the busy international shipping lane. While the UK media is filled with alarmist reports<\/span><\/a> about how the Royal Navy faced \u201ceye-watering threats\u201d from Russia.<\/h5>\n
None of this is even alluded to in the following. Instead it talks about Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election as it were an established fact, not unfounded speculation as the Mueller report confirms<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
Although it\u2019s true that Russia has revitalised its military under Putin, this was only after years of decline under Yeltsin.<\/h5>\n
Moreover, Russia’s rearmament has been partly driven by the West’s belligerence, after a string of nations were ravaged by war, often on the pretext of humanitarian interventions or with proxies. From the former Yugoslavia to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Libya and Syria the West has been waging ongoing military campaigns for decades now.<\/h5>\n
What\u2019s more, many of the aforementioned military campaigns were preceded by economic and trade embargoes, such as in Iraq. With the U.S. now imposing similar economic restrictions on Russia, is it any wonder that Putin has ordered an upgrade in Russia\u2019s military capability? He would be foolish not to.<\/h5>\n
Read the following if you wish but be aware that the West is preparing for war with Russia (see\u00a0here<\/span>\u00a0 <\/a> and here<\/span><\/a>). What follows is intended to mentally pave the way for that conflict among gullible western readers. Ed.<\/h5>\n

There\u2019s a bigger Russian threat than meddling. Vladimir Putin is acting like he wants war<\/h2>\n

Leon Aron \u2013 Los Angeles Times April 25, 2019<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Photo that accompanied the Los Angeles Times article. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Russia\u2019s\u00a0meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0was an attack on our sovereignty and can\u2019t be ignored. But we shouldn\u2019t allow it to distract us from the larger threat Russian President Vladimir Putin poses to both the United States and the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

To understand that threat, we have to examine Putin\u2019s motivations. His policies are dictated by deeply held convictions and ambitions rooted less in Russian patriotism than in Soviet patriotism. In his mind, the end of the Soviet Union was a profound historical injustice, visited upon his country by plotters from without and traitors from within.<\/span><\/p>\n

His self-imposed mission is to avenge this \u201ctragic,\u201d man-made disaster by recovering for Russia some of the economic, political and geopolitical assets it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. For Putin, as his policies have made clear again and again, the most important of these is to reoccupy the Soviet Union\u2019s place as an existential alternative \u2014 military and moral\u2014<\/em>\u00a0to the United States. In the most popular trope of state propaganda, he is \u201craising Russia off its knees\u201d to make America pay dearly for the humiliation it dealt the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s president is never happier or more animated than when he describes Russia\u2019s nuclear hardware, aimed at the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether because of his\u00a0rough childhood<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the slums of postwar Leningrad or his training in judo, Putin regards direct confrontation as the ultimate measure of manliness. He views victories in such bouts as proof of superior virtue \u2014 for men as well as nations.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Putin, Russia\u2019s greatest geopolitical success in recent years was the occupation and annexation of Crimea. And the operation\u2019s success, he emphasized, was largely because of his hands-on approach. \u201cDo you know what our advantage was?\u201d he said during an interview. \u201cThe fact that I personally dealt with\u00a0[the operation<\/strong><\/span><\/a>]!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s aggression in Crimea paid off handsomely politically: His support among Russians skyrocketed from a record low of 61% at the end of 2013 to a record high of 86% in October 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia is in \u201ctotal confrontation<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u201d mode with the U.S., Putin\u2019s chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, declared last year. Putin\u2019s policies match this assessment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s president is never happier or more animated than when he describes Russia\u2019s nuclear hardware, aimed at the United States \u2014 and invulnerable to U.S. missile defense, as he emphasizes again and again. No Soviet leader ever bragged of his country\u2019s nuclear might the way Putin does. In his two\u00a0most recent<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0annual state-of-Russia annual addresses to the Federal Assembly, he concluded with triumphant tributes to Russia\u2019s nuclear arsenal, modernized under his loving care and home to the world\u2019s heaviest, fastest and longest-range missiles. He has also touted a new cache of futuristic weapons: underwater nuclear drones, a hypersonic \u201cmeteorite;\u201d a mighty\u00a0ognennyi shar<\/em>, or \u201cball of fire<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u201d which Russian wits have called the \u201cflying Chernobyl.\u201d Putin has authorized two multiyear \u201cstate armament programs,\u201d costing around\u00a0a trillion dollars<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. (Russia\u2019s GDP last year was $1.6 trillion.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest threat posed by Putin\u2019s militarism, however, is to his nearest neighbors. He has resurrected the Western Military District, established in the Soviet era and abolished by Boris Yeltsin, making it the largest and best armed of Russia\u2019s military districts. NATO members Latvia and Estonia today face between 350,000 and 400,000 troops just across the border in Russia, a\u00a0tank army<\/strong><\/span><\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0more than 100 fighter jets, four squadrons of long-range bombers, and Russia\u2019s\u00a0most modern<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0surface-to-air missiles. And they are worried about a Crimea-style annexation of parts of their territories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Praising the Soviet Union for the way it nurtured patriotism in the young, Putin has created programs that mimic those of the former Soviet Main Political Directorate of the Armed Forces, which had responsibility for propaganda and ideological control.\u00a0<\/strong>As of last year,\u00a0380,000 children<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>under the draft age of 18 were reportedly enrolled in the\u00a0Yunarmiya<\/em>\u00a0(Young Army), created in 2016 to \u201cinstill patriotism<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u201d and \u201cpositive motivation toward military service.\u201d Yunarmiya members enjoy\u00a0preferential treatment<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>in college admissions and their numbers are expected to swell to 1 million in time for the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War (better known as World War II) next spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

The timing of Putin\u2019s war preparations could hardly be worse. Economic growth is projected to be anemic for years to come, personal incomes are down for a fifth consecutive year, and 68% of Russians believe that their country is in an\u00a0economic crisis<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. According to a recent survey by the Russian State Statistical Agency, 80% of Russian families have a monthly income that leaves them unable to buy a \u201cminimal assortment\u201d of goods. Thirty-five percent cannot afford to buy\u00a0two pairs of shoes<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0for each family member.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s approval ratings have fallen to 64%, only a few percentage points higher than they were before he embarked on his Crimean conquest. While that may sound high to those living in a democracy, it is a troubling number for a politician who operates unchallenged within his country.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Russian constitution bars Putin from running again in 2024. But if Putin, who clearly would like to rule Russia for life, wants support from Russians in doing so, he will need to boost his popularity before then.<\/span><\/p>\n

How? Putin has recast himself as a wartime president defending the motherland, and he is determined to restore his country to a victorious superpower status. What better way to accomplish all his goals than to fight and win another military conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leon Aron is a resident scholar and director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is a prime example of anti-Putin propaganda and how it is being used to prepare the Western public mentally for war with Russia <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187417"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187489,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187417\/revisions\/187489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}