Friday, November 15, 2019

NATO Could Occupy Kaliningrad in Two Days, Chinese Outlet Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 10 – NATO forces could occupy the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in two days, a Chinese commentator says, far faster than two American experts have said; but if the Western alliance did so, Moscow would respond by attacking five to eight European capitals, thus transforming a regional conflict into a world war.

            In September, a NATO official said that NATO had developed a plan to take out Russian anti-aircraft facilities in Kaliningrad in the event of war (lenta.ru/news/2019/09/20/kaliningrad/), and last month, US military expert Richard Hooker wrote for the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation that NATO could seize the exclave in two weeks (lenta.ru/news/2019/10/27/force/).

            Now, China’s Eastday news agency has weighed in with its own assessment, one that suggests Moscow would lose control of Kaliningrad far  more quickly than these Western experts suggested (lenta.ru/news/2019/11/10/2/); and Russian outlets are not surprisingly outraged.

            What is perhaps the most important aspect of this discussion is that Moscow hopes to use it as another occasion to divide and weaken NATO by suggesting that in the event Russia would attack European cities rather than US ones (rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/14112019-rossiya-otvetit-na-vtorzhenie-nato-v-kaliningrad-bombardirovkami-stolits-evropy/).

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