Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 15 – Russian
propagandists often accuse the West of doing or planning to do what in fact
Moscow has done or plans to do. Consequently, when they declare as now that
NATO is planning to use the Baltic countries as a base to attack Russia that
may in fact constitute the clearest early warning signal that Moscow may be planning
to attack them first.
Vasily Vankov of the Svobodnaya
pressa portal interviews three Moscow analysts about NATO’s moves in the Baltics
and how Russia should counter them.
While the three different in their assessments, their words taken
together are extremely disturbing for what they say about Moscow’s reading of the
situation (svpressa.ru/war21/article/140140/).
Ivan Konovalov, the director of the
Moscow Center on Strategic Conjunction, agrees that “the active development by
NATO of a military place des arms in the Baltic countries represents a threat
to the security of Russia,” Vankov says, and he points out that Moscow has
already responded by announcing plans to create three new divisions “in the
Western direction.”
The Moscow analyst says that the
Baltic countries are interested in having NATO forces on their territory
because it is “economically profitable.” Indeed, he says, the governments of
the three are “exploiting the sharpening of the confrontation between Russia
and the West for their own goals.”
NATO is having to spend an enormous
amount of money on basing, even rotational basing, Konovalov argues, perhaps a
much as a billion US dollars a year. That offers enormous income to the Baltic
countries, but it also is an indication of Western and especially American
intentions in the region.
He says that Baltic and NATO claims
that what is going on is purely defensive can be dismissed out of hand. Abrams
tanks and artillery systems are hardly “technology with a purely defensive
purpose.” And the fact that NATO insists on rotating its forces rather than
basing them in the Baltics permanently does not affect their potential,
especially in the future.
All this means, Konovalov says, that “Russia
is forced to react given that this recalls the situation of 1941 when the Germans
moved up major military groups to our borders but spoke about them as a
defensive measure.” This equation of NATO and the Nazis, a staple of Soviet
propaganda, suggests how some in Moscow are now reading the situation today.
In response to what NATO has been doing, he
continues, “we have changed our defense plan” and shifted forces to the West. “This
is absolutely justified,” given that enemies have most often attacked Russia
from the West either through Ukraine or the Baltics given that the Pripet Marshes
in Belarus are an obstacle.
Konovalov notes that the German army in
World War II was not able to make the breakthrough it expected precisely
because “the countries of the Baltic at that time were part of the USSR.” Resistance around Liepaja delayed them “for
almost a week.” That underscores how
important they are, he suggests, for Russia’s defense against a Western attack.
The Moscow analyst further says that “in
essence,” NATO tactical nuclear weapons have “already” arrived in the Baltic
countries. That is because, he says, “the latest modification of the B-61
nuclear bombs can be installed on any air platform and not just in strategic
bombers” as was the case earlier. There
are thus planes in the Baltics now which could carry them.
Vankov also spoke with Viktor Litovkin, a
retired colonel who is a military commentator for the official Russian news
agency TASS. He too says that “the
Baltic has been transformed into a serious military advance post of NATO on
Russia’s borders,” one even more worrisome because of what the Western alliance
is doing elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
One can conclude, Litovkin suggests, that
what NATO is doing violates the Russia-NATO founding act, even though the West
is playing games over the meaning of “significant contingents of forces.” No
one knows just what constitutes those, he points out, and “Washington doesn’t
want to negotiate with Moscow” about a more precise definition.
“The creation of the three divisions about
which Sergey Shoygu spoke is only a small part of the measures for protecting
our borders in the West,” Litovkin says.
Moscow can in case of need put S-400 units and Iskander rockets in
Kaliningrad, although it hasn’t yet on a permanent basis thus allowing the
Americans a chance to pull back.
It is of course the case that NATO “will
not risk attacking Russia,” Litovkin says, given Russian power and especially
its superiority in tactical nuclear weapons. But “an arms race” in the Baltic
region, provoked he suggests by the West, creates a dangerous situation that
could easily get out of hand.”
And finally Vankov spoke with Moscow
military analyst Vladimir Shcherbakov who suggests that what NATO has done so
far does not constitute the kind of threat some others see or justify “excessive
alarmism.” But at the same time, he
warns that there are dangerous trends and Moscow must be ready to respond to
them.
Russia’s military doctrine, he points out,
says that Moscow can use nuclear weapons first if there is “a real threat to
the loss of sovereignty, security, and the territorial integrity of the country.”
As far as its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons is concerned, “no one knows”
how large it is; but even the Americans acknowledge that it is bigger than the
one NATO has.
Shcherbakov sees as a strategic threat to
Russia in the Baltics in another sector. He suggests that the increasing visits
by American naval ships to Baltic ports is worrisome because the US is laying
increasing stress on navy-based rockets for defense and such rockets can be
easily repurposed to be used for offensive operations.
All that is needed, he says, is to make a
few modifications to missile systems intended for defense so that they can be
used otherwise. “And that is already a means of attack and the most real threat
which can come from the side of the Baltic region.”
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