Russia Plays Nuclear ‘War Games’ with Poland
More fallout from Obama's abandonment of Eastern Europe, as Russia stages a mock invasion of its now defenseless neighbor.
You can probably be forgiven for having missed it — what with all the pulse-pounding excitement of gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey, to say nothing of the World Series — but Russia invaded Poland. Again. This time, no more Mr. Nice Guy.
A barrage of nuclear missiles was fired into the defenseless country from Russia proper, while Russian tanks rolled out of Kaliningrad to seize key ports on the Polish coast and sabotage a major gas pipeline. Reports indicate it made Hitler’s blitzkrieg look like a tea party.
It was “only” war games, of course, but the potential implications are perhaps even more dire than those of the actual Russian tanks that rolled into Georgia last year because of the circumstances under which the “games” took place.
Though the reports only surfaced this week, the invasion actually occurred in September, just as Barack Obama was announcing the unilateral discontinuation of a proposed ballistic missile defense system for Poland. And given Russia’s demonstrated willingness to use military force in Georgia, who can say when the Polish “games” will also become reality?
That’s not all. As Polish parliamentarian Marek Opiola reminded:
It’s an attempt to put us in our place. Don’t forget all this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.
Meanwhile, Russia simultaneously carried out a real test launch of a nuclear missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
As Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation writes:
President Obama biggest non-symbolic mistake came when he sacrificed his ace card, the Bush-era missile defense plan against Iran, which was supposed to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Warsaw and Prague are still fuming about Washington’s lack of reliability, but in the new Obama foreign policy era, adversaries often get kid-glove treatment while allies are taken for granted.
Not only did Russia refuse to reciprocate Obama’s unilateral gesture by supporting sanctions against Iran, it began practicing the use of missiles against a now defenseless Poland. Obama has alienated and panicked all of Eastern Europe while reaping nothing in terms of improved relations with Russia. Instead, he’s convinced the Russians they may do as they please. It’s hard to imagine how Obama’s reckless gambit could have failed more spectacularly.
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Kim Zigfeld is a New York City-based writer who publishes her own Russia specialty blog, La Russophobe. She also writes about Russia for the American Thinker and for Russia! magazine and is researching a book on the rise of dictatorship in Putin’s Russia.
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18 Comments
1. dan:I urge everyone to read the recently published book FOXBATS OVER DIMONA, by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, as well as Viktor Suvorov’s THE CHIEF CULPRIT and SPETZNAS.
Good work Kim.
Nov 6, 2009 - 6:01 am 2. whyamInotsurprised?:“Dreams the size of Poland?” Seems more likely a replay of the 1930’s with Putin in the role as the new “Hitler.” Poor put-upon Russian people want the west to pay for their own past failures. They are militarizing and being pacified just as post-WWII Germany was. Putin plays to nationalism even when he can’t deliver the goods at home. But Russians dare not say so, otherwise … Siberia never did go away you know! No, I think Poland is just the opening gambit for Putin and his desires to become the next Tzar of a new and much, much bigger empire.
Leadership from Barry, maybe you can get his lawyerly discourse over a round of golf some day.
Nov 6, 2009 - 6:59 am 3. Alek:Anyone still believe the myth of a democratic Russia? I can’t understand how G.W. Bush, who had Condie as NSA, a supposed Russian expert, was so taken in by Putin. All Putin had to tell Bush was that he was fellow christian(yeah right) and Bush loved him.
Nov 6, 2009 - 7:56 am 4. davod:“Books of poems for children about the “great leader” Vladimir Putin are being published.”
Putin is trying to catch up to Obama.
“All Putin had to tell Bush was that he was fellow christian(yeah right) and Bush loved him.”
Putin’s KGBishness manifested itself much later than Bush’s comments about Putin. Obama wouldn’t have to roll back Eastern Europe’s ABM shield if Bush had not arranged to have one.
WRT Poland. How soon before our earstwhile NATO allies throw over Poland. Maybe as soon as the next round of Russian blackmail over energy supplies.
Nov 6, 2009 - 9:54 am 5. David W. Lincoln:Poland should look at “Royalty for a grown up nation” by Conrad Black, and follow in the footsteps of Marshall Pilsudski in creating a constellation which stands up to the deformed souls in the Kremlin and the Sons of Allah. It could use the model of a deputy foreign minister council to accomplish a common foreign policy. Talk with Kyiv & Tbilsi, then Prague, the Balkan countries, the baltics, and those who want to stand up to the Kremlin & the Sons of Allah.
Nov 6, 2009 - 10:23 am 6. myth buster:Western Europe can kiss my ass. They are worthless scum who can’t be trusted to do anything. We need to do right by Eastern Europe for once, and screw anybody who demands we do otherwise. As for Putin, I’m inclined to believe that he is Gog of Magog.
Nov 6, 2009 - 11:16 am 7. TomF:Let’s get realistic, war games are war games. The US has contingency plans for every possible scenario, including invading Russia. That is what the military does. Even test launching missiles is a form of banter. Likewise, if indeed it is true that the Russian government is eliminating opposition leaders, it is still not even close to the murderous pace of “the Soviet killers”. However, these events do demand close watching and proper response by our Commander-in-Chief. Not that that is going to happen.
Nov 6, 2009 - 1:51 pm 8. Mr. X:Yes Mr. Lincoln wants Marshall Pilsudski, with his notorious Promethean strategy for breaking up Russia along ethnic lines that inspired the Nazi nationalities boss Alfred Rosenberg from 1941-43 and stabbing the anti-Communist Whites in the back for the 21st century. Wonderful.
And Ziggy, what was up with your denunciation of George Soros? Isn’t he the sugardaddy of the Colored Revolutions and slick anti-Russian coups in the former USSR? Are your bosses at the Jamestown Foundation unhappy with him now that he cannot buy whole countries (i.e. getting outbid by the Chinese for Moldova, tisk tisk) and has decided to switch to a new tack?
Or maybe he just figured out that Yushenko and Saakashvili with their single digit popularity ratings were losing horses and it was time to dump them? Any think tank that employs a silly propagandist like Vladimir Socor knows how to deny reality far beyond all limits of sanity.
If the right wing “fight Russia to the last Ukrainian/Georgian” militarist faction of the anti-Russia lobby (Jamestown, Center for Security Policy, and Heritage to a lesser extent) is unhappy with the “left wing” Open Societies Sorosian/financial manipulation gang, well that’s great. Congrats to Russia for splitting them wide open.
I hope Russia’s continued outreach to Israel, buying their avionics/nanotech will shrewdly split Washington’s pro-Israel lobby off from the anti-Russia lobby. Israel’s not going to stop buying Russian oil and gas just to please idiots inside the Beltway who want to enrich Iran in vain hopes that this will “moderate” the mullahs, or simply because they hate Russia so much they would rather send billions to Shia clerics than to Moscow, heedless to the consequences. Even with all the Soros bucks and unaccounted for taxpayer dollars from the U.S. and EU Georgia can’t buy as many Israeli weapons or offer as much as Russia.
Nov 7, 2009 - 2:11 am 9. Mr. X:All I’m saying is WAKE UP PEOPLE. Most of the so-called conservatives here at PJM are little more than sheeple, swallowing whatever Bush people told them for the last eight years and suddenly getting furious about the bailouts and Afghanistan after Obama took office.
What was the point of building a missile defense system in PL and CZ Republic if not to direct it against Russia (especially when the Bush people pointedly rejected use of the Russian radar in Azerbaijan), especially when the agreement was signed right after the Georgia War? Who were we kidding saying that it was about the Iranian threat, while the other hand was working furiously to support Nabucco to enrich Iran?
You all know here that if the Russians were putting missile defense radars in Cuba and interceptors in Venezuela, or even sending large numbers of advisors to those countries again, perhaps teaming up with China, Glenn Beck and Rush would be going crazy, and even the New Republic would be making threats, and there would probably be protests outside their embassy in D.C.
Instead you act as if the eastward expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders and dragging the Ukrainians in at the behest of 10% of their population by hook or crook is somehow making America safer or is advancing democracy. Please. What about that huge EU loan to Belarus, is that about democracy? Or Cheney sucking up to the prez for life of Kazahkstan and then condemning Russia for its alleged undemocratic ways?
We need all the friends we can get right now with our dollar going down the drain. The collapse is being hastened by stubbornly insisting that we can still afford the same foreign policies we’ve pursued since the collapse of the USSR. We can’t. Obama didn’t drop the missile defense system because he’s another Carter bent on appeasement. He did it because Russia is one of the USA’s top ten creditors and we’re broke. Follow the money, even if unlike the Heritage Foundation you end up admitting that maintaining military bases in 120 countries and Obamacare all come out of the same budget and massive pile of debt in the end.
Nov 7, 2009 - 2:24 am 10. TomF:Is it me or have others noticed that articles on serious issues of foreign policy are ignored by most PJM readers.
Nov 7, 2009 - 5:37 am 11. David W. Lincoln:Mr. X, Of course the missile “defense” for Poland was more about Russia than Iran. “Defense” is in quotes, because in a Nuclear age a defense is just as much an offensive weapon as it is a defensive weapon. It is a destabilizing factor. Yes, it was dishonest of Bush and all to claim that it was only to ward of the threat of Iran. We must understand Russia’s concerns over such a system.
Mr. X, I am not necessarily for the expansion of NATO into Ukraine, but 10% seems pretty low.
Look Mr. X, Pilsudski saw the viciousness of Lenin, Trotsky, and the rest of the deformed souls who flocked to the hammer & sickle. Take a look at “The Keys of this blood” by Malachi Martin, in particular the only reference to Marshal Pilsudski in the index, and look at that page.
As long as Solidarity needs outside help to deal with the deformed souls calling the shots from the Kremlin, a show of strength is needed to stand up
to the Kremlin. For, in order to catch their attention, they need to be bashed so many times with an iron bar, or 2×4 until they are bleeding. This
is a Russian characteristic.
The US is a spent force because it fell into the same trap as Lenin & crew, it thought it could successfully defy the laws of natural to remake. Well,
get used to a smaller role in the geopolitical realm.
Like it or not, your nebulous charged words are not a plan to deal with the future.
As for the Poland & the Czech Republic, the missiles can also come from Iran, which if you looked at a map at the countries around Russia, you will
Nov 7, 2009 - 8:45 am 12. David W. Lincoln:see Iran.
Furthermore, Mr. X, why not google “Check the numbers” “McKitrick” “McCullough” to see what the US inflicted on the rest of the world.
If you think that would slide, and the US not be held accountable, for its sloppy research, then you
Nov 7, 2009 - 11:32 am 13. Mr. X:have much to learn about human nature.
Well Tom at least you pointed out that the USA (and other militaries) have simulated nuclear attacks on Russia (and vice versa) for decades, it’s not anything new.
“Is it me or have others noticed that articles on serious issues of foreign policy are ignored by most PJM readers.”
Absolutely, and too often at PJM — even at the quality Belmont Club forum — discussions devolve into either war porn fantasies or Cold War nostalgia describing all Russians as “Sovs” “KGB” etc. And paid anti-Russia hacks like Zigfeld don’t help. More discussion of who profits and why Soros has taken certain tacks on Eastern Europe would be helpful, rather than just swallowing spoonfuls of rhetoric from each side. Certainly, Russia was not immune from the economic crisis in America, both because of the collapse in oil prices after the artificial speculative run up and because Russia’s central bank ironically ended up buying too many dollar-denominated assets rather than too few. But don’t hold your breath for the Wall Street Journal to ever criticize a foreign government for buying too much U.S. debt. And that shows me how objective these outlets that claim to be fair and pro-democratic around the world truly are.
“Pilsudski saw the viciousness of Lenin, Trotsky, and the rest of the deformed souls who flocked to the hammer & sickle.” And David does seem to have a Pole’s point of view, which is all well and good, except I don’t want old man Bzrezinski making U.S. policy, anymore than I would want Netanyahu or Barak telling Obama what to do either. And at least one Polish marshall did stab the White armies in the back to grab a bigger chunk of Ukraine in 1919-1920, and that along with PL participation in the carve up of Czechoslovakia are all relevant points if there is to be historic reconciliation based on truth, as Solzhenitysn urged in an open letter to Poles.
I am not saying that Russians should fear a repeat of the Time of Troubles aggression or that Poles should fear Russian tanks in Warsaw. Both are silly. But Russians are not paranoid to point out that the oligarchs during the Nineties Time of Troubles had many foreign accomplices, and that there are think tanks and groups like Jamestown that are basically set up to operate anti-Russia and have scarcely changed at all since the 1980s.
Nov 7, 2009 - 12:52 pm 14. Mr. X:There’s also the danger of pointless tit for tat between the U.S. and Russia.
Have American siloviks, ex-CIA men like Paul Goble or James Woolsey talking about separatism in Russia? Here comes Igor Panarin, and instead of being simply laughed at by the Wall Street Journal like last year this year he’s being feted by Tea Partyers in Houston. I haven’t seen any Russian agents with suitcases full of cash outside the Republic of Texas HQ in Pecos County, but my Russian friends have blamed NGOs and otherwise benign looking types for giving cash to convicted terrorists in the Caucases.
So…the danger of escalation is real, and the idea that Russia wants revenge for the collapse of the USSR and therefore the U.S. has the right to pursue policies to destabilize Russia can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Want to hasten the odds of Chavez getting advisors? Then send even more troops and weapons to an equally unstable/fake democrat in Saakashvili. Simply because the latter went to Columbia and speaks smooth English doesn’t make him better than the former.
Nov 7, 2009 - 12:56 pm 15. David W. Lincoln:As one who does not discount the damage done by “Moscow is the third Rome, and there will not be a 4th”, plus the inhumanity dished out to Ukraine, especially during the holodomor, I want the descendants of the Decembrists to have the upper hand.
Now, I am not defending hollus bollus the record of Pilsudski, but at least
he knew full well what Lenin, Iron Feliks, Trotsky and the rest of the early
deformed souls who accepted the hammer & sickle as am emblem, he knew full well what they were capable of.
The choice is this: Putyin, Medvedyev, and those in the successor to the KGB
who had dealings with Zawahiri before Putin became Prime Minister the first
time, they and the entire apparatus have to be removed from their positions
of influence. There are two options: One is to redraw the borders of Russia
so that the Kremlin can no longer use natural resources under its control as
a weapon. The other is to ultimately turn power over to Solidarity.
As for Saakashvili, does he have the blood of journalists on his hands? Plus, why did he make Yushchenko an ally, instead of an enemy. For Viktor
Nov 9, 2009 - 9:11 am 16. narciso:had a massive dose of dioxin that was off the charts, and if not for the professionalism of those who treated him, he would not have survived.
Giving in to the successor to Czar Nicholas 1, seems a strange way to vindicate theDecembrists,
Nov 10, 2009 - 6:42 am 17. David W. Lincoln:they did lose by the way. Calling Woolsey who has been a leading advocate against global jihad, American silovik, seems to be something
the SVR would say.
What I am saying narciso is that Yelena Bonner, Vladimir Bukovsky, Gary Kasparov, Boris Nemtsov, and those who back them, they have to be the one’s calling the shots from the Kremlin. Otherwise, the borders of Russia have to be redrawn so that natural resources cannot be used as a weapon against those who do not do the Kremlin’s bidding.
Nov 10, 2009 - 12:21 pm 18. DavidN:Poles: “Far-away people of whom we know nothing.”
A deal letting Putin have Poland: “Peace in our time.”
Doesn’t everyone see the logic of this? After all, we can’t go to war over Poland, especially not while trying to reform health care, do cap and trade, and scale down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Poles simply chose the wrong neighbors, and now they’ll have to live with the consequences. If you’re realistic about it, the Russians are much bigger and powerful, and they can conquer Poland whenever they like. Why fight it?
Nov 10, 2009 - 1:31 pm