Strategic weapons and alerts, national means of verification

 In conflict, in strategy, nothing is more important than to understand "the other side". This essay is written with that concern. 

On 28 February 2022 Russian President Putin declared that in view of statements by countries supporting the Ukraine government, addressed to Russia, he was putting Russia's strategic deterrent forces on high alert.  

NOTE ADDED 14 MARCH. I placed here the full statement as broadcast by RT, a Russian broadcaster, for the sake of accuracy. That broadcaster has now been removed from YouTube.  I leave the blank space, asking that you look again at the opening sentence above that I wrote on 11 March.

This was of course widely and sometimes excitedly reported. 

There has been no attention however to the US's DEFCON status [link is to Wikipedia].. not least because it's not revealed. However there are observers in the US making estimates. DEFCON status can apply globally or locally. This group estimate that the global level must be at DEFCON 3, for Europe DEFCON 2. According to Wikipedia DEFCON 2 has only previously been declared in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Gulf War, and then locally not globally. 

Two DEFCON 3 issues arose in times of my involvement. In 1973 a short time after the Yom Kippur war, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Lance Barnard went to London, stopping en route at Exmouth Western Australia to visit the Northwest Cape naval communications station. Wandering through a big radio station is not exciting or so I thought at the time, but at the back of our gaggle, an alert journalist asked a US naval rating "what's this big board then" and the genial American said "that's the DEFCON board, you should have seen it during the Yom Kippur war, lit up like a Christmas tree!" This of course made hot news. As I wrote some time ago, the new Whitlam Government in Australia in 1973, breaking away from the Labor party platform, accepted the continued presence in Australia of US defence bases on the basis that they contributed to Australia's defence and that by accepting these installations Australia would be kept informed on strategic matters by the US. We had not been informed of US installations in Australia going to DEFCON 3.

In August 1976 at the time of Axe Murder Incident in the Joint Security Area, between North and South Korea, I was in Washington.  Wikipedia's account at link glosses over the fact that at no time over several weeks did the North Korean/Chinese People's Volunteers side at Panmunjom agree to removal of the tree; the decision to go and cut down the tree regardless was taken by the commander US Forces Korea, who was that kind of guy. I rang the State Department, the Korea Section and then the Crisis Centre, and was able to send a full briefing back to Canberra including that US Forces had gone to DEFCON 3. Some time later a stilted memorandum arrived from Canberra grumbling that we should have been told about DEFCON 3, should not have needed to ask. I have always been of the view that for a subordinate ally, consultation is as good as you actively do. Especially when the dominant ally is preoccupied by war-related matters. Moreover you only become a worthwhile ally, alliance is only useful if you pitch in with views. Otherwise you are just a tag along, cheap meat for the IndoPacific command.

The notion of 'national means of verification' first arose with the original Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) between the US and USSR in 1968.  The SALT treaty became possible because of technological advances in the 1960s, especially with satellites, that enabled the US and USSR to know enough about the other to shift from 'balance of terror' in the 1950s to a balance of deterrence. It is a notion that applies at all levels: know, don't trust.

The Trump Administration astonishingly chose to withdraw from important arms control agreements with Russia, including for national means of verification overflights. 

The present tactical situation in Ukraine is watched over not only by satellites but all other available means. From Flightradar24, this track of a recent flight of a RAF intelligence-collecting aircraft over Poland,. The fact that these aircraft every day have transponders on and are visible to other traffic, Flightradar24, and the Russians, has deterrent value. 

Also over this edge of the war theatre are large NATO aerial refueling aircraft visible to Flightradar, but presumably engaged in refueling war fighting aircraft near the front. These demonstrate existence of a NATO forward posture. 

Here a Dutch tanker over Poland, an American tanker over Romania. The aircraft described is in red on the map, its flight path as shown. Especially with the US aircraft over Romania, it needs to be seen on radar not only by local traffic but traffic on major flight corridors between Asia and Europe.  War fighting planes do not have their transponders on but of course will be seen on military radars on both sides... except to the extent that stealth aircraft like the B-2 and F-35 should not be visible. 

In studying the issue of strategic and tactical weapons in the European theatre it is important to note that through the Cold War US/NATO conventional forces were far outnumbered by Warsaw Pact conventional forces and US/NATO defence plans were dependent on intent to use theatre and medium range nuclear weapons, prepared to be the first to use these weapons. Soviet capability in this field only became significant from the late 1970s with Soviet deployment of the SS-20, NATO's plan in response to deploy the Pershing missile.produced many counter demonstrations in Western Europe. By 1987 intermediate range missiles were banned by the INF Treaty. Trump pulled the US out of the INF Treaty.  

The absence of that treaty restraint provides depth (I speculate) to understanding older Russian military leaders' concern regarding nuclear options over Ukraine. The swift and firm US opposition to the harebrained Polish idea of giving their MIG-29 aircraft to the US for the US to send to the Ukraine from its Ramstein base in Germany is reassuring in conflict avoidance.  

In the world of punditry where new comment is needed every day there remains some feverish apprehension that we are in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis. We are not out of the woods yet, but there is infrastructure of national means of verification as well as hotline between Washington and Moscow making this a much less dramatic situation than 1962 - though the Cuban Missile Crisis remains the great illustration of a major power objecting to offensive weapons being put on its doorstep. 

Elsewhere I have made comparison between the beginning of World War 1 and western actions since 9/11 in 2001. 

The Russians are aware that H.R McMaster, Trump's second National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, was a lesser-ranking general who came to national attention by writing a book which he began with an attack on the Kennedy cabinet in 1962 running with civilian opinion and rejecting the joint chiefs' recommendation to go to war over the missiles going to Cuba. See this.  In the pursuit of containment of China (including deployment of nuclear armed ships close to the China coast) and other actions of the Biden Administration there has been lack of assurance of calm decision-making on the American side. Having regard also for the involvement of Blinken, Sullivan and especially Nuland in the 2014 coup in the Ukraine. Plus advocacy on the right in the US for enhancement of hybrid war capabilities. 

Biological weapons Ukraine.

 This is from the Russian MoD Telegram reporting 10 March. My reason for placing this here is to have accessible documentation which is not generally reported in our media, though appearance of US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland before a congressional committee has been precipitated and Nuland has admitted existence of projects and concern they might fall into Russian hands  I note reference to the (possibly innocent) involvement of the Australian Doherty Institute. 

header image from Russian document

This header image contains Australian flag.

See reference to Doherty Institute in text.

⚡ ☣ Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine. 

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #NBCP

@mod_russia_en

🇷🇺 🇺🇦 ☣ Briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine 

 

The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.

 

The information received from various sources confirms the leading role of the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency in financing and conducting military biological research on the territory of Ukraine.

 

Details of the UP-4 project became known, which was implemented with the participation of laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa and was designed for the period up to 2020.

 

Its purpose was to study the possibility of the spread of particularly dangerous infections through migrating birds, including highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza, the mortality rate of which reaches 50 percent for humans, as well as Newcastle disease. 

 

Due to the fact that Ukraine has a unique geographical location where transcontinental migration routes intersect, 145 biological species were studied within the framework of this project. At the same time, at least two species of migratory birds were identified, whose routes pass mainly through the territory of Russia. At the same time, information about migration routes passing through the countries of Eastern Europe was summarized.

 

Of all the methods developed in the United States to destabilize the epidemiological situation, this is one of the most reckless and irresponsible, since it does not allow to control the further development of the situation. This is confirmed by the course of the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection, the occurrence and features of which raise many questions. 

 

In addition, the R-781 project is interesting, where bats are considered as carriers of potential biological weapons agents.

 

Among the priorities identified are the study of bacterial and viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans: pathogens of plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, as well as coronaviruses and filoviruses. 

It is noteworthy that the research is carried out in close proximity to the borders of Russia – in the areas of the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus. 

 

The project is being implemented with the involvement of not only Ukrainian, but also Georgian biological laboratories controlled by the Pentagon in cooperation with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the US Geological Survey.

 

The analyzed materials on the UP-8 project, aimed at studying the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine, clearly refute the US public statement that only Ukrainian scientists work in the Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine without the intervention of American biologists. One of the documents confirms that all serious high-risk studies are conducted under the direct supervision of specialists from the United States. 

 

The payroll of Ukrainian contractors clearly demonstrates how they are financed. It has been confirmed that the US Department of Defence paid the money for research participation directly, without the involvement of intermediaries. The extremely modest pay, by US standards, is noteworthy. This indicates a low estimation of the professionalism of Ukrainian specialists and the neglect of their American colleagues.

 

In addition, the studied materials contain proposals for the expansion of the US military-biological program in Ukraine. Thus, there was evidence of the continuation of completed biological projects UP-2, UP-9, UP-10, aimed at studying the pathogens of anthrax and African swine fever. 

 

The Pentagon is also interested in insect vectors capable of spreading dangerous infectious diseases. The analysis of the obtained materials confirms the transfer of more than 140 containers with ectoparasites of bats - fleas and ticks from the biolab in Kharkov abroad.

Significantly, similar research was carried out in the 1940s on the development of biological weapons components by the Japanese unit 731, whose members later fled to the US to escape prosecution for war crimes.  

I would like to remind you that representatives of Western countries are extremely cautious about handing over their biomaterials.

 

At the same time, available documents confirm numerous cases of transferring biological samples of Ukrainian citizens abroad. For example, 350 cryocontainers with blood serum samples were transferred from the Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to the reference laboratory for infectious diseases of the Australian Doherty Institute under the pretext of determining antibody titers.

 

Another example is the German-funded project No. 68727 EN on the study of Congo-Crimean haemorrhagic fever pathogens and hantaviruses. As part of this project, one thousand blood serum samples of citizens from different regions of Ukraine belonging exclusively to the Slavic ethnic group were donated to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg). 

 

It is highly likely that one of the objectives of the US and its allies is to create bioagents capable of selectively targeting different ethnic populations.

 

During a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on 8 March, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland reported on the presence of bioweapons in Ukraine where biosecurity research had been conducted. She expressed concern about the possibility of these bio-laboratories and the materials there being taken over by the Russian Armed Forces.

 

According to available information, the Americans have already managed to evacuate most of the documentation, including databases, biomaterials and equipment from laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa to the Lvov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and the US Consulate in Lvov. The possibility of transferring part of the collection to Poland has not been excluded.

 

In fact, with her statement, Nuland indirectly confirmed the Pentagon's military-biological program in Ukraine in circumvention of existing international agreements. 

➡ Documents

#MoD #Russia  #Ukraine  #NBCP   

@mod_russia_en

Biological weapons work in Ukraine; now destroyed

 THIS is provided as a document of record. I am not the author.

---------------

THIS document, alleging that there has been urgent destruction of biological weapons materials in Ukraine in February 2022, deserves study. 

Immediately after the heading below is a link which was in the text I received. Clicking that will in fact open A Telegram app stream of the Russian defence ministry.

Statement by the Chief of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection troops of the Russian Federation Armed Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov (March 7, 2022): biological programs

https://t.me/mod_russia_en/60

 

 The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has repeatedly drawn attention to the biological programmes implemented by the Pentagon in the post-Soviet area.

Including the territory of Ukraine that has united a chain of more than 30 biological laboratories divided into those for scientific research and for sanitary-epidemiological investigations.

Those works have been ordered by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). A firm affiliated to the defence department (Black and Veatch above all others) are involved in the implementation of the projects.
The works refer to three main branches. In the first place, it refers to the biological situation observation in the areas of possible deployment of the NATO military contingents, according to the Pentagon. In the second place, it is dedicated to collecting and transporting the strains of dangerous microorganisms. The third branch of activity refers to scientific investigations on potential biological weapons agents that are specific for that region, possessing natural focuses and able to be transmitted to humans.

For example, since 2021, the Pentagon has been carrying out the project called ‘Diagnosis, observation and prevention of zoonotic diseases in the Armed Forces of Ukraine’ funded with 11.8 million dollars.

In 2020-2021, the German Ministry of Defence examined the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, meningitis, hantaviruses
causative agents within the Ukrainian-German initiative for biological security on the external borders of the European Union.

Under the pretext of testing agents for the treatment and prevention of the coronavirus infection, a few thousand of serum samples taken from the infected individuals that refer to the Slavic ethnicity have been transported from Ukraine to Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

At the same time, the activity of the biological laboratories that, according to our data, has been intensified since 2014 and the so-called Ukrainian healthcare system ‘reforming’ programme implemented by the United States have led to an unmanageable increase of hazardous and economically important infections morbidity.

Thus there has been noted an increase of rubella, diphtheria and tuberculosis cases in Ukraine. The incidence of measles has increased more than 100 times. The World Health Organization has declared Ukraine a country with a high risk of the poliomyelitis outbreak.

We are considered that in the year of 2007 a strain of African swine fever with high contagiousness was constructed in the Georgian biological laboratory which is subordinate to Pentagon. It`s spread caused significant economic damage to a number of states including Ukraine and Poland and excluded them from a number of pork exporters.

The Department of the Chief of the Russian troops NBC protection constantly analyzes the biological situation on the territory of Ukraine.

According to our data an emergency phasing out of the biological programmes takes place. The analysed documents confirm that Ukrainian Health Ministry has set a task to completely destroy the bio-agents in the laboratories since 24th of February.

At the same time the analysis of the instructions given to the laboratory officials indicates that liquidation procedure is aimed at the irrevocable destruction of the collections. Apparently, everything necessary for continuation of the implementation of the military biological program has already been taken out of Ukraine.

The analysis of the acts of destruction shows that work was carried out with pathogenes of plague, anthrax and brucellosis in the Lvov biological laboratory, pathogens of diphtheria, salmonellosis and dysentery in laboratories in Kharkov and Poltava. Here are some of them: only in Lvov 232 containers with the casuative agent of leptospirosis, 30 containers with tularemia, 10 with containers brucellosis, 5
containers with plague were destroyed. In total more than 320 containers. The nomenclature and excessive number of bio-pathogens indicate that the work was carried out within the framework of military biological programs.

The curators from the Pentagon understand that if these collections get to Russian experts a fact of violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons by Ukraine and the USA will most likely be confirmed. Namely: carrying out work to enhance the pathogenic properties of microorganisms with usage of synthetic biology methods.
Only this can explain a haste with which the liquidation was carried out.

This is only a small part of documents. We continue the work and will inform you.

Russia and Ukraine a year from now. Part 2: a longer view

part 1 is below this

In modern history, there have been constant errors of expectation of quick end to war. We need to begin sober thinking about the Russia-Ukraine war a year from now. We are still in an early stage of a modern re-run of World War 1, begun in 2001. We need to consider history, in wider perspective.

In part 1 I discussed events of the past week or so. Now to look at several decades of famous wars and the expectations at their beginning.

The Iran-Iraq war: when Iraq with US support attacked Iran in 1980, from official documents and conversations to which I was privy, at the outset only some Japanese foreign ministry officials imagined the war might last a year. When I came back from talks in Tokyo, an ambassador from the subcontinent was aghast. This war lasted eight years. Nobody won. It had been an American effort to wedge Iraq away from the Soviet Union; it was also to open an angry front against a new revolutionary government Iran where staff were hostage in the US embassy in Tehran. It was also the worst legacy of the last year of the Carter Administration. Read, recall, weep. This Iran-Iraq war, the deadliest war between conventional forces of developing countries in history (though less than the wholesale killings in the Congo Wars), saw a great rise of the ethos of young Moslem men being convinced they were doing a holy thing, going straight to die, and to heaven, a phenomenon of which we have seen more. 

When Israeli invaded Lebanon in 1982, the confident expectation of informed officials in Canberra was that Israel would achieve its objectives and withdraw in weeks. Israel withdrew finally in May 2000, leaving behind weapons which fell into the hands of Hezbollah, grown strong in the interim. A major failure of Israel had been to reject negotiation with Arafat in the beginning of the 1980s, when Israel was strong, Arafat was weak. Negotiation from strength is an essential key in strategy (core teaching by Coral Bell when I was her student at Sydney University in 1962), but there is tendency, not least in democracies, to think that strength is an alternative, indeed a block, to any need to negotiate. 

Israel, as is the way of modern war, imported into Israel many of the troubles it went abroad to defeat. 

The Gulf War of 1990-91 was over quickly but failed to achieve a key objective specified by Clausewitz: defeat of the will of the enemy. 

We still have Australian forces in the Middle East entangled with the long trail of destruction and violence consequent of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, launched in March, declared over in May. but scarcely then begun. There was no real thinking about how a conquered Iraq should be governed. 

Very little was effectively done about governance in Afghanistan (war 2000-2021). The US is out of Afghanistan, failures under the rug. Our minds are out of Afghanistan ignoring the fact that now the Biden Administration plans to legislate to confiscate assets of the Afghan Central Bank parked in the US, and blocks World Bank funding for humanitarian relief. Afghanistan now in an outer dark corner of our minds, starved, even less governable, threatening stability in a fragile region from India to China to Russia to Iran and the countries in between. Turkish broadcaster TRT a week ago presented this sensible discussion of sanctions, interviewing an Undersecretary of the UN and a former policy advisor at the US treasury.

We and our children will be paying for this for a long time. At the beginning of the modern era of Middle East terrorism in end of the 1960s with international aircraft hijacked and blown up in the desert, Basil Liddell Hart, greatest British strategic thinker of the twentieth century, was of the view that the inspiration for it was in the work of Lawrence of Arabia, violent British hero of World War 1. Liddell Hart was also of the view that the viciousness of the Spanish Civil War 1936-39 reflected the viciousness of the Peninsula War when Napoleon invaded Spain… during which the term guerrilla war was coined. 

The land space between Germany and Moscow is flat, ask Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Czars, Putin and Zelenskyy. Ukraine, currently frozen is in size half way between Victoria and NSW. Twice the size of Germany, half the size of Iran. Ukraine has not mounted territorial defence but is defending cities. This is difficult for invaders with long logistic trails behind them, deprived of a border war.  However the now-encircled Ukrainian cities are modern, cut off from supplies of food and medicine. With spring there will, on the one hand, be problems planting crops, on the other the military efforts will be muddled as snow melts, fields become boggy, and heavy vehicles crack roads. Russia will control ports for export. 

It is possible that some negotiation of a ceasefire will succeed given the starvation of cities. But there will be no easy end to what has begun, and should government capitulate guerrilla war including urban guerrilla war will continue. The history of violence in Ukraine since World War 1 is savage. 

Much industrial capacity was handed to oligarchs thirty years ago, many chopping up factories to sell as scrap metal to Turkey. 

The gas pipeline issues are more complex than as portrayed in much current discussion. A lot of Ukraine’s foreign earnings are payments for gas transit from Russia to the west. Hostility in the US to Nordstream 2 has been to protect Ukraine’s pipe-transit income as well as promote prospect for gas sales from the US.

Wider political consequences will ripple. Morrison and Johnson have been handed tin helmets, the prospects for opposition parties damaged. In the US, despite these heroic efforts for Ukraine, Democrats may lose their majorities in the House and Senate in November 2022, leaving Biden as a lame duck for another two years. Whatever Biden has sought and may achieve domestically, the foreign policy and strategy team (Biden, Blinken, Austin, Sullivan, and Nuland) are all out of the stable of the Obama Administration, perfectly acceptable to the Republicans, architects of the 2014 coup and aftermath in the Ukraine, all but Biden employed by Blinken in the interim. This is an old school team, wanting by any means to build upon the bound-to-fail imagining of an eternal unipolar world after 1989. Biden has chosen the view of that team, which includes Nuland, architect of the American coup in Ukraine in 2014, not the more sensible cautious views of William Burns, Biden’s appointee to the CIA. The Blinken team, enthusiastically supported by military minds at NATO, pushed Russia, pushed Putin, without counting costs, without negotiating from strength. That strength has evaporated and attitudes are hardening. But in the US their spines are reinforced by this bill that has been read a second time in the US Senate and is a schedule for sanctions that would probably end global progress as we have witnessed it, with the President reporting to Congress on progress down the slope. 

We are still in developing stages of a new kind of World War I as I put to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 2003: 

I am also still of the view that since September 2001 we have been watching events and strategic responses unfolding as at the outbreak of war in 1914:

• Delusions of moral rectitude.

• Defence of imperial status quo.

• Nothing but narrow military options.

• Resort to alliances, hostility to thought.

• Vilification of the enemy, climate of fear and promotion of paranoia.

• Simplistic notions of victory, expectations of speedy end.

• Failure to address real wider issues.

• Enveloping sea of violence.

Russia and Ukraine a year from now. Part 1, the past week or so

In modern history, there have been constant errors of expectation of quick end to war. We need to begin sober thinking about the Russia-Ukraine war a year from now. We are still in an early stage of a modern re-run of World War 1, begun in 2001. We need to consider history, in wider perspective.

I am writing this on 6 March 2022. Developments on the ground in Ukraine are slow, but repercussions beyond are extensive. Sanctions imposed on Russia have implications far beyond Russia. In the past week not only the Russian rouble has fallen, also the Euro has fallen, if not so far. The USD and gold have increased in value. All commodity prices are up, the highest being wheat by 40%. This is not only a market disruption but also a human disaster as Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters. As much as with the global distribution of vaccines we can expect rich countries to eat first, snooze, and then think about famine elsewhere. European gas prices rose 120%, Reuters reported.

There are concerted global efforts by the United States to coerce other countries to fall in with the US desire to isolate Russia, aware of wider consequences. Complete success has been achieved for now in Europe despite the imminent extensive consequences for economic and human life throughout Europe. Check again in a few months to see upheavals in Europe.

AUKUS aukomatically of course. Johnson and Morrison acquire tin hats to go with their tarnished star badges. Defence budgets everywhere run run run, with little civilian comprehension or restraint.

Enthusiasm for exclusion of Russia from SWIFT will cause a global economic downturn; the world and Russia are too enmeshed. We are probably a decade from China securing a global alternative, but they will now work harder and faster.

The US public is generally very supportive of the current Biden position, with general ignorance of American provocation towards this war. There are some exceptions. More people should listen to Professor John Mearscheimer. 

Secretary of State Blinken is reported in Washington media to be ‘weighing up’ whether to impose sanctions on Quad member India for not falling into line. Indian airlines continue to fly to Russia and over Russia to the US. India has bought Russian antiaircraft systems, as has Turkey, a NATO member. Turkish Airlines is still offering seats from Istanbul to Moscow; their planes crossing Poland and the Baltic States to avoid the war zone.

Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar have large amounts of sovereign assets in Russia. They are in an uneasy situation, as also of course for the US and Europe given the power and importance of oil. The three big airlines Etihad, Emirates and Qatar have been flying over Russia to North America. Turkish military aircraft have made deliveries to Poland in the past week. Turkey is a bit of a problem for Washington and Europe. 

From China including Hong Kong flights to Europe via Russia as well as to Russia continue in volume. From Taipei I’ve seen one flight, by EvaAir, go to London over Russia, avoiding mainland China, whereas the ROC government airline China Airlines now flies to Europe across China including Xinjiang of course, over Kazakhstan, then avoiding the war zone by heading for the Caspian, Black Sea and Rumania. Of course most of China Airlines routes are to mainland China and that is source of most of its revenue.

Qantas about a week ago stopped taking the easy direct route to Darwin from London via Belarus and Russia, instead traveling through crowded airways over Iraq, (where the RAAF still has active refueling aircraft contributing not least to war crimes in Yemen), then India. 

On 5 March US and Chinese governments reported that in a phone conversation Secretary of State Blinken asked Foreign Minister Wang Yi to conform in condemning Russia and endorsing the US-NATO sanctions regime. Wang Yi did not agree. 

China has a border with Russia 4200km long, it is folly for anyone to imagine closing it — for so many reasons. They last had (pointless) wars in 1969 and last month signed an agreement on core interests, the Chinese news release is here. I cannot access the relevant document on the Kremlin website, their site seems blocked or knocked out. In the interest of the first step in strategic thinking – know thine enemy – you might try: www.en.kremlin.ru/

China in January 2022 celebrated sending the 50,000th train over the New Silk Road rail routes from China to Europe, transiting Russia. The global engineering achievement of the century, thus far, core of the Belt and Road Initiative the US has sought to undermine with nips at heels. A triumph in escaping US containment at sea. But now this rail system is at risk, to say the least. At any time more than thirty trains have been heading west. In 2021 total freight volume rose 25% to 1.2 million TEUs [twenty foot container equivalents, a standard measure for freight volume]. All that is now blocked from entering Europe from Russia. Consider how putting all that to sea will compound problems in Pacific supply chains. I note in passing that the US pandemic stimulus packages increased Chinese exports to the US dramatically.

The US’s approach to China at the moment has three elements. First, the IndoPacific mantra and defence forces mobilisation, plus AUKUS, plus the Japanese government falling into line: increased political and military containment of China. Second, the maintenance of ongoing trade war with China. Third, the Biden Administration’s willing adoption of anti-Chinese memes, hostility blown intense by Trump. One small step away from this anti-Chinese campaign: abandonment by the Justice department of its program to hunt down Chinese infiltration of universities and business. A disease caught by the Australian government and unlikely to be abandoned soon here.

The Russia-Ukraine war, in which no official American bodies are on the line, might lend hope to restoring the omnipotence of the United States, the dream begun in 1989, when according to US legend America brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union, whereas in fact it was the Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the slav members of the Soviet Union, who in December 1989 announced at Brest, Belarus, that the Soviet Union no longer existed, you’re out of a job Gorby… Gorbachev, the liberal reformer, friend of the US, West Germany,  and more, with his policies of glasnost and perestroika, had been unhorsed by hard men… beginning when he was in Crimea for a summer holiday in August. Britannica has a useful ball by ball account. We all have little awareness of this hard court, being played like trout by President Zelenskyy.

We are driven by media that require, for profit or political survival, to have big news every day. Perhaps, as Western media suggest, President Putin has expected very quick results in the Ukraine. We don’t know for certain, but it’s a common error of modern military chiefs. In part 2 I will discuss the fate in recent decades of dreams of quick war results. `