Russia policy after the war: A new strategy of containment

Gives us an idea of what the Atlantacists have in mind as they attempt, militarily, to hold onto their global dominance. This is not a new goal. It may be a new tactic, but, containing/balkanizing and exploiting Russia has long been the plan.

Pursue containment to stop Russian expansionism

To prevent further damage to the rules-based international order, the United States and its allies will need a comprehensive strategy of containment that aims to deter Russia militarily, raises the cost to Russia for its destabilizing behavior, and increasingly decouples Russia from the international community, politically and economically, until Moscow has earned the right to be considered a partner once more. 

The US led rules based order has been damaged and we need to make Russia/Russian suffer for their disobedience and then come crawling back on their knees.

Containment today benefits from the fact that the Russians are much weaker militarily after the Ukraine war and more isolated politically, although today’s Russia benefits from its close alignment with China and the fact that many nations beyond the democratic West are sitting on the fence.

Contradictory western thinking. So far Russia is holding it’s own and many nations are aligned with them.. Fence sitting? Not so sure.

Containment today also means taking a patient, long-term approach to the promotion of internal change in Russia. While it may be a generation before such change happens, we should be prepared to act quickly when the Russian people themselves demand leaders who are ready to return to the path of cooperation and integration that Putin has abandoned. 

Look to the west to insert more Navalny type characters into the picture.

Military strength and Alliance cohesion are the foundation of an effective containment policy. We need a NATO- and EU-coordinated strategy to push back against all forms of Russian expansionism, in Ukraine and beyond, and to strengthen our resilience against conventional and hybrid warfare. 

In the short term, we need to commit unambiguously to the goal of Ukrainian victory.

Moldova/Transnistria is part of the Ukrainian victory strategy

For Ukraine to prevail, we need to speed up the weapons delivery process and restart production of the most urgently needed systems such as High Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS) and advanced drones, both to secure new gains for the Ukrainians and to replenish depleted allied stocks.

We need to calibrate what weapons we provide to avoid escalation, but we should not let ourselves be intimidated or self-deterred by Russian saber-rattling.

Putin is more interested than we are in avoiding a direct clash with NATO, conventional or nuclear..

NATO is less concerned about a direct clash, nuclear or otherwise. That’s obvious enough as you continue to read on.

In my view, it is time to reconsider our self-imposed range limits and provide systems that enable Ukraine to deny the Russians a sanctuary for launching their infrastructure attacks.

Aim for Europe to evenly shoulder collective defense by 2030

In implementing the Madrid summit’s decisions, NATO needs to move toward a more balanced sharing of responsibility across the Atlantic. Even before the 2022 US midterm elections, concerns were growing among congressional Republicans about burden-sharing and allied free-riding, and this could become an even bigger concern in the 2024 US presidential election.

European allies could head off a future transatlantic rift by committing now to produce and deploy, by the end of this decade, at least 50 percent of the capabilities that NATO requires for collective defense. This would also be a prudent hedge in case the United States should need to divert some of its NATO reinforcements to the Indo-Pacific theater to deal with a simultaneous China crisis.

Obviously the US is looking for war with China!

Ensure containment goes beyond defense

An effective containment strategy should also seek to maximize Russia’s economic and political isolation. Economic decoupling should be achieved through a long-term policy of sanctions on the Russian economy and following through on moves to end the West’s dependence on Russian energy and raw materials.

Which is why North Stream pipeline was blown up by the Americans and friends. Undeniably.

In terms of political isolation, we need to treat Russia as a pariah or rogue state and avoid any premature return to business as usual.

While isolating Russia politically, we should look for ways to engage with Russian civil society and the growing number of political oppositionists operating from exile in neighboring countries. This should include efforts to connect to the next generation of potential leaders, making clear that our issues with Russia are with the policies of the regime, not the Russian people.

No denying the plans from the freedom loving democratic states for Russia and her people are hideous.