Original Article By Oliver JJ Lane
If NATO members fail to “stop a war before it starts” by successfully deterring Russia from trying its hand in Europe, the Atlantic, and the Arctic it will be a conflict on the scale of the First and Second World Wars, the Secretary General warns.
“The dark forces of oppression are on the march again”, said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in a speech in Berlin on Thursday, as he implied a coming world war is in the offing if the alliance fails to deter Russia from empire-building. Expressing the importance of continuing to support Ukraine, Rutte said it was better to defeat Russia and have something of a buffer zone, rather than directly meet Russia along the NATO border in central Europe.
NATO chief Mark Rutte says after a grinding, multi-year stalemate of a war with Ukraine, Russia will be next start a conflict as big as WW1/2 pic.twitter.com/g7URA42xWa
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Explaining the purpose of the address is to explain “what we must do to stop a war before it starts”, Rutte named Russia as the main threat and China as its main backer, and called for NATO nations to enhance their preparations for war, including pushing their industrial bases to produce more munitions.
He said:
We must all accept that we must act to defend our way of life, now. Because this year, Russia has become even more brazen, reckless, and ruthless, towards NATO and towards Ukraine… Russia’s economy is now geared to wage war, not to make its people prosperous. Russia is spending nearly 40 per cent of its budget on aggression, and around 70 per cent of all machine tools in Russia are used in military production. Taxes are going up, inflation has skyrocketed, and petrol is rationed…
…How is Putin able to maintain his war against Ukraine? The answer is China. China is Russia’s lifeline. China wants to prevent its ally from losing in Ukraine. Without China’s support, Russia could not continue to wage this war. For instance around 80 per cent of critical electronic components in Russian drones and other systems are made in China. So when civilians are made in Kyiv or Kharkiv, Chinese technology is often inside the weapons that kill them… NATO’s own defences can hold for now but with its economy dedicated to war, Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.
Going into the middle of the 21st century means wars no longer being fought at arm’s length, Rutte said, with future conflicts happening “at our door”. If NATO fails to show Russia it is ready to fight — and thereby deter Russia from trying — Rutte said Europe faces “the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured”.
NATO Chief Warns Xi, Putin Will Start World War III with Joint Attackshttps://t.co/lNY3BsAxsL
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This would be a “terrible” war, with “conflict reaching every home and every workplace. Destruction, mass mobilisation, millions displaced. Widespread suffering and extreme losses”. But it is preventable, he said.
The remarks are the latest in a now years-long campaign by top NATO figures to cajole member states into taking collective defence seriously. Last month the chair of of the NATO military committee — the holder of which has in recent times has played something of the bad cop to the Secretary General — spoke up the utility of the “pre-emptive strike” as a “defensive action” in the service of deterrence.
As reported, he said: “How deterrence is achieved — through retaliation, through pre-emptive strike — this is something we have to analyse deeply because there could be in the future even more pressure on this”. The Admiral noted Russia has considerable advantages in aggression because it has none of the checks on power that constrain Western democratic NATO members.
Russia, for its part, has insisted it doesn’t want war with Europe, an assertion that Western observers have generally rejected as a transparent ruse. The Russian Federation is nevertheless ready for war with Europe at the drop of a hat, President Vladimir Putin has recently insisted as part of his long drive to discourage Western involvement in Ukraine. NATO has for years taken the position that Russia is, actually, buying time in preparation for wider war with Europe by the end of this decade, now five years distant.
NATO Warns of ‘Enduring Threat’ Russia Aligning With China on Taiwan Invasion https://t.co/53TvYJMr16
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