There are layers in the intelligence communities with different realities, if you’re a high enough ranking intelligence officer you will understand that.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has accused NATO, and Europe more broadly, of stoking tensions on the continent, as he called on leaders in February 2020 to ”abandon the phantom of the Russian threat”. Really, ”phantom”? Let me tell you what he is really thinking and why he cannot get the US to play along. Kreml is prepared to sacrifice Iran in exchange for the control over the Nordic countries. That is why Putin has been talking with Israel with a silk tongue lately and released a female Israeli prisoner from a Russian prison as a sign of good will. The US is trying to provoke a war with Iran. But the Iranians aren’t taking the bait lately. So the Americans are glancing on the possibility to get some of the Kurds or perhaps the Syrian rebels to provoke the Turks into a war with Syria by them killing some of Turkey’s military personnel at the border between Syria and Turkey in a false flag operation. Turkish president Erdogan has been very firm in his approach on Turkey’s stand should Syria engage the Turkish forces resulting in just one casualty. It will mean war. And Turkey is a NATO country. Erdogan has been firm but stupid. If Turkey is attacked in any way by any of the players in the region, then Turkey can release Article 5 in the NATO chart. And then the US would step in and gain access into Iranian interests in Syria and from there on it is not a long way to the war, that the US has sought with Iran, for control over the oil in the Persian Gulf.
We did not have to wait long for the Russian reaction, because we experienced that Russia either on its own or through the dictator Assad, in northwestern Syria attacked Turkish posts from Syria by air at the end of February 2020, resulting in 22 dead Turkish soldiers. Suitably enough, Russia has an air base in Latakia very close to the Idlib province. Turkish forces have been in conflict with Syrian forces, as a result of the airstrikes. Motion pictures from within Idlib show mushroom clouds after new bombings and shootings between the belligerents. According to the UN, schools, hospitals and temporary refugee camps have been in the firing line. Putin has deceived Erdogan over the phone. Better to forestall than to be forestalled. Erdogan responded by opening the corridor for refugees between Turkey and Europe. I don’t think Erdogan is well informed! He probably thinks that the Western world is behind the attacks. Or he’s really irrational, which wouldn’t surprise me. The Bashaws down there tend to be labile and unreliable.
The point is that the US is going to need all the NATO countries, also Norway and Denmark, to cooperate with the US and NATO. That’s why Norway and Denmark can relax for the time being. The US is going to defend them, or at least they are prepared to deter Russia from attacking Norway and Denmark. Only, Norway’s and Denmark’s security guarrantee can all go away in a decade or so. Noone knows. The only thing we can know for certain is that Trump is unreliable and that a Russian attack on Sweden and/or Finland will result in forwarded Russian power positions in Scandinavia. Looks like Trump has the upper hand. Maybe he is smarter than I thought? Or maybe he has just got more power than I thought.
Of course all this means that Norway and Denmark have been marched into another war for the US sake. Just not a war on their own soil. This have both upsides and downsides for our Scandinavian neighbors. For us Swedes it means bad news.
Putin and Trump are closing in on each other without so many words. It’s the way the big guys like to communicate, with military exercises using fleets and brigades and such. This kind of communication has its upsides and downsides, but it can be combined with making other projects a reality in different places of the world in order to convey a meaning. One downside to that is that you have only so much resources. In August of 2019, Russia held a big Naval drill very close to the Norwegian coast. But there is also the possibility to pull back troops, in order to convey a message, and that is what Trump was doing in late 2019, as he was defending his back-stabbing on the Kurds in Syria and Tweeting about the coming US withdrawal. But the US war with Iran is still coming.
If not Russia should collapse beforehand Putin sure looks forward to a future Russian salvation like a WWII Alliance with the Americans and the British. It is possibe to imagine a defensive war coming sometime in the future for the Scandinavian countries on the one side, and the would be assailants the US, Britain and if they all get their wish also Russia on the other side which is a necessity for such a war scenario. There could also be a blockade or some sort of sanctions against us. And with a war and/or sanctions against us I especially mean us Swedes. We would find ourselves in Israel’s position in 1967 and 1973. And you know what, I think we would win.
Trump’s motive? Economical gain for his country, Reality politics, recent resentments against Trump from high ranking officials in the Swedish armed forces, personal issues with us Swedes, you pick one or all! But the main motive in such a scenario would be that the US administration wants to grease up the Middle East by removing Russian incentives to counteract the US when they engage in yet another war in the region, this time likely against Iran. There is also a direct link between this and Trump’s visit to India in February 2020.
“John Bolton is absolutely a hawk,” Trump told NBC in June 2019. “If it was up to him, he’d take on the whole world at one time, OK? But that doesn’t matter because I want both sides.”
These two separate scenarios are surely a way to get both sides for ”businessman” Donald.
Let me just say that the US own WTI oil, which is of a quality that is currently the only kind of oil quality you can make gasoline from, will suffice for maybe 5+ more years. Do the calculations and don’t be fooled by commentaries by various players, like that the oil fields in Texas are as big as the state of Alabama. Do the counting on the official numbers!
It is in this context you should consider the ”save our ASAP Rocky” statements from Trump. ASAP Rocky is an American rapper that happened to get himself into a fight in Sweden and ended up in a Swedish court in the summer of 2019.
And it is in this context we should read that POTUS now wants to buy Greenland from Denmark or lease placement of BMD assets and runways from the country. Sounds to me like POTUS wants to go hunting with aircrafts for Admiral von Dönitz submarines in the Denmark Strait again. Of course it is only a plus that Russian endeavours to make it to the Atlantic with nuclear submarines in a war scenario where Russia is an assailant might be foiled. Or is this the main purpose? Noone would be happier than me if it is, but this shopping spree from the POTUS coincides with other suspicious stuff happening. But there is also a longer term aspect with Trump wanting to buy Greenland, natural resources. America has tried this before. And the timing is impeccable.
It is also in this concept you should read that Angela Merkel visited Iceland in August 2019. It is not just random happenings, almost everything that happens on the top levels have a causality.
Russias motive is that Kremlin is in a race to make something happen so that they will not implode as a state, again.
Homework:
What message do you think that Russia wanted to convey to the US administration with their big Naval drill very close to the Norwegian coast in August 2019? The Russian Northern Fleet group of warships sailed north for live-shootings in the Norwegian Sea near the Arctic Circle. The main objective of the Russian air force group was an exercise to hunt down submarines.
Would you answer:
- It was not a message to the US, it was a message to Norway and maybe also Finland and Sweden.
- It was a message to Trump that he should keep out of Russia’s influence sphere wich Putin intends to expand by working his ”beanbag” Norway.
- It was additionally an attempted message, or part of a message, to Trump that ”please, come to your senses and work together with us, let us have the Baltic states and/or selected parts of Scandinavia while you can do what you wish with Iran possibly. Help us contain Germany while we fuck up Scandinavia together”.
Sources; SR;Ekot and Kim Iversen on Youtube for the part about Syria and Turkey
Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden
The strategist cowboy 