The Economist, the voice of the City of London, spoke in an editorial yesterday, and it spoke with the full force of 200 years of Russophobia. It retailed all of the accusations made against both Russia and Belarus that have been made over the last couple of weeks: that Minsk and Moscow are responsible for the crisis on the Belarus-Poland border in order to sow disorder in the EU. It did so as if those events were occurring in a vacuum, that is, without reference to the behavior of the United States and NATO since the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine or the wars on Southwest Asia, the long-term effects of which are what the migrants in Belarus are fleeing. The conclusion, therefore, is not surprising.
“Russia and Belarus hope to generate a humanitarian crisis that will test the EU’s resolve and unity,” The Economist declares. “So far, the EU has stood firm, backing Poland in its determination to keep the migrants out, and placing responsibility for their plight where it belongs, with Belarus. European leaders have threatened further sanctions against Belarus and even against Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, which could be banned from flying through the EU’s airspace. But if significant numbers of people start to die at the border, this unity may yet fracture. Whatever happens, Mr. Putin’s strategy of sowing mischief will surely continue. And the confrontation with the West, on which his increasingly unpopular regime tries to base its legitimacy, will deepen.” (https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/14/russia-is-stoking-tension-with-ukraine-and-the-eu)
Gen. Sir Nick Carter, the U.K. Chief of the Defense Staff, is meanwhile, blowing the winds of war in a series of exit interviews on his way out the door—he’ll be replaced by Adm. Sir Tony Radakin at the end of the month. “Russia probably regards the global strategic context as a continuous struggle in which, I think, they would apply all the instruments of national power to achieve their objectives. But in so doing, [the Russians] don’t want to bring on a hot war,” Carter said in an interview on Sky News yesterday. He was asked about Christopher Steele (there’s an authoritative source!) saying that he believes Moscow thinks it is at war with the U.K. and its allies, reported the Guardian. “So, yes, in a way I think he’s right,” said Sir Nick. “The question, of course, is how you define war and I, as a soldier, would tend to define war as the actual act of combat and fighting, and I don’t think they want that. I think they want to try and achieve their objective in rather more nuanced ways.”
