During a regular press briefing yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder painted the United States as the enforcer of good behavior by nations, a posture which requires the suppression of Russia. With regard to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, “the strategic question at issue there is can we, as an international community, allow that to happen? Can the United States allow that kind of behavior to be acceptable? And what precedent does it set if it does—if it is permitted?” Ryder said. One might have asked the same question of the U.S./NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S./NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 and numerous other, if smaller, such military operations. Apparently, when Russia does it it’s a crime, but when the U.S. and its allies do it, it’s not even worth mentioning.
And so Ryder continued: “And so from a strategic standpoint, working again alongside our international allies and partners to support, in this case, Ukraine in their fight to defend their sovereign territory, the consequences of not doing so would portend a very serious national security threat—international security threat for a very long time to come.” This is what it means to impose “strategic failure” on Moscow.
“I think the idea here is, again, to compel a nation that might think that, you know, might through military power and taking over nations illegally, they’d be deterred from doing that and that it would be unacceptable and, therefore, not to their strategic advantage or policy to do those kinds of things,” he added in response to a followup question. Such statements, in the context of an ongoing NATO nuclear exercise and an expected Russian nuclear exercise, are dangerous indeed.
