881 On election eve, NATO announces military buildup against Russia. But Trump will tear up Brzezinski's Chessboard

On election eve, NATO announces military buildup against Russia. But
Trump will tear up Brzezinski's Chessboard

Newsletter published on 9 November 2016

(1) NATO announces largest troop deployments against Russia since Cold War
(2) Huge NATO land army to meet Russian aggression - London Times (just
before election)
(3) NATO chief tells President-elect Trump: you can't dismantle NATO
(4) The World might be safer under Trump - former head of British armed
forces
(5) Maybe No World War Three
(6) No Third World War

(1) NATO announces largest troop deployments against Russia since Cold War

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/08/nato-n08.html

NATO announces largest troop deployments against Russia since Cold War

By Alex Lantier

8 November 2016

NATO will place hundreds of thousands of troops on alert for military
action against Russia in the coming months, top NATO officials told the
Times of London on Monday.

The US-led military alliance is planning to speed up the mobilization of
forces numbering in the tens of thousands and, ultimately, hundreds of
thousands and millions that are to be mobilized against Russia. Beyond
its existing 5,000-strong emergency response force, NATO is tripling its
"incumbent response force" to 40,000 and putting hundreds of thousands
of troops on higher alert levels.

The Times wrote, "Sir Adam West, Britain’s outgoing permanent
representative to NATO, said he thought that the goal was to speed up
the response time of up to 300,000 military personnel to about two
months. At present a force of this size could take up to 180 days to
deploy."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, "We are… addressing what
we call the follow-on forces. There are a large number of people in the
armed forces of NATO allies. We are looking into how more of them can be
ready on a shorter notice." According to the Times, Stoltenberg
explained that NATO is looking broadly at methods for "improving the
readiness of many of the alliance's three million soldiers, sailors,
airmen and Marines."

The target of these deployments, the largest since the dissolution of
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy and the end of the Cold
War a quarter century ago, is Russia.

"We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial
military build-up of many years, tripling defence spending since 2000 in
real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their
forces and using military force against neighbours," Stoltenberg said.
"We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies
and that is exactly the reason why NATO is responding. We are responding
with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end
of the Cold War."

These statements show how NATO planning for a horrific war against
Russia has continued behind the backs of the people throughout the US
presidential election campaign. Military deployments and war
preparations by the Pentagon and the general staffs of the various
European countries are set to go ahead, moreover, whatever the outcome
of the election in the United States and those slated for 2017 in the
European NATO countries.

Stoltenberg's vague attack on Russian "propaganda" in Europe is an
allusion to the instinctive opposition to war that exists in the
European and international working class and popular distrust of the
anti-Russian propaganda promoted by NATO officials like Stoltenberg and
West.

Last year, a Pew poll found broad international opposition to NATO
participation in a conventional war against Russia in Eastern Europe,
even in a scenario that assumes Russia started the conflict. Under these
hypothetical conditions, 58 percent of Germans, 53 percent of French
people, and 51 percent of Italians opposed any military action against
Russia. Opposition to war in the poll would doubtless have been higher
had pollsters mentioned that NATO's decision to attack Russian forces in
Eastern Europe could lead to nuclear war.

This opposition is rooted in deep disaffection with the imperialist
Middle East wars of the post-Soviet period and the memory of two world
wars in Europe in the 20th century. The arguments Stoltenberg presented
against it are politically fraudulent.

The primary threat of military aggression and war in Europe comes not
from Russia, but from the NATO countries. Over the past 25 years, the
imperialist powers of NATO have bombed and invaded countries in Central
Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Within Europe, they bombed Serbia and
Kosovo in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, pushed NATO’s borders hundreds
of miles to the East, and backed a violent, fascist-led putsch to topple
a pro-Russian government in Ukraine in 2014.

The aggressive character of NATO policy emerged once again last Friday,
when NBC News reported that US cyber warfare units had hacked key
Russian electricity, Internet and military networks. These are now
"vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the US
deem it necessary," NBC stated. [...]

The aggressive character of NATO’s agenda is illustrated by a report
issued last month by the CIA-linked Rand Corporation think tank on the
military situation in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia. The small military forces NATO has posted in the Baltic
republics, Rand wrote, are "inviting a devastating war, rather than
deterring it." They calculated that Russian forces, if they actually
invaded, could overrun these countries in approximately 60 hours.

On this basis, the think tank called for launching a vast NATO military
build-up in the Baltic republics, virtually at the gates of St.
Petersburg. It wrote that it would take "a force of about seven
brigades, including three heavy armored brigades—adequately supported by
air power, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready
to fight at the onset of hostilities… to prevent the rapid overrun of
the Baltic states." This would cost the NATO countries $2.7 billion each
year. [...]

(2) Huge NATO land army to meet Russian aggression - London Times (just
before election of Trump)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/huge-nato-land-army-to-meet-russian-aggression-xsdnldzkq

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

November 7 2016, 12:01am, The Times

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/huge-nato-land-army-to-meet-russian-aggression/news-story/0c6bdccce88072e4da3427241801f1a7

Huge NATO land army to meet Russian aggression

Hundreds of thousands of NATO troops will be put on a higher state of
alert amid rising tensions with Russia, the head of the alliance has
indicated.

NATO commanders want to prepare a substantial land force capable of
deterring Russian -aggression.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg did not give precise figures,
but Adam Thomson, Britain’s outgoing permanent representative to the
alliance, said the goal was to speed up the response time of up to
300,000 military personnel to about two months. At present a force of
this size could take up to 180 days to deploy.

The troops would act as a -"follow-on force" to NATO’s existing response
force, which can be deployed to a war zone within days. The personnel
will come from nations across the alliance.

"We have seen Russia being much more active in many -different ways," Mr
Stoltenbergsaid in an exclusive interview.

"We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial
military build-up over many years; tripling defence spending since 2000
in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their
forces and using military force against neighbours.

"We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies
and that is exactly the reason why NATO is responding. We are responding
with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end
of the Cold War."

The measures, drawn up after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in east Ukraine, include
the deployment of 4000 NATO troops to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and
Poland from next year. NATO has already created an emergency response
force of 5000 ground troops, backed by air, sea and special forces,
which is able to mobilise within five days.

In addition, the 28 member states agreed to triple the size of an
incumbent response force to 40,000 troops. They can be moved in quickly
as reinforcements after the initial wave.

Mr Stoltenberg said NATO was looking at improving the readiness of many
of the alliance’s three million soldiers, sailors, -airmen and Marines.

"We are ... addressing what we call the follow-on forces," he said.
"There are a large number of people in the armed forces of NATO allies.
We are looking into how more of them can be ready on a shorter notice."

The issue was discussed at a meeting of NATO defence ministers last
month. Sir Adam said all allies had agreed it was necessary to increase
the deployability of large numbers of -alliance troops. "I am not sure
that everyone has realised how difficult and how expensive it is going
to be, but it is part of that concept agreed in February of this year,"
Sir Adam said, referring to a previous meeting of defence ministers.

After the Soviet Union -collapsed, defence budgets in most NATO states
were slashed. Most of those forces still in uniform were put on a lower
state of readiness. But -Russia continued to train its military at
scale, with exercises of more than 100,000 personnel taking place each
year. NATO is also responding to an increase in espionage, hybrid
warfare and cyberattacks. One step has been the creation of an
intelligence division.

(3) NATO chief tells President-elect Trump: you can't dismantle NATO
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-reaction-nato-idUSKBN1341DF

Wed Nov 9, 2016 | 5:31am EST

NATO chief tells Trump: no conditions on defending allies

By Robin Emmott | BRUSSELS

NATO's promise to defend and protect any ally under attack is an
unconditional guarantee set out in the Western alliance's founding
treaty, the organization's chief said on Wednesday following the victory
of Donald Trump in the U.S. election.

During the campaign, Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe
if they do not spend enough on defense, unnerving the ex-Soviet Baltic
states on Russia's border, who fear Moscow might try a repeat of its
2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

"NATO's security guarantee is a treaty commitment and all allies have
made a solemn commitment to defend each other and this is something
which is absolute and unconditioned," NATO Secretary-General Jens
Stoltenberg told a news conference.

Trump's suggestion of conditioning the United States’ defense of its
Western allies was the first time a leading presidential candidate had
raised the idea, putting him directly at odds with NATO's 27 other
member states.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded in 1949 around the
central promise that an armed attack against one ally is an attack
against all, whether it be on land, in the air or on the seas. NATO
leaders in July added the area of cyberspace to that list of war
fighting domains, although allies have to request NATO's help and
decisions are on a case-by-case basis.

After the fall of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago, NATO's
European allies cut defense spending to historic lows, leaving the
United States to make up around three quarters of the alliance's
military expenditure.

A newly assertive Russia under President Vladimir Putin has begun to
change that and Europe is again spending more on defense. But Britain,
Poland, Greece and Estonia are the only European nations to meet a NATO
goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Trump also threatened to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe if allies fail
to pay more for U.S. protection. [...]

(4) The World might be safer under Trump - former head of British armed
forces

    Thomas Seidler<tom@thegoodbook.co.uk> 8 November 2016 at 23:59

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/world-may-be-safer-with-tycoon-says-general-tvh3ptgg8

World may be safer with tycoon, says general

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

November 4 2016, 12:01am,  The Times

The world might be a safer place under Donald Trump than under Hillary
Clinton, a former head of the British armed forces has said.

General Lord Richards of Herstmonceux said that the Republican
billionaire, who has made no secret of his admiration for President
Putin, would re-boot relations between Moscow and Washington, which are
at a post-Cold War low.

By contrast, Mrs Clinton would be more likely to set the West on a
course for war if she pushed ahead with a safe zone for civilians in
Syria: that might require US aircraft to shoot down the Russian fighter
jets flying in support of the Assad regime.

Lord Richards told The Times this week that he believed the only way to
prevent a further humanitarian catastrophe in the rebel-held east of
Aleppo would be for the rebels to withdraw, removing any reason for
Russian planes to attack.

He repeated this view in an interview with The House magazine, which
appeared yesterday. "In the Cold War era states coalesced and they had
this understanding and it worked — even though there was a massive
amount at stake, communications and mutual understanding between Russia
and America wasn’t too bad," the crossbench peer said.

"It’s non-state actors like Isis that are the biggest threat to our
security. If countries and states could coalesce better to deal with
these people — and I think Trump’s instinct is to go down that route —
then I think there’s the case for saying that the world certainly won’t
be any less safe. It’s that lack of understanding and empathy with each
other as big power players that is a risk to us all at the moment.
Therefore I think he would reinvigorate big power relationships, which
might make the world ironically safer."

Lord Richards, who was chief of the defence staff between 2010 and 2013,
said that setting up safe zones for Syrian civilians, as suggested by
Mrs Clinton, could lead to a serious confrontation with Russia. "Unless
she’s prepared to do this properly and go to war with Russia, she
shouldn’t talk about no-fly zones and nor should we. We would have to
shoot down Russian aircraft to impose it. Do we really want to go to a
shooting war over Aleppo?"

Sir Adam Thomson, Britain’s outgoing permanent representative to Nato,
said that alliance members had been unnerved by recent remarks from Mr
Trump that he would be less inclined to defend European allies if they
were not spending sufficiently on defence. "We need to . . .
re-establish that the commitment is there," he said. "Let us see what he
says as president. It is one thing to be a candidate. It is another
thing to be president of the United States."

(5) Maybe No World War Three

From: "Larry" <2186604556@qq.com> Subject: US election.
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 17:26:15 +0800

Peter, after this, I will believe anything you tell me. The US media
were talking Hillary all the way. I can't imagine how you predicted
this. Maybe No World War Three.

(6) No Third World War

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 10:29:57 +0000 (UTC)
From: Eric Encina <eric_encina@yahoo.com>

[...] Honestly, it is not easy to make America great again but let’s
give him the benefits of the doubt. If God is with him, then making
America great again is not far-fetched to impossible.  Americans have
all the reasons to optimistically  back up Mr. Trump for American victory.

Making America great again is to restore monetary and economic justice
and have a model for a real economy where human life is respected, the
poor is given dignity and economic security is guaranteed without
destroying other nations in this planet even hostile to America. Soon
America is gonna the nation of peace and a bridge of peace in the world.
No more wars of nations and definitely no third world war. [...]

It is convincing that God heard the prayers for America for a new birth
of governance through Trump Administration. And that’s the end of too
much political bickering and division and just like the way I called up
for the Philippines following our own election last May, let’s be
united for a ground solution for the good, security and victory for all
of us.

I still wish and pray a better relation between America and my country
Philippines following these elections of two countries in more than 4
decades of alliance in the South East Asia despite of the apparent
differences between of foreign policies of two country-governments’
elected presidents.

God bless America!

Eric V. Encina
Philippines