Update: Is The US Really Seeking To Escalate Into Open War With Russia?

We’ve seen a continuing pattern of severe provocations against Russia by the collective West, using Ukraine as a proxy. The latest example came this morning with drone attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, headquartered—as it has been for hundreds of years—at Sevastopol in Crimea. “The collective West”, for military purposes, means the United States of America. All of these provocations add up to an attempt to induce Russia to respond in such a way as to permit the collective West—again, meaning the US—to justify to their population an escalation of the proxy war into some form of open war with Russia. Without US participation no such escalation is possible.

Is that really the plan? It sounds totally crazy, but …

Larry Johnson today picks up on an interview by the Zhou administration’s point man for WW3, disgraced former general David Petraeus.

DID GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS LET THE UKRAINIAN CAT OUT OF THE BAG?

First Larry illustrates the basic inner contradictions which we see every day in the official Ukraine narrative: Russia is on the run, but … we may have to save Ukraine. Doesn’t compute, does it?

But then he gets to the heart of it all, which explains what the provocations are intended to do:

Petraeus, inadvertently displaying his dull intellect, tells the reporter that Ukraine may not have the war wrapped up and that the United States “MAY” lead an international rescue team into the conflict:

The United States may lead a multinational coalition against Russia in Ukraine regardless of NATO involvement, according to retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus.

In an interview with France’s L’Express on Saturday, Petraeus predicted that Russia could take actions in Ukraine that are “so shocking and so horrific” that direct U.S. intervention would be necessary.

“We are talking about the intervention of the North Atlantic Alliance in the event of an attack on one of the NATO members. But it is necessary to consider the option of using not NATO forces in Ukraine, but multinational forces that have nothing to do with NATO,” Petraeus, who also briefly served as CIA director, said.

https://tapnewswire.com/2022/10/david-petraeus-says-us-may-lead-multinational-force-against-russia-in-ukraine

In other words, there is no possible way to get NATO to agree to such an action, so there would need to be an international coalition of the foolhardy. In practice, that would mean a handful of NATO countries operating outside the NATO structure—which happens to be pretty much what’s going on right now. We’re probably talking about the US, UK, Poland, and Romania.

Has anyone actually thought this through? US defense officials are openly talking about the shortage of weapons and ammunition that has been brought about by shipping this stuff to Ukraine for subsequent destruction by Russian forces. My guess is that the concept involved here remains a limited war, but one of our definition—a bit like the Rules-Based Order. We will provoke Russia into escalating against the West, then we will define the Rules by which Russia will have to respond to our retaliation. That doesn’t sound terribly convincing or practical to me, and it clearly invites an asymmetrical response from Russia.

This is where we are. Meanwhile we’re told that the American people are voting on inflation. I understand, but there are even bigger issues that no party I’m aware of is discussing as should be done. Well, there’s Tulsi’s party and the talk of no blank checks for Ukraine in the next Congress. That’s about as good as it gets right now.

My prediction is that Putin will not allow himself to be provoked into a major response before the Midterms. After that, who knows? I’m sure the Russian General Staff has been gaming out all sorts of possible responses.