In the past couple of days, my peers in the community of Russia analysts have addressed the question of “what if” – what is it that Russia can and may do if the negotiations with the United States over its draft Treaties on security in Europe fail within the very short time period the Russians have set, apparently one month. Parenthetically, I am amused that spokesmen for the U.S. State Department say that they may enter into talks with the Russians some time in January. It seems they did not catch the short timeline the Russians have set or mistakenly believe it was a bluff.
The best of the analyses by my fellow analysts was posted yesterday by former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong: www.patrickarmstrong.ca I recommend this read to everyone, because it is in its own way reassuring, setting out possible Russian options that are far removed from pressing the button and blowing us all, and themselves, to bits.
However, I did not see in his piece, nor do I find in the writings of other independent analysts, not to mention on the pages of our mainstream newspapers, any explanation of what exactly Vladimir Putin meant when he said initially and repeated yesterday before the Collegium of the Russian Ministry of Defense, an audience of a hundred or more generals, that should the talks with the US fail, Russia will immediately implement “military-technical” retaliatory measures.
The term “military-technical” has been picked up and sold for the purchase price by nearly all our media. No explanation is given, because very likely no one really understands the term.
So I will have a go at it here and now, after a eureka moment came to me earlier this morning. The term is as elusive as the translation of “адекватный,” which most everyone (or every translation software) wrongly translates as “adequate” when it normally means “appropriate” or “suitable.”
The “technical” in the expression is coming from техника, which is the common Russian way of saying “equipment”. Military “tekhnika” means motorized howitzers, personnel carriers, fighter jets, etc. Tekhnika also has common civilian use: the outfitting of a factory is “tekhnika” as in “техническое оснащение.”
So, what Putin is saying is that the Russians will respond by deploying military hardware. Now what hardware would that be? Given that so much of the draft treaties deal with short range missiles that the US is deploying in Europe and hopes to deploy in Ukraine, it is entirely logical that the Russian response to failure in negotiations will not be to invade Ukraine, it will not be to cut gas supplies to Europe, but it will be to deploy its nuclear capable short range missiles in Belarus and in Kaliningrad.
But that is not all. Deploying in Europe would only partially serve the Russians’ purpose. It will touch off a furious reaction in NATO, meaning a lot of hot air, but it will also precondition the Europeans to accept meekly the eventual capitulation of the United States that they would otherwise denounce as appeasement.
As I have said previously, Putin’s entire approach is that Russia is in an arm wrestling match with one country only, the USA. He knows that the USA does not really care if Russia and the EU blow one another up: that would only enforce their global hegemony. So the iron clad logic is that the Russians would also station their hypersonic cruise missiles just off the US shores as Putin threatened three years ago, when he spoke about Russia’s cutting edge, next generation strategic weapons that had then and today still have no equals in the world. That is the pistol to the head that will force US negotiators to break out into a cold sweat and do what has to be done to end the madness of their NATO expansion to the East and plans to turn Ukraine into a forward missile attack post against Russia. And the Europeans will just shut up.
Moral of the story as we head into the festive season: the end of the world is not nigh,
©Gilbert Doctorow
Gilbert Doctorow 
Hmmm…that makes a lot of sense. I’d been wondering what VVP was planning to do to directly threaten the US – since, as you quite correctly point out, it’s increasingly clear that the US doesn’t care about its allies / clients / vassals / satrapies. I’m still trying to understand all this – it seems we’re definitely seeing a “No more Mr. Nice Guy” transition here, as we saw from the defense get together – that was the harshest language I’ve seen from him.
May be a bit of a winter of discontent, eh? As always, thanks for your insightful analyses.
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Thanks for the recommendation. Remember that the US mainland has never been under serious attack since 1812-1814 when the RN blockaded the east coast and landed a force in Chesapeake Bay and marched on Washington, British/Cdn forces occupied Detroit for a time. When the Japanese occupied a few islands in the Aleutians, USA and Canada went nuts, formed the First Special Service Force and kept troops stationed in the West Coast for some time. Russians showing that they can hit the US mainland with CONVENTIONAL weapons will surely be one of the things they are contemplating — nukes in Kgrad and BE are also high on the probabilities. But what I really think is a nifty idea is my suggestion that they take out the Azov Bn positions. The last thing they are going to do is “invade” Country 404.
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In practice, what you are talking about is stationing a Russian frigate 250km off the east coast of the USA. This frigate or two would be constantly surrounded by a much larger number of top-of-the-line US navy vessels, which would 1) make any actual attack by that Russian frigate a suicide mission, and 2) just lead to a bunch of laughing stories in the western media about rusty Russian ships.
There is already a pistol to the head of both countries in the form of their strategic nuclear forces. Placing a Russian vessel offshore to be constantly surrounded by American vessels is just propaganda that will not have the intended effect, and I think the Russians are smart enough to know this. Moving missiles around in Belarus and Kaliningrad will not register at all among the Western public, and hardly so among the civilian leadership. Maybe that’s one end game, Washington continues to do what it’s doing and Putin responds with some moves that mean nothing to the powers that be in the West but which will be trumpeted in Russian media. That result is certainly better than war.
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Not a frigate. Read my piece.
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If it’s hidden, like in a container ship or a submarine, it doesn’t serve the purpose, no? The whole point of any “or else” moves is in their visibility. I’m kind of stumped by the position the Russians have gotten themselves in. They put their credibility on the line but I don’t think they actually want to occupy Ukraine or go to war against the USA/NATO, if for no other reason than being frozen out of the European market and becoming totally dependent on China’s goodwill.
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“A Russian vessel?” I say this politely, you need to go much deeper in your analysis.
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Indeed — Russia has a lot of scary weapons that the US can’t find.
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For reference — all Moscow is doing is telling the liars to sign up to teh promises the broke back then
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
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The U.S. leadership as manifested in cut-out clown characters like Trump and now Biden/Harris continues the arc of failure begun under Clinton Inc and his policies as laid down by what must be referred to as the “deep state” consisting of the usual suspects in their Wall Street-financed doctrinal think tanks. They have all been toiling away toward this goal, this stand off situation, and now that they’ve gotten the world to this precipice: “Oh-Oh, didn’t think about this one” being an actual most logical conclusion to their D.C. basements doughty efforts. Drunk on momentum and hubris, only now do they perhaps realize they have strayed too far from the cave mouth and its warming protective fire.
Treating the Russian peoples like untermenschen over these past decades, insulting them at every turn, (Obama’s boycott of the 75th Anniversary of the end of The Great Patriotic War,) the mass renunciation of the true sacrifices these people made (especially in light of WW II having been a Western-engineered war just as its predecessor WW I.)
False hubris, testosterone-thought as underlying principle of conduct, the West has shown itself through all of this as being as trustworthy and responsible to potential momentous outcomes of history as two unsupervised six-year olds left alone in an old dirt-floored garage with a can of gasoline and a book of matches. Then there’s the decaying dynamite over in the corner, its suppurating nitroglycerine ready to “add fuel to the fire.”
Cut-out clowns and nuclear tiddlywinks. I remain gobsmacked at the lack of vision and purpose for the betterment of humanity that eludes these id-bound creatures of aggrandizement and ill will toward Peace on Earth.
Such is the testament and legacy of Allen Dulles and his ilk ever-haunting our present down to this very day.
It’s the largely unacknowledged monsters and their contribution to the continuity of the genocidal-collective suicidal tendency history they initiated that remains our collective burden to overcome.
“I will break the CIA into a thousand pieces!” Said one who dared and gave all to make it so.
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