Following President Medvedev’s speech yesterday, I decided to scan the western corporate media for reactions.  I was curious, what would the pundits make of what I personally consider a total failure of Obama’s foreign policy?  Would at least the European press express outrage over the fact that the always imbecile US foreign policy has now turned several European countries into targets?
I mean, really, let’s consider the following basic and, I strongly believe, undeniable facts:
a) There is no Iranian missile threat to Europe, nor will there ever be.  Under no imaginable scenario would the Iranians ever even consider striking at Europe simply because it would make absolutely no sense.
b) It is a well-known “secret” that this entire anti-missile system is designed to “protect” NATO from a putative Russian strike.  However, since it is quite evident to anybody except for a complete cretin that under no circumstances would Russia ever gain anything from striking at Europe.  Thus the real reasons behind this anti-missile system are the following:
  1. to provide more taxpayer money to the US MIC
  2. to firmly peg the East-Europeans into the NATO colonial realm
  3. to spite and threaten Russia by brazenly ignoring its legitimate concerns
c)  Militarily speaking, this anti-missile shield is only a minor annoyance for Russia because Russia does have the technical means to defeat it.  President Medvedev outlined these measures, adding that “these measures will be adequate, effective, and low-cost“. He is right.  This is not Reagan’s “Star Wars”, but a system deployed within a short range of Russia’s borders.  Countering it will be cheap.
What this deployment does “achieve” is a psychological return to the worst years of the Cold War, at least for Europe.  For those who, like myself, lived in the late 1970s and 1980s under the threat of Soviet SS-20 missiles, it is deeply distressing to see that the USA is, again, turning the European continent into a target, in particular considering the fact that there is no “Russian threat” to “counter” (why would Russia ever wanted to threaten its biggest market for gas? and if it really wanted to threaten the EU, all it would need is to cut its gas supplies anyway…).
Bottom line: this entire anti-missile debacle is useless, counter-productive, and fundamentally toxic.  The only ‘winners’ in all this are the CEOs of a few American corporations, and the USA faithful servant in Eastern Europe.
I wondered, would the Western corporate press notice any of that?
I checked the WSJ, the WP, NYT and a host of other outlets and I was shocked.  Speaking with one voice, as they apparently always do, they brought it all down to three talking points:
a) Medvedev is catering to his election campaign (he ain’t running, but nevermind)
b) Russia is creating a new Cold War (and what is NATO doing exactly?)
c) NATO is “frustrated” by Russia’s stance (and the Russians, might they be frustrated?)
That’s it.  Nothing more.  Not a single attempt at understanding anything, no analysis of the Kremlin’s position.  Not a word about the consequences for Europe.  The Western corporate press is basically fully and unconditionally endorsing the White House’s propaganda without any attempt whatsoever to form its own opinion.
In its ever-present hubris, the West fails to see an important detail: we are not living in the 1980s anymore and, unlike the Brezhnev years, Russia’s economy is booming, while both the EU and the USA are in the midst of a deep, structural, crisis with no foreseeable way out.  Furthermore, the US empire is hopelessly over-extended,  spending more on “defense” than the rest of the planet combined.  Who do you think has more staying power this time to win this arms race?
Could it be that Obama’s empire is repeating exactly the same mistakes as the Soviet Union committed under Brezhnev?
The Saker
PS: there is one entity in Russia which, no doubt, is deeply satisfied with Obama’s hubris: the Russian military intelligence service, GRU, which Medvedev had almost abolished, and whose Spetsnaz brigades have been reduced in number.  It just so happens that the original function of the (then still Soviet) Spetsnaz forces was precisely to destroy the kind of system which the USA will be deploying in Europe.  Thanks to Obama, the GRU and its Spetsnaz forces – which have just be re-subordinated to the Russian strategic commands – have now re-acquired their traditional target.

I can just imagine the high-fiving at 766 Khoroshovskoye shosse…