NATO's Crimean Fever and Obsession to Control the Black Sea

NATO fantasizes about conquering Crimea in order to control the Black Sea, but this reckless move is likely to backfire and intensify Russian resistance.

As I write these words Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s General Secretary, is on CNN promising to provide Kiev’s nationalist regime with all the heavy weapons it needs to “retake territory” and “ensure that Putin doesn’t win this war”.

His comments, which are a de facto NATO declaration of war against Russia, are intended to be a sort of death sentence for the territories in question — Donbass and Crimea. Both are populated by millions of ethnic Russians who want to remain with Russia and who count on Moscow’s protection against Kiev’s far-right regime.

As I've stated before, NATO violates international law, namely by denying Crimeans “the right of self-determination”. This principle allows people of a region the right to become independent from an abusive central power. For example, in the late 1990s the U.S. cited this right during Kosovo’s conflict with Belgrade.

Western analysts and journalists don’t like to dwell much on the details about Crimea, because doing so would easily reveal the fake NATO narrative that it’s an ethnic “Ukrainian” region. While this war’s root cause is NATO’s eastward expansion and effort to absorb Ukraine, Crimea occupies a very special place in NATO’s bid for global hegemony.

What drives NATO? It wants to conquer Crimea because it’s home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and the key to control of the Black Sea. Control of the Black Sea would allow NATO to increase influence in the Caucasus region and further project power into the Middle East and Central Asia, putting even more pressure on arch-nemesis Iran.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea

But the greatest dividend would be denying Russia a vital warm-water naval base, which helps Moscow to project power in the Mediterranean region and to supply allies such as Syria, which in turn is allied with Iran, (now also a close Russian ally). The U.S. has long been in confrontation with both and it seeks to overthrow their governments. (Iran was a client state of the U.S. until the Islamic revolution of 1979.)

Toward the goal of conquering Crimea, NATO will most likely send Ukraine hundreds of tanks and missiles to launch an operation. For example, the U.S. is considering to send ATACMS surface-to-surface missile systems that have a range of 185 miles. This puts Sevastopol, Russia’s main southern naval base, under NATO fire.

“The Ukrainian government cannot settle for Russia retaining control of Crimea,” says General (ret.) Ben Hodges, former Commander of U.S. Army Europe, and who was a top general during the illegal U.S. occupation of Afghanistan that resulted in horrendous atrocities. “The next few months will see Ukraine setting the conditions” for Kiev’s attempt to conquer Crimea, which in turn would lead to ethnic cleansing and mass executions against the local Russian population.

Therefore, be certain that the Crimeans and all of Russia will fight like hell to stop NATO. In its blindness and bloodlust, NATO doesn’t want to take these facts into account.

“Ukraine is building an armored force, Division-size or larger, that’s trained and prepared to serve as the breakthrough formation for the next major offensive phase of the campaign,” Hodges continued, as reported in The Hill. “Western-provided tanks … Infantry Fighting Vehicles… and self-propelled artillery will make it even more lethal.”

U.S. ATACMS missile systems might go to Ukraine to bomb Crimea

While Hodges is retired, his opinion carries a lot of weight in Washington, and I suspect that he works as an unofficial spokesperson for the Pentagon and the White House. He’s the most vocal ‘hawk’ among the U.S. foreign policy elite. Meanwhile, those generals still in official positions are more cautious, but no less determined.

“From a military standpoint, I still maintain that this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all … Russian-occupied Ukraine; That doesn’t mean it can’t happen; doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult,” said General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the recent Ramstein Conference, a gathering of NATO countries supporting Ukraine.

During the first Cold War, Moscow and Washington fought proxy wars across the Third World; but there seemed to be an unwritten agreement that no shooting was to take place in Europe. And that’s one critical difference with today. Instead of seeking a negotiated settlement based on “the right of self-determination” and Ukraine’s geopolitical neutrality, Washington does everything possible to intensify conflict with Moscow — Precisely because it wants war and conquest.

Instead of being repentant for 20-years of illegal invasions and other horrendous crimes that it committed in the Islamic world, the U.S. ruling elite remains determined to spread more death and chaos across the globe. And now it has ignited a ‘forever war’ in Eastern Europe.

I sense that our elite has passed the proverbial Rubicon. It wants Crimea at all costs, and it won’t retreat, won’t negotiate. Crimea’s future can only be decided on the battlefield. However, this also brings the risk of nuclear war, because a possible NATO conquest of Crimea is seen by Moscow as grounds for launching nuclear weapons.

Unless the global community unites and reins in America’s reckless and violent political establishment, then no country will ever be safe.

Most of all, we Americans must realize that in pursuing a violent and predatory foreign policy, our authoritarian political establishment crushes liberty at home by strengthening the national security state that sees ‘enemies’ everywhere. This is precisely what the Founding Fathers warned against 240 year ago.