Yves here. A new manifestation of Putin (now Russia) Derangement Syndrome is small states with virtually no industrial bases thinking they can team up and stand effectively against a Russia that they believe to be a super-predator.
As a Japanese colleague said of mergers, “Marrying two sick dogs does not produce one health cat.” But that sort of plan is at work here.
Having said that, small nations on Russia’s borders all harassing the giant country could have an effect as a Lilliput strategy, of sufficiently diluting Russian attention and resources so as to blunt its might.
The idea of Scandinavian states and their neighbors becoming hot spots is likely to seem alien. But a new segment on The Duran has Italian diplomat, Armando Mema, who is stationed in Helsinki, describing a series of drone attacks on Helsinki. The latest, on May 15, was so large that citizens were told to seek shelter. The drones were Ukrainian but the Finnish government has taken the position that Russia somehow got control of them and flew them into Finland.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
It can simultaneously threaten Russia along the increasingly interconnected Arctic and Baltic fronts.
Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolai Korchunov gave a brief interview to TASSabout bilateral relations. He warned that Norway is integrating new NATO members Sweden and Finland into the bloc’s regional plans. More American military bases and NATO facilities are opening up there too. To make matters worse, 32,500 troops from 14 NATO countries in last March’s “Cold Response” military drills in Norway and Finland’s northern regions, which add to growing NATO threats to Russia from this direction.
NATO’s militarization of the Arctic, which also includes artificially engineeredtensions over the demilitarized Svalbard Archipelago, is proceeding in parallel with its militarization of the Baltic. Korchunov believes that this raises the risk of the bloc one day attempting to blockade Russia. He reassured his compatriots that the authorities will defend their country’s interests, however, including through military-technical means in an allusion to new naval escorts of some commercial vessels.
In connection with blockade scenarios, Korchunov was asked about TASS’ report from early April about how “Ukraine readies terrorist attacks on Russian ships off coast of Norway”, which he said caused quite a stir in his host country. He didn’t elaborate on how exactly Russia plans to deter or defend against potential Ukrainian drone attacks from Norway, but he ominously warned that escalating threats to Russia from Norway “will inevitably lead to a directly proportional increase in risks for Norway itself.”
Korchunov wasn’t asked about it in his interview, but the week prior to its release, the UK announced that it’ll lead a new multilateral naval initiative against Russia with Norway and eight others. This goes to show Norway’s growing role in threatening Russia through blockade scenarios, whether they’re in its neighboring Arctic region and/or the nearby Baltic one. As a founding member of NATO, Norway seems to believe that this obligates it to lead Russia’s containment in Northern Europe.
To that end, it’s functioning as Sweden and Finland’s “big brother” in NATO while actively cooperating with the UK, one of Russia’s historical nemeses. This enables Norway to simultaneously advance Russia’s containment along the increasingly interconnected Arctic and Baltic fronts. Given its oil wealth, Norway could also extend military loans to its “little brothers” for accelerating their military buildups and the subsequent creation of a northern regional command against Russia as part of the US’ “NATO 3.0” plans.
The preceding insight draws attention to one of the ways in which multipolarity is reshaping Europe, namely through the trend of regional military integration, whether it’s Norway wanting to lead a nascent “Viking Bloc” or Poland trying to restore its lost Great Power status in Central and Eastern Europe. The Anglo-American Axis is managing this division of military-strategic labor, with the US being the senior partner and the UK being the junior one, and they plan to replicate this model elsewhere in Eurasia.
Apart from Norway and Poland’s regional military blocs, Romania provides this duopoly with reach into Moldova and the Black Sea, while Turkiye expands their influence in the Black Sea but also the South Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Central Asia via the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”. There’s also AUKUS+, which could prospectively include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even Indonesia. The emerging result is “The Globalization of NATO” with multipolar characteristics.
All these countries can gear up for a war with Russia but it is going to cost them. You are talking about each of these countries expanding the number of their military, bringing back conscription in many cases, buying tens of billions of dollars of military equipment, training their troops to use this equipment which can take years, establishing new bases in connection with NATO – the list goes on and on. So how are they going to pay for it? We are seeing this in action now with the eradication of public holidays, cutting back on investment in infrastructure, cutting back on social service, education and medical services, etc. And that list goes on and on as well. Norway may have their oil fund to cushion the worse of the effects but there has already been noises how Norway should hand over a big chunk of it to Zelensky. The other countries do not have this cushion and they are already cutting back their budgets to hand over even more money to the MIC which includes the US MIC in particular. But my main point is that this will serve to destabilize those countries as time goes on. Impoverishing the citizenry for a Russian attack that will never come will make them abandon the main parties that did this to them and seek alternatives, no matter how radical they seem. So I would suggest that even the stability of the Nordic nations will soon dissolve as will others. The Russians, watching all this, will likely decide not to interrupt them.
This is why Russia should make maximum attack now while the rhetoric is highly belligerent but the facts on the ground are wholly other – an example should be made of Germany whose leaders state plainly that a war is INEVITABLE in 2030 – Russia should ask and answer: Why wait – let’s get it on now Fred!
The Empire wants control of the valuable ports of Arkangelsk and Murmansk on the Norhtern shipping route. The goal is to eventually get Europe involved in a territorial war with Russia for just long enough to snatch control of Russia’s key Arctic port region which would effectively hand over control of the Northern Shipping Route to Empire. If you look back into history, you will find the region contains many graves of British and European men who gave their lives in a similar attempt (spearheaded by the British Empire)some 100+yrs ago.
I suspect that if you look at this in more detail, it will prove to be the first stage in what I have been predicting since 2022, which is the regionalisation and eventual break-up of NATO, as it becomes clear that different parts of Europe have very different security interests with Russia.
Scandinavia was always a very sensitive area in the Cold War, because of the naval base in Murmansk. In a crisis, the Soviet Union would have wanted to get its Northern Fleet (and especially its SSBNs) to sea, so control of the region, and destruction of NATO assets there, would have been critical. Norway would certainly have been attacked, which is why there were plans for reinforcing it early on, and Sweden, for all its ostensible legitimacy, was an effective NATO member, and expected to be attacked as well. In the case of a major US-Russia confrontation in the future, I expect the same would apply.
So the Nordics have security interest of an entirely different kind from that of, say, Portugal or Italy, and even different from Germany and Poland. They almost certainly have no wish to get dragged into a general conflict with Russia, and this looks like an early stage of the construction of a Nordic Bloc within NATO to try to give them as much influence as possible in the event of a crisis. Look out for the development of more regional blocks like this: NATO as a political mechanism just about hangs together for the time being, but it’s been pretty incoherent militarily for a long time.
“[…] for all its ostensible legitimacy […]”
You surely mean “ostensible neutrality”.
“a Nordic Bloc within NATO to try to give them as much influence as possible in the event of a crisis.”
Meaning what, besides trying to get the USA and possibly other European countries even more involved in the Nordic territories as a tripwire or a reinforcement of defensive capabilities, or even offensive ones wrt attacking Murmansk?
Sorry. Autocorrect.
No, the reverse. The period of stupid histrionics is coming to an end, and future Nordic governments will represent small countries living next to a large and angry superpower. They will have to live with Russia, and they know that Russia can destroy them any time it feels like it, and intimidate them with that knowledge if it wants to. They will not want idiots from the Baltics, or elsewhere for that matter, getting them involved in terminally dangerous situations, and will try to exercise as much influence as they can to stop NATO doing provocative things. NATO is going to have to adapt to being weak and outmatched, and it’s in the interest of the Nordics that this happens as quickly as possible after the inevitable changes of government.
How does the Finnish move to host and share F35-ready nuclear weapons from the USA fit in this perspective then?
Into the period of stupid histrionics. These things will tail off as reality starts to sink its teeth into the backsides of political leaders of small countries.
For what it’s worth, Armando Mema is not an Italian diplomat, he’s an Italian-Albanian accountant who has unsuccessfully dabbled in local politics in Finland since 2019, from Greens to Anti-EU parties (after he was arrested and fined demonstrating against von der Layen.
Also, I was personally in Helsinki on May 15th and there were no drones, and absolute majority of inhabitants only learned from the news that there had been a threat at all (which doesn’t really speak well for the Finnish preparedness, I have to say). A friend staying 50 km from Helsinki said he heard the Air Force patrol fighters in the air early in the morning, heading to the Gulf of Finland.
As it turned out, NATO warned Finland that there were Ukrainian drones on a route that may divert them to Finnish air space, and as the biggest city was along that predicted route, the an alert was triggered to be on the safe side. But no drones ever entered the Finnish air space.
Of all the countries going bat shit hysterical in the EU, I am most shocked at the Scandinavian countries. Throughout most of my life, these countries always seemed the sanest in Europe. This is all so sad.
Thought the same here. But their political establishment may have different when you reflect that they gave us two Russian-hating NATO General Secretaries – Anders Fogh Rasmussen & Jens Stoltenberg – who really went over the top in their opinions.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was prime minister from 2001until 2009. He got us into the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war something he obviously is very proud of. This is how he picture himself on the painting placed in Christiansborg alongside with the other prime ministers we had. He made us a lot more belligerent. I remember the time when we engaged in war it was always with humanitarian help. That was how we saw ourself. We even have a very famous song about the hospital ship Jutlandia we send to the war in Korea. Now I am ashamed to be a Dane. Unfortunately the Danes belief in authorities is very strong when it comes to the politicians and main stream media. Most people here condemns Putin, Putin is evil. My understanding of how almost the entire German population came to support Hitler has certainly grown.
https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/folkestyret/folketinget-og-christiansborg/kunst-paa-borgen_statsministerportraetter/anders-fogh_945x560.jpg