By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 10/7/24

Iran cancelled all flights in and out of the country at all airports over the weekend in anticipation of an Israeli counter strike following last week’s missile attack.

It was Jewish new year at the end of last week which delayed the decision on a strike that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is coming. Everyone is on tenterhooks waiting to see what will get hit. One possibility is Iran’s expensive oil refinery network, but the White House is pushing hard for that not to be on the list as it would cause prices to spike just ahead of the US elections if Iran’s 1.6mbpd were taken off the market.

As we reported another target could be Iran’s six uranium refining facilities, which to me seems much more likely. I have been thinking about this and it seems increasingly obvious that one of the outcomes of these conflicts is that it will push emerging powers to seek a nuclear weapon. It’s the defining characteristic of these wars.

Russia attacked Ukraine and while Nato has helped Ukraine, as we have been complaining, that help is half hearted and restrained. The West will not give Ukraine what it needs to win, despite promising that to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during the Istanbul peace deal in 2022. It’s because of Russia’s nuclear arsenal: if Russia is about to lose the war against Ukraine there is a non-zero chance it could use a nuclear bomb to change the game. Russia would only need to explode one over Siberia in a test, no need to take out downtown Kyiv, for this to work. The threat of the bomb has very effectively curbed Western support for Ukraine and if I were Zelenskiy I’d be pulling my hair out as he can’t win and won’t get what he needs to win.

Now compare this to Iran’s situation. It has very large convention resources, if you include those of Hamas and Hezbollah, but it doesn’t have a bomb. It’s close, but not there yet. As a result the US has not only given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu everything that he asked for – the US has committed $18bn in military aid since October 7 last year, plus another $8.7bn last week – but more than that US pilots flew alongside Israeli F-16s and F-34s both in April and in the latest attack last week.

The US has no compunction about sending in troops and planes to help Israel as nothing can happen. Iran doesn’t have the bomb.

As an aside, Zelenskiy has also being playing the nuclear card: he claims that Russia has been using Chinese satellites to map Ukraine’s four remaining nuclear power plants (NPPs) and intends to hit them to take the other half of Ukraine’s generating capacity out before winter and potentially causing another Chernobyl. But no one seems to be taking this particularly seriously.

Of course, as I have speculated earlier, the chances of Russian President Vladimir Putin actually using a nuke, even in a Siberian test, is very low indeed in my opinion, as all it would do is bring Nato into the war in some way and then Zelenskiy might get what he needs to win, or at least make some real progress against the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR). At the moment Putin is winning the war, as the front in Donbas continues to crumble, so he has no need to escalate.

Now the veneer of building an international rules-based order that started with the Helsinki Accords has been dropped and we in a straight up might-makes-right geopolitical tussle between the developed world and the emerging markets, having a nuclear weapon has become the defining difference between the being able to resist the US hegemony or being the victim of some potential missile-backed bullying.

Put yourself in Ayatollah Khomeini’s shoes now: if he had a bomb then there is no way that the Israelis could hit his country, or those of Iran’s friends, with impunity. Moreover, the US would not be in support. It would stand off and supply Israeli, but not openly get involved.

This means that it’s now in Russia’s interest to supply all the friendly countries with nuclear technology to build a club of nuclear enabled emerging markets that can resist the US’ overwhelming military firepower – the proliferation of nuclear weapons. To some scary regimes.

This process has already started when Moscow stationed some nuclear weapons in Belarus last year. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko keeps bragging about how he will nuke Europe if Nato attacks him, which of course is all bravado at this point, until it isn’t.

But more subtly, as bne IntelliNews has been reporting, uranium is the new gas and Russia’s exports of nuclear technology are booming. Russia is building over two dozen NPPs around the world, mostly in developing markets. And although Kazakhstan dominates the supply of raw uranium ore, it is Russia that dominates the capacity to refine the ore into U235. It could in theory arm every one of its friends.

Even more worrying, is the fact that North Korea has a bomb and in theory could supply countries like Iran with a ready-made weapon, which has become easier to do now that North Korea and Russia have tied their military supplies together; North Korea has supplied Russia with an enormous amount of artillery shells.

Currently there are only eight officially declared nuclear powers – US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, although it’s an open secret that Israel also has nuclear weapons. Less publicly knowledge is that Japan also certainly has nukes on its soil – US weapons – that are there to protect against China.

In the case of Pakistan and Israel, it’s the same logic as both countries needed a bomb to counter their enemies that had one. The proliferation was supposed to stop there, but now there will be a strong impetus for more countries to get a weapon, starting with Iran. And with all this Russian nuclear tech and refined uranium sloshing about it is going to get easier to organise.

Finally, it should be said that this is not definitely going to happen, nor if it does will it happen quickly. The Kremlin is not crazy and is well aware how dangerous it is to arm a dozen more countries, many with balmy authoritarian regimes, with nuclear weapons. The key to watch for is someone suspending the nuclear test ban treaty. The Kremlin was specifically asked about this last week and came back with a deafening silence. I see it was asked in Washington too last week too, again to no comment. But the mere fact that this question has now come up, and come up twice in a week, suggests that we have moved a step closer to that red line.

By Jorge, Liboreiro, Euronews, 10/9/24

Under the G7 plan, the windfall profits earned by Russia’s frozen assets will be used to gradually repay a multi-billion loan for Ukraine.

European Union countries have given their green light to an unprecedented plan to issue a €35 billion loan to support Ukraine’s war-battered economy using the immobilised assets of Russia’s Central Bank as collateral.

The deal is part of a broader initiative by G7 allies to provide €45 billion ($50 billion) to Kyiv as soon as possible. The country is struggling to contain a renewed Russian offensive that has badly damaged its power system and depleted its military stocks.

The €35 billion will be “undesignated” and “untargeted,” according to EU officials, meaning the Ukrainian government will have maximum flexibility to spend the assistance. Brussels hopes to start doling out the money early next year.

The agreement, reached on Wednesday evening by ambassadors, comes a day after Hungary confirmed it would block a key change in the EU sanctions regime until after the United States elects its next president on 5 November…

Read full article here.

By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 10/9/24

US intelligence determined in September 2022 that there was a 50% chance of Russia using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, a new book by journalist Bob Woodward alleges, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

According to the book, titled “War,” the warning came in late September 2022, with US intelligence believing Russia could use a nuke if its forces were surrounded in Kherson City. Russia withdrew from the city not long after, in November 2022.

The book says the warning caused alarm within the Biden administration as it moved the chance of Russia using a nuclear weapon from 5% or 10% way up to 50%. Around the same time, President Biden said publicly that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was higher than it had been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“I don’t think there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser in New York City in October 2022. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Despite the huge risk of nuclear war, Biden did not alter course on US involvement in the proxy war, which has only escalated since then. The Woodward book says that the US issued several warnings and threats on the potential consequences of what could happen if Russia used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Woodward says that Biden told National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to “get on the line with the Russians. Tell them what we will do in response.” In September 2022, Sullivan said publicly that Russia would suffer “catastrophic consequences” if it used a nuke and said the US conveyed that in private conversations. A few months later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sullivan had been holding secret talks with Russian officials.

The Woodward book says that Biden also sent a message to Putin that there would be “catastrophic consequences” if a nuke was used, but there has been no known contact between Biden and the Russian leader since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.

The book also says that when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with then-Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in October 2022, he warned, “Any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States and the world as a world-changing event. There is no scale of nuclear weapons that we could overlook or that the world could overlook.”

The risk of the Ukraine proxy war turning nuclear is still very high as Putin has ordered changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine in direct response to threats of escalation from the West, specifically the idea of the US and NATO supporting long-range strikes inside Russian territory. The US appeared poised to sign off on the long-range strikes but seems to have backed down, at least for now.

Russia Matters, 10/18/24

1. Volodymyr Zelenskyy asserted Oct. 17 that Ukraine had two options to deter further Russian aggression: becoming a nuclear power or joining NATO, which would guarantee protection from the military alliance’s members, NYT reported. The Ukrainian leader then later clarified during a news conference with NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte that Ukraine was not preparing to build nuclear weapons, according to NYT. When asked by a journalist how long it would take Ukraine to create a nuclear bomb, Zelenskyy responded: “Sometimes we create problems for ourselves. Right now, you are doing exactly that,” according to Media Zone. Vladimir Putin described Zelenskyy’s rhetoric as a provocation and asserted that Russia will not allow the creation of nuclear weapons by Ukraine under any circumstances, according to RIA Novosti.
2. This week Zelenskyy publicly unveiled his five-point “victory plan” to end the war by 2025. The first step of the plan involves Ukraine’s immediate invitation to NATO. The second point focuses on strengthening Ukraine’s security through guarantees allowing the use of long-range weapons for military strikes inside Russia and joint air defense operations with neighboring countries. The third and fourth points provide for the deployment of non-nuclear deterrence assets in Ukraine and for a post-war agreement for joint management of Ukraine’s critical resources. Finally, the plan calls for some U.S. military contingents in Europe to be replaced with Ukrainian troops after the war is over. Given the reaction to the plan in Washington and other Western capitals so far, it is unlikely that Zelenskyy will win the unanimous support of Kyiv’s allies for Ukraine’s immediate admittance into NATO. Countries such as Germany also oppose supplying longer-range weapons, according to Ukraine’s Korrespondent.net, even as Ukrainian forces continue to cede territory in the east, coming closer to losing the strategic town of Chasiv Yar this week.*
3. South Korean and Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow and Pyongyang of arranging for 10,000 or more North Korean soldiers to train in Russia to then fight in the Russian-Ukrainian war on Russia’s side, Bloomberg, Yonhap and Istories reported. The Kremlin has rejected these reports, describing them as an “information hoax,” according to Euronews. North Korea has previously been repeatedly accused of providing artillery ammunition and missiles for Russia’s war efforts.
4. Speaking to BRICS media ahead of the group’s summit on Oct. 22–24 in Russia, Vladimir Putin declared that “the United States is 15 years” too late to “stop China’s development.” Putin—who is to host Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Tatarstan—also declared that “in some areas, humanity cannot exist without the BRICS countries. I mean food markets, energy markets.”

By Geoffrey Roberts, Brave New Europe, 10/4/24

As it reels from one battlefield defeat after another, Ukraine faces a fateful choice: sue for peace or fight to the bitter end.

Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists would prefer purifying blood sacrifice to a shameful defeat, while Western hardliners want to wear Russia down by fighting to the last Ukrainian. This yearning for Ukraine to re-enact a Nazi-style Götterdämmerung is shared by those Russian hardliners who believe in the pursuit of security through total victory.

The alternative to epochal destruction a la 1945 is a 1918-style armistice along the lines of President Putin’s June peace proposal: a ceasefire in exchange for Ukraine’s neutralisation and the complete withdrawal of its armed forces from the four provinces – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhe – formally incorporated by the Russian Federation in October 2022 – concessions that would then be followed by detailed peace negotiations.

No historical analogy is perfect, but Germany’s armistice with the Entente powers in November 1918 is an instructive example of a war ending in one side’s victory but on terms that fell far short of the unconditional surrenders of World War II.

When Germany ‘surrendered’ in 1918 it ceased all military operations and withdrew its armed forces from foreign occupied territories. Unlike in 1945, Germany remained unoccupied and was promised a negotiated peace treaty. There was also regime-change in the form of the Kaiserreich’s overthrow, but Wilhelm II was replaced by a democratic republic.

The promised peace negotiations took place at Versailles in 1919. German negotiators expected a discussion framed by President Woodrow Wilson’s 14-point peace plan of 1918 – which had signalled a relatively fair and equitable settlement – but they found themselves faced with a non-negotiable diktat.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost territory – notably to newly independent Poland – and was forced to demilitarise and pay billions of dollars in reparations. Germans complained the treaty was humiliation that heaped on them all the blame for the war, but it wasn’t a particularly punitive peace. Germany got off lightly compared to its allies, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, whose empires completely collapsed.

Germany’s people suffered greatly during the early postwar years but by the mid-1920s the country had recovered economically and was fully rehabilitated internationally, having been admitted to the League of Nations. Reparations were effectively null and void and Germany’s armed forces were surreptitiously being rebuilt with help from Soviet Russia, a revolutionary state that was seeking to de-stabilise the capitalist world through diplomacy as well as subversion. The Nazi nightmare of the 1930s wasn’t so much a consequence of Versailles as a result of the Wall Street Crash’s catalysation of a worldwide depression that devastated Germany.

Ukraine is in a much stronger position than was Germany in 1918. It has lost a lot of territory but it does not yet face imminent defeat and occupation and can still inflict heavy damage on Russia’s armed forces. Unlike Germany at Versailles, Ukraine wouldn’t be isolated at any peace conference. It would have powerful western backers and influential support from Putin’s well-wishers in the Global South who want him to make a genuine and durable deal with Kiev that will safeguard Ukraine’s future as an independent sovereign state.

So far, there is no sign Putin has any substantial territorial ambitions beyond those specified by his June peace proposal. Doubtless, he will demand a demilitarised zone, but that could suit Ukraine, too, especially if its results in the return to its sovereignty of territory currently occupied by Russia. Russia won’t pay reparations but nor will it demand them, except for the return by the West of its frozen bank assets. Indeed, there are many ways Russia could aid Ukraine’s postwar recovery, not least in relation to the country’s energy supplies. POWs could be released and children returned. Millions of Ukrainian refugees in Russia as well as Europe would be able to return home. Russia would demand protections for its remaining compatriots in Ukraine and Kiev the safeguarding of its citizens’ interests in Russian-occupied territories. Most important, would be the negotiation of an international security guarantee to protect Ukraine from future invasion by Russia. Such a peace settlement would in turn speed up Ukraine’s entry into the EU.

The 1918 armistice led to a bitter peace for Germany at Versailles, but it saved millions of lives and safeguarded the country’s future.

There is another 1918 historical analogy worth considering: the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of March 1918.

Having seized power in Russia, at the end of 1917 the Bolsheviks sought a separate peace with Germany. A ceasefire was agreed and negotiations began at Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks, however, did not negotiate in good faith. For Bolshevik leader Lenin, the peace talks were a means to buy time to enable his party to consolidate its grip on power at home and promote revolution abroad. Bolshevik Foreign Commissar, Leon Trotsky, turned the Brest talks into a platform for revolutionary propaganda. But the Germans soon tired of Trotsky’s tactics and threatened to annul the negotiations and resume military operations.

By this time Lenin was losing faith in the imminence of world revolution and was prepared to do a peace deal on German terms, arguing that defence of the revolution in Russia was the prime goal. However, a majority of Bolsheviks – not wishing to dirty their hands by signing an onerous treaty that entailed significant territorial losses – opted for Trotsky’s alternative of ‘neither peace nor war’. Trotsky hoped the Germans would acquiesce in a unilateral declaration of demobilisation by Russia. That tactic backfired spectacularly when the Germans launched an offensive that quickly forced the Bolsheviks to sign a treaty conceding vast swathes of territory, payment of reparations and existence of a separate Ukraine. As Trotsky ruefully admitted, had the Bolsheviks been sincere about peace in the first place, they could have gotten a much better deal.

The Bolsheviks were saved from themselves by the failure of Germany’s Operation Michael – its final offensive on the Western Front – and the ensuing armistice, whose preconditions included the annulment of Brest-Litovsk. While the Bolsheviks were now able to repudiate the treaty’s terms, they couldn’t escape its consequences, which fed into the upheavals of Russia’s catastrophic civil war.

In 1918 the Bolsheviks got carried away by their revolutionary rhetoric, while the Germans faced up to the reality of their impending military defeat.

Peace with Putin will be repugnant, but surely preferable to the folly of continuing to fight an unwinnable war.