Tuberville made the comments during a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The intelligence officials appeared before the committee to provide a briefing on worldwide threats.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to paint his country’s current military campaign as a broader conflict against the Western influence of NATO and the U.S. in Ukraine. During a Monday speech at Moscow’s Victory Day parade, Putin claimed Western nations and Ukraine had been planning invasions on Russia’s “historical lands,” including Crimea, before Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24.

Tuberville made mention of Russia’s claims that it was in a proxy war with the West while asking Haines if she felt Russia blamed the U.S. intelligence community for helping Ukraine shoot down a Russian plane and sink the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

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“To what extent do you assess that Russia believes it is at war with the West and United States? Do you think that they believe they’re at war with us?” Tuberville asked.

“Russia has historically believed that they are in a conflict, in effect, with NATO and the United States on a variety of issues, including in cyber [warfare] and so on,” Haines said.
“So, you believe that they’re fighting us as well as they’re fighting Ukraine, correct?” Tuberville said.

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“In a sense, their perception,” Haines answered.

Berrier then fielded questions from Tuberville, who asked the lieutenant general about air defenses in Ukraine before turning his attention to recent U.S. visitors to the country like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and first lady Jill Biden. Berrier agreed with Tuberville’s assessment that “anyone in Ukraine right now is under serious threat.”

“In the past two weeks, we’ve seen several high-profile visitors take trips to active war zones—our secretary of state, secretary of defense, speaker of the house, first lady,” Tuberville said. “What is our intelligence community doing to lessen the risk of a high-ranking official—how are we protecting these people going to Ukraine?”

Haines indicated that such a question would be better suited for a closed session talk, prompting Tuberville to ask if the officials could guarantee “100 percent” that the first lady was safe during her trip to Ukraine.

“I would not say that, no,” Berrier replied.

“Is it your best advice that we don’t go to Ukraine right now? Any of us? Any of us in here?” Tuberville asked.

“Senator, I wouldn’t say that,” Berrier said. “I would say with proper planning and coordination that it’s possible.”

When asked again by Tuberville if U.S. officials were 100 percent safe going into a war zone, Berrier answered, “Senator, I think we can never guarantee anything.”

“Right. That’s kind of the point I’m making. You know, we’re kind of poking the bear here….We’re bragging about it. Even President Biden said today, ‘Wait a minute. We got to cut back on this,'” Tuberville said.

The senator then mentioned Russian generals being killed in Ukraine, a likely reference to a report from The New York Times that U.S. intelligence was aiding Ukrainian forces in located and killing Russian generals. (The Pentagon has since denied that the U.S. gives such details to Ukraine.)

Tuberville expressed that he agreed with supporting Ukraine, but added, “We do not want to take that step forward to where we get a lot of our men and women involved in this. It looks like to me that we’re taking way too many chances of sending people over there for a photo op, other than doing the right things, which we are doing.”

“There’s a point of no return here if we cross that line,” Tuberville added. “As Senator [Tom] Cotton said, we’re walking a tightrope here, and that’s just the only point I want to bring up.”

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/tommy-tuberville-ukraine-russia-war-risks-1705270

The post U.S. Risks War With Russia By ‘Poking the Bear’ in Ukraine: Senator first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Russia’s nuclear might is beyond doubt. The nuclear sphere has been prioritized in successive armament programs over the last ten years, with massive funding channeled into the modernization of its key elements. These colossal investments yield scant political dividends at home. But the newly established strategic stability talks with the US have granted Russia the desired status of an equal counterpart and boosted its self-confidence on the international stage (Izvestia, July 28). Russian officials confirm their readiness to discuss even such formerly non-negotiable matters as non-strategic nuclear warheads, and they suggest expanding the format to include France and the United Kingdom—though remaining conspicuously mum about China (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 28). New data on the fast buildup of Chinese strategic missiles has come as a surprise for Moscow, proving that political declarations about the ever-tightening partnership with Beijing are mostly rhetorical (Kommersant, July 28). China’s intercontinental nuclear strike capabilities, however, are set to transform the global strategic balance, creating new risks for Russia, whose territory would necessarily be crisscrossed by the planned flight paths of these new Chinese missiles (Novaya Gazeta, July 29).

Meanwhile, in the world of oil and natural gas markets, Russia’s positions are quite vulnerable. Even though the oil and gas industry makes up only 15 percent of Russia’s GDP, according to the Kremlin’s riposte to Biden’s comments (RIA Novosti, July 28), the national dependency on the inflow of energy export revenues is much more profound, making up between roughly a third and a half of the state’s annual budget each year since 2005 (Warsawinstitute.org, August 25, 2020). Yet China is interested in pressing the benchmark oil price down, and Russia is wary of acting against this interest (Izvestia, July 31, 2021). The main target of Moscow’s instrumentalization of gas export for political purposes is Europe. Therefore, the US-German July compromise on the controversial Nord Stream Two pipeline is perceived as a major success (see EDM, July 21). Ukraine has every reason to expect that in the next round of tensions, Moscow will shut down the gas transit through its territory (Gas & Money, July 23). However, such crude pressure might backfire severely in the situation where the European Union places a strong priority on reducing emissions. The proposition on cutting down energy imports from Russia could be converted into a political directive (Carnegie.ru, July 26).

The Russian economy certainly has sources of strength beyond the production of oil, gas and coal: agriculture is benefitting from state subsidies aimed at ensuring self-sufficiency; timber remains a valuable export resource; and the bosses of metal corporations sit at the top of the list of Russian billionaires (Forbes.ru, April 23). The Russian IT sector is also blossoming notwithstanding persistent government efforts to expand control over the virtual economy, justified by an informational security doctrine that treats the cyber domain as part of state sovereignty (see EDM, December 16, 2016 and March 27, 2018; Kommersant, July 30, 2021). Russia also has solid financial reserves estimated at $600 billion, and the state budget remains balanced even in the situation of protracted stagnation (RBC, June 30).

This complexity of Russia’s economic structures and interactions renders “simple” political instructions, like the prescription to minimize the holdings of US dollars in the national currency reserves, unfeasible or counterproductive (Carnegie.ru, July 29). The Russian economy has shown remarkable resilience against Western sanctions, but it cannot—despite whatever orders are issued by the Kremlin—achieve a strong recovery from the contraction caused by the still spreading pandemic (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 27). Macro-economic statistics can be carefully doctored, but the continuing contraction of household incomes translates into worsening demographics. It is impossible to hide the plain fact that in 2020, Russia’s population declined by 700,000 people. This year may see an even sharper drop (Rosbalt, July 27).

Putin is eager to simulate firm leadership in economic policymaking while delegating the responsibility for setbacks to lower levels of the monumental bureaucratic pyramid (Ezhednevny Zhurnal, July 20). He advertises a package of technological innovations designed by “technocrats” in the government. Still, he relies far more on traditional bureaucrats, who manage the distribution of funding according to an informal balance of interests (Forbes.ru, July 30). Corruption is the fundamental principle of this management of stagnation, and the occasional punishments of some “excesses” only illuminate the scope of this phenomenon (Novaya Gazeta, July 29). The working assumption in the Kremlin is that the system of bureaucratic corruption has sufficient reserves of stability and capacity for self-reproduction, while public discontent can be effectively suppressed (Republic.ru, July 28). Protest activity in Russia has been all but eliminated by the escalation of repressions; but what this enforcement of autocratic order cannot deliver is a capacity to mobilize society and the economy for a sustained struggle against the much castigated external “enemies.”

Official discourse on the irreducible confrontation between a “besieged” Russia on the one hand and an “aggressive” West on the other serves the interests of the beneficiaries of institutionalized corruption just fine, until the state starts to demand a concentration of all available resources—including their ill-gotten fortunes—for the task of military buildup. Putin is caught between the greed of his “oligarchs” and the ambitions of his siloviki (security services personnel). He may be enjoying every luxury his status as “great leader” provides, but dark visions of inescapable global violent conflict increasingly cloud his judgment. Biden’s reference to a “real shooting war” was intended as a warning about the risks of cyberattacks, but Putin apparently believes that Russia’s interminable war with the US-led West can remain “hybrid” for only so long. It is this conviction, exploited by the top brass and fueled by self-deceiving propaganda, that makes Russia dangerous.

Source: https://jamestown.org/program/putins-paranoia-more-than-nuclear-weapons-and-oil-make-russia-dangerous/

The post Putin’s Paranoia, More Than Nuclear Weapons and Oil, Make Russia Dangerous first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Beijing on Friday, with both men hailing the importance of working together strategically.

Putin joined Xi to review a military honor guard before talks in Beijing’s grandiose Great Hall of the People.

The meeting underscored a growing closeness at a time of prickly relations with the US for both countries.

What happened at the meeting:

• After Putin was greeted with a ceremony of military pomp and flag-waving children, the leaders held talks in Beijing’s grand Great Hall of the People.
• The two inked a statement saying that “in conditions of a growing global instability and uncertainty” Russia and China would “deepen their consultations on strategic stability issues.”
• The statement also criticized the US decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, saying they would strive to keep it alive and ensure further trade with Iran.
• The leaders signed a deal to establish the joint $1 billion (€850 billion) Russia-China Investment Fund.
• Following their talks, in an elaborate ceremony, Xi handed Putin China’s newly-created Friendship Medal.

‘Unprecedented’ cooperation

Putin said he and Xi had enjoyed fruitful talks. “The relationship between Russia and China is a friendly, neighborly one, developing in states in the spirit of over-arching strategic partnership,” the Russian leader said. “Cooperation with China is one of Russia’s top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level.”

Xi, meanwhile said both countries “resolutely supported the other’s core interests … and jointly proactively participated in international affairs and global governance.”

“No matter what fluctuations there are in the international situation, China and Russia have always firmly taken the development of relations as a priority.”

Why are the two leaders meeting now?:

• Putin is in China for a weekend summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Chinese and Russian-led security bloc.
• Moscow is increasingly looking to China for investment after a sharp decline in relations with the West after the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
• China is seeking allies amid growing criticism of its militarization of the South China Sea and continued accusations of human rights breaches unfair trading practices.
• The meeting comes as other heads of government, from the G7 group of leading industrialized nations, meet in Canada.

Similar characteristics

Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told the AFP news agency that the two men had a very similar style of leadership.

Xi and Putin are “soulmates who want to make their countries great again”, Gabuev said. “Both share skepticism towards American hegemony and distrust US intentions, both are authoritarian personalistic rulers.”

“They appear to have an excellent rapport,” Fyodor Lukyanov, a top Moscow-based foreign policy expert, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. “They have similar horizons and share a common vision.”

rc/kms (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/russia-and-china-make-show-of-unity-as-us-relations-falter/a-44127886

The post Russia and China make show of unity as US relations falter first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.