Pepe Escobar
And Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland - what it has done repeatedly over centuries.
This ain't no party
This ain't no disco
This ain't no fooling around
No time for dancin'
Or lovey-dovey
I ain't got time for that now
Talking Heads, Life During Wartime
First we had action: President Putin - cool, calm, collected - warns that any attack on Russia with long-range NATO missiles will be an act of war.
Then we had reaction: NATO rats scurrying back to the gutter - in haste. For now.
All that was a direct consequence of the Kursk debacle. A desperate gamble. But the state of things in the proxy war in Ukraine was desperate for NATO. Until it became crystal clear it's all basically non-recoverable.
So there are two options left.
Ukraine's unconditional surrender, on Russia's terms, tantamount to NATO's complete humiliation.
Or escalation to all-out war (italics mine) with Russia.
The U.S. - but not the UK - ruling classes seem to have registered the essence of Putin's message: if NATO is at war with Russia, "then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us."
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was ominously more precise: "The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we (Russia) are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty."
NATO de facto at war with Russia
For all practical purposes, NATO is already at war with Russia: non-stop reconnaissance flights, high-precision strikes on airfields in Crimea, forcing the Black Sea Fleet to relocate out of Sevastopol, these are only some instances. With "permission" to strike as far as 500 km deep into Russia, and a list of several targets already submitted by Kiev for "approval", Putin has clearly stated the obvious.
Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland - what it has done repeatedly over centuries.
The USSR suffered 27 million losses and emerged from WWII stronger than ever. That demonstration of willpower, in itself, scares the collective West to death.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov - whose Taoist patience seems to be exhausting - added some color on the Big Picture, drawing from English literature:
"George Orwell had a rich imagination and historical foresight. But even he could not imagine what a totalitarian state would look like. He described some of its contours, but failed to penetrate the depths of the totalitarianism that we now see within the framework of the 'rules-based order.' I have nothing to add. The current leaders in Washington, who suppress any dissent, have 'outdone' him. This is totalitarianism in its purest form."
Lavrov concluded that "they are historically doomed." Yet they don't really have the guts to provoke WWIII. Trademark cowards can only resort to a War OF Terror.
Here are some instances. The SVR - Russian foreign intel - discovered a Kiev plot to stage a Russian missile attack on a hospital or kindergarten on Kiev-controlled territory.
The objectives include raising the - collapsed - morale of the AFU; justify the complete removal of any restrictions on deep missile strikes inside the Russian Federation; and attract support from the Global South - which overwhelmingly understands what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
In parallel, if this massive false flag works, the Hegemon would use it to "increase pressure" (How? Screaming at the top of their lungs?) on Iran and the DPRK, whose missiles would likely be the perpetrators of the carnage.
As much as this seems far-fetched on a Maximum Stupidistan level, considering the Deep Dementia ranging from Washington and London to Kiev it does remain possible, as NATOstan de facto retains the strategic initiative in this war. Russia for its part remains passive. It is NATO that is choosing the method, the place and the time for its key, choice strikes.
Another classic instance of War OF Terror is jihadi outfit and al-Qaeda spin-off Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria receiving 75 drones from Kiev, in exchange for a promise to send a batch of experienced fighters from the post-Soviet space to Donbass.
Nothing new on the terror front here: Ukrainian spy honcho Kirill Budanov - lionized in the West as some sort of Ukrainian James Bond - is always in close touch with the jihadis in Idlib, as reported by the Syrian newspaper Al-Watan.
Preparing for the Operation Barbarossa remix
In parallel, we had U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell - the Russophobe/Sinophobe who invented the "pivot to China" during the first Obama administration - briefing senior EU and NATO bureaucrats about the military cooperation of the new Empire-coined axis of evil: Russia-China-Iran.
Campbell focused mostly on Moscow assisting Beijing with advanced submarine, missile and stealth know-how, in exchange for Chinese supplies.
It's obvious that the combo behind the zombie who can't even figure out a way to lick an ice cream is unaware of the interlocking military collaboration of the Russia-China-Iran strategic partnerships.
Blind as a thousand bats, the combo interprets Russia sharing its so far heavily guarded military know how with China as "a sign of increasing recklessness".
The real troubling story behind this mix of ignorance and panic is that nothing originates from the zombie who can't even lick an ice cream. It's the "Biden combo" that is in fact hard at work to pre-set the trajectory of the proxy war in Ukraine beyond January 2025 - no matter who is elected to the White House.
War OF Terror should be the overall paradigm - while preparations for the real war on Russia continue, with the horizon set for 2030, according to NATO's own internal deliberations. This is when they believe they will be at peak power to advance a remixed version of 1941's Operation Barbarossa.
These clowns are congenitally incapable of understanding that Putin does not bluff. If there is no option left, Russia will (italics mine) go nuclear. As it stands, Putin and the Security Council - Medvedev's incendiary rhetoric notwithstanding - are deep in the difficult business of absorbing blow after blow to prevent Armageddon.
That takes unbounded Taoist patience - shared by Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev - coupled with the fact that Putin plays Japanese go, much more than chess, and is a formidable tactician.
Putin reads NATOstan's demented playbook as if it was a children's story book (in fact it is). At the fateful moment of maximum benefit across the spectrum for Russia, Putin will order, for instance, the necessary decapitation of the Kiev snake.
The non-stop, raucous debate on Russia using nuclear weapons essentially hinges on how the Kremlin will consider a NATO missile attack as an existential threat.
Neocons and Zio-cons as well as NATO vassals may desire a nuclear war - theoretically - because in effect this would generate massive depopulation. One should never forget that the WEF/Davos gang wants and preaches a reduction of human population globally at a humongous 85%. The only path for it is of course a nuclear war.
But reality is way more prosaic. Cowardly neo-cons and Zio-cons - mirroring the example of the Talmudic genocidals in Tel Aviv - at best want to use the threat of a nuclear war to bully especially the Russia-China strategic partnership.
In contrast, Putin, Xi and selected Global Majority leaders such as Malaysia's Anwar continue to display intelligence, integrity, patience, foresight and humanity. For the collective West and its appallingly mediocre political and bankster elites, it's always about money and profits. Well, that may also be about to change drastically on October 22 in Kazan at the BRICS summit - when major steps towards building a post-unilateral world should be announced.
The talk of the town in Moscow
There is a raging discussion across the board in Moscow on how to end the proxy war in Ukraine.
Putin's Taoist patience is heavily criticized - not necessarily by informed observers with inside knowledge of hardcore geopolitics. They don't understand that Washington will never accept key Russian demands. In parallel, when it comes to full denazification of Ukraine, Moscow eventually settling for a mere "friendly" regime in Kiev does not cut it.
There seems to be a consensus that the collective West will not by any means recognize Russia's sovereignty over Crimea as well as everything conquered in the battlefields of Novorossiya.
In the end, the prime evidence is that all nuances of Russia's negotiation plan will be decided by Putin. And that changes all the time. What he proposed - quite generously - on the eve of that pathetic peace summit in Switzerland in June is not on the table anymore after Kursk.
Everything hinges, once again, on what happens in the battlefields. If - rather when - the Ukrainian front collapses, the running joke around Moscow will be in effect: "Peter (the Great) and Catherine (the Great) are waiting." Well, they won't be waiting anymore, because these were the Greats who happened to de facto incorporate what is eastern and southern Ukraine into Russia.
And that will seal NATO'S cosmic humiliation. Hence the perpetuation of Plan B: no WWIII, but a relentless War OF Terror.