WWIII? A “Hybrid Geo-Financial War” Between NATO and Russia Is Dangerously Escalating
Mac Slavo
May 20th, 2016
SHTFplan.com
Russia is preparing for war against the West.
Putin is being urged to do so because the U.S. and NATO have been preparing for war themselves.
Syria and Ukraine have just been warm ups. The real thing could be around the corner, and other proxy flashpoints are ready to line up.
The rising tensions for military conflict are sharply complicated by the stealthier financial war that is nonetheless taking a serious toll across the globe, in particular as collapsing oil prices put incredible pressure on those regimes who have cast a big social benefits net financed primarily by $100/barrel oil.
As SHTF previously reported, that made Venezuela the most vulnerable, and it is plain today that the oil rich nation is collapsing. However, the manipulation of these prices was also meant to put pressure on Russia (as well as other countries)… while the attempt to undercut Russian natural gas by taking over Ukraine and have NATO supply gas to Europe instead of Russia has so far failed.
It is a sophisticated geopolitical gamble that perhaps no one is winning, apart from who manages not to topple over.
A detailed, but nonetheless alarming article by Alastair Crooke reports that there is significant pressure on Putin from other Russian leaders to take a hard line in the days ahead.
via the Huffington Post:
Putin carries, at one end of his balancing pole, the various elites more oriented toward the West and the “Washington Consensus“ and, at the pole’s other end, those concerned that Russia faces both a real military threat from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a hybrid geo-financial war as well. He is being pressed to come down on the side of the latter, and to pry the grip of the former from the levers of economic power that they still tightly hold.
In short, the issue coming to a head in the Kremlin is whether Russia is sufficiently prepared for further Western efforts to ensure it does not impede or rival American hegemony. Can Russia sustain a geo-financial assault, if one were to be launched? And is such a threat real or mere Western posturing for other ends?
What is so important is that if these events are misread in the West, which is already primed to see any Russian defensive act as offensive and aggressive, the ground will already have been laid for escalation. We already had the first war to push back against NATO in Georgia. The second pushback war is ongoing in Ukraine. What might be the consequences to a third?
The Rest…HERE
