British Hysteria Against Russia Drives Threat of World War

It should not be surprising that the hysteria against Moscow for its alleged transgressions in Ukraine is really coming from London. It began last week, when British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon claimed that the Baltic countries were Russia’s next target. He was followed by General Sir Adrian Bradshaw a day later, who warned that Russian irregular warfare could undermine NATO decision making. Then, yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in London to meet with British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond. With Hammond by his side, Kerry threatened further sanctions against Russia. Former Defense Secretary Liam Fox, in a Feb. 21 op-ed in the Daily Telegraph, called for providing weapons to the Kiev regime—”the capabilities they most require in order to defend themselves against the military superiority of the pro-Russian separatists and their Kremlin allies.”

Now, Prime Minister David Cameron has joined the chorus, saying yesterday in Glasgow:

“What we need to do now is to deliver the strongest possible message to Putin and to Russia that what has happened is unacceptable, that the ceasefires need to hold and if they don’t there will be more consequences, more sanctions, more measures. The truth here is that we have to be clear that we’re prepared to do this for the long term and that Russia should not make the mistake of thinking in any way that America, Britain, France or Germany will be divided or will be weak. We won’t. We’ll be staunch, we’ll be strong, we’ll be resolute, and in the end, we’ll prevail.”

The prevailing defense policy of the Cameron government, however, ever since the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review, has been to cut the hide out of the military budget, something for which Cameron himself has been under increasing criticism. The flight, last week, of two Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers around Cornwall has served to put the spotlight on the shrinking capabilities of the Royal Air Force, particularly its lack of surveillance and intelligence-gathering aircraft. In the midst of that hysteria, the Telegraph opines that the decision to cut Britain’s military “now looks like a big mistake,” in hindsight. “No one can predict the nature of future threats,” the Telegraph editorial concludes. “Hence, let us be prepared for anything.” The problem, of course, is that the shrinkage of Britain’s armed forces has done nothing to slow the Empire’s drive for World War III, something that the Telegraph neglects to acknowledge.

The only sign of sanity in all of this comes from former Foreign Secretary William Hague who ruled out the possibility of the UK sending arms to the Kiev regime. “We are not planning, as the UK, to send arms to Ukraine. It has not been our approach in any of the conflicts in recent years to send arms into those conflicts,” Hague told the BBC, adding that one has “to think very, very carefully” before sending additional weapons to a conflict zone.