<\/p>\n
by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told Europeans, in statements on July 29th and August 9th,<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said that very publicly, I\u2019ve said that very privately to my counterparts as well, about the importance of NATO, any alliance, sharing the burden so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe.\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe are moving many troops further east, closer to Russia\u2019s border, to deter them.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Defense\u2019s website, when it issued the transcript of Esper\u2019s statement \u201cso that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe,<\/em>\u201d added in brackets, \u201c[editor\u2019s note. Secretary Esper intended to say \u2018avoid conflict in Europe\u2019]\u201d; however, that does not appear to reflect Esper\u2019s statement, for the following reasons:<\/p>\n 1. The assertion \u201cso that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe<\/em>\u201d was so inflammatory as to demand a \u2018correction\u2019 regardless of whether that statement was consistent with everything else that he has been saying, and it is consistent with everything else that he has been saying.<\/p>\n 2. Esper\u2019s 4,800-word speech on that occasion did not use the word \u201cconflict\u201d even once. It is not a word that he typically uses. By contrast, against that zero frequency for \u201cconflict,\u201d he used there \u201cdeter\u201d 21 times. He used \u201cpeace\u201d three times. Each of those was in a hostile context: First,<\/strong> \u201cOne of our primary missions is to prevent another great power war, and to maintain great power peace. The National Defense Strategy, the NDS, guides our efforts to adapt the force, and the EUCOM plan optimizes our force posture in Europe as we seek to deter malign actors there<\/em>.\u201d Second,<\/strong> \u201cThese efforts all increase our opportunity to generate greater peace in Europe and enhance the U.S.\u2019s effectiveness in great power competition<\/em>.\u201d Third,<\/strong> \u201cAnd I\u2019ve said that very publicly, I\u2019ve said that very privately to my counterparts as well, about the importance of NATO, any alliance, sharing the burden so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n He used the phrase \u201cgreat power competition\u201d five times: First,<\/strong> \u201cToday, we want to update you on the status of our U.S. European Command review, which was accelerated with the president\u2019s decision in early June to reduce our footprint in Germany, and our plans to reposition our forces in Europe to be better-situated for great power competition<\/em>.\u201d Second,<\/strong> \u201cAs we\u2019ve entered a new era of great power competition, we are now at another one of those inflection points in NATO\u2019s history<\/em>.\u201d Third,<\/strong> \u201cOne of our primary missions is to prevent another great power war, and to maintain great power peace<\/em>.\u201d (\u201cGreat power peace\u201d did not mean \u201cpeace\u201d in any broader sense but only that the U.S. does not want to become a battlefield in World War III \u2014 that\u2019s for Europe, etc., not for the U.S., to serve as the war-fields; it would be like happened during WW II. This was a very careful usage of words.)\u00a0 Fourth,<\/strong> \u201cWe focus on actions inside and outside our area of responsibility, and vigilance with respect to great power competition is an absolute imperative<\/em>.\u201d (That reaffirms Esper\u2019s focus on \u201cgreat power competition.\u201d Europe\u2019s nations are vassal-states. They are expendable. The way that Barack Obama said this was \u201cThe United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.\u201d<\/a> Every other nation is \u201cdispensable.\u201d How much clearer can it be? Furthermore: Esper explicitly asserts there that \u201cWe focus on actions inside and outside our area of responsibility,\u201d which means that the U.S. military imposes its will \u201coutside our area of responsibility\u201d \u2014 anywhere in the world \u2014 meaning against any real or imagined \u201cgreat power competitor,\u201d which refers specifically to both Russia and China. Consequently, the U.S. regime demands that Europe get in line with the U.S. Government\u2019s objective to defeat both Russia and China. He says that this is \u201can absolute imperative.\u201d) Fifth,<\/strong> \u201cThese efforts all increase our opportunity to generate greater peace in Europe and enhance the U.S.\u2019s effectiveness in great power competition<\/em>.\u201d (\u201cGreater peace in Europe\u201d implies that European nations are at war. It\u2019s a lie. Esper has made clear that \u201cgreat power competition\u201d is the U.S. regime\u2019s obsessive focus.)<\/p>\n The other assertion, that \u201cWe are moving many troops further east, closer to Russia\u2019s border, to deter them,\u201d<\/a> is a clear affirmation of the U.S. regime\u2019s lie to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 when he was ending the Cold War on Russia\u2019s side \u2014 ending its communism, ending its Warsaw Pact military alliance, ending the Soviet Union \u2014 and George Herbert Walker Bush deceived him into believing that NATO would not move \u201cone inch to the east.\u201d<\/a> The sheer evilness of that man and of all subsequent U.S. Presidents, for their ceaseless efforts ultimately to conquer Russia<\/a>, and now with Trump also to conquer China, is perhaps unsurpassed in human history, competing even with Adolf Hitler. It\u2019s what happens when a country \u2014 in this instance the United States \u2014 gets taken over by its aristocracy, its billionaires<\/a>.<\/p>\n Europe is to serve, along with the Middle East and elsewhere, as America\u2019s battlefields to conquer Russia and China. That\u2019s the plan.<\/p>\n