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The New York Times\u2019 fake news provocation alleging that Russia solicited the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan aims to disrupt the country\u2019s fragile peace process, reverse the minimal but nevertheless observable progress that was recently made towards reaching a \u201cNew Detente\u201d between the US and Russia, and create complications in the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership in the diplomatically tense aftermath of early June\u2019s Galwan Incident.<\/em><\/div>\nThe GRU: Global Bogeyman<\/strong><\/p>\n The Mainstream Media is in a tizzy after the New York Times (NYT) published a\u00a0fake news provocation<\/a>\u00a0alleging that Russia solicited the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. More specifically, they claim that its military intelligence wing, GRU, was responsible for the operation. The Western public is already preconditioned into associating those three letters with the craziest conspiracies considering that the GRU was blamed for the failed assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal almost two and a half years ago in the UK. It\u2019s since become the global bogeyman for scaring targeted audiences into jumping on the \u201cRussia threat\u201d bandwagon, which explains why it\u2019s the subject of the latest infowar provocation to come out last weekend. It\u2019s not just that the NYT\u2019s \u201cdeep state<\/a>\u201d backers want to remind everyone that they\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to be \u201cafraid\u201d of Russia, however, since this particular \u201cperception management\u201d operation aims to achieve three other strategic objectives as well.<\/p>\n 1. Disrupt The Afghan Peace Process<\/strong><\/p>\n The first of these is to disrupt the fragile Afghan peace process that\u2019s envisioned to ultimately result in the full withdrawal of American forces from the war-torn country. Trump\u2019s already planning to\u00a0pull out 4000 troops<\/a>\u00a0in the coming weeks as part of his commitment to the\u00a0agreement<\/a>\u00a0that was reached earlier this year, and the\u00a0recent visit<\/a>\u00a0of Pakistani Chief Of Army Staff (COAS) Bajwa to Kabul succeeded in getting the Afghan authorities to\u00a0reaffirm<\/a>\u00a0their commitment to releasing Taliban prisoners like they earlier agreed as a prerequisite to commencing intra-Afghan talks. The neoconservative faction of the \u201cdeep state\u201d (particularly those in the US\u2019 permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) are opposed to this series of developments because they regard Afghanistan as a springboard from which America can export \u201cconstructive chaos\u201d throughout the region, unlike the plans that the Trump Administration has to use it as a bridge for\u00a0economically connecting<\/a>\u00a0with the Central Asian states and improving their ability to \u201cbalance\u201d between Russia and China.<\/p>\n 2. Reverse The \u201cNew Detente\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The second strategic objective that\u2019s being pursued by this fake news provocation is to reverse the minimal but nevertheless observable progress that was recently made towards reaching a \u201cNew Detente\u201d between the US and Russia. The two\u00a0sent aid<\/a>\u00a0to one another during the opening stages of\u00a0World<\/a>War<\/a>C<\/a>\u00a0(the author\u2019s term for the international community\u2019s largely uncoordinated attempts to contain the coronavirus which catalyzed full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes) and even cooperated real closely under the\u00a0OPEC+<\/a>\u00a0framework. The neoconservatives are against any strengthening of bilateral relations because these Old Cold War-era anti-Russian hawks regard the Eurasian Great Power as the gravest threat to America\u2019s global ambitions. By blaming the GRU for the Taliban\u2019s attacks against US soldiers in Afghanistan, they hope to pressure Trump into reconsidering his commitment to the \u201cNew Detente\u201d for \u201cpatriotic\u201d reasons, thus compelling America to continue with the failed \u201cdual containment\u201d of Russia and China instead of solely focusing on the latter like Trump wants to do.<\/p>\n 3. Interfere In Russian-Indian Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, the fake news rumor-mongering about the GRU\u2019s allegedly soliciting of Taliban attacks is intended to widen the rift between Russia and India. These two countries are still extremely close with one another despite their relationship mostly being transanctional nowadays and focusing almost entirely on arms and energy, but some Indians\u00a0wrongly expected<\/a>\u00a0Russia to openly take their side against China following early June\u2019s Galwan Incident. It wouldn\u2019t ever do that even in the event that its envisioned \u201cNew Detente\u201d with the US is ultimately successful since its 21st-century grand strategy is to become the\u00a0supreme \u201cbalancing\u201d force<\/a>\u00a0in Eurasia, not a partisan player interfering on one side of a dispute like the US so often does. By falsely tying the GRU to the same militant group that\u2019s allegedly backed by India\u2019s hated Pakistani nemesis, the \u201cdeep state\u201d hopes to make Indian decision makers more suspicious of Russia, thereby compelling them to accelerate their ongoing strategic reorientation away from it and towards the \u201cmore trustworthy\u201d US-led \u201cQuad\u201d instead.<\/p>\n Concluding Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n The NYT\u2019s latest \u201cdeep state\u201d-directed infowar provocation against Russia might be believable for those who already dislike the Eurasian Great Power and Trump with equal measure, but it\u2019s unlikely to achieve its first two strategic objectives of disrupting the fragile Afghan peace process and reversing the minimal but nevertheless observable progress that was recently made towards reaching a \u201cNew Detente\u201d with Russia. It might, however, bear some fruit in respect to widening the rift between Russia and India. The US and India already engage in so-called \u201ccounter-terrorist cooperation\u201d, so New Delhi was likely briefed on the \u201cclassified\u201d details of this fake news \u201creport\u201d by representatives of the \u201cdeep state\u201d itself in order to make their claims all the more compelling. Considering that the growing trust between the US and India is occurring in parallel to the gradual weakening thereof between India and Russia, New Delhi\u2019s decision makers might actually fall for this false narrative. For this reason, both pairs of bilateral relations should be closely monitored across the coming months in order to see whether that\u2019s actually the case or not.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.<\/p>\n This article was originally published on\u00a0OneWorld<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Andrew Korybko<\/strong>\u00a0is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China\u2019s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.<\/em><\/p>\n