Full-Spectrum Psyop: US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’
© AP Photo / Jose Luis Magana
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From the French president’s threats to send troops to Ukraine to a series of media reports on alleged Russian plans to invade NATO, anti-Russian hysteria has reached a fever pitch in European capitals. Meanwhile, one world power has been able to sit back and quietly collect the dividends, says veteran foreign affairs observer Gilbert Doctorow.
European politicians are doing their best to continue ratcheting up tensions with Moscow, with French President Emmanuel Macron reiterating that he may send thousands of troops to Ukraine, Baltic politicians allying with Paris on the issue, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying it’s an “open secret” that NATO soldiers are already in the country.
British and German media have done their part to add fuel the hysteria, citing a recent briefing to Bundestag lawmakers on purported plans by Russia to kick off a “full-scale ‘land, sea and air’ war” with NATO.
“We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day…so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned in an interview earlier this year.
This week, Polish President Andrzej Duda claimed it was a matter “of common sense” that “Putin, by putting his economy on a war footing, will have such military might that he will be able to attack NATO.” Meanwhile, his top general, Polish Armed Forces Chief of Staff Wieslaw Kukula, has alleged that Russia is actively “preparing for a conflict,” and urging Europe to do the same.
Europe’s defenses are in an unenviable state. Facing a major economic downturn and a $61 billion spending shortfall after giving roughly the same amount away to Kiev for NATO’s proxy war against Russia, European military leaders have warned that they could be left “throwing stones” within hours of a major conflict breaking out as arms and ammo stocks round dry.
But the question no Western officials or media have been able to answer is why Russia – which has over the past three decades expressed a preference for economic cooperation with Europe, rather than fighting its western neighbors, would be interested in invading NATO and almost certainly triggering World War III.
“The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Putin said in an interview in December, emphasizing that Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other” and could live peacefully.
Puppet Hands at Play
The problem may just be that Russia is taking the hysterical outbursts by NATO officials and Western media at face value, instead of searching for the ‘man behind the curtain’ seeking desperately to keep tensions in place.
“For the United States, the war in Ukraine has failed as a means of weakening Russia so that they can proceed with preparations to fight China. But it has succeeded spectacularly as a means of subjugating Europe. Washington now firmly has its knees on the neck of Europe,” veteran international relations and Russian affairs expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik.
Economically and politically, the US has been able to extract major concessions from the Europeans over the past two years, plucking hundreds of manufacturers from the continent thanks to an energy crisis sparked by the bloc’s “suicidal” decision to cut off Russian energy supplies, forcing the EU to purchase American LNG at four times the cost, and even trying to saddle Brussels with economic and military aid to Ukraine as Congress remains deadlocked over a $61 billion aid package.
“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite,” Doctorow said.
“What remains of free speech and other freedoms can be snuffed out in war hysteria. Moreover, the war fever is being used by [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen and the EU Commission in a bid to draw more power into Brussels at the expense of the national governments,” Doctorow warned.
“Some countries are resisting, for example Prime Minister [Mark] Rutte of the Netherlands and even the mealy-mouthed German Chancellor [Olaf Scholz, ed.] are publicly opposed to the proposal of a European debt issuance to finance subsidies to the military production companies, all in spite of van der Leyen. Meanwhile, Macron is on the other side, pushing for greater European centralization for which is the proposed common investment in defense is a nice instrument,” the observer added.
Poking the Bear
Russia’s military buildup “has been reactive to new challenges from the West,” Doctorow stressed, pointing out, for example, that “until the decision of Finland and Sweden to join NATO, Russia had almost no troops on its northwest border. Now, in response to new threats from the northern neighbors, that is being rectified by a big military build-up on the Russian side.”
Something similar can be said of defense budgets, with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute recently estimating that Russia’s defense budget amounted to $65.9 billion in 2021 – a fraction of NATO spending of $1.16 trillion ($753.5 billion of that by the US alone) the same year. Even in 2024, with the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine raging and intensifying, Russia plans to spend the equivalent of $140 billion, still just a fraction of the Western bloc, which has again accounted for more than half of all military spending worldwide this year.
Ultimately, Dr. Doctorow emphasized, Western governments are following an old playbook.
“An aggressive foreign policy stand is almost always a convenient way of distracting attention away from domestic failures. And thanks to the boomerang of Western sanctions, European economies are doing very poorly as we go into the June elections” to the European Parliament, the observer summed up.
