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US Plan to Put Long-Range Missiles in Germany Signals 'Death Rattle' of Anti-Russia Hawks

© US NavyA Tactical "Tomahawk" Block IV cruise missile, conducts a controlled flight test over the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) western test range complex in southern California
A Tactical Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile, conducts a controlled flight test over the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) western test range complex in southern California - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.07.2024
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Washington has announced plans to deploy Tomahawk, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles in Germany in 2026. NATO's escalatory rhetoric and behavior not only risk a hot war with Russia, but demonstrate conclusively that the Western bloc is an “offensive alliance,” former DoD senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof says.
The White House confirmed in a press release Wednesday that the US Army's Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany is planning to deploy long-range offensive missiles in the Central European country as little as a year-and-a-half from now.
"Exercising these advanced capabilities will demonstrate the United States' commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence," the release stated.
Moscow has already vowed to respond.
"The nature of our reaction will be determined in a calm, professional manner. The military have already begun working on the issue. We will, of course, analyze which specific systems will be discussed...We will determine a military response to this new threat," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Thursday.
Building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in Moscow - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.07.2024
World
Russia to Issue Military Response to Deployment of US Long-Range Missiles in Germany
"I think it's an unfortunate development," Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. "Number one, it's truly escalatory."
"I would imagine the Europeans themselves would be extraordinarily uncomfortable with this because it puts them directly in the bullseye in response from Russia," Maloof explained.
With this step, NATO has demonstrated conclusively that it's no longer the 'defensive alliance' it touts itself to be, according to the observer.

"NATO was designed to be a 'defensive' entity against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union went away and so did the Warsaw Pact. But yet NATO has not only remained but expanded to the Russian border...What we're seeing today is an effort to bolster NATO offensively. It's supposed to be a defensive organization, but to put these types of missiles - Tomahawks and ultimately hypersonics - those are offensive missiles and consequently it leaves nothing to the imagination for Russia as to what the true intention of NATO is," Maloof said.

"NATO has clearly now become an offensive alliance. I think this is worrying more and more people, and it makes it a much more dangerous world," the observer added, recalling that the US decision in 2019 to walk out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, which made Wednesday's announcement on the missile deployments in Germany possible, "makes things even more dangerous," potentially turning a hot war with Moscow into a self-fulfilling inevitability.

"When you start aligning your offensive missiles in Europe and the same [is happening] on the other side, this makes conflict not only almost spontaneous but inevitable because you are undertaking a self-fulfilling prophecy. You prepare offensively to go in to 'stand up against Russia'. Inevitably, something will happen that might cause [a war] to actually occur. This escalation, it's gotten out of control," Maloof stressed.

The former Pentagon analyst doesn’t rule out that the Biden administration’s escalatory behavior may constitute a “death rattle of the West against the East,” and a “last-ditch effort to try and bolster and show ‘strength’ at a time when they’re failing" amid the continuing process of the formation of a multipolar world order.

Russia's Inevitable Response

Maloof expects Russia to respond to NATO's latest provocation by moving its hypersonic missile systems closer to Europe, positioning them to "knock out" the "launch pads" of any offensive US systems in the event of an escalation.
BGM-109G Gryphon Transporter Erector Launcher capable of firing nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on deployment. 1980s. - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.07.2024
Analysis
Pentagon’s Push to Put Tomahawks in Germany Reveals Long-Standing Agenda to Undermine Arms Control
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