shireff
General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, has a new piece of fiction out: 2017 War with Russia. I know what you must be thinking, "What, another bogus think-tank report pulling a menacing Russian threat out of thin air?" No, this is actually a real, old fashioned novel. But that hasn't stopped Shirreff from claiming that the events he fantasizes about - namely, an Russian attack on the Baltic nations followed by all-out nuclear war when 'murica comes to the rescue - are "entirely plausible".

The brave general sir should be commended for stepping up to the time-honored tradition and thankless task of warning the world of entirely fictional dangers. Without people like him, where would we be? (Actually, don't think about that. It might hurt his book sales.) But don't worry, free world, for the great Sir Shirreff has the solution: in order to avert the "potential catastrophe" of nuclear war, NATO must only increase its defensive capabilities in the Baltics. Wow, it's so simple! Someone give this man a Nobel Peace Prize.

The general expanded on his brilliant thesis to the BBC. Here are some of the choice bits:
"We need to judge President Putin by his deeds not his words," he added. "He has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got [sic] away with it.
Let's see, Putin deeds... Rescuing Russia from actual catastrophe in the 90s, catastrophe which the U.S. would have been only too happy to continue fomenting and exploiting. Protecting South Ossetia from Looney-bin Saakashvilli's actual invasion in 2008. Protecting the Russian people of Crimea from neo-Nazi Right Sector goons and a future as part of a bankrupt failed state, brought by an actual U.S.-supported violent coup. Supporting the people in Donetsk and Lugansk from the same threats. Add to that: being the first major world leader to have the balls to take on the U.S.'s not-so-proxy terrorists, bringing the first hope of stability to Syria since yet another U.S.-supported regime-change operation. Yeah, Putin has used force and gotten away with it. Humanity should be thankful 'he' (i.e. Russia) did so.

Maybe I'm just slow, but something tells me that's not what Shirreff's getting at. But if he's really so concerned about nukes and invasions, you'd think he could find a much better example, much closer to home. How many countries have Shirreff's homeland and its allies actually invaded and/or utterly destroyed in the past 10 years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, Syria. How many governments have they overthrown? Now compare said countries to South Ossetia, Georgia, Crimea, and heck, even Chechnya, today. Notice anything different?

It's actually people like Shirreff and his friends who have "used force", and worse, and gotten away with it. Their deeds speak louder than their words, and they aren't flattering in the slightest.

But let's see if we can salvage Shirreff's character:
General Shirreff said that Mr Putin could be persuaded into an intervention in the Baltic by a "perception" of weakness in NATO, and predicted that, as in Crimea, the Russian president would present his actions as an act of defence to protect the large Russian-speaking minorities in those countries.
Because Russia has shown just how much it enjoys invading weak 'enemies'! Sure! What is this guy smoking? If that were true, Russia would be a LOT bigger by now. The fact is, Russia has no real interest in expanding its territory. (See this recent article from The Saker, which dispels several current myths about modern warfare, including the very 'terrifying' scenarios peddled by Shirreff.) And here's the thing, if Russia were ever to engage in military operations in the region, it would be an act of defense, because only NATO is crazy enough to actually start something there. Shirreff must have forgotten that it is the U.S. that has recently deployed new missile defense systems in Romania and Poland. And the fact that there's only one country with a history of using nuclear weapons, on civilian populations at that: the United States. Plus this, pointed out at Sputnik:
Shirreff's claims also conveniently sidestep the fact that it is the United States, not Russia, which demonstrates a disregard for nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The Obama Administration has authorized the spending of over $1 trillion on modernizing America's atomic arsenal.

"By now we are accustomed to bizarre foreign policy moves from the White House. The last 15 years have seen a series of initiatives that defy reason and good sense," US academic Michael Brenner wrote for Consortium News last month.

"Against this backdrop, the program to spend $1 trillion on developing an upgraded arsenal of nuclear weapons with expanded capabilities suggests a return to 'normal' - that is, the bizarre."
And here we come to the real reason for Shirreff's fantasy novel:
Nato has already stepped up defences in the Baltic states, but General Shirreff said that it needed to "raise the bar sufficiently high for any aggressor to say it is not worth the risk."

"I would argue the bar is not high enough at the moment," he added.

In the preface to his book, General Shirreff is critical of recent defence cuts in the UK, writing: "A country famous for once 'walking softly and carrying a big stick'... now had a leadership that shouted loudly but, thanks to ongoing defence cuts, carried an increasingly tiny and impotent stick."
The bigger the perceived threat from Russia, the more military spending, and the richer the war profiteers become. And the greater the chances of a real war with Russia become. You can only kick a bear so many times before it bites back.

Shirreff was also in the news earlier this year. From the Independent, February 8:
General Sir Richard Shirreff and Peter Hain have joined forces to form a management consultancy, which will be launched today.

Strategia Worldwide puts companies through a risk test used by the Army, where "red teams" test a management's response to any form of risk. "You have to assume everything that can go wrong, will go wrong to reach your goal. You start from there and work backwards," Sir Richard said. He oversaw the British Army's operations in Iraq, while Lord Hain is a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Foreign Office minister. Strategia Worldwide is working with McKinsey, the management consultants, and a leading insurance broker.

The consultancy expects to focus on companies operating in dangerous and complex environments. Sir Richard said: "A big mining company can appear to local communities like an occupying army. Companies need to take care not to disrupt local relationships. They do that by identifying what representatives of communities want."

The miners Vedanta Resources and Barrick Gold have already hired Sir Richard and his team to assist management in handling local protest groups. They advised Barrick Gold on how to work with indigenous groups in Chile who were protesting over fears the miner was using local drinking water to operate a gold mine. Kelvin Dushnisky, Barrick's president, said: "They were able to work with local communities and see all the risks we were facing, like security and environment."

Vedanta's chief executive Tom Albanese, said Sir Richard "has seen it, been there and done it. He has helped us see risks before they hit us. The demands of the military and mining are similar. You always need to plan for the unexpected."
In other words, Shirreff's company thrives on chaos, or what their PR calls "dangerous and complex environments". What do you call a person who tries to scaremonger the public into giving up their tax dollars for weapons, while that person owns a company that profits from the chaos generated by them? A friend told me the answer: Sir General Rich Bastard?