The hawk is a bird of prey. It hunts to eat and to stay
alive. Like the hunter in many another species, the hawk is a smart bird, and
must remain smart or it gets overrun by other hunters that would be competing
for the same food, and left to die of hunger. By analogy, human beings that
espouse a geopolitical position that is unforgiving toward a potential foe, are
usually called hawks. But unlike the real hawks, they don't have to be smart
because they don't do the hunting themselves; they only incite someone else to
do the deadly work that ends up benefiting them one way or the other.
There is one such hawk among many in America who
goes by the name Jim Thomas. He wrote an article under the title: “How to Put
Military Pressure on Russia ”
and the subtitle: “NATO now has reason to station nuclear forces in front-line
member states.” It was published in the Wall Street Journal on March 10, 2014.
You can already tell from the subtitle that he was just waiting for an excuse
to see America station
nuclear forces in Europe , and he believes that
the country has been given that excuse.
He uses the overused phrase “wake-up call” to signal that
someone else was asleep while he was awake; and he wants that someone to wake
up and see what he believes he is seeing. That someone happens to be the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and he wants it to see what its deficient
thinking has done. He wants it to see that it has turned Putin into a cat, and
has turned Crimea into a catnip. And he
laments that the twain have now met because Russia
has seized Crimea , and may be about to gulp
more of its neighbors.
Two decades of deficient thinking have caused the European
members of NATO to spend ever-smaller sums on security, he says. Even America
is now cutting its defense budget while trying to expand its mission abroad by
pivoting to the Asia-Pacific theater. And what is the result of this repeated
deficiency in thinking? It is that the pundits and the government officials
have tended to emphasize the political and economic suasion for dealing with
the Russian bear, he says. It is still a bear – from the way that Thomas
describes Russia
– but it is one that has developed the nose of a cat; a feline that is on the
prowl sniffing for the catnip, its favorite herbal plant.
And the neighborhood where the bear-cum-cat may try to
strike next, says Jim Thomas, is the one that contains the Baltic states of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania because that is where “mother” Russia can use the
excuse of protecting the ethnic Russian population, and do to them what it did
to Crimea. This is why, says our author, it is not enough to impose sanctions
on Russia , skip the G-8
summit in Sochi , hit the Russian oligarchs in
their pocketbooks or isolate Russia
in international forums. What is needed in addition to all that are the
military options, he asserts.
And so, he goes on to lay out in detail what needs to be
done in that regard. His plan comes in five steps. The first of which is to
give Poland
the planes that can carry nuclear weapons. At the same time, look around the
entire region for places where nuclear weapons can be stored. Second, NATO
conventional forces should be stationed permanently in Poland , Romania
and the Baltic states . Third, NATO should
declare its willingness to assist Ukraine with supplies ranging from
the humanitarian to the most advanced lethal weapons used by guerrilla forces
that will be called resistance. Fourth, supply the Syrian guerrillas with
lethal weapons so that they may defeat Bashar Assad, and put the port of Tartus
where Russia
has a naval base in jeopardy. Fifth, stop leading from behind, forget about
eliminating nuclear weapons world-wide, and ditch that thing about having a
reset with Russia .
And he ends the article by saying that Washington
and Europe should spend more money on defense
rather than cut back, which is what they are doing now.
And sitting in the comfort of his office, this old man –
like his predecessors of the Vietnam ,
Iraq and Afghanistan
eras – will sip on his favorite drink while listening to the news reporting how
many people died today, how many got injured and how many were rendered
refugees. He will then switch to the stock market and see how much higher his
military industrial complex securities have gone today.