PRESS RELEASE
Russian Officials Warn of World War III Threat
Oct. 25, 2012 (EIRNS)—The fact that the world is on a razor's edge for World War III is most clearly reflected in statements and actions coming from Russia. On Oct. 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally oversaw the most comprehensive testing of Russia's nuclear triad (air-, land-, and sea-based strategic nuclear weapons command and control) since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This comes in the context of a new round of high-level warnings from Russian officials that the Obama Administration's policies of promoting regime change and deploying a unilateral missile defense system in Europe and the Middle East is driving the world towards a "global showdown."
A leading member of the Russian Duma from Putin's party, Yevgeny Fyodorov, charged last week that the U.S. policy of promoting wars of regime change around the world is leading towards a world war. He accused the Obama Administration of pursuing policies leading the world to "slide into a complete destabilization that will inevitably end in a World War."
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin, formerly the Russian Ambassador to NATO, told a visiting delegation of NATO parliamentarians that the continued deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems all along the southern tier of Russia was driving Russia to take "technical" actions to preserve its strategic deterrents. On the announced deployment of four American destroyers into the Spanish port of Rota, Rogozin noted that the ships equipped with the advanced Aegis ABM system posted a direct threat to the global nuclear balance. They could be easily moved, he charged, to the North Atlantic in proximity to Russian territory to intercept Russian strategic missiles armed with thermonuclear weapons launched in retaliation for a U.S. first strike. This, he warned, alters the entire system of strategic deterrents and poses an existential threat to Russia—a threat that will not go unchallenged.
At the same time, the border conflict between NATO member Turkey and Syria is escalating. Over the past week, there has been a resumption of cross-border exchanges of artillery fire between the two neighbors, with Turkish heavy artillery targeting Syrian military positions inside the north of Syria. The London Economist called for the U.S. to directly respond by establishing a no-fly zone over northern Syria to create a liberated safe haven from which anti-Assad rebels can operate freely, in spite of firm Russian opposition.
Meanwhile, Russia has begun deploying new batteries of S-400 advanced anti-aircraft to the southern border—pointed at Turkey—in response to a recently installed NATO missile defense shield component. In the context of such a series of escalating provocations and confrontations, any one of them could effectively serve as a trigger for World War III, as Fyodorov warned.
So far, under the intensive opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Obama Administration has refrained from escalating the Syria surrogate war into a regime-change operation as in Libya. However, as long as Obama remains in power, his British controllers, in effect, have their fingers on the nuclear button.
