“So the decision to go to war — the decision we had not wanted to believe possible — had apparently been taken.”
Eric von Manstein
Now that missiles from NATO countries have been used by Ukraine to strike Russia, Moscow’s new nuclear doctrine authorizes President Putin to launch nuclear strikes against NATO bases. Indeed, the Russians have affirmed their right, in principle, to strike the West with nuclear weapons. The question is, will they follow through and launch nuclear strikes?
Nuclear war is not a simple matter. It presents, on its own, a psychological problem. The use of such weapons can never be casual, because the last world war ended with the use of nuclear weapons, and the next world war will likely begin with them. Psychologically, the idea of world war forms a kind of barrier. Even the worst human being will find himself vacillating when it comes to starting a world war. In the case of World War II, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s memoirs contain a curious tidbit that few histories dwell upon. Hitler gave the order to begin military operations against Poland at 3 p.m. on the 25th of August 1939. Hitler then countermanded the order shortly after 7 p.m. About this Manstein wrote:
“Every soldier can judge what an eleventh-hour counter-order of this kind implied. Within the space of a few hours three armies moving straight for the frontier across a zone extending from Lower Silesia to the eastern part of Slovakia had to be brought to a halt — not forgetting that all headquarters staffs up to at least divisional level were also on the march and that there was still a security ban on wireless traffic. Despite all the difficulties, we managed to notify everybody in good time — a first-rate piece of work by the operations and signal staffs. Nevertheless, one motorized regiment in eastern Slovakia could only be stopped after an officer in a Fieseler Storch aircraft had landed at the ahead of the column in the darkness.”
Hitler had summoned his chief of staff and said, “Stop everything at once, fetch Brauchitsch. I need time for negotiations.” Hitler might have vacillated for a number of reasons: His erstwhile ally, Benito Mussolini, got cold feet when the German troops started moving. Poland and the United Kingdom had just signed a formal treaty of alliance that same day. Worse yet, according to British historian A.J.P. Taylor, “The state of German armament in 1939 gives the decisive proof that Hitler was not contemplating general war, and probably not intending war at all.” [p. 218]. In other words, Hitler’s army was not ready. He was bluffing.
Or was he? The psychological question is, in these matters, the decisive question. What goes on in the dictator’s mind? Taylor wrote,
“Here was another mysterious episode. Why did Hitler pull back at the last moment? Did he lose his nerve? Did the two events of Mussolini’s neutrality and the Anglo-Polish alliance really take him by surprise? He himself, with the normal propensity of statesmen to put the blame on others, at once complained that it was all the fault of Mussolini: news of the Italian decsison not to fight had stiffened the British just when they were on the point of surrender. This was nonsense. The British did not know of Mussolini’s decision when they signed the alliance with Poland….” [pp. 269-70]
According to Taylor, there was another reason for Hitler to revoke his attack order. Germany’s Western frontier was “virtually” undefended on 25 August 1939. Hitler’s bluff was all too obvious. He was caught out, and embarrassed. Soon enough, shame itself becomes a factor. Does one launch a world war out of embarrassment? — because one must not be seen as bluffing? Hitler quickly bolstered his Western defenses and launched his fateful attack on 1 September 1939.
The reason to bring up this not-so-ancient history is to illustrate the difficulties of starting a war at the “right time” and in the “right way.” At present, an argument could be made suggesting that Presidents Putin and Xi are planning to escalate the war in Ukraine (and the war in the Middle East) into a general world war. In terms of psychology, the question of war guilt has always been of great importance in terms of world wars. And yet, winning a nuclear war depends on striking first. How do you get the moral high ground when you intend to strike first? The destructive effect of the weapons dictates surprise attack. Related to this, GRU defector Col. Stanislav Lunev once said that the Russian military considers surprise to be the most important factor in war. And this leads us to the next question: What happens to surprise when you have verbally threatened the West with nuclear attack dozens of times?
If empty threats are made, again and again, surprise may actually be enabled. When Chinese President Xi Jinping tells the People’s Liberation Army to get ready for war, over the course of four straight years, the People’s Liberation Army has no choice but to get ready. At the same time, America becomes accustomed to this kind of talk from Beijing. Here, instead of a little boy crying wolf, the wolf cries wolf. In fact, the wolf knows that his prey will eventually disregard these oft-repeated threats. The West will say to itself, “Go back to sleep. Those crazy Russians and Chinese always talk this way. They are only bluffing.”
The question we must ask ourselves is whether we are being subjected to a gradual conditioning process, from Russian and Chinese leaders, where we are primed to ignore Russian and Chinese statements about an imminent war. It is hard to imagine a better explanation for the bluff pattern of Russian and Chinese war talk. Here we have a variation on the Russian behaviorist, Ivan Pavlov, and his famous dogs; only, the dogs of NATO do not salivate when the bell rings. They are conditioned to sleep soundly when Russia threatens nuclear war for the tenth time; or, on electing Donald Trump as president, the dogs believe the threat of world war has been removed because, as Trump has said, the warmongers in Washington will soon be removed from power.
Almost three years ago Putin said, “I am not bluffing.” But he was bluffing, and unlike Hitler he was not afraid to appear ridiculous. It seems that Putin knows he is conditioning the West to disbelieve his threats. He is putting them to sleep by repeating something that begins to sound absurd to everyone. Why should Putin worry about his credibility when surprise is more important?
So, we must confront the question of timing: If you were Putin and Xi, would you start World War III before Trump takes office? Or would you play another round of tricks? If the market falls under Trump, if the U.S. economy fails, under Trump, what would Russia do? In fact, Russia and China want economic collapse and chaos in the United States before hostilities begin. Right? And economic collapse is something that belongs to a more distant future. It is not going to happen before Trump is inaugurated.
Furthermore, Russia and her partners need to be ready for war themselves. At present, it seems they have a few economic kinks to work out, especially when it comes to the Chinese manufacture of precision machine tools and spare parts. Defeat Ukraine and fix the economic and technological problems of Russia and China first. Build your economic attack, your sabotage apparatus, your agent networks and your toxic narratives. That seems to be their priority.
Support the blog (to keep us going)
JRNyquist.blog
$15.00
238 responses to “Is Russia Bluffing?”
“Threat being taken ‘seriously’ after unidentified drones spotted over US airbases in UK”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1979951/Drones-spotted-over-US-airbases-in-UK
“Putin ready to cripple Britain with cyber attacks, minister warns”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/23/putin-ready-to-cripple-britain-in-cyber-war/
(The “reply” button on the blog stopped working, so using the Jetpack app again. Hopefully this will go through. WordPress sure can be glitchy sometimes!)
– K
“NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia’s hypersonic missile attack”
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/11/23/nato-and-ukraine-to-hold-emergency-talks-after-russias-hypersonic-missile-attack
Jean Robin will be hosting his Anti-communist Conference (no. 8) on 11/29. Look forward to hearing from the panelists.
https://www.youtube.com/live/sxoZNJKg6jg
Of interest:
https://stevenmoore.substack.com/p/no-nato-expansion-did-not-provoke
Here’s Art Bell interviewing Nyquist 25+ years ago! The only thing Jeff was wrong about was the timing of Russia’s nuclear strike. Also interesting are the parallels of war in Europe, and Russia threatening global/nuclear war in response to NATO (conventional) military action.
https://rumble.com/v5qseqq-playing-rollercoaster-tycoon-2-wart-bell-04031999-jeffrey-nyquist-yugoslavi.html
“Terrorists may be eyeing Macy’s Thanksgiving parade as target, officials warn”
(My understanding is that the parade route is only about 15 minutes from Wall Street. Two million people are expected to attend, with a television audience of over 44 million):
https://m.jpost.com/international/islamic-terrorism/article-830303
What intrigues me the most is that NATO has dellayed until after Trump election to give permission to Ukraine use western long range weapons against Russia. Why would they do it just now? Seems very irrational. If they want to hold Putin until Trump gets in office, they could just reinforce defense and wait two more months. Every government should, in theory, be very happy with peace – it will reduce energy costs, wlll reduce inflation, will benefit every government that is in power right now.
Is it crazy to assume for a moment that Biden, Macron, and maybe others, are in fact working together with China and Russia? It mays sound crazy, but by attacking Russia they are giving the justification that Putin needs. Putin doesn’t need right now a complete victory over the USA, the Perestroyka deception doesn’t need to wipe out the USa to prove successful. He may succeed just by remaking the old borders of the Soviet Union while at the same time infiltrating all western governments. Imagine how successful they are, comparing how they were in the 80s – now they have the better nuclear card while at the same time they have an industrial China, they control not only most of Africa and South America, but probably many agents inside western governments.
I don’t think they need to risk nuking the USA, just just need to be sure that the USA won’t nuke while they regain territory. I believe they will try to isolate the USA just like the USA isolated North Korea.
I think you are right. I am very glad you articulated it for us.
I am the one who needs to thank you. I remember some years ago, when Russia invaded Crimea and I was still very confused, thinking there was some kind of globalist elite against Russia, believing the Obama was a globalist.
It took me some months to really understand your texts, that we were being deceived by the international communist movement. Your studies helped me a lot not only in political terms, but also to get a grasp on cultura marxism.
Jeff :
I’m jealous. I’m stuck in Michigan for the time being. But at retirement we are definitely heading south. Good choice !
Jeff :
Things are definitely at a serious phase. Dan Bongino was quoting Jack Keane ( General ? ). He is on Fox news sometimes. He said that the Russians will not stop at Ukraine. Will move westward into Europe. He then said that we are in a pre-war period.
At least some people get it.
Hope the politicians and citizens handle the situations in the best way.
Very perceptive of Keane. Hope more people come to that understanding.
Jeff, it sounds as if you are saying you believe the attack will come soon, but not before Trump is inaugurated.
Several thoughts:
1) to me, it seems now is a good time for the Comms to attack. The US will only grow stronger. Trump will open up energy production, strengthening the US and possibly lowering the price of oil. He will also start rebuilding the military. From here, the trend goes up. There appears to be a window where the US is at its weakest.
2) Biden allowing these long range strikes into Russia seems quite contrived. Marxist theory dictates the creation of the pretext to justify hitting your enemy. This is also why I do not fully trust Zelensky, no matter what anyone says. For one, I do not believe Russia is incapable of killing him, and for two, him using these weapons against Russia strengthens the fake pretext for Russia to strike America.
But this also implies the attack would have to come soon, because presumably Trump would not allow these strikes once he is in. So the pretext weakens. That would mean they would have to move before Trump is inaugurated.
I also don’t see the logic of how they can attack the US when Trump is entering office, considering how allegedly pro-Russia he is portrayed as. It wouldn’t even make sense to Russian citizens. Even if Biden was allowing Ukraine to use these missiles, can you possibly justify a nuclear strike on America when the new president is saying he wants peace? Wouldn’t that invalidate the entire case they’ve spent all this time building?
3) I have thought the economic component would come first as well. The US economy is in dire shape.
4) the question remains whether Russia wanted this electoral outcome. All messaging from their goons was stating Kamala was either going to win, or she would win and Trump would do something crazy. Neither happened. Instead, it seemed the win was so big they couldn’t alter it. If that is not what Russia wanted, what was their plan in this case? I don’t think they want Trump in office. He wants to build the military back up, starve Iran of funds, and unleash American energy. But he also uses the word “globalist” and appears to be sufficiently confused.
How can Russia justify a nuclear strike on America when Trump is in office? Does that work on their citizens or do they just not care?
To me, it seems there is a window of opportunity now, definitely before inauguration. Once Trump is in, I think it is more dangerous for them, but the window still exists, probably at least for a year or longer, however long it takes for the US military to rebuild. But perhaps they are so confident in how the US military has been so entirely neutered that they don’t really care if Trump is in office.
I have no belief about when an attack from Russia or China will come. It could come any time. But their best plan is to attack us when we are at our weakest militarily, and that won’t be for another 4-5 years. Without access to secret information it’s impossible to tell how this is being calculated in Moscow, but I know what generals in the U.S. and Canada think. After my trip to Toronto where I met three generals and an Admiral who were responsible for defending North America, I was shocked to learn that Russia and China will be relatively stronger than us four years from now. In other words, they have not reached their maximum of advantage. Lt. Gen. Pelletier (former deputy commander of NORAD) explained this to me and I was, honestly shocked. I had understood we were entering into the maximum period of vulnerability now. This is what many analyst and think tank people believe today. But the generals I spoke with agreed with Pelletier’s assessment; and they were and are the most competent to judge. From what we are seeing out of Trump’s appointments, we are not going to fix our defenses in a comprehensive way — and cannot do so quickly. I am having serious doubts just listening to Trump talk. I fear that Trump may very quickly fall into a trap, and that he is showing every symptom of letting Russia off the hook in exchange for peace. Even if Trump wanted to rebuild the military, the gap will widen between now and 2029 no matter what he does. The problem of rebuilding our military is that we need years to begin the process. We need five years to build our capacity to build — before we can build.
4 or 5 more years to crank out the nukes and ICBMs before we can probably make any at all.
That’s right.
Jeff is right, that it will take years to get our economy onto a war footing—build the factories, get the supply chains running, before we really get production up. We have the example of World War II that it was 1940 when the U.S. first started arming, then often at the request of Britain for supplies, yet we didn’t maximize production until about 1943–44. We find that Biden and NATO dithered for two years after the Russian invasion, drawing down stored supplies without replacing them, only recently starting the process of re-arming.
But does the expectation when China and Russia will reach their relative superiority depend on certain assumptions that may not be accurate? For example, China’s economic stats are recognized to be fraudulent, made up. Its population started shrinking years ago, well before Covid. Evergrand was the first major indication of economic stress, but there is much more. I still see claims that the Chinese economy will surpass that of the U.S. but how much are those claims are based on the fraudulent stats coming out of China? Increasingly countries around the world are getting fed up with China dumping its excess production that they can’t absorb through internal consumption. China’s population is increasingly restive—would even their military join a rebellion against the CCP if they wait another five years before attacking the U.S.?
True, China and Russia are further ahead in gearing up their economies for war, but how much further can they go? With Russia’s losses in Ukraine, how much longer can they continue without going nuclear? Once they go nuclear, how can that not start with a nuclear attack against the U.S.?
Top generals in peace time tend to be political appointees, how much of their expectations depend on political assumptions? Bottom line, I think there is reason to question their conclusions. And reasons to think that the communist attack will come sooner rather than later.
@Jeff Nyquist: Basically, we are screwed no matter what. Trump is likely an useful idiot. Biden or Kamala is a full blown communist. Now, Scholz literally takes off his mask to reveal his pro-communist stance to blocking Taurus for Ukraine and missile strikes into Russia. I have a very disturbing news that Russia helped a fascist candidate to win the Romanian election.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dlw5pq967o
I highly doubt that the US/NATO can revive its industrial might. Because the communists drastically implemented permanent laws into our systems that seek to degrade our industries and military. Trump and MAGA cabinet won’t be able to remove them. Removing at least one of environmental laws, as an example, will provoke the wrath of liberals in blue states who will threaten civil wars and riots. They will be armed by international communists.
The communists will win as long as we’re deindustrialized, demilitarized, depowered. They may not even need WMDs to win.
Not only the points you mention, but also the intangibles of the people -our mindset, our education, our work ethic, honesty, self-sacrificing spirit, etc. I don’t know that we have all that on a broad enough level to rebuild our capacity to build in five years. It may take several years to reinstill the values and character that it takes to create that capacity to build. How many people from say 40 years old and under have been dumbed down and indoctrinated, with the degradation being worse as the age goes down?
We are in a very bad situation across the board.
I cringe every time I hear Trump say that we are going to be great and strong again very fast.
I believe there are still a lot of able people, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near a majority by any means.
Or, instead of saying “nowhere near a majority”, I should have said “do we have enough?” It’s hard -very hard- to find competent, reliable, diligent, faithful workers in my field, and practically any field I know of from speaking with others.
Yes, we have degenerated. It is a more complex problem than anyone wants to admit.
@JRNyquist: Is there nothing that we can do to protect ourselves as a country in the meantime?
Also, I thought you had said that the U.S. will be able to get more missiles (not sure what type) in 2029?
We supposedly will be building new nuclear warheads in 2029. Cross your fingers.
Knowledge is power.
Jeff, your intelligent, well-informed blog has no equal, and I am grateful to have found it. There is so much disinformation from supposedly intelligent people like Ron Unz, etc blaming the Russian invasion on the Ukrainians, to Martin Armstrong saying China isn’t communist (!?) There is some awaking e.g. David Starkey blaming the drafting of the Human Rights Declarations which facilitated the migrant crisis on Soviet infiltration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEh2Dv2NsSw (see 25:25 on)
What do you believe is Putin’s long term goal – domination and control of all Europe? Does he plan mass genocide too?
As a South Asian, we have long been suspicious of the Chinese, who view us as third rate, but since Asia is already vastly over populated, they may ‘only’ want to dominate us. I fear for the US which according to Chi Haotian will be destroyed and re-populated with Chinese who already control 20-30%+ US food production, e.g. see RFK on US hogs :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08RXal8XTm4
Some ‘financial gurus’ also believe hundred of millions of Chinese will be moved to Africa and Europe, so does a similar fate await them?
I have one Russian source that said China had asked Russia if depopulating subsaharan Africa was permissible. Other than that I have heard nothing specific about geocoding Europe. Old Soviet plans did include taking millions from Europe and dumping them into Russia as forced labor to rebuild destroyed cities. And there is Victor Suvorov’s claim that a death list of roughly 600,000 Germans was kept by the Carpathian Military District in the old USSR.
Talk about a nightmare scenario for everyone. So evil it can hardly be described.
Russia to help China advance submarine tech, in exchange for Ukraine War support?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/russia-will-help-china-advance-submarine-technology-us-indo-pacific-commander-says-5765340
“Chinese Military Think Tank Recommends CCP Target Musk to Influence Trump, Insider Says”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/chinese-military-think-tank-recommends-ccp-target-musk-to-influence-trump-insider-says-5762057?
“TikTok CEO reaching out to Elon Musk for information on Trump presidency: WSJ”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/tiktok-ceo-reaching-out-elon-musk-information-trump-presidency-wsj
Drone swarm in NJ last week was at site of military R&D center for directed energy weapons. Currently they’re researching firing lightning bolts at lasers.
Also, the drone swarm in England was over a former nuclear weapons storage facility that is about to be utilized again to house US nuclear weapons.
Note: this link contains a small amount of anti-Ukraine content (in a video and at the end of the article). Jeff, please feel free to delete if you feel it’s too much:
https://open.substack.com/pub/andmagazine/p/we-have-been-warned-unidentified?r=b5v9h&utm_medium=ios
I wonder how Trump will respond to this if it continues to happen,?
NATO calls on businesses to prep for ‘wartime scenario’:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-nato-official-calls-on-business-leaders-to-prepare-for-wartime-scenario/ar-AA1uI1QW
US drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan & the Philippines in case of Taiwan emergency:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/us-contingency-plans-taiwan-emergency-china-japan-kyodo-4768966
Donald Trump to kick all transgender troops out of US military via executive order Jan 20th. They would be “medically discharged”:
https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/donald-trump-transgender-troops-us-military-52xf5cdlc
Why nominate people with questionable backgrounds.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/11/what_you_don_t_know_and_need_to_know_about_pam_bondi.html