Kappas, nyt Venäjän oma propagandakin sanoo sen

Jo blogin alkuaikoina kirjoitin siitä, miten väite rajan läheisyyden muodostamasta uhasta Leningradille tai Pietarille, tai miksi sitä nyt milloinkin kutsutaan, on soopaa. Nyt Venäjän oma propagandistikin myöntää epäsuorasti tämän myöntäessään, että väitteet NATO:n laajenemisen uhasta Venäjälle ovat soopaa:

Cliché No 6: forward deployment gives a major advantage 

Day after day we hear the Russians complaining that NATO has moved to their borders, that thousands of US troops are now deployed in the Baltics or Poland, that the US has deployed anti-ballistic missiles in Romania and that USN ships are constantly hugging the Russian coast in the Black and Baltic Sea.  And it’s all true and very deplorable.  But where the Russians are being a tad disingenuous is when they try to present all this as a military threat to Russia.

The truth is that from a purely military point of view, deploying US forces in the Baltic states of sending USN ships into the Black Sea are very bad ideas, in the first case because the three Baltics states are indefensible anyway, and it the second case because the Black Sea is, for all practical purposes, a Russian lake where the Russian military can detect and destroy any ship within 30 minutes or less. The American are quite aware of that and if they decided to strike at Russia they would not do if from forward deployed ship but with long-range standoff weapons such as ballistic or cruise missiles.

[Sidebar: the notion that Russia would ever want to attack any of the Baltic states or sink a USN ship is ridiculous and I am in no way suggesting that this might happen.  But when looking at purely military issues you look at capabilities, not intentions.]

Toivottavasti viimeinenkin kohta pitää paikkansa.