US and NATO Use Ukrainian Crisis to Advance Military Build-Up in Eastern Europe!

• US and NATO Use Ukrainian Crisis to Advance Military Build-Up in Eastern Europe! 
  by Patrick O’Connor, World Socialist Web Site, via http://www.globalresearch.ca/  
  Statements issued by White House and NATO officials over the weekend on the Ukrainian crisis, including allegations that Russia is poised to invade several of its neighbours, point to advanced preparations by US imperialism for a heightened military build-up across Eastern Europe.US President Barack Obama today begins a four-day trip to Europe, beginning in The Hague, Holland. On the sidelines of a pre-scheduled Nuclear Security Summit there, Obama has convened a meeting on Ukraine involving the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—the G8 minus Russia.
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  After working with Germany to orchestrate a regime-change operation in Ukraine, Washington’s aim is to diplomatically isolate Vladimir Putin’s administration and consider further damaging economic sanctions against Russia, while also developing trade and energy mechanisms that bring Ukraine and other Eastern European states under the strategic control of the US and EU. On Wednesday, Obama will meet in Brussels with European Union officials and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
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  NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, yesterday issued a bellicose denunciation of Russia. He accused the Putin administration of building up its military forces on Russia’s western borders and of preparing to intervene into Transnistria, a part of the former Soviet republic of Moldova that has a significant ethnic Russian population and which attempted to become independent following the disintegration of the USSR. Breedlove also raised the spectre of Russian troops invading the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
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  “The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready,” Breedlove declared at an event held by the German Marshall Fund think-tank. “There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transnistria if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome.”
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  After referring to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the NATO commander asked: “How do we change our deployment? How do we change our readiness? How do we change our force structure such that we can be ready in the future? We need to think about our allies, the positioning of our forces in the alliance and our readiness of our forces in the alliance, such that we can be there to defend against them if required, especially in the Baltics and other places.”
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  Breedlove added that Russia was now acting as “an adversary” of NATO—underscoring the active preparations of the US and its European allies to launch a war against Russia.
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  Obama’s deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken, speaking on CNN yesterday, backed Breedlove’s statements, declaring that it was “deeply concerning to see the Russian troop build-up on the border.” Blinken added that “it’s possible that they’re preparing to move in [to Ukraine].”
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  Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak declared on Saturday that Washington “must increase its [military] presence in Europe, also in Poland.” During US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the country last week, Siemoniak explained, “There was a clear expectation from our side, and also from all NATO allies [in] Eastern Europe, that we expect a larger military presence of the US and that this eastern flank of NATO must be strengthened.”
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