The US has used the provocation playbook before.
When Japanese bombers appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, it was regarded as a surprise attack. But there were several key reasons for the bombing that, in hindsight, make it seem almost inevitable.
Before the Pearl Harbor attack, tensions between Japan and the United States had been mounting for the better part of a decade.
In order to thwart Japan, the United States began passing economic sanctions, including trade embargoes on aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal, among other key goods, and gave economic support to Guomindang forces in the Chinese mainland against Japanese forces. In September 1940, in part due to this pressure, Japan was pushed into a closer alliance with with Germany.
Tokyo and Washington negotiated for months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, without success. While the United States hoped embargoes on oil and other key goods would lead Japan to halt its expansionism, the sanctions and other penalties actually convinced Japan to stand its ground, and stirred up the anger of its people against continued Western interference in Asian affairs.
To Japan, war with the United States had become to seem inevitable. Because the odds were stacked against them, their only chance was the element of surprise.
The same provocation playbook today: the US has embarked on a series of sanctions against Russia. The US supports nationalist—even fascist—elements in Ukraine who are virulently anti-Russian. The US actions have pushed Russia into a closer diplomatic embrace of China. The US and Russia have been and continue to be negotiating, without success. The Russians don’t blame Putin for their hardships as much as the US.
Russia is playing from a strategically weaker hand against the US ‘coalition of the willing.’ As the US continues to arm its enemies, continues to tighten economic sanctions, and continues to stack the odds against Russia, a devastating ‘first strike’ with nuclear arms becomes increasingly likely, as Russia has pledged to do, ‘when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.’
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