NATO-BELARUS STANDOFF: IS A WAR IN EASTERN EUROPE POSSIBLE?

No doubt, all readers are familiar with the confrontation that has been occurring at the Poland-Belarus border in recent weeks. A great deal is at stake, as this post will discuss. The first link, second link and third link report in considerable detail the specific causes for the crisis and the hardships and confrontations at the border of Poland and Belarus, and to a lesser extent, the Belarus-Lithuania border as well. Both Poland and Lithuania are NATO nations so this is a NATO crisis involving far more than just these two front-line NATO nations.

It is evident from many media reports that Belarus is using refugees as pawns to try to infiltrate the Polish-Belarus border as a way of breaching NATO’s area of jurisdiction. Belarus facilitated the movement of thousands of refugees from mostly the Mideast to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Belarus provided air transportation, housing in Minsk and then transported the refugees to the Polish border to break into Poland and to the rest of Europe. There are reports Belarusian border guards have even provided wire cutters to the refugees and have actually cut border fences themselves. Poland has repulsed this invasion of refugees with reinforced border guards, army personnel, water-cannons, etc to hold back the refugees. There are media reports that Belarus has provided smoke and stun grenades as well as rocks to the refugees to throw at Polish personnel. One of the links mentions that nine Polish border personnel were injured in one confrontation. I wanted to include another very informative media report that I read in the November 14th Minneapolis Star Tribune. It was a reprint of a New York Times article entitled “How Belarus fueled migrant surge at border” by Jane Arraf and Eltian Peltier, but since I’m not a subscriber to the Times I could not access it digitally. I urge readers to locate it in libraries if possible as it includes much information documenting that Belarus is to blame for causing this confrontation. It reports Latvia is also involved in this dangerous regional situation.

Since Belarus is a vassal state of Russia, it seems obvious that Belarus would not be creating such a risky situation unless the operation had been approved by Russia. I think Russia is using Belarus to test the resolve of not only Poland, but NATO and the USA as well. Look at the Biden administration from Vladimir Putin’s perspective. He sees Biden as being utterly unwilling to protect the USA’s own borders. This is an incredible and ongoing show of weakness by the Biden administration to the world. Putin also saw Biden order a very cowardly and hasty retreat from Afghanistan. A resolute US president would have told the Taliban that the USA was going to make a strategic withdrawal which would not conclude until we had removed all our military equipment and our citizens and allies first. The Taliban gave Biden an arbitrary deadline and rather than impose America’s deadline on the tactical withdrawal, the world saw Biden and his administration practically grovel before the Taliban’s demands in meek submission to whatever deadlines and conditions were imposed by the Taliban. From Putin’s perspective, the USA has such a cowardly foreign policy under Biden that he could hardly resist a test to see if the USA and NATO had any backbone left. He cleverly used unarmed civilian refugees to attempt an invasion of Poland and other Baltic NATO nations. If Putin could see Poland and other NATO nations show weakness by letting the refugees into their borders, Putin would know that NATO does not have the will to resist a Russian invasion of…most likely…the Ukraine. Putin already invaded the Ukraine to steal the Crimean region several years ago, and if NATO won’t protect its own eastern borders, it certainly won’t help the Ukraine if Russia invades it. NATO has no treaty obligation to protect the Ukraine. This is a dangerous situation, and, so far, Biden and his team have shown no backbone in any foreign policy situation. If NATO and the USA won’t protect their own Eastern European border, maybe China will also see that as a good indication that it can invade Taiwan without Biden showing any backbone there either.

So far, Poland has understood the danger and has resolutely defended its border. Indeed, I think Poland sees the wider dangers far better than many nations do. Poland has seen Russia and Belarus also conduct joint military maneuvers not far from Poland’s border confrontation region (fourth link). Rather than being intimidated, Poland has decided to “gun up.” The fifth link reports Poland has decided to quickly obtain from the USA 300 MRAPS (mine-resistant armored vehicles used by the USA in Afghanistan) and 250 M1 Abrams main battle tanks. The MRAPS can be delivered quickly out of American inventory. It was not clear if the US tanks will be newly-made M1 tanks or reserve tanks currently in US inventories. Given the growing threats from Russia and Belarus, Poland has also decided to double the size of its military forces (sixth link and seventh link). Poland is going to become a much stronger military power in taking these public actions plus whatever private actions it takes that are not being released to the media. By provoking Poland to greatly increase its military forces, Russia’s and Belarus’ actions vs. Poland have actually backfired.

The crisis on the Ukrainian border is much more likely to escalate into open warfare. Russia has amassed approximately 90-100,000 troops on the Ukrainian-Russian border region in an obvious threat to the Ukraine (eighth link and ninth link). I’ve included an analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian situation that readers may find of interest (tenth link). It argues that the USA and the West are in danger of having their policies backfire in the Ukrainian region. My own view is that neither the Russians nor the West wants war at this time. Russia wanted to probe NATO’s eastern border where Poland and Lithuania meet Belarus to see if NATO had any resolve left. Poland showed real resolve in not letting itself be invaded by Belarusian-backed refugees, and NATO backed Poland. However, in the Ukraine, the danger of a shooting war is more real. The Ukraine wants to join NATO in order to have many partners treaty-bound to come to the Ukraine’s defense, but Russia likely sees that option as a “red line” that it cannot tolerate. If the Ukraine joins NATO, NATO could position cruise missiles in eastern Ukrainian locations that could easily reach Moscow, Volgograd and other major Russian cities. I do not think Putin will peacefully allow that to happen.

As this post is being written, there are media reports that at least some refugees along the Polish-Belarusian border have given up on the goal of entering Europe and are beginning to return to Mideast nations such as Iraq (eleventh link). This may mean that Vladimir Putin has learned all he feels he needs to know at this point about the West’s intentions and that he has told the Belarusian leader to start defusing the crisis along the Polish border. The dangers at the Ukrainian-Russian border region remain active and they continue to fester.

We know that in the latter days of our time, biblical prophecies predict that there will be “wars and rumors of wars” around the globe (Matthew 24:7). At the very end of our age, Ezekiel 38-39 prophesy many specifics about a World War III that will begin when Russia, China, Iran and their allies suddenly attack NATO and the western-oriented nations around the world. That war will be global and will threaten the very existence of mankind (Matthew 24:22). However, divine intervention will occur which will impose a Messianic Age/Millennium on all nations whether they want it or not. We do not know when that final war will occur, but the alliances prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39 are already in place and already opposed to each other. Biblical prophecies do not preclude the possibility of regional wars between these major alliances before the final, climactic war occurs. For this reason, regional wars are possible not only in Eastern Europe, but in the Mideast, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula. if any such regional war erupts, it will change the geopolitical/financial/commercial realities of the world overnight.

If you are not convinced that we are living in the biblically-prophesied “latter days,” I urge you to read my free article, Are We Living in the Biblical Latter Days? I think you will find the evidence in that article to be very convincing. For a detailed examination about the age-ending global war prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39 and in many other biblical prophecies, please review my free article/research report about latter day prophecies entitled, What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveal about a Future World War III.

NATO-BELARUS STANDOFF: IS A WAR IN EASTERN EUROPE POSSIBLE?

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