Thread by @akoz33

The main provisions of the "Pompeo Doctrine" were first fully articulated in a document called The 2018 National Defense Strategy, signed by then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Realism squared - which is how I would describe this doctrine, is reflected in a number of

subsequent documents and decisions in the field of military planning: realism in relation to the intentions of its two opponents, as well as realism in relation to the capabilities of the United States itself.

The "reset with Vladimir", G2 with China, and the joint fight against global warming and international terrorism have disappeared from doctrinal documents. There remained two revisionist powers, the “revisionist powers", each, each in its own way, planning to organize the

largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st century, the West’s withdrawal from world history.

The United States today is in many ways superior to its rivals, but does not have such an overwhelming military advantage over them as in the 1990s. In these circumstances, Washington cannot afford to assign large forces to secondary regional conflicts in the Middle East.

US political alliances in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region and their military planning should focus on deterring the two challenging rivals. The US goal is not confrontation with two nuclear powers for its own sake, but a denial defense (a key term in the Pompeo doctrine).

It means the possession of the United States and its allies by a set of tools and instruments sufficient to prevent China from carrying out an operation to seize Taiwan and not allow Russia to seize one of the Baltic states or part of it.

Let us consider in more detail how the Pompeo doctrine is implemented in relation to Russia. Firstly, this is of interest to us all. And secondly, China is a long term game, and Patrushev’s nuclear "doctrine" required an immediate conceptual response.
Pompeo’s doctrine is the

response.

The Narva Paradox, Putin’s ability to put the whole West before an unimaginable choice — humiliating surrender and withdrawal from world history or a nuclear war with a person who lives in a different reality,

has been discussed and is being discussed in many world think tanks. As former US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told Bob Woodward in a confidential interview, he began to see Moscow as an existential threat to the United States after some Russians personally warned

him that they would be ready to use nuclear weapons in the event of a military conflict with NATO in the Baltic states: " Do not think that we put an end to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania after NATO sent a handful of its soldiers there. "

Russians call this method of warfare "de-escalation through nuclear escalation." The Kremlin and the Frunze Enbankment ( where the National Center for the Defence of Russia - General Staff, has its headquarters) calculated that Russia should draw the North Atlantic bloc into a

large-scale military clash in which it relies on its conventional superiority with its aggression against one of the NATO states in the Baltic states. And then, sharply raise the stakes to the nuclear level, peace-lovingly call on the enemy to surrender.

And the Kremlin does not hide this plan. Nuclear blackmail is an essential part of the hybrid world war that Russians declared to the West.

In the field of nuclear weapons, despite all its magnificent cartoons, Russia does not have superiority over the United States.

Just like the United States does not have superiority over Russia. Both of these countries can destroy each other. In this area, nothing has changed fundamentally over the past half century. But Russia’s rulers have one advantage, which could be a decisive one:

their willingness to risk millions of lives of their own and foreign citizens. Despite the tough declarations of NATO summits and the deployment of four NATO battalions in the Baltic states and Poland, Putin is firmly convinced that the well-fed hedonistic decadent West

is not ready to die for conditional Narva. The collective Putin, in his various roles at different venues, frankly declared to the West, in fact, the following: “I am going to win this hybrid war and put you on your knees, because I have one decisive advantage over you.

I’m ready to use nuclear weapons, and you are not. Hence, you will retreat and surrender. "

Many in the West, even on hearing this, have continued and continue to lull themselves. Maybe this is just the rhetoric of a resentful neurotic, who should be understood and appeased by reasonable concessions involving the sovereignty of his neighbors, and thus engage him in

a constructive discussion of the really important human security issues, for example, global warming? This kind of thinking is attractive for the West, because otherwise it will have to draw very serious and unpleasant conclusions.

The Pentagon has carefully analyzed Putin’s threat. The findings were presented in April 2018 in a report by security expert Matthew Kroenig, a former senior official of the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense.

(The end of part 2. The last bit, part 3, will follow soon).