A day after murderous terrorists invaded Israel, critical infrastructure connecting frontline NATO allies was shut down as a “result of external activity” — possibly foreign sabotage — according to Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Russia sympathizes with us,” senior Hamas official Ali Baraka said in a Sunday interview on the government-controlled Russia Today TV. “One war eases the pressure in another war.”

While Finnish and Estonian officials are still investigating the disruption of a pipeline and communication cable, the timing is likely no coincidence. If it resulted from foreign action, then the foreign agents took advantage of the fact that world attention was focused elsewhere to carry out an operation they had likely already planned. Did Russia have prior knowledge of Hamas’s invasion plan?

Russia has long weaponized its monopolistic position as Europe’s oil supplier to extract political concessions from dependent neighbors by cutting off energy supplies. The Balticonnector Pipeline began operations in 2020, connecting Finland to the rest of Europe via Estonia and reducing Russia’s oil leverage over both countries.

Russia would clearly benefit from disabling the pipeline. Both countries are pro-western states on Russia’s border and view the USSR’s primary successor state as their greatest threat. In April, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland officially joined the anti-Russian NATO alliance, which Estonia joined in 2004.

Yet, according to Baraka’s interview in a Russian propaganda outlet, Russia was notified prior to the assault. “In order to keep the attack secret and successful, the different factions and our allies did not know the zero hour,” he said. But Hamas did update Russia after they inquired about the Hamas attack and its intention. If Russia is responsible for the Balticonnector sabotage, they implemented the plan opportunistically.

Russia was not the only ally Hamas informed of its plans on Saturday. “After half an hour [of commencing the attack], all the Palestinian resistance factions were contacted, as were our allies in Hezbollah and Iran,” said Baraka. He added that they even notified Turkey — an increasingly rogue member of NATO — and met with them only three hours into the operation.

“Our allies are those that support us with weapons and money,” explained Baraka. “First and foremost, it is Iran that is giving us money and weapons.” For years, Western intelligence officials have known that Iran was providing military training and logistical help. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said last year that Iran had provided the group with $70 million in military assistance. On Thursday, the U.S. government and Qatar agreed to block Iran from accessing $6 billion in funds the U.S. had unfrozen as an appeasement measure.

Baraka also pointed to Hamas’s close affinity with Hezbollah, another radical Islamic terror organization funded by Iran, but which is based in Lebanon instead of Gaza. Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel on Tuesday, in an effort to divide Israel’s forces and limit the safe places where refugees from southern Israel could be temporarily relocated. Baraka also boasted that “the Arab and Islamic people … are standing by us.” Even if he presumes too much when speaking for all people who identify as Muslims, these are not idle words; on Sunday, Palestinian sympathizers staged demonstrations in support of Hamas’ barbarous tactics across the West.

“Even Russia sympathizes with us,” added Baraka. “Russia is happy that America is getting embroiled in Palestine. It alleviates the pressure on the Russians in Ukraine. One war eases the pressure in another war. So, we are not alone on the battlefield.” He said that Russia, a major exporter of weapons, even gave “a Russian license to produce Kalashnikov bullets in Gaza,” allowing Hamas to procure additional ammunition for Russian-made machine guns despite international sanctions.

That’s quite the international coalition supporting a terror group, but it features the usual suspects. Nations like Iran and Russia are not friendly toward the U.S. and would jump at any opportunity to knock the U.S. down a peg.

Consequently, Hamas’ attack did not happen in isolation. “We have been preparing for this for two years,” Baraka said. In other words, Hamas began preparing to launch a major assault against Israel in the immediate aftermath of America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some unconfirmed reports have even suggested that Hamas used weapons U.S. forces left behind in Afghanistan, which evidently made their way across the Middle East through illicit arms trading. When America’s foes see us as weak, they calculate that it is time to strike.

The same actors — and even more of them — are aligned on Russia’s side of the conflict in Ukraine. After Ukraine stalled Russia’s first assault and ground down its war machine with Western aid, Russia turned to other bad actors to restock its supplies. There have been reports that Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, and even South Africa are supplying Moscow with military equipment and personnel.

In October 2022, the Pentagon said they knew that Russia was using Iranian drones in Ukraine, and they believed Iranians were on-site to help the Russians operate them. In February, the Biden administration considered releasing intelligence that showed China was supplying arms to Russia. Customs records obtained by Politico this summer show that China has shipped body armor and other military munitions to Russia. In May, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa accused the allegedly neutral country with supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, via a sanctioned cargo ship it allowed to dock at a naval base near Cape Town in December. In September, the White House said North Korea and Russia were “actively advancing” arms negotiations, and satellite photos last week detected a near-quadrupling in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border. Even distant Cuba has gotten involved, smuggling hundreds of soldiers to fight in Russia’s war.

In addition to military assistance, American rivals on the world stage also cooperate economically. An organization of second-tier economic powers, known as BRICS (for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will more than double its membership in January 2024 when it officially admits Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. The organization, which includes some of the largest economies in Africa, Asia, and South America, is actively discussing ways to move international trade away from the U.S. dollar and towards other national currencies. BRICS expansion is significant because it indicates that even U.S. military allies, like India, or economic partners, like Saudi Arabia, are increasingly willing to cooperate with adversaries the U.S. has tried to isolate.

Such interconnection in foreign policy is not a new development. Independent powers have combined into military coalitions since at least the time of Abraham (see Genesis 14:1-2). In the century between Napoleon and World War I (1814-1919), international politics particularly focused on the alliances between five to nine so-called “great powers,” which were ever-changing to maintain a precarious balance of power. This provoked a string of conflicts, culminating in two devastating world wars.

After World War II, only two great powers remained (the U.S. and the Soviet Union), which spearheaded two worldwide coalitions (countries not aligned with either side were dubbed the “third world”). Due to the invention of nuclear weapons, the two great powers did not risk an all-out war, but they still struggled together in an economic Cold War and a series of proxy wars over influence in other countries — Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan.

When the Soviet Union collapsed after four decades, the U.S. found itself in the rare position of a global hegemon — a world power with no equal. The conflicts of this period — two Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Serbia — reflect America’s ability to go anywhere in the world and do whatever we wanted, always dealing with asymmetric opponents. In the early 2000s, President Bush could call out by name an “axis of evil,” consisting of three countries, for the whole world to shun.

But shifting alliances and changing power balances have changed the global situation once again. China’s decades-long buildup and Russia’s resurgence have placed the U.S. on the defensive in far-flung zones of influence. Part of this is from not recognizing the threat. America has largely let China’s military buildup and global friend-buying projects go unanswered, and the U.S. has become consumed with internal divisions, which other nations may have played a role in aggravating. We stopped playing the game, while everyone else was playing harder than ever.

Whatever the reason why a growing coalition of global adversaries is arrayed against America, a world in which the U.S. is not the all-dominant power is actually just a return to equilibrium, from a historical aberration. Most Americans today can’t remember anything different, but for most of history geopolitics has been a delicate balancing act, or very bloody. American ingenuity and freedoms can go a long way, at least with good leadership. But we can’t count on always being the unchallenged champion in an adversarial arena that incentivizes the rise of challengers — especially when those challengers can combine together.

The takeaway is that America cannot afford to view one hostile power or one national crisis in isolation. What is currently happening in Israel will affect the war in Ukraine, the security of Taiwan, and even the possibility of major terror strikes against American targets.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO DRILL IN AMERICA!!!!

Qatar is THREATENING to start a global gas shortage in support of Palestine.

“If the bombing of Gaza doesn’t stop, we will stop the world’s gas supply.”pic.twitter.com/bbbEuJ82Yc

— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) October 13, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The tension rises overseas, Syria and North Korea dominate the world media with a wide variety of discussions, stories, and predictions in April 2017. Yet, nobody connects these two countries ideologically. Alas, as usual, the media has forgotten the Stalinist era of building Socialism. As a matter of fact, Stalin’s long-range strategy included building Socialism world-wide and creating a One World Government under the Kremlin rule. Stalin planned to be a President of the World, his actions proved and confirmed his intent. Do you remember the First Communist International and the second one? Both were established in the 20th Century. As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, Stalin was its leader.

Don’t be confused by the fraudulent term Communism/Socialism. Carefully crafted Stalinist political correctness has been working since the Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia to manipulate human mind. Pay attention to the history and the facts of life. The expansion of Soviet Socialism has started immediately after the revolution: Mongolia, China, North Korea, and so on. Both North Korea and Syria are Stalinist states built on Stalin’s Doctrine of One World Government under Kremlin’s rule, to dominate the world…

Stalinist North Korea

Let me give you a part of a lecture I presented at New York University in 1990. We were discussing the book Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America, by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. Clarion House, 1990. The book was stunning me. The author knew well the machinery of the Soviet government and its modus operandi. He used the murky time in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall and temporary openness in Russia; he visited the KGB archives, copying precious documents.  The book is a pearl of a documentary and should be read by all decent people in the world. That exact reading I recommended to my students. Here is a part of the lecture presented in 1990.

“Reading the book, you’ll learn about the so-called ‘medical facilities’ in North Korea. For that reason I want to bring you to another part of the world and take the subject of the KGB even further back in time. Let me give you some examples. In 1945, World War II had ended, but not for Stalin. He had in mind his Second Front—Asia. He viewed it as a strategic region of paramount importance.

“At that time, defeated Japan had left a political vacuum in North Korea, and Stalin used it. A Korean Army was formed, trained, equipped to the teeth with the Soviet arms, and supervised by KGB men sent to implement the Stalinist formula in North Korea. Stalin personally chose its leader—a captain of the Soviet Army, Kim IL Sung. Since then, the connection between the Soviet military, the KGB and the Korean military has never ended—the Soviet General Staff had worked out the plan for aggression in 1950 and the Soviets military fully participated in the Korean War.

“After the communist victory of 1949 in China, under the slogan ‘Stalin and Mao—friendship forever,’ tens of thousands of Soviet advisors flooded China. These were Stalin’s apparatchiks and bureaucrats. All of them taught the Chinese how to build and instill the party machine and an infrastructure of the Soviet system, with its institutions. Under the same slogan, hundreds of thousands of young Chinese flooded the Soviet universities. I met some of them in law school. By that time, they spoke Russian fluently. While studying, most of those students had been recruited by the KGB, and upon return to China they deepened implementation of the Stalinist model. Cultural similarities have been conducive to success.” Baltic Winds: Testimony of a Soviet Attorney, pp. 529-555, Xlibris, 2002.

Seventy years later, you saw a massive military parade, Soviet style, a quite provocative celebration of the Kim IL Sung birth day on April 15, 2017. The grandson Kim Jong-un presented his grandfather as “the Sun or a Son of God,” but the real history tells us that Kim IL Sung was a ‘Son of Stalinism.’ Look at twenty-five million Koreans living under the regime today—it is a Stalinist GULAG, enslaving human beings. And it is not a coincidence that the Korean missile test failed, but don’t take comfort in that. The military machine of North Korea is working non-stop like the Soviet one and the master-puppet Putin is there with full military capacity to undermine global tranquility. Rising tensions in Asia are a result of Russia’s intent to test Trump’s administration. Flying over Alaska is the same testing Trump’s administration on the Pacific…

Unfortunately, the Stalinist Doctrine of destruction did not die with Stalin: his devoted disciples in Russia have continued its expansion across the world. The Middle East and especially Syria present a vivid example of how Soviet Socialism has been disseminated with the Influence of Russian Intelligence. It is this force that provided all its satellites with WMD: Saddam got Sarin and Mustard Gas, Assad-Sarin. Watch WMD within ISIS and al-Qaeda… Though China definitely has power over North Korea, the Russian security apparatus still has long arms with the intent to dominate the world. Syria is another example.

Syria

If Arafat was the first molding of a Soviet style leader in the Middle East, Hafez al-Assad was indeed the second one. He participated in the 1963 Syrian coup d’état which brought the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party to power, and was appointed Commander of the Syrian Air Force by the new leadership. In 1966, Assad participated in a second coup, and was appointed defense minister by the new government. In 1970 Assad seized power and then appointed himself the undisputed leader of Syria in 1970–71. He was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1971 and President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. This amounted to thirty years of total Soviet influence in Syria under Papa Assad.

That was the usual Soviet strategy of infiltrating the Middle East. Under Bashar Assad, Syria has once again become a Soviet Arab Socialist Republic with all the consequences of Stalin’s Doctrine and his Formula for Power. By the way, Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq the same way in 1979 as did the Ayatollahs in Iran in 1979. Don’t be surprised at the connection between ISIS and al-Qaeda—all terrorists groups regardless of their names have the same parents—Soviet Fascism. Please read my analyses of the years 1970-1980, pp. 145-161, Chapter 8, What is Happening to America? The Hidden Truth of Global Destruction, Xlibris, 2012

As a matter of fact, Syria, which is comprised of several major incompatible tribes is a strategic center of the Mideast. It was a typical Soviet Socialist State, equipped with a huge arsenal of the Soviet arms and weaponry since 1971. The city of Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance facility, under a 1971 agreement with Baathist Syria, Tartus is practically a Russian military base in Syria. The close relation between the Russian intelligence and military with Syria has been going on since. “The facility hosts the Amur (Russian) class of floating workshop PM-138, capable of providing technical maintenance to Russian warships deployed in the Mediterranean in the 21st century.”

Hence Russia has a free access to Mediterranean, which means the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe. You can see on a map of the area that there is also a corridor from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon, a route for shipping arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. Remember Stalin’s Doctrine worked at the time and it worked well in the Middle East as well. Moreover, Putin needed Crimea for this particular reason: to have a free avenue for Russian fleet to Mediterranean and the Middle East. Stalin’s design to use Islam is alive and well, you are witnessing it every day by the criminal activities of terrorism. Today Russians have several military installations in Syria. Read Socialist Lies: From Stalin to Clintons, Obamas, and Sanders, Xlibris, 2016.

However strange it sounds, I had some experience in connection with Syria. Once, a client came to my law office, a man who had a question about his apartment in Tallinn. In talking to me he told that he was leaving in a week, as he was working in Syria. I asked him what he was doing there, he answered very calmly that he was an instructor in the Soviet Terrorist training camp in Syria. It was in the end of the 1960s or beginning of the 1970s. I wasn’t surprised; the people living in Socialist countries had known Russia’s agenda in the Middle East where constant attacks were taking place daily. Today, in 2017, you can see the long-range strategy of Soviet Socialism and the Stalinist’s addiction to expansion—one of the reasons, I called the regime Soviet Fascism.

The ideology of Soviet Fascism

The Stalinist ideology has created special kinds of people, affecting them with subversive political correctness. They ignore the reality of the world and the war waged by Soviet Fascism against Western civilization during the last hundred years. But reality is very suborn—Stalinism connects Putin, Assad, Kim Jong-un, and many others like an umbilical cord to the ideology. Those leaders know that they are criminals and that the power they amass is the only thing that will save them from prison. The unfortunate result of their existence across the world is obvious—the rise of Anti-Semitism, the genocide of Christians, unspeakable violence, orchestrated protests—the attributes of Soviet Fascism. All of those we, the former Soviet citizens, had experienced in the Soviet Union. We called it Stalinism.

Researching the ideology for the last twenty-five years, I am convinced that the globe is dealing today with Soviet Fascism, which is one of the reasons for the push to Globalization, a KGB invention. Nor has America escaped it. For the sake of our country, the term Soviet Fascism should be accepted, analyzed, and discussed. Therefore my conclusion is two-fold: 1. Knowledge of Stalinist Russia is a must. 2. Investigation the Obama administration and the current activities of his shadow government is imperative. Both investigations, if successful, will have vital global ramifications…

I have to remind you my opinion about a list of military collaborations between the U.S. and Russia executed under the Obama/Putin joint venture:

1. Killing of bin-Laden
2. Invasion of Libya, conspiracy of Obama, Putin, and French Pres. Sarkozy.
3. Benghazi, murder of the U.S. ambassador Stevens.
4. “On 6 August 2011, a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged unit of Army Rangers in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. The resulting crashkilled all 38 people on board—25 American specialists … Fifteen of the Navy SEALs that were killed were members of the Naval… “

If investigated, the listed events will open up a huge panorama of activities of the DNC leadership directed against the American Republic. My two assignments are inextricably intertwined. President Trump was right speaking about “inherited mess.” The mess was so tremendous, he initially asserted, the “swamp” indeed was deeper and more harmful and dangerous. I dedicated many pages to this “swamp,” I called it the Obama/Putin joint venture. A chronicling of this joint venture has been presented in detail in Socialist Lies. It is a protocol and diary of the Obama’s regime from its beginning in 2008. American Intelligence failed to expose Obama and the Democrat Party for aiding Putin in many different occurrences overseas to the detriment of American interests, including the Opioid epidemic in America. My book reveals just that.

In this connection, I have to correct our media and politicians: Putin will not stop at restoring the Soviet Union—Putin wants to be a President of the World, like Stalin’s intent—hence awareness of Stalinism is imperative. Alas, America did not escape the implementation of some elements, and attributes of Soviet Fascism by Obama’s regime.  Therefore, a person like Steve Bannon, who is talking about destruction of the administrative State, and who quotes Lenin by heart is extremely valuable to the Trump team. In our days—knowledge of the enemy is the best recipe for success…

To be continued at www.simonapipko.com  and drrichswier.com/author/spipko/

©2023. Simona Pipko. All rights reserved.

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