Fake news of a Russian apocalypse

On February 14, Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that his panel had “made available to all Members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat.”

This announcement made headline news, followed by statements from Turner’s colleagues in the House.  Some of them, like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), even before the briefing on this subject, said that this is “additional proof of Putin’s attack on our freedom and democracy.”

However, Republican congressman Andy Ogles from Tennessee demanded that House speaker Mike Johnson open a probe into the impact of Mr. Turner’s call for President Biden to go public with a national security threat that caught lawmakers and the White House by surprise.

“In hindsight, it has become clear that the intent was not to ensure the safety of our homeland and the American people, but rather to ensure additional funding for Ukraine and passage of an unreformed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” Mr. Ogles said.

In addition, it turned out that earlier this month, in Kyiv, Mr. Turner assured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that the “U.S. stands in full support of Ukraine and is working diligently to secure funding necessary for his country to defend itself against Russian aggression.”

Moreover, prior to the release of his statement, Turner cleared it with the White House.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan spilled the beans further when, during his public address from the briefing room, he suggested that nobody worry about this threat but, after a pause, added that “more important is to continue funding Ukraine.”

Mr. Johnson said that there is “no need for public alarm.”  Having been caught in a lie, secretary of state Antony Blinken had to echo him.

Fox News immediately picked up this story and recalled other instances when politicians manipulated facts and news to achieve their goals. 

For example, in April 2021, on the eve of the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was not happy about this summit, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about worldwide threats that “the Russian military is an existential threat to the United States.”

Back to February 2024: Considering that the bill’s fate, with $60 billion for Ukraine, is in the hands of Republicans in the House of Representatives, and contrary to Turner, many of them don’t like this bill, the Russian threat proved to be a convenient instrument in Washington.

Needless to say, the U.S., Russia, and China are definitely working on new space technology that can be used in potential future conflicts.  But, as was noted by officials in the know, Russia does not appear close to deploying these weapons, and officials don’t consider any such deployment to be an urgent threat.  Also, the same officials don’t claim that Russia is abandoning the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans orbital nuclear weapons.

The U.S. also experiments with versions of this technology but has yet to deploy anything.  China is obviously in the same loop.

The most logical thing in these circumstances, when the talk of nuclear WW3 is getting more and more alarming, would be an urgent summit among U.S., Russian, and Chinese leaders, something like Yalta 2.0,  to resemble the historic Yalta Conference, held February 4–11, 1945,  by the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, which helped to avoid WW3 for almost 80 years.

With Biden in the White House, it is highly unlikely, because some other forces from the so-called Deep State are ruling U.S. foreign policy.  Donald Trump could be more inclined to do it, but the same forces are desperately trying to prevent him from winning or the presidency or even continuing his campaign.

Granted, Biden instructed his foreign policy team to enter into negotiations with Russia on space security.  But one wonders if Russia will agree to do it without expanding the agenda to ending the war in Ukraine.

To summarize, it looks as though this year could be fateful.  Gird your loins.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.