NATO Prepares for Large-Scale War; Israel Begins Lebanon Raids

Welcome to Crossroads. Folks, NATO is preparing for a large-scale war right now and part of the preparations include for the transportation of wounded troops. Now as this happens Ukraine is now warning that Russia may strike its nuclear power plants. If they did that, that is like what would have happened had they not dealt with the Chernobyl scenario. That would impact large parts And at the same time Israel has now begun its ground operations into Lebanon. This has now started and they're also making threats now against Iran specifically about a regime change overthrowing the leaders of Iran. Now first off I want to talk about NATO. Reuters said this they said NATO plans to coordinate the transport of a large number of wounded troops away from front lines in case of a war with Russia, potentially via hospital trains as air evacuations may not be feasible according to a senior general. It says the future scenario for medical evacuations will differ from allies experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lieutenant General Alexander Solfrank, I'm sorry, the head of NATO's logistics command told Reuters in an interview and it notes that in a conflict with Russia, western militaries would likely be faced with a much larger war zone, a higher number of injured troops and at least a temporary lack of air superiority close to the front lines the German general said. Now if you watch the war between Russia and Ukraine right now you might notice something's missing. Well medevac. You don't really see people getting you know flown out on helicopters when they get injured. A lot of that is being done through ground transportation. On the Russian side maybe not as much and I would presume that this is why the death toll is probably a lot higher than maybe they're telling us. Given that situation of course were the US to get involved in a war there, were NATO to get involved in a war there, we would need to have ways to get wounded troops off the field and so they're looking now at different ways to do that. They're saying they can't necessarily use helicopters like we did in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq and so what they're doing instead is looking at ways to transport them on the ground. They said at least temporarily we would not have quote-unquote air superiority meaning that if the United States or NATO and overall were to go to war with Russia they also in Russia have pretty good air superiority and so there would have to be a battle there first before that would be opened up. Now look it is possible the war could end before that right. We don't really know. The wild card with that conflict is that former President Donald Trump well he's been saying that if he wins he wants to bring a rapid end to the war. That's complicated because there's a lot of people who don't want that and they don't want it because well the ambitions of Russia linked in with the Chinese Communist Party, linked in with Iran and others is to control the Eurasian region. Their ambitions very likely will not change and at the same time too the other side of the negotiation is not Russia. The other side of the negotiation is China but look on the other side of this this whole thing the conflict can't be viewed as being separate from the other global conflicts happening right now. It's all kind of melded together. There's a singular main agenda behind it and then you have smaller conflicts starting as a part of that. This includes notably the brewing wars in the Middle East and also with the broader ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party. Again the Arctic, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, Taiwan and again the broader Eurasian region. We mentioned before the Chinese ambition to create what they call the Eurasian Empire. They want to control that region. Now on this note the issue of Europe and the threats against NATO, there's actually a much bigger threat right now hanging over basically all of Europe. This is especially on the nuclear front. You might have seen the ongoing nuclear threats but there's something else to this. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia is making plans to attack Ukraine's nuclear power plants. Now he made this statement during a speech to world leaders of the United Nations General Assembly last week. Watch this. Recently I received yet another alarming report from our intelligence. Now Putin does seem to be planning attacks on our nuclear power plants and their infrastructure aiming to disconnect the plants from the power grid. With the help of satellites, any missile or drone strike, any critical incident in the energy system could lead to a nuclear disaster. A day like that must never come. If God forbid Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one, one of our nuclear power plants radiation will not respect state borders and unfortunately various nations could feel the devastating effects. Now a situation like that is actually very possible. We've already seen some similar things like that, rather other incidents. There was the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. There was a destruction of a major bridge to Crimea. There were actually close calls before over the possible destruction over another nuclear power plant in Ukraine. And what happened with all of that? Well if you remember both sides blamed the other side. Russia said it was Ukraine, Ukraine said it was Russia. You had news outlets talking about how Russia did it and the other news outlets saying how the US or other countries did it. There's an environment of plausible deniability. They can say hey it was an accident, hey it was the other guy, hey this is your fault and try to skirt the blame for it. Doing that would be almost as detrimental in terms of nuclear fallout and what they call area denial as would a nuclear attack. But it wouldn't have the destruction of major cities, at least not with the initial blast. It would basically create a toxic wave that would make a lot of areas uninhabitable. And Russia could strategically do that, as Zelensky is suggesting, could strategically do that as a way to basically push everybody out of that region and then claim ownership over it essentially. At the same time though that would be devastating for a lot of Europe. It's not clear how the retaliation on that front would work, especially if they could say hey it was an accident or hey we didn't do it, it was somebody else. Again plausible deniability is the smokescreen for an attack like that. Now at the same time an attack at a nuclear plant could also lead to a meltdown and this is the big issue with that. You might remember the example we have of this historically. There was the Chernobyl disaster, also in Ukraine by the way, and during the Soviet Union the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, many people know the story, was going through what looked like it was going to be a meltdown. Had they not dealt with it, had a small number of people, whether they did it knowingly or not, gone in there to kind of avert the disaster, that would have made large parts of Europe uninhabitable. It would have created nuclear fallout through a very large chunk of that whole continent and given that situation of course, if you had a similar conflict take place in Ukraine, they could do it in a way that maybe is like Chernobyl where it did not lead to that broader disaster but it made the area around Chernobyl itself uninhabitable. It could be something like that which is more temporary, it could be something more devastating which would have a broad impact throughout Europe. Now the problem you would have with an attack like that, that would also there be the broader message that it sends and such a line could basically be crossed and that's one of the big dangers with this. For example, the Chinese Communist Party has a lot of nuclear power plants, in fact they're building them still in large numbers. A lot of those nuclear plants are right along their major rivers, those are the major water supplies to the Chinese major cities but also importantly a lot of the major Chinese cities are also right along those same water lines were a bad actor, were a war to take place, for something to happen and those nuclear facilities had meltdowns, it would make all those rivers polluted and it would also make it so a lot of those cities are uninhabitable. China of course does not want that and were China to ever go to war with Taiwan, well those nuclear facilities are over-targeted. This is kind of the new generation of nuclear war, mutually assured destruction because the destruction of a nuclear power plant would also have a very large impact of that kind of nature. Maybe it would not kill people in large numbers like a nuclear missile attack would but it would have the effect of again making maybe entire countries uninhabitable and of course the question is would they be willing to cross that line, would they be willing to make it so that that is an acceptable use of force in a war and crossing that line would be a major serious step. It's not clear if they do it for that reason but again I think if they have plausible deniability, if they could say it was the other guy or a misfire or a miscalculation and you know modern wars are dangerous for that reason, there is a possibility and they're saying that could happen right now. Now look actually with that in mind it's possible the war between Russia and Ukraine has already crossed that line and this is where it's getting really complicated. The Daily Mail said this, a Ukrainian kamikaze drone strike reportedly struck Vladimir Putin's satan-2 nuclear missile. They call it that because it sounds scary and they said this is promoting an apocalyptic, sorry prompting an apocalyptic explosion. Now Russia's satan-2 nuclear missiles, these are really just ballistic missiles right, it's not nuclear unless you put a warhead on top of it and I don't think Russia just basically got nuked because of Ukrainian strike but according to these reports Ukraine has destroyed an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile in Russia and there was a massive explosion when they did this. Had Russia armed that with a nuclear warhead that would have been a nuclear attack on Russia and it's possible Russia could regard that as that level of attack and maybe maybe retaliate on that same level. Now according to this report it allegedly happened just 10 miles from a quote indestructible 30,000 ton munition storage site that had been obliterated on Wednesday. And notes a huge explosion was triggered when the satan-2 missile was hit causing locals to panic over fears of a doomsday detonation, a nuclear blast. And notes the claim that the missile was destroyed came from a Russian telegram channel and a news blackout intensified the rumor. It was also claimed that another site which was which is reported to house North Korean missiles supplied to Putin by Kim Jong-un was also hit. Now again the nature of modern war is smoke and mirrors. There's a very large smoke screen and there's a lot of fake information. There are other reports claiming that Russia was just doing missile tests and the missile blew up on its own launch pad. That Russia basically had a faulty missile and it blew up. It's not clear whether that's the same one. Again Russian media are claiming that Ukraine did it. They're claiming it was a kamikaze drone. There are other reports suggesting and it's not clear if it's the same location or the same area but that Russia was trying to launch one of these missiles or test it and when they tested it it just blew up on the launch pad. Believe which side you want. This is the nature of modern war. Now the Guardian also said something interesting. Now during his recent meeting with President Joe Biden, Volodymyr Zelensky also outlined his road to end the war and a key part of his strategy will be to use U.S. supplied missiles to strike targets inside of Russia. Now it's not clear whether he got the go-ahead for that for the United States because the United States is involved in the permission process for that because again we're providing them with a lot of their weapons and materials and financing and their pensions and so on to keep their government running. That would also bring the United States to an extent into the conflict. Joe Biden so far has not been willing to grant them permission to launch attacks of that level. Ukraine did get permission to launch some attacks into Russia. This is different from launching missiles and doing more targeted attacks but that is possible. They are talking about this right now and the road to victory on the Ukraine side, Zelensky saying that's what they need. The complicated thing with this again is that if Trump gets back in, Trump wants to bring a rapid end to the war. It's not clear what the terms of those negotiations will be and so on Zelensky's side, on other people's side who want to have their conditions for the end of the war kind of in place, there's a time limit on this. It's again we don't know what the future is going to be, we don't know how things will turn out, but there's a time limit on it and for these individuals it's not clear if they wait till after the elections before they make a decision of that nature or if they might try something beforehand but that's where it's at right now. Now look in addition to this Ukraine may also move against targets nearby in nearby Belarus and you might remember Russia actually moved nuclear warheads and deployed them in Belarus. Belarus is becoming kind of a major player within kind of the sidelines of that conflict. When NATO was meeting the Chinese Communist Party was holding military drills in Belarus with their local forces there. Now Vladimir Putin has deemed that such an action, were Ukraine to launch attacks into Belarus would be a red line because it could trigger a nuclear response from Russia. He's saying you do that Russia's going to launch nukes against maybe other countries and the reason they're doing that right, the reason they're doing that is again because they have deployed nuclear weapons there, that's what they say at least. Now Russia has also been not just making nuclear threats against Ukraine, they're also making nuclear threats against other countries in Europe. In fact a Russian TV channel recently released a video and this video simulates a nuclear attack on London the UK and the video was done in such a way that it seems to be intended as a kind of threatening propaganda piece against Western Europe. According to the Sun it says this quote the clip was shared by a staunchly pro-Putin propaganda TV channel and appears to be the latest move to scare Britain from giving permission to Ukraine to fire storm shadow missiles far inside Russia. Let me show you just a little bit of that clip watch this. Within that radius anything that can burn will catch fire. Gas stations, autobiles, power substations, gas infrastructure, explosive facilities will explode and amplify the effect of the devastation over a huge area including areas from Camden to Greenwich and Islington to Wandsworth. According to various estimates further 450,000 people will die from burns, debris injuries or radiation sickness and over a million will be traumatized. Now look again this basically looks like a propaganda piece and it seems the intent of this propaganda is to issue a direct threat against Western Europe and the United States by extension to it. You know basically it's just emphasizing hey this is what would happen this is what we could do to you, you better not help Ukraine and that's the way they're framing it. Now also something else big is happening as these nuclear threats grow and it's not even just in the you know let's call it the western theater at this point, we also see the same thing in the eastern theater. Again North Korea is launching again tests and so on they're also making threats the Chinese Communist Party is doing missile tests and also a lot of countries in that side of the world are also being threatened both by Russia and by the Chinese Communist Party. We see the CCP now doing similar things in fact recently the Chinese Communist Party test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile as well. I'll be talking more about this after come back from a quick break. 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Now AP News also said this because it's not just Russia it's the Chinese Communist Party as well. They say as this happens right what we're seeing right now the Chinese Communist Party is issuing similar threats. Recently in fact the Chinese Communist Party test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile launching it into the Pacific Ocean. Now this is important because ICBMs those types of missiles those are the ones that you would typically use to carry nuclear warheads. A launch like that is a nuclear threat. Now just recently also the Chinese Communist Party carried out follow-up weapon tests just like that. It was a big deal they launched just that one it's the first time they've done it in decades. They followed that up with numerous other tests along those same lines. The Epoch Times said this the Taiwanese defense ministry reported on September 29th that the Chinese military is launching quote multiple waves of missiles inland in China following the Chinese rocket force's first test fire of an intercontinental ballistic missile since 1980 just days ago. It says beginning at about 6 50 a.m local time the waves of missiles were fired in inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang about 1,200 miles from Taiwan. It says the Taiwanese defense ministry stated that it was continuously monitoring relevant developments and air defense forces have maintained a high level of vigilance and strengthened their alerts. Now look given the situation the growing global conflicts they're not limited to these just areas as well. It's not even just again Europe it's not just Asia it's also the Middle East. Now as we're watching all of this unfold Israel's war against Hamas right the whole war in Gaza that is now expanding to a much larger war. They're now going to war against Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a global network they're in five different continents and given the fact that Hezbollah is a puppet of Iran this is also bringing Iran into that conflict. Now it seems the next stage of that conflict is now starting they have now started it. Now just briefly before this Israel has now begun the official ground operations but just prior to that Wall Street Journal said this they said Israeli special forces have been carrying out small targeted raids into southern Lebanon gathering intelligence and probing ahead of a possible broader ground incursion that could come as soon as this week. They've now started it by the way. People familiar with the matter said they know that one of these individuals a senior Israeli military official continues to be briefed by the defense establishment said a ground incursion by Israel is imminent and the raids are part of the preparation. They said quote the IDF the Israeli defense force has made a lot of preparations for a ground incursion and quote overall this always includes special operations this is part of the process. Now what does that mean? It means that Israel's not just now at war in Gaza Israel is now at war in Lebanon and through extension of that you have Iran now making direct threats against them and the United States also is now moving additional forces to that region. We reported recently the United States was moving new troops to that part of the world they've now increased the number officially of troops we're moving there. I mentioned previously why that's a big deal there's something called mission creep and this is typically the way that you slowly get pulled into a full-scale war. Case in point you know if you look at some of the big conflicts and big battles that have taken place historically they didn't start off oftentimes as just huge battles it started off as one small little conflict they moved additional forces there it got bigger they moved more forces there and it got bigger and then eventually you had a full-scale war. They refer to that as mission creep. Now look with this in context the the U.S. State Department is now urging Americans to flee Lebanon while there are still commercial options available to them and throughout and again you know they can get out right now they might not be able to soon and they're also telling the U.S. embassy staff to get out of there the embassy is still open in Lebanon they still have it and the U.S. State Department is ordering the family members of personnel to leave as well as encouraging embassy workers that are not needed in person to leave the country. Now this is amid the growing tensions in the country and also have potential Israeli invasion which is now beginning at least in small incursions in targeted areas they're not pushing deep into the country just yet. Now look alongside this though Israel is also now sending direct threats to Iran. Now Iran as you've known previously they're regarded as the as the number one sponsor of terrorism. Iran doesn't really get involved in official you know front line military operations for the most part but what they do for the most part is use their military to train and work with and advise and basically facilitate terrorist attacks. This is why oftentimes when you have for example American military bases getting attacked in Iraq when they do counterattacks oftentimes they end up killing members of the Iranian military it's because Iran works with them. Keep in mind that was the context as well as when Trump had Soleimani this Iranian general assassinated. They again bombed his car that was also because Trump said that the Iran was planning to launch attacks on U.S. bases. Iran typically kind of plays the role of the hidden hand right they work behind the scenes to facilitate terror attacks. Now what is now changing is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video addressed to Iranians and he's saying something very interesting. He's suggesting that they could be working on a regime change that they might try to topple the Iranian leadership. Watch this. I want to address you the people of Iran. Iran's tyrants don't care about your future but you do. When Iran is finally free and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think everything will be different. Don't let a small group of fanatic theocrats crush your hopes and your dreams. You deserve better. Your children deserve better. The entire world deserves better. I know you don't support the rapists and murderers of Hamas and Hezbollah but your leaders do. You deserve more. The people of Iran should know Israel stands with you. May we together know a future of prosperity and peace. Now that message was particularly interesting because it was directed at the people of Iran and it highlighted some of the grievances that many of the citizens there have. Now you might remember that when Trump was still president and again he was going after Iran by basically cutting off their money. Something that changed later by the way. Trump was cutting off their money. What happened? Well Iran didn't have the money to facilitate terror movements anymore. Iran didn't have the ability to fund terrorist groups and what happened? Well terrorism was mostly kind of disappearing from the world stage. It was going away. What else happened? You started having the large-scale protests within Iran. A lot of the people of Iran do not like the Iranian regime which is why you find a lot of a lot of Iranians who live outside of the country. They don't call themselves Iranian. They call themselves Persian because they don't recognize the regime after the Iranian revolution. They view it as kind of an unofficial government and because of that as well if you look at Iran prior to the Iranian revolution you could easily have mistaken it for like western Europe. Many of them would argue it was a European country. They of course were overturned from that and a totalitarian regime took over. The new regime does not necessarily have the favor of the people. They maintain their control mostly through fear. Now what you have happening now is Israel is suggesting sending this message to the citizens of Iran that Israel they're suggesting could try to start a regime change in Iran to liberate them from their totalitarian leaders. Now this could be done through a color revolution, maybe mass protests or other things maybe supported by outside powers. It could also be done through targeted strikes and in the context of what's happening right now this has been something that Israel has been doing. Israel has been launching targeted attacks against Hezbollah leaders. They've been launching for example really pretty wild like movie like raids. They had a raid for example where they brought people in it was like Israeli special forces dressed as hospital staff and then launched an attack within like a hospital to take out one of these key leaders. They've launched missile attacks to destroy buildings where key leaders are in. They launched attacks again plausible deniability right they say it wasn't them but they're blamed for it. Blowing up people's pagers, blowing up people's you know radios and launching targeted attacks in ways we've not really seen them done before. They're suggesting that they may topple the leadership of Iran and they're saying this could happen sooner than people think. This is a direct threat not against Iran in other words but against the Iranian leadership and look what this said the war between Israel and Hamas and the broader conflicts now starting could also have a big impact on the United States and in particular on our presidential elections because well look we're in election season right now these conflicts are in the backdrop and these conflicts interestingly are having a big impact on people's perceptions of the incumbent leadership right. Even among Democrats this has been actually very divisive. I'll be talking more about this only on Epic TV so those of you watching on YouTube, Facebook, come and join us on EpicTV.com. The link is in the description below and not only will you get access to the rest of my show and also the live Q&A but also the many other great shows our special reports and documentaries and issues that I think really matter. So click the link below come and join us on EpicTV.com and before we jump let me show you a quick trailer for my documentary The Final War which exposes the Chinese Communist Party's 100-year plot to defeat America. Now I'll see you for the rest of this episode on EpicTV.com. The greatest threat facing the United States is the CCP. The Epoch Times investigation team had studied the CCP for years but what we uncovered was yielding evidence beyond our imagination. With Chairman Mao, with the Prime Minister, our talks have been characterized by frankness. The Clinton administration said oh don't worry about it this will be a poison pill for China. China's strategic goal is to make sure that the U.S. has four enemies and one of them must be a terrorist group. We are giving of our life's blood so that the Chinese Communist Party can survive and thrive.