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Activist Post
September 11, 2015
As the military chess pieces continue to be set across the world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Friday that the United States should engage in bi-lateral military-to-military communication with Russia over military operations in Syria in order to avoid “unintended incidents.”
While Lavrov did not spell out exactly what he meant by “unintended incidents,” his meaning was clear – “unintended incidents” are a direct military confrontation between the United States/NATO and Russian forces.
"We are always in favor of military people talking to each other in a professional way. They understand each other very well," Lavrov added. "If, as (U.S. Secretary of State) John Kerry has said many times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our guest."
The Western mainstream press has, of course, pounced upon the statement as if it were a veiled threat to the United States. Lavrov, however, made his statement in the course of explaining the importance of military-to-military communication so as to avoid such incidents in the course of simultaneous operations on the same field. In other words, it was not a threat but it was a cautionary warning.
Still, Lavrov’s words address a very real possibility of direct military confrontation between Russian and American forces in the skies or on the ground in Syria. As I mentioned in my article, “Are Russians Sending Military Support To Syria? Potential Conflict With NATO?,” while a Russian military presence in the Syrian capital will undoubtedly provide an important boost to the Syrian military’s battle against ISIS and other Western-backed terrorists, it will also provide the world with the potential for direct military confrontation between the two major world powers, both of them armed with nuclear weapons.
