Pentagon Chief: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia

  As most analysts describe him, Lloyd Austin is seldom the brightest bulb in the room. This definition also applies quite accurately to olaf scholz or Emmanuel Macron. Still, there is little doubt that behind closed doors, the West is panicking. Nobody knows exactly when the Ukrainian army will collapse but the question now only focuses on when, not if. The hundreds of billions of dollars and Euros are lost. The expected return on investment with the dismantlement of Russia is certain not to happen. Credibility is gone. What do you do next? Negotiate or double down?

Pentagon Chief: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia

This is the single most important, dangerous and highly revealing statement from a top defense official in the West in a long time... It also demonstrates the precarious urgency of the moment and the huge stakes going into the November US election. The world truly stands on the precipice of a nuclear nightmare with the following fresh assertion of Biden's Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who said before Congress on Thursday: 

"If Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia," Austin stated.

What's more is that this came the very day that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned things could easily spiral toward nuclear war in the scenario that NATO sends troops to Ukraine. Watch:

According to the fuller context of the Pentagon chief's statements, he emphasized that more Washington funding is crucial for Ukraine in order to prevent a situation where "one country can redraw its neighbors’ boundaries and illegitimately take over its sovereign territory."

"We know that if Putin is successful here, he will not stop. He will continue to take more aggressive actions in the region. And other leaders around the world, other autocrats around the world will look at this and will be encouraged by the fact that this happened and we failed to support a democracy," he added.

"If you are a Baltic state, you are really worried about whether you are next. They know Putin. They know what he is capable of. And, frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia," Austin said.

What is even more alarming about this statement is that everyone now knows that Ukraine forces are in retreat at this very moment, especially after the Russian capture of the city of Avdiivka, and surrounding villages.

Bloomberg on Thursday issued a report predicting total collapse of the Ukrainian front lines by summer, as the headline suggests (Ukraine Sees Risk of Russia Breaking Through Defenses by Summer): "Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis," the report says. According to more from Bloomberg:

Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.

US DoD/Flickr

So the consensus narrative and belated mainstream media admission is that Ukraine's military is a mere months away from clear defeat, and the top US defense chief just said NATO will go to war with Russia "if Ukraine falls".

The conflict has reached a dire and perilously unpredictable moment indeed, and clearly the already slim chances of jump-starting serious peace negotiations to end the war are slipping away fast.