For administrators & business strategists, reading the tea leaves is an important skill because it leads one to see the big picture. Incidents occur, some serious, some pedestrian; one sparrow does not mean summer but one tree may be the cover of the forest behind. Vladimir Putin is the maestro in seeing the big picture at the first sight.
Putin understands the logic of reading the tea leaves well. He known how to distinguish “what seems and what seems to be”. A good illustration is the recent naval incident involving a British warship HMS Defender in the Black Sea close to the Crimean shore.
For the uninitiated, the incident appears to be either an error in sea navigation or just a provocation. However, this has both pedestrian and serious qualities built within it. Russian intelligence alerted Putin well in time that the frigate is closing in to Crimean shore. Russia did its best to sound warning that the warship is violating Russian sea. Behind the scene, Russia tracked a US reconnaissance plane bearing the number 63/9792 that flew from NATO base in Crete for spying mission covering the frigate that sailed 1.5 nautical miles into Russian territorial water.
As Russian fighter planes hovering over the nearby vicinity of HMS Defender Russia warned bluntly that if the ship does not change course it would be sunk and in fact warning bombs were dropped simultaneously in front of the warship the message was understood: The Russians mean business. Immediately afterwards HMS Defender withdrew and sailed towards the international water. Putin analysed this incident under the template “what seems & what seems to be:
What seems
1. It was a complex provocation exercise, deliberately executed to test the water regarding Russian patience & preparedness to face such an event
2. This incident was not going to be an isolated one but a calibrated move by the UK US combine to control the escalation ladder, if any occurring thereafter.
3. The military objective was to find out the response mechanism of Russian forces, their whereabouts and the type of weaponry that would be used
4. The last one is to check how the element of surprise being felt and responded to by Russian naval defence.
What seems to be?
1. There was political objective too. If the incident escalates the tension between NATO and Russia, UK US combine would drum up support for Ukraine and use the naval incident to express solidarity with Ukraine and pump the Ukrainian pride to go for a misadventure thereby aggravating the situation surrounding Russia-Ukraine sea border.
2. If the escalation leads to its logical conclusion, and if, hostilities begin in earnest in Ukraine theatre, UK US combine could deploy their forces, on the sly, on Ukrainian territory as manning forces training camps.
3. Bring about a consensus amongst NATO members for the admission of Ukraine which is at present a fraught subject.
Understanding both what seems & what seems to be, Putin drew the red line: Any footfalls of NATO on the soil of Ukraine would be treated as declaration of war against mother Russia. Well before the UK US combine got the cold feet, it was Ukraine that threw in the towel. There ended the brief encounter of HMS Defender in infamy!
Cheers!
Muthu Ashraff Rajulu
Business Strategist
Mobile: + 94 777 265677
E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com
Blog: Business Strategist
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