An October surprise is coming, and earlier than October. Joe Biden -- presuming he’s still the Democrats’ nominee -- needs a big game changer. His approval rating is sliding south. Early voting -- that’s legal early voting, for you blue state denizens -- makes an August or September surprise worth watching for. Every four years, there’s lively speculation about what a president and his party will hatch to swing votes their way.

There’s a lot that can happen here at home, but a crisis with Russia might be in the offing. Maybe something on the magnitude of the “Missiles of October.” In fact, the wheels appear to be grinding that way. Suspected American involvement in Ukraine’s 2004-05 Orange Revolution ramped up tensions with Russia. Prior to that, a string of broken promises starting with James Baker -- the elder Bush’s secretary of state -- fueled Russian worries. The broken promises? Pledges to Moscow that NATO wouldn’t move east.

As the National Interest reported in December 2017:

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was given a host of assurances that the NATO alliance would not expand past what was then the East German border in 1990 according to new declassified documents.

Long story short, troubles have been brewing with Moscow for years. Lately, tensions have risen higher, and in a dangerous way. The U.S. and NATO are losing their proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. That’s prompted the White House to greenlight Ukrainian strikes at targets inside Russia. Zelenskyy has complied. The initial strikes have all the earmarks of U.S. direction.

The attacks signal that the U.S. will not accept a resolution to the Ukraine war on anything but its terms. It appears that Washington is glad to flirt with brinkmanship to have its way. It’s steadfastly eschewed talks with Russia toward closing out this bloody and destructive affair. The spin from Washington, per Victoria Nuland, the former under-secretary for political affairs, made the case for another forever war:

So, the goal of the U.S. strategy has been to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position, militarily, economically, and politically, so that it can go to the negotiating table from a position of strength when it is ready [snip]

But there’s another consideration. Is it merely a coincidence that fresh tensions have been instigated with Russia as U.S. voters prepare to decide the most consequential presidential election since 1860? Or is Washington provoking a crisis with Russia to rally voters to Biden and Democrats this autumn? Might a full-blown crisis be viewed as insurance against Trump beating the cheat?

Why do the attacks point to a burgeoning crisis? From Newsweek, May 28:

Russia's nuclear ballistic missile early warning radar network has emerged as a key target of long-range Ukrainian strikes, with three facilities having now been attacked by Kyiv's drones in the past two months.

What bearing do these strikes have on the conduct and outcome of the ground war in Ukraine, other than Washington demonstrating that to save its proxy, it’s willing to start a high-stakes game of chicken?

Are the attacks happening now designed solely to force Putin to stand down or bait him? Does Washington want an overreaction from Putin?

To date, Putin hasn’t overreacted. But he isn’t sitting by idly. In early June, he began countering the strikes on his country’s early warning radar with a specific threat.

From the Telegraph, June 6:

[The] Russian president said Kyiv’s use of weapons from its Western backers in attacks on Russia “marks their direct involvement” in the Ukraine war.

“If they consider it possible to deliver such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?” he asked. “We will think about it.”

“Delivering arms to a warzone is always bad. Even more so if those who are delivering are not just delivering weapons but also controlling them,” he said, repeating accusations that Western military advisers are helping to programme long-range missiles like the Storm Shadow for attacks against Russian targets.

It was not immediately clear which “regions” or allies Putin was referring to, but Russia has close ties to the regimes in Iran, Syria and North Korea, and has been courting several countries in Africa.

But Putin isn’t relying on words alone. Per the Tampa Times, June 12:

Last week, Moscow sent three ships and a nuclear-powered submarine to the Caribbean for what U.S. officials say will be a set of extensive military air and naval exercises -- the first of their kind in at least five years.

The drills began Tuesday in the Atlantic, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, with its hypersonic-capable frigate and nuclear-capable submarine simulating a strike on a group of enemy ships. It is unclear whether the frigate is armed with hypersonic missiles, but the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that none of the Russian vessels are carrying nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration ordered U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships to shadow the Russian task force.

Washington’s determination to strike hard at the Russian homeland through Ukraine is barely concealed. D.C. elites have a lot riding on defeating the Russians. Biden and the defense/foreign affairs establishment lost plenty of face with the Afghanistan debacle. But winning in Ukraine is more than a face-saving exercise. It’s about forcing change in Russia. Defense and foreign affairs experts will claim this is necessary to maintain a “rules-based international order.” But, preeminently, it’s about exerting U.S. hegemony.

“Safeguarding democracy” and maintaining international order looks nice on paper, but since the end of WWII, the U.S. playing the world’s policeman has cost the nation a lot in blood and treasure. Though both are aspects of U.S. foreign policy, they aren’t the only -- or primary -- reasons for U.S. power projection.

Since the Cold War ended, the U.S. has enjoyed “unipolarity,” which simply means “lone global dominance.” That status has brought many benefits. A generation of dominance has spoiled D.C. elites. They don’t intend to surrender it easily. Russia is expected to come to heel. But unipolarity is exceptional historically and cannot be sustained indefinitely. The future is multipolar. Adjustments over time need to be made.

There are other, crasser reasons for the U.S. and its NATO allies confronting Russia. The Russian Federation is a vast land containing an estimated $75 trillion in mostly untapped natural resources. Access to those resources are coveted in the West. The Ukraine war is regarded as an important means of degrading Putin’s grip on power. Follow the money.

For D.C. elites, Russia’s looming victory in Ukraine is unacceptable. The brinkmanship that Washington is instigating may be a reaction to Russian success only. But a crisis that coincides with the autumn presidential election may prove too tempting to resist. Never let a crisis go to waste, they say. Or when there’s no crisis handy, why not create one when necessary? The nation is run by cynical, self-serving, and corrupt people. Don’t put anything past them.

J. Robert Smith can be found at Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover. He’s returned to X. His handle there is @JRobertSmith1.

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