“I am sure that we are going to be in a kinetic conflict with China in five years,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said Wednesday. “I hope I'm wrong, but I believe within the next five years there's going to be a kinetic conflict — missiles, submarines, aircraft; not so much land operations. … It’s just about inevitable.” /.../ “I just think the language coming out of Beijing about Taiwan, the fact that nobody did anything, truthfully, about what the Chinese have done in Hong Kong, to include the U.K. surprisingly, how little the response has been, and then the increasing aggression, aggressiveness, by the Chinese in the South China Sea — it seems to me it’s just about inevitable,” Hodges said. “I don’t want to say inevitable, but it’s very close to it.”

Belarus is also a key part of Russia's scheme. President Lukashenko will be gone and replaced this summer. This is the next step in completing the Union State, which also has long-term implications for the very vulnerable Suwałki Corridor.