It's all about beads and trinkets (that is - natural resources). U.S. strategic plan is to force Russia into two war fronts. One front is being prepared with the anti-missile shield in Europe (which is not even intended to ever become functional, but will serve the task of forcing Russia into military response), while the other front will (soon) be open with the U.S./Israeli attack on Iran.

The goal of this plan is to pull Russia into (seemingly) unwinnable situation (fighting on two major fronts) that will leave it weakened enough for subsequent (conventional) invasion and takeover (takeover of the resource-rich parts of it, at least). It's really a game of baiting a shark with your own foot.

European part of NATO is going along with the plan for several reasons:
a) Most European NATO countries have no idea that they are meant to be (literally) sacrificed to U.S. interests (it's "either us or them" game scenario in a resource-constrained environment, sometimes also described as "there are no friends when everyone is starving"),
b) They are all very well aware that complete social collapse is the most likely outcome of the present financial/economic situation, and if there's one thing wars are good for, it's to dispose of rebellious domestic populations. When power structures are pushed against a wall, war is the simplest (and most effective) of solutions.

This baiting of Russia will most certainly work (because all the moves are now being forced on everyone, the outcome is inevitable), but not in a way the U.S. expects. Pentagon planners have bit more than they can chew. They don't know it yet, because they believe that (recent) political agreement between U.S. and China (regarding the splitting of Russian spoils of war) will serve as sufficient carrot for China to:
a) Not get (too) involved in the U.S./Israeli-Iranian conflict, and
b) Not attempt a ground invasion of the U.S. while the U.S. is deploying some 95% of its military forces overseas.

But, since Pentagon is well known for having poor understanding of strategic (planetary) affairs, it doesn't realize that U.S. is actually being baited into going to a war it can never (and was never meant to) win.

(Self-)deception runs wild among all the parties involved in this (terminally deadly) folly.