You are a moron, just like the author. Another one of dumba@@ couch pundits who has no idea what it means to be fighting with your family behind you. Parasite? Ukrainians are defending your pathetic a@@es more than you deserve. A rag tag army of partisans with no training but only small arms and molotov cocktails defended my home town of Sumy, kicking out a massive mechanized Russian force. "Experts" like you and the author would have expected them to roll through without anyone so much as shouting an obscenity in their direction.
It was a near disastrous miscalculation by the Russians to convince themselves that Ukrainians in general would not resist the invasion, and much less would welcome it.
Since the coup d'etat in 2014, fomented by the US NGOs and executed by Ukrainians who have despised Russia for generations, which overcame a popularly- and legitimately-elected government, the citizens from the Kharkov, Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimean, and Odessa oblasts of eastern Ukraine have been terrorized and punished for their affiliation with Russian culture. As angry as you are over the Russian invasion, there are many more in the Donbass who feel just as angry over the way they have been treated.
It was as much to end their persecution by the Ukrainian nationalists, as it was tor prevent the advance of NATO, the Russia felt forced to use its military to end these existential threats to Russia itself.
Russians were kicked out of Sumy? LOL!!! In yer dreams little Ukrop. Russia WITHDREW because they CHOSE to, because leaving forces in Sumy was pointless when the Ukrop army was elsewhere.
Your goosestepping Banderites will be ERADICATED and I'll celebrate each one that buys the farm :-P
Yeah, just like you f-ks “chose” to hightail it from Kyiv or Kharkiv or Kherson. Why don’t you do a жест доброй воли do human kind a favor and drink some antifreeze.
Thank you for breaking it all down and for this especially apt description of the current state of my country’s military; “...a trillion dollar technobureaucratic jobs program coasting on the residual patriotic fumes of red state American boys.”
The national tragedy for us (USA) is that our own Government, military, State Department and our politicians on both sides of the aisle, and indirectly our vaunted intelligence agencies, in concert with the rotten, corporate MSM, have intentionally pulled wool over the eyes of the American Public, by presenting a rosy view of Ukrainian capabilities and squandering $100+ billion dollars of our hard-earned tax payer money in the process, for well over a year, and bringing us and the world close to a Nuclear World War III (at any moment, since it takes just a single mistake to bring it on) and economic ruin to us the People, in the form of loss of our dollar as reserve currency and a ruined, de-industrialized, pitiful service economy, that condemns most of us to near poverty.
Sorry for the long sentence, but I wanted to include it all in one sentence.
But, if this is not the very definition of TREASON to the Nation, I don't know what is! I am really worried about the future of our children and grandchildren!
The so-called neo-cons and globalists, more correctly called neo-colonists, cannot bring themselves to accept and co-exist with a multi-polar world! To maintain their "rules-based" hegemonic control over the world, they feed a voracious MICIMAC (Military, industrial, Congress, Intelligence, Media, Academia Complex - a term coined by Ray McGovern instead of just MIC) more than $1 trillion a year, hollowing out our own physical, industrial and social infrastructure in the process. All for what?
To fight evil Russians and wily Chinese? Who mind their own business, literally, and never want to fight with USA? WHY? What form of insanity is this? Why can't we be friends with Russia (with most abundant natural resources in the world) and China (a manufacturing juggernaut and the leading economy in the world)? Why can't we stop spending on a 13-carrier Navy and 800+ foreign bases, mind our own business (literally), and live and prosper in a multipolar world? Why not spend that money on our own people and society, instead of squandering them on wunderwaffen (costly but useless wonder weapons like F35 fighters), which will never be used, without the world being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust?
We have two oceans and two friendly neighbors. We don't need much to defend ourselves against potential (if any) enemies. Rename the Department of Defense as War Department (as it used to be called), cut 70% of its budget, abolish NATO, AUKUS ..., bring our troops home and JUST rebuild our Nation and mind our own business! What a splendid Nation and a paradigm for all, we would be!
Why? Because Americans choose to be blind and ignorant. It is not as if Vietnam never happened. This willing subservience to a blissful ignorance state is why.
After all the people deserve the government they get. It is not that Americans are being lied to its just that they never bother to look for the truth, how can one see with eyes closed?
Oh we're being lied to alright. It's a big question as to just how much Americans are responsible for their (our) plight. When you have an active, well-funded, patient, subversive Cabal that has been systematically attacking America since 1948...well, it's not just 'blind and ignorant' Americans. Any nation's people would succumb to that.
Please don't take offence to this, but as a non-American I have to say it: You are right about everything you said, and yet you still make it about *you*.
The ruin of your state is to the benefit of the rest of us. That alone won't be enough to save any of us, of course, but it's a start.
I do not! I fully agree with your point. I am a first generation immigrant to US from a former colony of the British Empire, and so am still intimately aware of what happens in the rest of the world. I have also traveled abroad extensively and so actually know non-US people, who are just like us, aspiring for a decent life for them and their families.
If we in the US accept multipolarity and mind our own business, we will prosper along with the rest of the world. Multipolarity is NOT the problem. It is the "rules-based" world order of neo-colonists that is ruining USA with excessive, needless military expenditures!
I am an American domestic shorthair, and I admit it - if America today sank into the ocean, most of the rest of the world would rejoice at their deliverance.
It is about time for US citizens to revolt and vote out + send to jail all pshychopaths and neocons warmongers like Nuland, Blinken, Bolton, Pompeo, Graham, N Halley, Biden, Clinton and co.
And for European to see who is their real ennemy (anglos), get rid off the EU(civil nato) and NATO.G7 countries are de facto bankrupted worse for Europe they have no energy , no minerals nothing, only debts, ponzi they will never pay back.
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 ("kinder gentler nation") ran for office as a non-interventionist who would restore the middle class. Even Dubya promised a humbler foreign policy, before he got elected.
Once inaugurated, each candidate morphed into a handmaiden to the moneyed interests at the expense of everyone else, not to mention, a foaming-at-the-mouth hawk.
Remember when Obama was elected in 2008? Conservatives clutched their pearls and made dire predictions of imminent socialist dictatorship and the terrifying spectre of peace breaking out at any minute. Every Team R apparatchik turned into an internet Alinsky expert. The collective freakout was even bigger when Trump was elected - and it wasn't limited to one party. Formerly sober people bought wholeheartedly into a conspiracy theory so asinine that it would have embarrassed the 1962-era John Birch Society.
What happened in both cases?
Obama governed as a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, with a smattering of Identity Politics. The only "socialism" he brought was in the form of free money for his rich friends and a giant gimme for the insurance industry. Not only did he fail to end any wars, he gave us three more stupid wars.
For his part, Trump governed as a meaner, stupider, more reckless, more dysfunctional version of Dubya. As a candidate, he was even more explicit, perhaps, in his promise to restore the middle class and end the wars. The less said about Trump's actual record in office, the better.
Bottom line: I don't pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without evidence that it is something like what we saw in "Yes, Minister".
Comment from a citizen: of course the world would be less dangerous if the United States were not an imperialist state, spending billions on an army whose incompetence will eventually become proverbial, and never ceasing to threaten all those who do not spontaneously align themselves under its banner. But the world would also be better off if the Americans stopped believing that they should be an example to others - Comment from a citizen: of course the world would be less dangerous if the United States were not an imperialist state, spending billions on an army whose incompetence will eventually become proverbial, and never ceasing to threaten all those who do not spontaneously align themselves under its banner. But the world would also be better off if the Americans stopped believing that they should be an example to others - What a splendid Nation and a paradigm for all, we would be! But no! You will be a splendid nation the day you stop thinking you are the navel of the world, the day you stop thinking you are the most important nation in history.
You are right. We are not and never were "Exceptional." We were colonists, from the very beginning of our history - Manifest destiny, Monroe Doctrine, Chosen People etc. enabling our expansion to the west coast (using "treaties" and genocide of indigenous population and trumped-up war with Mexico), Hawaii and domination of Latin and South America.
WWII was the turning point in our history. That is what led to our "Exceptional" argument! We were the only Nation standing at the end of the war (thanks to the oceans that separate us from Europe and Asia) and in sole possession of nuclear weapons! And we imagined that it was us who defeated Germany (recall Soviets could have and would have defeated Germany even if we had not gotten in - they won the war at a tremendous cost of 25+ million dead and a devastated nation). Military might enabled us to dictate to the world! The petro-dollar and an economy that was 50% of the world led to economic and financial domination! Hello, Unipolar world dictated by USA!
The world has changed since! BRICS economy has surpassed G7! We must accept the resulting multipolar world, regulated by UN Charter! We are still an innovative nation - GPS, Internet, AI etc. WE INVENTED! We can still do well in a multipolar world. So why ruin everything in pursuit of global hegemony?????
"We must accept the resulting multipolar world, regulated by UN Charter! We are still an innovative nation - GPS, Internet, AI etc. WE INVENTED! "
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Frenchman here. I'd like to stress that this statement you made is a sign of US blindness. For in fact, the US did not quite invent those things. GPS? Yes, American development, but France developed the first similar constellation 15 years before, it was the ARGOS positioning system, still used to help rescue ships at sea. Less precise, unfit for all the advanced uses of GPS, but the same stuff actually, only with earlier technologies and capabilities. Internet? The IP protocol was invented by a British engineer working at CERN, an international institution based in Switzerland and France. Also, France had its own Minitel network, using different tech but meant to allow instantaneous computer-based communication, which was in widespread use in French households several years before the US military started sharing its network tech with a few university labs. It's also France's Alcatel, formerly a state company, who invented the ADSL protocol which made fast internet for all on a worldwide scale possible. AI? Well, Alan Turing was not American, and many researchers from many countries developed AI.
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My point is this: the US once had real talent to find revolutionary use for technologies being developed elsewhere, and to put in the necessary resources to turn those technologies into meaningful social and economic change. That's quite an important talent.
Unfortunately, the narrative that came to fill the brains of American people was much simpler: "we invented it". And therefore, "we" can do it alone and others must follow. The problem with this narrative is that you did not invent it, and therefore you'd do much better to acknowledge the role of others and to keep working in good cooperation with others, than to treat them as inferiors and to think you can do it alone.
But the saddest part of this story, is that American elites were the ones to believe the narrative to the fullest extent. It made them so full of themselves, that they are now incapable to see how mistaken it is. So instead, some other power will have to demonstrate that they can do it better and faster than the US. That's what China has been working on for 3 decades. And contrary to the US, they at least do it with a discourse towards others that's all about sharing the benefits of their effort. I do not claim that the Chinese are sincere, but that is what they tell their friends. The US does not even do this any more.
I specify: I am also French (I had written "a French citizen" but the adjective was forgotten).
I add to what Pierre says that American vanity has been encouraged by the submission of the European elites, and in particular the French, to American domination. Why this submission? A sort of inferiority complex following the Second World War: the image of the "liberating GI" that must not be questioned, especially if the real winner of the German army is the ugly Soviet muzhik.
To confirm my point, I will simply recall the cries of appalled virgins that all those who claim to be the elite uttered when General de Gaulle told NATO: "Out! And when he did not align himself with American positions, he was called a KGB agent.
The mistake of the Americans is to consider that an ally must always agree with them. But this mistake is also shared by their allies.
I'm not up to speed on the development of Internet and other technologies like GPS in France (or anywhere else in post-colonial EU - UK, Belgium, Holland, Spain, etc.) - but I can tell you that the only reason the U.S. government undertook the effort to build out the "Internet" was - as all of us acknowledge here - for military and surveillance uses, specifically Vietnam. Wouldn't surprise me if those French companies and state owned companies also began development of those technologies for their own military-colonial projects.
All good points, but also consider that for an American "invented" and "commercialized" are almost synonymous. Google Facebook, Apple, Twitter etc., invented themselves into existence from the ether with no prior work done by anyone else.
Apple... not true. Apple is a company who's been doing its business by assembling tech invented by others, as to offer integrated final products that offered an advanced and reliable service they could market with high profit margins. It's the story behind the Apple I and II, the iPod, or the iPhone. And Apple OS are UNIX-derived.
The 3 others are in fact service companies. Google made its success by offering a service they didn't invent, but through a technology they invented and that was more effective than the competition. Facebook or Twitter sure invented their service, although not out of the blue and taking inspiration from others, and as for the tech they use, some is their own but a lot of bricks are not.
For the rest, the scale and often pro-monopolistic nature of the US market helped them a lot on their way to become world giants. It does not mean their tech or their product is always better than what others can invent.
Correction in beginning of First Brilliant Sentence: "USSA" "Coup Feral Gov." Traitorous democRats, & rinoRats." Otherwise Excellent.
As far as adopting President George Washington's Foreign Policy ...... sadly there are Bad Actors in the World as was demonstrated later on in 1812. Our Current Priority Problem is The Bad Actors occupy DC. What to Do Domestically? is the question du jour.
What's your point??? That Canada wanted to remain a Crowned Colony? That isn't working out so well either. OR that the USSA hasn't won a war since 1945? I agreee, NWO Wars for profit & blood don't work out well either.
It was a long time ago and they were all friends again soon afterwards (apart from the Indians, they got ratted on [again]). it occurred to me when reading about it thirty-odd years ago that it was really another civil war like the 1775-1783 one.
The 1775-1783 was a CW, especially in the Southern Colonies wher Loyalists and their Patriot neighbors actually fought each other with a minimum of British Army present, like at Kings Mtn. near the NC/SC border.
Are you a Canadian? I'm a Confederate, just for the record :-)
Because the Powers That Be running this globalist show hate America and are intent upon destroying her. Soros has said this many times - he hates the United States. And why you ask? Because we (used to) be what stood between him and his goals of a One World System. And goddamnit! those pesky Americans STILL have their guns!
Because the United States has been living in debt for decades and only 13 aircraft carriers and 800 bases keep the world from demanding to pay this debt. How much does the US owe now? $31000000000000? Subtract $31 trillion from your well-being...
I’m curious. Why is the ‘leak’ a big deal? Anyone, paying attention, should know the reality in the battlefield …and does not need a’leak’ to confirm ….rus have the artillary, air defence, and industrial war production. They will decide what will the final outcome look like. Need i mention the rus have the leadership, the seriousness of intention, and the conviction that the west is a nest of vipers that are not agreement capable. Imagine, in the crucible of proxy war, nato has the effrontary of adding a further member, Finland, situated smack up against russia’s border!
As has been said, “Truth is stranger than fiction” . What fiction writer would have a new nato member added in the heigth of proxy war in ukraine, where the issue was / is the positioning of nato on russia’s border.
Great analysis, but I would like to offer a dissenting opinion.
The leaks are real AND a disinformation campaign. The data is mostly from real reports, which are mostly based on OSINT and Ukrainian reports, and they paint a mostly accurate picture, although skewed in favor of Ukraine for the reasons that you mentioned. They might even have been leaked the way the NYT claims.
But, the NYT is not in the journalism business anymore, they are in the distributing US approved narratives business these days. If the NYT broke this story as front page news (now on three separate days) and if the rest of the MSM is following suit, it is because that is what the Biden administration wants to happen. Whatever these leaks started out as, I suspect that they are now a US campaign to:
1) Prepare the American public for more censorship, along the lines of the RESTRICT act.
2) Delay the doomed offensive until this summer when NATO excercises in Europe happen, and maybe NATO will help.
The information in these leaks doesn't tell us much that we didn't already know, and I'm sure that the Russian Intelligence agencies know more than we do. Further, the Russians aren't going to be deceived by any of this, the target audience appears to be the populations of the west, particularly the USA.
Of the 100+ documents that were allegedly leaked, we have perhaps 10-15 that are legible and a few more that are too low resolution to make anything out. The original NYT story claimed that the leaks revealed sensitive information about China and Iran, but the follow up stories give details about Isreal* and South Korea. No images to support any of those claims are still available, if they ever existed. *1 image about Isreal is legible, it talks about possible avenues to get Isreal to supply weapons to Ukraine, but what makes the news is a story about Mossad supporting the judicial reform protests.
The whole thing is fishy, why no satellite intel, why do we only have a few images about Ukraine when the NYT makes claims about others, why did the NYT suddenly start breaking stories that embarrass the US and Ukraine, why make claims about Iran and China but then run stories alleging things about Isreal and S. Korea, and lastly why now, on the eve of the much ballyhooed spring offensive that was destined to fail? Something is off here.
"The leaks are real AND a disinformation campaign."
This has been my thought too. For over a year, the powers that be have been trying to claim that Ukraine is on the verge of a vast offensive and ready to reclaim all their losses, even Crimea. That was still part of the official story right before these leaks. Now, they can claim they were on the cusp of doing something grand until these leaks threw off everything.
My thought is that these are genuine documents but intended to mislead. They paint a dismal picture of the UAF, with the obvious omission of a real casualty figure. They hint that there are few NATO personnel in theatre and that NATO has little real idea of what is going on. They provide detail on the destination of weapon systems publically announced as being delivered - and to that extent can be cross checked. I doubt they provide any information not already known to Russian Military Intelligence who would not accept them at face value anyway. However in my view they have the purpose of deliberately giving an over weak view of UAF capabilities. There are a number of reasons why this might have been done - ie to encourage more $ down the black hole. The timing is suspicious too. I wonder if the real target audience is bloggers like us who hold more realistic opinions on the course of the war and so provide confirmation bias? Won't we be disappointed when the UAF offensive actually succeeds???
Of course, they could be genuine and a real and embarrassing leak. But who and why?
Big Serge, I started a substack and wrote a much longer version of this comment with the 44 images that showed up at Moon of Alabama. I referenced you. Just FYI. And thanks again for the fine write up.
1. Probably nobody will be fired for the data breach / leak
2. Russia will clean up in Ukraine
3. The dummies in Congress will send American kids to die in Taiwan with inadequate weapon systems
These are all symptoms of common diseases:
- stovepiping
- over-classification to hide the truth
- a collapsed US education system*
- a collapsed sense of morality
* tie in a lack of historic knowledge at DoD and State, a lack of the ability to make plans (other than to oppress US citizens), and a lack of geopolitical understanding
I wonder how long it will take before any of the political elites manages to say "Russia has defeated NATO." Specifically before US kids are sent to die in Taiwan.
Hey Joe, I’ve felt for years that a complete collapse of basic education - to include fostering formal logic and critical thinking - not ‘even’ but especially in elite circles, is largely to blame for the sociopathic dysfunction of 21st century US policy, foreign and domestic.
Stovepiping is a term where information is sent up the chain of command without context of what's happening around it, and often not checking its validity.
As an example the user collects information on the number of tanks Russia has through image intelligence, but doesn't connect it with human intelligence (a spy) who would be able to verify if those tanks were real or inflatables.
These Pentagon Papers 2.0 have that. Examples are very low numbers of Ukrainians dead because the Pentagon hasn't verified the data, Russian equipment reported destroyed when it's only damaged and subsequently repaired, no real estimates on the numbers of Ukrainian troops KIA / WIA / MIA (important to know if an attack is being planned), etc.
So, essentially, stovepiping is a political manouvre whereby raw intel is fed up the chain so that whoever can put a spin on it for his political goals can do so.
Of course this has one big downside: if the spin comes tumbling down & the music stops, the one without a chair comes falling down with it.
Partial / not verified information is fed up the chain of command (doesn't have to be intelligence, but assume in this case it is to keep things consistent and easy to understand).
Oftentimes people use stovepiping to protect their career. You don't know what work I'm doing, so you can't take my position away type of scenario.
The end result however it's done / for whatever underlying purposes, is that the decision makers don't have a full picture on which to draw conclusions.
Imagine Major D. reported Russia has 500 tanks of which 400 were shown to be burned in videos and photographs. Sounds good until you learn 300 were repairable / repaired in subsequent weeks. Meaning in reality Russia only suffered 100 true losses to its tanks.
So Major D., the image intelligence guy didn't work with Sargent C., the human intelligence girl who would have sent her spies to verify those losses.
I'm not picking on Russia. You can equally apply this to weapon systems that went missing* in Ukraine, troop losses, etc.
* missing can be destroyed, or sold on the black market. There are lots of reports of NATO-shipped-to-Ukraine materiel now in the possession of European underworld gangs.
Also reports of a HIMARS launcher and 3 missiles which were sold to Russia by Ukrainian operators around August 2022 for ~$1.2 million. (Yes, DoD when they don't look, won't find anything...)
No US kids will die in Taiwan unless they want to of course. Some might drown in the Pacific though the chances are less.
Australian citizens in the interest of securing their sovereignty have willingly and might I add joyously decided to cough up 360 billion dollars. Who knows what else they may need ? Then there are the Japanese South korean and Indian citizens who I am sure would feel the need to secure their sovereignty. Vietnamese citizens may also get the coughs.
There is money to be made in selling insecurities.
Rest assured America is in the hands of Big Money and what's bad for Big Money ain't happening.
In January 2022 you could have said that about Ukrainian kids: "none will die unless they want to", "what's bad for Big Money ain't happening", etc., yet here we are in April 2023 watching it in practice.
The warmongers don't give a shit how many Americans die, period. The best thing people can do is wake up and protest before they get shipped off to Taiwan and shipped back in a body bag.
And noting the Pacific comment, riddle me this: How many Chinese hypersonic missiles do you think it will take to sink an entire carrier group?
Despite $850 billion a year, we don't have a counter to hypersonic missiles because math is racist according to Democrats. The entire US surface fleet is screwed before it even gets close to Taiwan.
JFC, you started off well, but the nonsense about us not having hypersonic missiles because math is racist according to Democrats is utter BS. Someone always has to inject nonsense politics into the discussion.
The reason we don't have hypersonic missiles is multi-fold: 1) Since the USA never bothers picking fights with first world countries or near-peer militaries, we haven't needed them. Most of the countries that the US has invaded and bombed over the last several decades didn't even have air defense systems, so any old fighter/bomber plane would do. 2) Why would our greedy, bloated PUBLICLY TRADED MIC companies - not interested in actually innovating and creating weapons to be used against peer militaries, but rather their share prices - bother spending any more money on R&D than the bare minimum required to stay in business? R&D cuts directly against share valuation and requires them to actually hire and retain scientists and engineers, of which our universities are capable of producing many, but the money's on Wall Street, so why would a kid decide to be a scientist or engineer and make pennies instead of becoming a "quant" or coder in the "financial services" (FIRE) sector? In a country that revolves around greed (and which has seen its social safety nets and other beneficial programs slashed by corporate Democrats and Republicans over the years) as much as the USA, there is no incentive to spend years in tough academic programs only to graduate in debt and have a starting salary of $75,000/year. Nah, you better just get rich on the quick and pass all that wealth down to your kids who will grow up to become "influencers." LOL
In short, the USA's lack of competitiveness in a *real* war with a *real* adversary is down to greed and laziness. Period. Nothing to do with the outlier anti-racist math classes in liberal dumps like Portland or Seattle. If there was a nice living to be made in science or engineering, more kids would take that route. If there was an incentive other than share valuation for the MIC, they'd develop better more advanced weaponry that actually works.
My brother was a scientist and then a Quant, so I know both sides of the story.
The reason is math and science have been dumbed down in the US, in addition to not producing sufficient STEM graduates. So yes, it's a multi-part problem, and some of those parts of generated by State and Federal education agencies.
The remuneration issue for STEM graduates is relatively simple to resolve, however the production of top level STEM graduates who can think creatively and execute on that creativity is much harder.
I'm an electrical engineer, my brother in law is a materials science physics professor, my dad was a metallurgical engineer and I have acquaintances in the FIRE sector (like quants and "advisors"). So I also know both sides of it. And it comes down to greed + a stripped down society where workers have few rights or recourse because money is everything. The stuff you're talking about with math is a very recent development and doesn't even begin to explain the situation that has been happening for two decades now. The reason is the financialization of everything, the shipping off of all manufacturing jobs to third world countries and China, the destruction of the social safety net, the over-politicization of the discourse which all amounts to plain old greed and laziness. Again, when R&D is looked upon as a burdensome expense to be avoided, you're not going to see much innovation. When you have to go deeply into debt to get an advanced STEM degree but you can make big bucks with a simple math degree or coding "boot camp" which choice are most people going to make?
My brother was a theoretical physics graduate 30 years ago. My kid, is currently a theoretical physics undergraduate. So I've seen a lifetime of high level physics and math, and how it was taught.
If the government wanted to draw more people into STEM, it could make the salaries of STEM workers tax free. That would go a long way to making the lives of STEM workers much more attractive.
The math / science issue at schools and even at university undergrad level is very real. Top level idea generation requires excellence, not equality. Basic R&D isn't process work. Even applied R&D isn't, but its needs a basis on which to work from.
This is a 1990's redux, and it won't be solved any time soon unfortunately.
"Some might drown in the Pacific though..." was a reference to the ADAA aspect. Chances are less referred to the immediate future.
Why? Despite all the noise the economies have not untangled. Chinese manufacturing is critical to the American economy and until the Chinese make progress on the BRI they remain vulnerable to the American navy. Hypersonics do not work underwater. The surface fleet is not the threat and neither is airpower. Fixed installations within two thousand miles and maybe more can be targeted.
Going to war is not the problem it's surviving it that is the trick.
Of course both are preparing the battlefield but neither party has that confidence right now.
As to big money and Ukraine where does the American taxpayer dollars go? To Ukraine?
Ukrainian kids? Indoctrinated as banderites and fighting killing in Donbass since 2014 long before Jan 2022.
Someone please explain what benefit an aircraft carrier has when it gets sunk 1,400 kilometers away from its generic land target? Same applies to the rest of the carrier fleet and transport ships.
The US has a surface fleet of ~300 ships. Assume 3 hypersonic missiles to destroy a ship, that means China needs 1,000 (including 10% for dud strikes).
Looking at the bigger picture, this NATO-led proxy war against Russia had two (2) components: 1. Economic warfare via all-out sanctions with the intention of crippling the Russian economy and 2. Military warfare via proxy Ukraine with the intention of somehow winning a ground war against...Russia. Seeing how catastrophically 1. turned out, is the complete ineptitude displayed by 2. a big shocker? I'd bet 5 cents (my maximum for a sure bet) on the authenticity of these leaked documents and the overall accuracy of the above analysis. The only winner is all of this is the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and its various State Department and Military associates. Biggest loser is Ukraine and the average U.S. taxpayer. It's a giant scam.
I'm so tired of senseless wars! I admit, I bought into the Afghanistan war. Nothing since.
Recently I've read where the hated "Orange Man" said an emphatic NO to military strikes AT LEAST FOUR TIMES! At least once with Iran over an unmanned recon mission shot down - advisors were ready to roll with an attack package. President Trump asked, "Was anybody killed?" No. "What did it cost us?" A few dollars. "How many Iranians will we potentially kill?" A dozen, maybe a few dozen. An EMPHATIC NO!! came the reply to the neocons and war machine.
BTW, there was some military bluster with President Trump, but NO NEW WARS! And we had peace talks with North Korea.
And he took great personal interest in indicting Assange even when the neocons in Obama's government refused to do it. In terms of foreign policy, Trump took his orders from 1) Zionist Israelis and 2) Hawks like Pimpeous, Bolton (before firing him), and Tom Cotton.
Your alertness to words such as using “Biopsy” is greatly appreciated since we are dealing with perhaps terminally sick but alive patient, afflicted with “Ukraine-NATO malignancy”.
Based on your analysis, I conclude following.
1. Ukraine-NATO will probably be defeated by Summer, at the latest in Fall season of 2023.
2 This will makes next six months perhaps most dangerous period in modern human history, outcome of which depends on whether NATO will accept the defeat or escalate to WW3 with distinct possibility of turning Nuclear and human extinct.
3. If NATO accepts defeat, how can Taiwan project will go ahead, especially after disasters in Afghanistan and West Asia/ Middle East?
4. If the humanity dodges Nuclear War, the World will inexorably progress toward Multipolar World lead by Sovereign States, most if not all of whom were recipients of aggression from Colonial and Neo-Colonial powers for hundreds of years.
5. This will have huge implications for longevity of Dollar Reserve status and servicing of enormous debt accumulated by the so called Developed countries, most if not all of them are Colonial/Neocolonial powers.
6. Either way, we are going through violent movements in Geopolitical Tectonic plates.
Very interesting times for History making education in Real time!
This seems like a pretty optimistic timeline to me. I don't think a 'defeat' will ever properly occur.
I also don't think any post-colonial states will be leading a multipolar world. Many formerly colonized states were colonized because they sucked - Their people were weak, stupid, and unable to make use of the resources they were sitting on. For most of them, they still are. It'll be countries that largely avoided colonization and were able to resist imperial influences who end up leading anything.
Based on recent leaks, Ukraine Defenses and Offensive capability could collapse in six months without massive NATO intervention. We shall see.
“Might is Right” may not work in future, like it did for the last 500+ years.
New poles of power are not interested in dominating or defeating the Colonizing powers if one follows the Statements and trajectory of BRICS+, SCO, EAEU, CSTO, BRI, NewNAM etc.
They are interested in supporting the Sovereignty of Nations in terms of validating and protecting their inherent cultures, languages, economic freedom etc. This is also obvious when one sees which countries refused to support the West’s sanctions against Russia. These are all worth watching closely.
Well done. I agree with your analysis that Ukraine has little chance of winning anything with this alleged "offensive" (which as Andrei Martyanov argues is not really an "offensive" at all) and zero chance of reaching Melitopol or "cutting the land bridge". As Brian Berletic says, even if they do succeed at that, what will be left of their forces to do what beyond that? Other than achieve another PR "victory"...
The first and foremost conclusion I would draw from this if I was the Russian DOD is that it is a disiinformation campaign. The Russians can of course fact check it themsleves. How on earth can the USA claim to know Russian troop concentrations and not know Ukrainian troop numbers? That is insane. NATO is running this war and we should assume they have all of this information, otherwise how can they determine armament requirements? Don't fall into the trap.
Yeah... US NRO has satellites covering every inch of Ukraine. The US spends billions of dollars to monitor its' operations around the world. The CIA has had assets on the ground for years (remember they initially planned for Ukraine to fight an insurgency... oops!) so the idea that they don't know what's going on internally is pretty sus.
The US wants Russia to send more materiel into the battlespace so they can observe it and learn. They want them to launch more hypersonic missiles so they can gather the telemetry data. They want them to send more warplanes to shoot down and capture tech. They want them to act impulsively and overextend themselves. Everything they put out is bait for this purpose.
Not to take away from Serge's analysis - it certainly has merit if you take the documents as authentic - but this leak also conveniently allows a lot of people to engage in confirmation bias about the perceived weakness of the US. A mistake to underestimate what they are capable of - I think the Russians have certainly learned that lesson.
Our incompetent POTUS knows he has MSM 100 percent behind him, he can say anything he wants and they'll never say a word.
It's not exactly a secret that with Russia shooting 10 times the amount of artillery rounds (and similar ratios of artillery pieces too) and Ukraine 100 percent reliance on its propaganda that the people making allied decisions don't know what the hell is going on. We've been told for a year that the Russians are out of troops (no longer true with Putin's reserve call up) are out of artillery rounds (sure doesn't seem to affect them yet) and too many other factors to remember, then how can Russia even fight anymore?
Like all insecure politicans everywhere JB or his administration of Jake Sullivan, the war has been politicalized, like every other entity in the DOD (I'd argue the entire government)
I think we're going to soon discover that the amount of Ukraine dead are much higher than we were told (or maybe OUR politicians are lying to us too) and the Russians are considerably better off than we were told. The fact that propaganda (by itself) cannot win wars seems set to be re-discovered. I don't think we have yet discovered how badly JB can fuck things up. Obama was the first person to recognize this and to warn people to "never underestimate the ability of JB to fuck things up".
So who is left to fight the Ukraine war? Is there going to be a "emergency" that necessitates US soldiers direct involvement?
Default to the "US military knows what it's doing".
I see no signs of that. The fact that nobody has said what victory means for the US, shows to me that politics "runs" the US war machine, and that machine has no connection with reality
The US military and NATO are getting their butts kicked. The point I was making is that the West is fighting a propaganda and disinformation campaign, not that it has any chance to prevail. NATO is going to be humilated and soundly defeated. This "leak" is either a lame ploy to deceive the Russians or an attempt inside of the US Military to humiliate those in charge enough to find a way out of the disaster they created. Russian MOD will study this but it will not affect their strategy on the ground. They have already won, its just the other side cannot admit defeat quite yet.
The neocons plan was only about sanctions of hell, nothing else.But big problem it failed and only destroyed Eu allies economy and energy competitivity for at least 10 years. The goal of the sanctions was also to destroy German economy, done, with the complicity of weak politicians or incompetents US assets like Grunen (greens).
Thank you JustTruth -- my conclusion also since US/UK military runs the Nazi-dominated puppet state and pays salaries of every government official of Ukraine
Of course it did - it is the end of the Silk Roads - just where the US wants to build a 1000 foot deep pit to block any E-W trade. Chaos was the goal.
3 wars - civil EvsW Ukraine
military - Nato vs Russia
and the biggest US vs Germany - putting an end to Germany/EU trade with Russia, china or anyone but US friends.
Back in 2015 a US backed Minsk agreeable regime could have done pretty much anything they wanted to do - they chose confrontation even as 75% voted for the Zelensky promise of peace with Russia.
Thank you, as always. This paragraph sums it up for me: “It has long been apparent that the Kiev regime has no real plan, no firm path to victory, and only a tenuous and unfriendly relationship with reality. Far more terrifying is the thought that the Pentagon is much the same.”
Masterful job here, Big Serge! I spent 20+ years in the US defense establishment, much of which focused on the former Soviet Union. You’re analysis is simply superb!
My take on why the casualties and Ukraine disposition reporting is bad isn't because of bad/lack of Intel. It's because this was probably prepared for politicians and the Pentagon/CIA doesn't want to publish the real figures (because they're terrible) so they drop in public data and highlight the artillery and AD needs.. to get funding for them.
Lot of KIA are transformed (on purpose) by Zelensky clique in MIA, simply not to pay compensations to families...how is it possible that Russia holds fare more Ukie POW than the opposite?
Regarding US intel reliance on Ukrainian sources, Larry Johnson reported his informants in US intel had said as much several months ago. He, too, was stunned.
During the preparations for the US war against Iraq the Pentagon leaked like a sieve...And all the leaks sucked the media into believing The US had not learned "the lessons of Vietnam" - dont commit ground troops (It did learn it had to keep the Media on a leash, use the Media)...A few of the leaks were "thousands of body bags were being shipped...", "all available hospital wards in Germany, Italy, etc, was being booked..." The Pentagon used the leaks to hide its actual battle plan...
The Pentagon had learned - No Land Invasion ! It intended to use its superior air power to bomb the bastards back to the Stone Age, then sending in troops - to mop up...
From 12-24 June 2023 USNATO will conduct 'Natos largest ever aerial war games', mostly in Germany (+ Estonia, Romania). The "games" will involve 10,000 soldiers and 270 aircraft...The US will supply 100 aircraft ...
The US has already prepositioned troops, and missile bases, in Poland and Romania...A lot of weaponry supplied never made it to the frontlines, being held in storage for later use...
Zdelensky recently asked for US warplanes...The war games provide cover for providing 100 US aircraft...
The question is, Is it USNATOs plan to sucker Russia deep into Ukraine, before striking ?
I see no evidence that Russia has plans to go “deep into Ukraine.” It looks like securing the land bridge to Crimea and the Russian speaking oblasts is the goal, along with destroying the Ukrainian armed forces and whatever material NATO is foolish enough to transport into the theatre.
Doesn't "destroying the Ukrainian armed forces and whatever material NATO is foolish enough to transport into the theatre" accomplish demilitarization and denazification? And is a rump Ukraine any more dangerous than Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland that are already mostly NATOized and right on Russia's border?
"The proxy has become the parasite."
Brilliant.
One of many internal and external termites eating away and eventually collapsing the building called “The Empire”.
You are a moron, just like the author. Another one of dumba@@ couch pundits who has no idea what it means to be fighting with your family behind you. Parasite? Ukrainians are defending your pathetic a@@es more than you deserve. A rag tag army of partisans with no training but only small arms and molotov cocktails defended my home town of Sumy, kicking out a massive mechanized Russian force. "Experts" like you and the author would have expected them to roll through without anyone so much as shouting an obscenity in their direction.
It was a near disastrous miscalculation by the Russians to convince themselves that Ukrainians in general would not resist the invasion, and much less would welcome it.
Since the coup d'etat in 2014, fomented by the US NGOs and executed by Ukrainians who have despised Russia for generations, which overcame a popularly- and legitimately-elected government, the citizens from the Kharkov, Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimean, and Odessa oblasts of eastern Ukraine have been terrorized and punished for their affiliation with Russian culture. As angry as you are over the Russian invasion, there are many more in the Donbass who feel just as angry over the way they have been treated.
It was as much to end their persecution by the Ukrainian nationalists, as it was tor prevent the advance of NATO, the Russia felt forced to use its military to end these existential threats to Russia itself.
oh man enough with this ruzzian fascists diatribes.
Russians were kicked out of Sumy? LOL!!! In yer dreams little Ukrop. Russia WITHDREW because they CHOSE to, because leaving forces in Sumy was pointless when the Ukrop army was elsewhere.
Your goosestepping Banderites will be ERADICATED and I'll celebrate each one that buys the farm :-P
Yeah, just like you f-ks “chose” to hightail it from Kyiv or Kharkiv or Kherson. Why don’t you do a жест доброй воли do human kind a favor and drink some antifreeze.
mhaha delusional idiot.
Cry about it.
Thank you for breaking it all down and for this especially apt description of the current state of my country’s military; “...a trillion dollar technobureaucratic jobs program coasting on the residual patriotic fumes of red state American boys.”
An apt description of the United States: living on the residual fumes of human freedom.
Western civilization living off the fumes of Christendom
The national tragedy for us (USA) is that our own Government, military, State Department and our politicians on both sides of the aisle, and indirectly our vaunted intelligence agencies, in concert with the rotten, corporate MSM, have intentionally pulled wool over the eyes of the American Public, by presenting a rosy view of Ukrainian capabilities and squandering $100+ billion dollars of our hard-earned tax payer money in the process, for well over a year, and bringing us and the world close to a Nuclear World War III (at any moment, since it takes just a single mistake to bring it on) and economic ruin to us the People, in the form of loss of our dollar as reserve currency and a ruined, de-industrialized, pitiful service economy, that condemns most of us to near poverty.
Sorry for the long sentence, but I wanted to include it all in one sentence.
But, if this is not the very definition of TREASON to the Nation, I don't know what is! I am really worried about the future of our children and grandchildren!
The so-called neo-cons and globalists, more correctly called neo-colonists, cannot bring themselves to accept and co-exist with a multi-polar world! To maintain their "rules-based" hegemonic control over the world, they feed a voracious MICIMAC (Military, industrial, Congress, Intelligence, Media, Academia Complex - a term coined by Ray McGovern instead of just MIC) more than $1 trillion a year, hollowing out our own physical, industrial and social infrastructure in the process. All for what?
To fight evil Russians and wily Chinese? Who mind their own business, literally, and never want to fight with USA? WHY? What form of insanity is this? Why can't we be friends with Russia (with most abundant natural resources in the world) and China (a manufacturing juggernaut and the leading economy in the world)? Why can't we stop spending on a 13-carrier Navy and 800+ foreign bases, mind our own business (literally), and live and prosper in a multipolar world? Why not spend that money on our own people and society, instead of squandering them on wunderwaffen (costly but useless wonder weapons like F35 fighters), which will never be used, without the world being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust?
We have two oceans and two friendly neighbors. We don't need much to defend ourselves against potential (if any) enemies. Rename the Department of Defense as War Department (as it used to be called), cut 70% of its budget, abolish NATO, AUKUS ..., bring our troops home and JUST rebuild our Nation and mind our own business! What a splendid Nation and a paradigm for all, we would be!
Why? Because Americans choose to be blind and ignorant. It is not as if Vietnam never happened. This willing subservience to a blissful ignorance state is why.
After all the people deserve the government they get. It is not that Americans are being lied to its just that they never bother to look for the truth, how can one see with eyes closed?
It is hard enough for a blind man to see, but what about a man who does not want to see the truth and fights it every step of the way?
Happy Victory day.
Glad to hear from you.
С Днем Победы Вам!
It is sad to witness the bloodshed. Do you know the Russian joke.
A call from the past:
- Hello, grandchildren! How are you going?
- We are at war with Ukraine.
- With Ukraine? Against whom?
(in Russian, "воюем с Украиной" could mean both against or together. I hope that Truth overcomes at last)
The cynicism of Kiev and Washington is most instructive.
Oh we're being lied to alright. It's a big question as to just how much Americans are responsible for their (our) plight. When you have an active, well-funded, patient, subversive Cabal that has been systematically attacking America since 1948...well, it's not just 'blind and ignorant' Americans. Any nation's people would succumb to that.
Please don't take offence to this, but as a non-American I have to say it: You are right about everything you said, and yet you still make it about *you*.
The ruin of your state is to the benefit of the rest of us. That alone won't be enough to save any of us, of course, but it's a start.
I do not! I fully agree with your point. I am a first generation immigrant to US from a former colony of the British Empire, and so am still intimately aware of what happens in the rest of the world. I have also traveled abroad extensively and so actually know non-US people, who are just like us, aspiring for a decent life for them and their families.
If we in the US accept multipolarity and mind our own business, we will prosper along with the rest of the world. Multipolarity is NOT the problem. It is the "rules-based" world order of neo-colonists that is ruining USA with excessive, needless military expenditures!
yes, YOU personally should mind your own private little business
I am an American domestic shorthair, and I admit it - if America today sank into the ocean, most of the rest of the world would rejoice at their deliverance.
Cats do like to knock things off the shelf after all...
I admit that it is satisfying.
You're just US hater, nothing more.
I'm saying this because the tentacles of the Great Satan will never withdraw willingly, or out of any sensible or virtuous turn. No, never.
It is about time for US citizens to revolt and vote out + send to jail all pshychopaths and neocons warmongers like Nuland, Blinken, Bolton, Pompeo, Graham, N Halley, Biden, Clinton and co.
And for European to see who is their real ennemy (anglos), get rid off the EU(civil nato) and NATO.G7 countries are de facto bankrupted worse for Europe they have no energy , no minerals nothing, only debts, ponzi they will never pay back.
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 ("kinder gentler nation") ran for office as a non-interventionist who would restore the middle class. Even Dubya promised a humbler foreign policy, before he got elected.
Once inaugurated, each candidate morphed into a handmaiden to the moneyed interests at the expense of everyone else, not to mention, a foaming-at-the-mouth hawk.
Remember when Obama was elected in 2008? Conservatives clutched their pearls and made dire predictions of imminent socialist dictatorship and the terrifying spectre of peace breaking out at any minute. Every Team R apparatchik turned into an internet Alinsky expert. The collective freakout was even bigger when Trump was elected - and it wasn't limited to one party. Formerly sober people bought wholeheartedly into a conspiracy theory so asinine that it would have embarrassed the 1962-era John Birch Society.
What happened in both cases?
Obama governed as a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, with a smattering of Identity Politics. The only "socialism" he brought was in the form of free money for his rich friends and a giant gimme for the insurance industry. Not only did he fail to end any wars, he gave us three more stupid wars.
For his part, Trump governed as a meaner, stupider, more reckless, more dysfunctional version of Dubya. As a candidate, he was even more explicit, perhaps, in his promise to restore the middle class and end the wars. The less said about Trump's actual record in office, the better.
Bottom line: I don't pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without evidence that it is something like what we saw in "Yes, Minister".
You cannot 'vote' your problems away.
Vote HARDER!
Comment from a citizen: of course the world would be less dangerous if the United States were not an imperialist state, spending billions on an army whose incompetence will eventually become proverbial, and never ceasing to threaten all those who do not spontaneously align themselves under its banner. But the world would also be better off if the Americans stopped believing that they should be an example to others - Comment from a citizen: of course the world would be less dangerous if the United States were not an imperialist state, spending billions on an army whose incompetence will eventually become proverbial, and never ceasing to threaten all those who do not spontaneously align themselves under its banner. But the world would also be better off if the Americans stopped believing that they should be an example to others - What a splendid Nation and a paradigm for all, we would be! But no! You will be a splendid nation the day you stop thinking you are the navel of the world, the day you stop thinking you are the most important nation in history.
You are right. We are not and never were "Exceptional." We were colonists, from the very beginning of our history - Manifest destiny, Monroe Doctrine, Chosen People etc. enabling our expansion to the west coast (using "treaties" and genocide of indigenous population and trumped-up war with Mexico), Hawaii and domination of Latin and South America.
WWII was the turning point in our history. That is what led to our "Exceptional" argument! We were the only Nation standing at the end of the war (thanks to the oceans that separate us from Europe and Asia) and in sole possession of nuclear weapons! And we imagined that it was us who defeated Germany (recall Soviets could have and would have defeated Germany even if we had not gotten in - they won the war at a tremendous cost of 25+ million dead and a devastated nation). Military might enabled us to dictate to the world! The petro-dollar and an economy that was 50% of the world led to economic and financial domination! Hello, Unipolar world dictated by USA!
The world has changed since! BRICS economy has surpassed G7! We must accept the resulting multipolar world, regulated by UN Charter! We are still an innovative nation - GPS, Internet, AI etc. WE INVENTED! We can still do well in a multipolar world. So why ruin everything in pursuit of global hegemony?????
"We must accept the resulting multipolar world, regulated by UN Charter! We are still an innovative nation - GPS, Internet, AI etc. WE INVENTED! "
.
Frenchman here. I'd like to stress that this statement you made is a sign of US blindness. For in fact, the US did not quite invent those things. GPS? Yes, American development, but France developed the first similar constellation 15 years before, it was the ARGOS positioning system, still used to help rescue ships at sea. Less precise, unfit for all the advanced uses of GPS, but the same stuff actually, only with earlier technologies and capabilities. Internet? The IP protocol was invented by a British engineer working at CERN, an international institution based in Switzerland and France. Also, France had its own Minitel network, using different tech but meant to allow instantaneous computer-based communication, which was in widespread use in French households several years before the US military started sharing its network tech with a few university labs. It's also France's Alcatel, formerly a state company, who invented the ADSL protocol which made fast internet for all on a worldwide scale possible. AI? Well, Alan Turing was not American, and many researchers from many countries developed AI.
.
My point is this: the US once had real talent to find revolutionary use for technologies being developed elsewhere, and to put in the necessary resources to turn those technologies into meaningful social and economic change. That's quite an important talent.
Unfortunately, the narrative that came to fill the brains of American people was much simpler: "we invented it". And therefore, "we" can do it alone and others must follow. The problem with this narrative is that you did not invent it, and therefore you'd do much better to acknowledge the role of others and to keep working in good cooperation with others, than to treat them as inferiors and to think you can do it alone.
But the saddest part of this story, is that American elites were the ones to believe the narrative to the fullest extent. It made them so full of themselves, that they are now incapable to see how mistaken it is. So instead, some other power will have to demonstrate that they can do it better and faster than the US. That's what China has been working on for 3 decades. And contrary to the US, they at least do it with a discourse towards others that's all about sharing the benefits of their effort. I do not claim that the Chinese are sincere, but that is what they tell their friends. The US does not even do this any more.
I specify: I am also French (I had written "a French citizen" but the adjective was forgotten).
I add to what Pierre says that American vanity has been encouraged by the submission of the European elites, and in particular the French, to American domination. Why this submission? A sort of inferiority complex following the Second World War: the image of the "liberating GI" that must not be questioned, especially if the real winner of the German army is the ugly Soviet muzhik.
To confirm my point, I will simply recall the cries of appalled virgins that all those who claim to be the elite uttered when General de Gaulle told NATO: "Out! And when he did not align himself with American positions, he was called a KGB agent.
The mistake of the Americans is to consider that an ally must always agree with them. But this mistake is also shared by their allies.
I'm not up to speed on the development of Internet and other technologies like GPS in France (or anywhere else in post-colonial EU - UK, Belgium, Holland, Spain, etc.) - but I can tell you that the only reason the U.S. government undertook the effort to build out the "Internet" was - as all of us acknowledge here - for military and surveillance uses, specifically Vietnam. Wouldn't surprise me if those French companies and state owned companies also began development of those technologies for their own military-colonial projects.
Thanks for that information, which is new to me!
All good points, but also consider that for an American "invented" and "commercialized" are almost synonymous. Google Facebook, Apple, Twitter etc., invented themselves into existence from the ether with no prior work done by anyone else.
Apple... not true. Apple is a company who's been doing its business by assembling tech invented by others, as to offer integrated final products that offered an advanced and reliable service they could market with high profit margins. It's the story behind the Apple I and II, the iPod, or the iPhone. And Apple OS are UNIX-derived.
The 3 others are in fact service companies. Google made its success by offering a service they didn't invent, but through a technology they invented and that was more effective than the competition. Facebook or Twitter sure invented their service, although not out of the blue and taking inspiration from others, and as for the tech they use, some is their own but a lot of bricks are not.
For the rest, the scale and often pro-monopolistic nature of the US market helped them a lot on their way to become world giants. It does not mean their tech or their product is always better than what others can invent.
I assumed that my use of the word "ether" would signal that I was not being serious.
Correction in beginning of First Brilliant Sentence: "USSA" "Coup Feral Gov." Traitorous democRats, & rinoRats." Otherwise Excellent.
As far as adopting President George Washington's Foreign Policy ...... sadly there are Bad Actors in the World as was demonstrated later on in 1812. Our Current Priority Problem is The Bad Actors occupy DC. What to Do Domestically? is the question du jour.
The US invasion of Canada? Didn't go that well.
What's your point??? That Canada wanted to remain a Crowned Colony? That isn't working out so well either. OR that the USSA hasn't won a war since 1945? I agreee, NWO Wars for profit & blood don't work out well either.
https://genearly.substack.com/p/want-to-write-a-story-comrades?sd=pf
It was a long time ago and they were all friends again soon afterwards (apart from the Indians, they got ratted on [again]). it occurred to me when reading about it thirty-odd years ago that it was really another civil war like the 1775-1783 one.
The 1775-1783 was a CW, especially in the Southern Colonies wher Loyalists and their Patriot neighbors actually fought each other with a minimum of British Army present, like at Kings Mtn. near the NC/SC border.
Are you a Canadian? I'm a Confederate, just for the record :-)
No, I'm English. ;O) It looks to me like a British civil war with several others at the same time.
Because the Powers That Be running this globalist show hate America and are intent upon destroying her. Soros has said this many times - he hates the United States. And why you ask? Because we (used to) be what stood between him and his goals of a One World System. And goddamnit! those pesky Americans STILL have their guns!
Soros loves Americans. New Americans. Non-White, Immigrant, high-time-preference, low-IQ Americans.
NO He doesn't..he only uses them as pawns on his way to power..
People like him only care about themselves and holding on to their money and power
obviously a ruzzian fascists sympathizer and genocidal war supporter
Because the United States has been living in debt for decades and only 13 aircraft carriers and 800 bases keep the world from demanding to pay this debt. How much does the US owe now? $31000000000000? Subtract $31 trillion from your well-being...
I’m curious. Why is the ‘leak’ a big deal? Anyone, paying attention, should know the reality in the battlefield …and does not need a’leak’ to confirm ….rus have the artillary, air defence, and industrial war production. They will decide what will the final outcome look like. Need i mention the rus have the leadership, the seriousness of intention, and the conviction that the west is a nest of vipers that are not agreement capable. Imagine, in the crucible of proxy war, nato has the effrontary of adding a further member, Finland, situated smack up against russia’s border!
As has been said, “Truth is stranger than fiction” . What fiction writer would have a new nato member added in the heigth of proxy war in ukraine, where the issue was / is the positioning of nato on russia’s border.
Hubris.
All empires (hubris) collapsed in history, there is zero exception.
Great analysis, but I would like to offer a dissenting opinion.
The leaks are real AND a disinformation campaign. The data is mostly from real reports, which are mostly based on OSINT and Ukrainian reports, and they paint a mostly accurate picture, although skewed in favor of Ukraine for the reasons that you mentioned. They might even have been leaked the way the NYT claims.
But, the NYT is not in the journalism business anymore, they are in the distributing US approved narratives business these days. If the NYT broke this story as front page news (now on three separate days) and if the rest of the MSM is following suit, it is because that is what the Biden administration wants to happen. Whatever these leaks started out as, I suspect that they are now a US campaign to:
1) Prepare the American public for more censorship, along the lines of the RESTRICT act.
2) Delay the doomed offensive until this summer when NATO excercises in Europe happen, and maybe NATO will help.
The information in these leaks doesn't tell us much that we didn't already know, and I'm sure that the Russian Intelligence agencies know more than we do. Further, the Russians aren't going to be deceived by any of this, the target audience appears to be the populations of the west, particularly the USA.
Of the 100+ documents that were allegedly leaked, we have perhaps 10-15 that are legible and a few more that are too low resolution to make anything out. The original NYT story claimed that the leaks revealed sensitive information about China and Iran, but the follow up stories give details about Isreal* and South Korea. No images to support any of those claims are still available, if they ever existed. *1 image about Isreal is legible, it talks about possible avenues to get Isreal to supply weapons to Ukraine, but what makes the news is a story about Mossad supporting the judicial reform protests.
The whole thing is fishy, why no satellite intel, why do we only have a few images about Ukraine when the NYT makes claims about others, why did the NYT suddenly start breaking stories that embarrass the US and Ukraine, why make claims about Iran and China but then run stories alleging things about Isreal and S. Korea, and lastly why now, on the eve of the much ballyhooed spring offensive that was destined to fail? Something is off here.
"The leaks are real AND a disinformation campaign."
This has been my thought too. For over a year, the powers that be have been trying to claim that Ukraine is on the verge of a vast offensive and ready to reclaim all their losses, even Crimea. That was still part of the official story right before these leaks. Now, they can claim they were on the cusp of doing something grand until these leaks threw off everything.
Exactly, when ''leaks'' happen, just one simple question must be asked: cui bono?
My thought is that these are genuine documents but intended to mislead. They paint a dismal picture of the UAF, with the obvious omission of a real casualty figure. They hint that there are few NATO personnel in theatre and that NATO has little real idea of what is going on. They provide detail on the destination of weapon systems publically announced as being delivered - and to that extent can be cross checked. I doubt they provide any information not already known to Russian Military Intelligence who would not accept them at face value anyway. However in my view they have the purpose of deliberately giving an over weak view of UAF capabilities. There are a number of reasons why this might have been done - ie to encourage more $ down the black hole. The timing is suspicious too. I wonder if the real target audience is bloggers like us who hold more realistic opinions on the course of the war and so provide confirmation bias? Won't we be disappointed when the UAF offensive actually succeeds???
Of course, they could be genuine and a real and embarrassing leak. But who and why?
Big Serge, I started a substack and wrote a much longer version of this comment with the 44 images that showed up at Moon of Alabama. I referenced you. Just FYI. And thanks again for the fine write up.
The best is yet to come:
1. Probably nobody will be fired for the data breach / leak
2. Russia will clean up in Ukraine
3. The dummies in Congress will send American kids to die in Taiwan with inadequate weapon systems
These are all symptoms of common diseases:
- stovepiping
- over-classification to hide the truth
- a collapsed US education system*
- a collapsed sense of morality
* tie in a lack of historic knowledge at DoD and State, a lack of the ability to make plans (other than to oppress US citizens), and a lack of geopolitical understanding
I wonder how long it will take before any of the political elites manages to say "Russia has defeated NATO." Specifically before US kids are sent to die in Taiwan.
Hey Joe, I’ve felt for years that a complete collapse of basic education - to include fostering formal logic and critical thinking - not ‘even’ but especially in elite circles, is largely to blame for the sociopathic dysfunction of 21st century US policy, foreign and domestic.
A question though: What is ‘stovepiping’?
Stovepiping is a term where information is sent up the chain of command without context of what's happening around it, and often not checking its validity.
As an example the user collects information on the number of tanks Russia has through image intelligence, but doesn't connect it with human intelligence (a spy) who would be able to verify if those tanks were real or inflatables.
These Pentagon Papers 2.0 have that. Examples are very low numbers of Ukrainians dead because the Pentagon hasn't verified the data, Russian equipment reported destroyed when it's only damaged and subsequently repaired, no real estimates on the numbers of Ukrainian troops KIA / WIA / MIA (important to know if an attack is being planned), etc.
So, essentially, stovepiping is a political manouvre whereby raw intel is fed up the chain so that whoever can put a spin on it for his political goals can do so.
Of course this has one big downside: if the spin comes tumbling down & the music stops, the one without a chair comes falling down with it.
Partial / not verified information is fed up the chain of command (doesn't have to be intelligence, but assume in this case it is to keep things consistent and easy to understand).
Oftentimes people use stovepiping to protect their career. You don't know what work I'm doing, so you can't take my position away type of scenario.
The end result however it's done / for whatever underlying purposes, is that the decision makers don't have a full picture on which to draw conclusions.
Imagine Major D. reported Russia has 500 tanks of which 400 were shown to be burned in videos and photographs. Sounds good until you learn 300 were repairable / repaired in subsequent weeks. Meaning in reality Russia only suffered 100 true losses to its tanks.
So Major D., the image intelligence guy didn't work with Sargent C., the human intelligence girl who would have sent her spies to verify those losses.
I'm not picking on Russia. You can equally apply this to weapon systems that went missing* in Ukraine, troop losses, etc.
* missing can be destroyed, or sold on the black market. There are lots of reports of NATO-shipped-to-Ukraine materiel now in the possession of European underworld gangs.
Also reports of a HIMARS launcher and 3 missiles which were sold to Russia by Ukrainian operators around August 2022 for ~$1.2 million. (Yes, DoD when they don't look, won't find anything...)
ok no problem buddy , sorry if i stepped on your toes there.
You sound like someone in the loop who feels unduly burned, and for that. I apologize.
But you have to admit that stovepiping protects the big potatoes at the cost of the small fry.
No US kids will die in Taiwan unless they want to of course. Some might drown in the Pacific though the chances are less.
Australian citizens in the interest of securing their sovereignty have willingly and might I add joyously decided to cough up 360 billion dollars. Who knows what else they may need ? Then there are the Japanese South korean and Indian citizens who I am sure would feel the need to secure their sovereignty. Vietnamese citizens may also get the coughs.
There is money to be made in selling insecurities.
Rest assured America is in the hands of Big Money and what's bad for Big Money ain't happening.
In January 2022 you could have said that about Ukrainian kids: "none will die unless they want to", "what's bad for Big Money ain't happening", etc., yet here we are in April 2023 watching it in practice.
The warmongers don't give a shit how many Americans die, period. The best thing people can do is wake up and protest before they get shipped off to Taiwan and shipped back in a body bag.
And noting the Pacific comment, riddle me this: How many Chinese hypersonic missiles do you think it will take to sink an entire carrier group?
Despite $850 billion a year, we don't have a counter to hypersonic missiles because math is racist according to Democrats. The entire US surface fleet is screwed before it even gets close to Taiwan.
JFC, you started off well, but the nonsense about us not having hypersonic missiles because math is racist according to Democrats is utter BS. Someone always has to inject nonsense politics into the discussion.
The reason we don't have hypersonic missiles is multi-fold: 1) Since the USA never bothers picking fights with first world countries or near-peer militaries, we haven't needed them. Most of the countries that the US has invaded and bombed over the last several decades didn't even have air defense systems, so any old fighter/bomber plane would do. 2) Why would our greedy, bloated PUBLICLY TRADED MIC companies - not interested in actually innovating and creating weapons to be used against peer militaries, but rather their share prices - bother spending any more money on R&D than the bare minimum required to stay in business? R&D cuts directly against share valuation and requires them to actually hire and retain scientists and engineers, of which our universities are capable of producing many, but the money's on Wall Street, so why would a kid decide to be a scientist or engineer and make pennies instead of becoming a "quant" or coder in the "financial services" (FIRE) sector? In a country that revolves around greed (and which has seen its social safety nets and other beneficial programs slashed by corporate Democrats and Republicans over the years) as much as the USA, there is no incentive to spend years in tough academic programs only to graduate in debt and have a starting salary of $75,000/year. Nah, you better just get rich on the quick and pass all that wealth down to your kids who will grow up to become "influencers." LOL
In short, the USA's lack of competitiveness in a *real* war with a *real* adversary is down to greed and laziness. Period. Nothing to do with the outlier anti-racist math classes in liberal dumps like Portland or Seattle. If there was a nice living to be made in science or engineering, more kids would take that route. If there was an incentive other than share valuation for the MIC, they'd develop better more advanced weaponry that actually works.
My brother was a scientist and then a Quant, so I know both sides of the story.
The reason is math and science have been dumbed down in the US, in addition to not producing sufficient STEM graduates. So yes, it's a multi-part problem, and some of those parts of generated by State and Federal education agencies.
The remuneration issue for STEM graduates is relatively simple to resolve, however the production of top level STEM graduates who can think creatively and execute on that creativity is much harder.
I'm an electrical engineer, my brother in law is a materials science physics professor, my dad was a metallurgical engineer and I have acquaintances in the FIRE sector (like quants and "advisors"). So I also know both sides of it. And it comes down to greed + a stripped down society where workers have few rights or recourse because money is everything. The stuff you're talking about with math is a very recent development and doesn't even begin to explain the situation that has been happening for two decades now. The reason is the financialization of everything, the shipping off of all manufacturing jobs to third world countries and China, the destruction of the social safety net, the over-politicization of the discourse which all amounts to plain old greed and laziness. Again, when R&D is looked upon as a burdensome expense to be avoided, you're not going to see much innovation. When you have to go deeply into debt to get an advanced STEM degree but you can make big bucks with a simple math degree or coding "boot camp" which choice are most people going to make?
My brother was a theoretical physics graduate 30 years ago. My kid, is currently a theoretical physics undergraduate. So I've seen a lifetime of high level physics and math, and how it was taught.
If the government wanted to draw more people into STEM, it could make the salaries of STEM workers tax free. That would go a long way to making the lives of STEM workers much more attractive.
The math / science issue at schools and even at university undergrad level is very real. Top level idea generation requires excellence, not equality. Basic R&D isn't process work. Even applied R&D isn't, but its needs a basis on which to work from.
This is a 1990's redux, and it won't be solved any time soon unfortunately.
Thanks for the conversation, sincerely.
"Some might drown in the Pacific though..." was a reference to the ADAA aspect. Chances are less referred to the immediate future.
Why? Despite all the noise the economies have not untangled. Chinese manufacturing is critical to the American economy and until the Chinese make progress on the BRI they remain vulnerable to the American navy. Hypersonics do not work underwater. The surface fleet is not the threat and neither is airpower. Fixed installations within two thousand miles and maybe more can be targeted.
Going to war is not the problem it's surviving it that is the trick.
Of course both are preparing the battlefield but neither party has that confidence right now.
As to big money and Ukraine where does the American taxpayer dollars go? To Ukraine?
Ukrainian kids? Indoctrinated as banderites and fighting killing in Donbass since 2014 long before Jan 2022.
American kids will end up dead in the Pacific, 1,400-1,500 kilometers from shore.
China’s hypersonic arsenal includes the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle that has a range of 1,600 kilometers.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-defense-officials-china-is-leading-in-hypersonic-weapons/7000160.html
Someone please explain what benefit an aircraft carrier has when it gets sunk 1,400 kilometers away from its generic land target? Same applies to the rest of the carrier fleet and transport ships.
The US has a surface fleet of ~300 ships. Assume 3 hypersonic missiles to destroy a ship, that means China needs 1,000 (including 10% for dud strikes).
American kids will probably die in Ukraine too.
Economic concerns always give way to security concerns.
"Data Breech" by Patriots ??? If Truthful We the People deserve and need to Know It.
Looking at the bigger picture, this NATO-led proxy war against Russia had two (2) components: 1. Economic warfare via all-out sanctions with the intention of crippling the Russian economy and 2. Military warfare via proxy Ukraine with the intention of somehow winning a ground war against...Russia. Seeing how catastrophically 1. turned out, is the complete ineptitude displayed by 2. a big shocker? I'd bet 5 cents (my maximum for a sure bet) on the authenticity of these leaked documents and the overall accuracy of the above analysis. The only winner is all of this is the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and its various State Department and Military associates. Biggest loser is Ukraine and the average U.S. taxpayer. It's a giant scam.
And Europe 'supposed allies'..we European will not forget..US go home and asap.
I'm so tired of senseless wars! I admit, I bought into the Afghanistan war. Nothing since.
Recently I've read where the hated "Orange Man" said an emphatic NO to military strikes AT LEAST FOUR TIMES! At least once with Iran over an unmanned recon mission shot down - advisors were ready to roll with an attack package. President Trump asked, "Was anybody killed?" No. "What did it cost us?" A few dollars. "How many Iranians will we potentially kill?" A dozen, maybe a few dozen. An EMPHATIC NO!! came the reply to the neocons and war machine.
BTW, there was some military bluster with President Trump, but NO NEW WARS! And we had peace talks with North Korea.
And he took great personal interest in indicting Assange even when the neocons in Obama's government refused to do it. In terms of foreign policy, Trump took his orders from 1) Zionist Israelis and 2) Hawks like Pimpeous, Bolton (before firing him), and Tom Cotton.
You forgot the US fossil fuel industries among the winners, but otherwise, yeah.
Excellent Analysis.
Your alertness to words such as using “Biopsy” is greatly appreciated since we are dealing with perhaps terminally sick but alive patient, afflicted with “Ukraine-NATO malignancy”.
Based on your analysis, I conclude following.
1. Ukraine-NATO will probably be defeated by Summer, at the latest in Fall season of 2023.
2 This will makes next six months perhaps most dangerous period in modern human history, outcome of which depends on whether NATO will accept the defeat or escalate to WW3 with distinct possibility of turning Nuclear and human extinct.
3. If NATO accepts defeat, how can Taiwan project will go ahead, especially after disasters in Afghanistan and West Asia/ Middle East?
4. If the humanity dodges Nuclear War, the World will inexorably progress toward Multipolar World lead by Sovereign States, most if not all of whom were recipients of aggression from Colonial and Neo-Colonial powers for hundreds of years.
5. This will have huge implications for longevity of Dollar Reserve status and servicing of enormous debt accumulated by the so called Developed countries, most if not all of them are Colonial/Neocolonial powers.
6. Either way, we are going through violent movements in Geopolitical Tectonic plates.
Very interesting times for History making education in Real time!
I suspect NATO already sees the current configuration as a lost cause. Now the question is how lusty Duda is for Galicia.
This seems like a pretty optimistic timeline to me. I don't think a 'defeat' will ever properly occur.
I also don't think any post-colonial states will be leading a multipolar world. Many formerly colonized states were colonized because they sucked - Their people were weak, stupid, and unable to make use of the resources they were sitting on. For most of them, they still are. It'll be countries that largely avoided colonization and were able to resist imperial influences who end up leading anything.
Based on recent leaks, Ukraine Defenses and Offensive capability could collapse in six months without massive NATO intervention. We shall see.
“Might is Right” may not work in future, like it did for the last 500+ years.
New poles of power are not interested in dominating or defeating the Colonizing powers if one follows the Statements and trajectory of BRICS+, SCO, EAEU, CSTO, BRI, NewNAM etc.
They are interested in supporting the Sovereignty of Nations in terms of validating and protecting their inherent cultures, languages, economic freedom etc. This is also obvious when one sees which countries refused to support the West’s sanctions against Russia. These are all worth watching closely.
Well done. I agree with your analysis that Ukraine has little chance of winning anything with this alleged "offensive" (which as Andrei Martyanov argues is not really an "offensive" at all) and zero chance of reaching Melitopol or "cutting the land bridge". As Brian Berletic says, even if they do succeed at that, what will be left of their forces to do what beyond that? Other than achieve another PR "victory"...
The first and foremost conclusion I would draw from this if I was the Russian DOD is that it is a disiinformation campaign. The Russians can of course fact check it themsleves. How on earth can the USA claim to know Russian troop concentrations and not know Ukrainian troop numbers? That is insane. NATO is running this war and we should assume they have all of this information, otherwise how can they determine armament requirements? Don't fall into the trap.
Yeah... US NRO has satellites covering every inch of Ukraine. The US spends billions of dollars to monitor its' operations around the world. The CIA has had assets on the ground for years (remember they initially planned for Ukraine to fight an insurgency... oops!) so the idea that they don't know what's going on internally is pretty sus.
The US wants Russia to send more materiel into the battlespace so they can observe it and learn. They want them to launch more hypersonic missiles so they can gather the telemetry data. They want them to send more warplanes to shoot down and capture tech. They want them to act impulsively and overextend themselves. Everything they put out is bait for this purpose.
Not to take away from Serge's analysis - it certainly has merit if you take the documents as authentic - but this leak also conveniently allows a lot of people to engage in confirmation bias about the perceived weakness of the US. A mistake to underestimate what they are capable of - I think the Russians have certainly learned that lesson.
On the capturing tech aspect - if you observe closely Russia has been very miserly.
A few examples for illustration -
Kinzhal yes, Tsirkon no. Why? Kinzhal is a modification of Iskander versions of which have been exported, technology transferred.
Kh-31 yes Kh-15 no. Once again kh-31 widely exported.
Our incompetent POTUS knows he has MSM 100 percent behind him, he can say anything he wants and they'll never say a word.
It's not exactly a secret that with Russia shooting 10 times the amount of artillery rounds (and similar ratios of artillery pieces too) and Ukraine 100 percent reliance on its propaganda that the people making allied decisions don't know what the hell is going on. We've been told for a year that the Russians are out of troops (no longer true with Putin's reserve call up) are out of artillery rounds (sure doesn't seem to affect them yet) and too many other factors to remember, then how can Russia even fight anymore?
Like all insecure politicans everywhere JB or his administration of Jake Sullivan, the war has been politicalized, like every other entity in the DOD (I'd argue the entire government)
I think we're going to soon discover that the amount of Ukraine dead are much higher than we were told (or maybe OUR politicians are lying to us too) and the Russians are considerably better off than we were told. The fact that propaganda (by itself) cannot win wars seems set to be re-discovered. I don't think we have yet discovered how badly JB can fuck things up. Obama was the first person to recognize this and to warn people to "never underestimate the ability of JB to fuck things up".
So who is left to fight the Ukraine war? Is there going to be a "emergency" that necessitates US soldiers direct involvement?
Zelensky sure seemed ready to think so!
"going to soon discover"???
Ukraine is shooting videos, Russia is shooting cannons !!!
Default to the "US military knows what it's doing".
I see no signs of that. The fact that nobody has said what victory means for the US, shows to me that politics "runs" the US war machine, and that machine has no connection with reality
The US military and NATO are getting their butts kicked. The point I was making is that the West is fighting a propaganda and disinformation campaign, not that it has any chance to prevail. NATO is going to be humilated and soundly defeated. This "leak" is either a lame ploy to deceive the Russians or an attempt inside of the US Military to humiliate those in charge enough to find a way out of the disaster they created. Russian MOD will study this but it will not affect their strategy on the ground. They have already won, its just the other side cannot admit defeat quite yet.
The neocons plan was only about sanctions of hell, nothing else.But big problem it failed and only destroyed Eu allies economy and energy competitivity for at least 10 years. The goal of the sanctions was also to destroy German economy, done, with the complicity of weak politicians or incompetents US assets like Grunen (greens).
Thank you JustTruth -- my conclusion also since US/UK military runs the Nazi-dominated puppet state and pays salaries of every government official of Ukraine
Wow! It’s almost like the US intended for Ukraine to be destroyed from the start.
Something - oh I dunno - an Obama Clinton Biden conspiracy with lots to hide in Ukrainian files might have preplanned to look like a cluster***k.
Just wondering.
Of course it did - it is the end of the Silk Roads - just where the US wants to build a 1000 foot deep pit to block any E-W trade. Chaos was the goal.
3 wars - civil EvsW Ukraine
military - Nato vs Russia
and the biggest US vs Germany - putting an end to Germany/EU trade with Russia, china or anyone but US friends.
Back in 2015 a US backed Minsk agreeable regime could have done pretty much anything they wanted to do - they chose confrontation even as 75% voted for the Zelensky promise of peace with Russia.
End of the silk road? No just the start and the end of the petrodollar.
Thank you, as always. This paragraph sums it up for me: “It has long been apparent that the Kiev regime has no real plan, no firm path to victory, and only a tenuous and unfriendly relationship with reality. Far more terrifying is the thought that the Pentagon is much the same.”
Masterful job here, Big Serge! I spent 20+ years in the US defense establishment, much of which focused on the former Soviet Union. You’re analysis is simply superb!
Thank you, and thank you for your service.
My take on why the casualties and Ukraine disposition reporting is bad isn't because of bad/lack of Intel. It's because this was probably prepared for politicians and the Pentagon/CIA doesn't want to publish the real figures (because they're terrible) so they drop in public data and highlight the artillery and AD needs.. to get funding for them.
Lot of KIA are transformed (on purpose) by Zelensky clique in MIA, simply not to pay compensations to families...how is it possible that Russia holds fare more Ukie POW than the opposite?
That indeed could be the source, and a young staffer walked out with a copy and photographed it.
Regarding US intel reliance on Ukrainian sources, Larry Johnson reported his informants in US intel had said as much several months ago. He, too, was stunned.
What a Timely Leak !
During the preparations for the US war against Iraq the Pentagon leaked like a sieve...And all the leaks sucked the media into believing The US had not learned "the lessons of Vietnam" - dont commit ground troops (It did learn it had to keep the Media on a leash, use the Media)...A few of the leaks were "thousands of body bags were being shipped...", "all available hospital wards in Germany, Italy, etc, was being booked..." The Pentagon used the leaks to hide its actual battle plan...
The Pentagon had learned - No Land Invasion ! It intended to use its superior air power to bomb the bastards back to the Stone Age, then sending in troops - to mop up...
From 12-24 June 2023 USNATO will conduct 'Natos largest ever aerial war games', mostly in Germany (+ Estonia, Romania). The "games" will involve 10,000 soldiers and 270 aircraft...The US will supply 100 aircraft ...
The US has already prepositioned troops, and missile bases, in Poland and Romania...A lot of weaponry supplied never made it to the frontlines, being held in storage for later use...
Zdelensky recently asked for US warplanes...The war games provide cover for providing 100 US aircraft...
The question is, Is it USNATOs plan to sucker Russia deep into Ukraine, before striking ?
If the Russian military is getting its Ukraine intel from reading the NYT, then things are worse than I have suspected.
I see no evidence that Russia has plans to go “deep into Ukraine.” It looks like securing the land bridge to Crimea and the Russian speaking oblasts is the goal, along with destroying the Ukrainian armed forces and whatever material NATO is foolish enough to transport into the theatre.
Oh?
So demilitarization and denazification are off the table?
And Russia is going to allow NATO to build up a rump Ukraine?
Doesn't "destroying the Ukrainian armed forces and whatever material NATO is foolish enough to transport into the theatre" accomplish demilitarization and denazification? And is a rump Ukraine any more dangerous than Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland that are already mostly NATOized and right on Russia's border?
It will mean D C and London wipe out and of course Poland + Romania, all US Bases in Europe, Syria..and a few surprises.