Killing off a bureaucracy — whether civilian or military — is nigh impossible. But the impending defeat of Ukraine on the battlefield by Russia presents one of those watershed moments in history where the raison d’etre of NATO will be exposed as a fraud. Much has been made in recent months about NATO’s supposed growing strength by citing the addition of Sweden and Finland as new NATO members. But this is illusory.
The Swedish Armed Forces are made up of 24,400 active personnel, 11,400 military reserves, 21,500 Home Guard and 5,200 additional conscripts yearly into the Reserves (set to increase to 8,000 conscripts yearly by 2024) as of 2022.
Finland, with an annual defense budget of 68 billion dollars, has 24,000 active duty soldiers but claims reserves of 870,000.
In other words, Sweden and Finland could provide a total of 10 brigades (assuming their current active duty personnel are activated and fully deployed under NATO’s command). This is a “nothing burger.”
The once mighty British Army and Navy have been transformed from a lion into a toothless, nasty chihuahua. The U.K. is failing to meet recruitment goals and its current strength — roughly 75,000 soldiers — would barely fill the Manchester United football stadium. When you consider that 50,000 Brits fought in America during the Revolution of 1776 and were defeated by a threadbare group of Colonial rebels, you get some perspective on the impotence of the current British force.
To make matters worse the U.K. is pleading poverty with respect to its ability to supply more tanks, storm shadow missiles and artillery shells to Ukraine. In fact, all of NATO’s major European members have stripped their warehouses bare in the futile effort to supply Ukraine. If NATO decided to enter the fray in Ukraine the Brits would be hard pressed to send 6 combat ready brigades.
NATO’s problems go beyond its inadequate military resources. The very political consensus binding NATO together is coming apart. The recent verbal sniping between the French and the Germans over whether to commit NATO troops to Ukraine is emblematic of a much deeper rift. Based on a recent meeting in Germany, hosted by Scholz and attended by France’s Macron and Poland’s Tusk, Macron was compelled to walk back his insistence on sending more NATO troops to Ukraine. NATO is a mess yet Western leaders and NATO commanders continue to indulge the fantasy that they are ready and capable of carrying out a combined arms military conflict with Russia. They are not.
Russia sent a deadly reminder of this fact in the form of an Iskander missile that hit a site in Odessa filled with French, Poles and Georgians. U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps cancelled a planned visit to Odessa in the wake of this strike. He probably needed an underwear change and decided it was better to stay home rather than risk becoming cannon fodder.
The following video is a compilation of Russia destroying NATO equipment delivered to Ukraine. The stuff burns well.
I discussed some of these issues in my weekly chat with Nima.
35 years past the sell-by date. Still waiting for that all-elusive peace dividend.
Dividend is for shareholders. It’s a big club, but you ain’t in it.
Thanks George.
Can NATO survive a loss in Ukraine?
The Americans are feed up paying for the occupation of Europe.
And most EU Nations have already planned and accepted to form an Imperial EU Army.
so I think the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will separate from EU Nations.
As the EU Army becomes reality, Western Europe will once again have resurrected and expanded the former revolving “Holy Roman Empires”, this time under the lead of France, the only EU Nation with its own Nuclear weapons.
However, every time in European History when the military powers of Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain have united under the imperial banner, it have ended in major wars, and Europe has been destroyed.
That is why Germany and Austria were occupied by allied forces after WWII, and why Germany was only allowed to enter NATO 10 years after WWII, but Austria is still havent entered NATO.
Historians claim that Poland, Austria, France, Italy, Denmark, Norway, and the Baltic States were invaded and plundered by Hitler during WWII. But after the war all Nation occupied by NAZI Germany abstained from demanding War reparations form Germany. Why?
I believe that an international trial would have exposed that the NAZI occupation was by invitation by Fascist Deep State agents, embedded at the top of every Nation occupied.
That is how the Fascist network of the Holy Roman Empires has survived for centuries.
Today, Fascist Deep State agents are active behind the curtain of democracy in all Western Nation, and they will enslave us all to tyranny and imperial wars whenever we fail to unite against them.
Germany never invaded Italy, German troops were in Italy to help their Italian ally avoid the invasion of Anglo-Saxons and Franco-Africans of De Gaulle. It was the English and Americans who bombed Italian cities, not the Germans.
Nations in the Balkans and Greece were invaded by Italy and run as puppet states of Italy.
However they were captured by Germany after the Armistice of Cassible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_puppet_states
Cassibile :
the betrayal of the king and his general staff to his citizens and soldiers stationed in the center-north Italy, who overnight went from allies to enemies of the Germans, half of the Italian army without orders and captured by the Germans, not as protected prisoners of war by the Geneva Convention and the Red Cross, but as traitors to the ally, and since then, they have become “Puppet state of Liberators”
I see you have realized a disloyalty among a Nations Royalty and Elite toward their own population.
The loyalty of the Royalty and Elite lies with the “Empire”, not their own population.
The population may dethrone them, for the Tax and Soldier vassalage to the Empire, while the Empire will always keep them on their Throne, even if it means occupying the Nation.
Correct. Italy was complicit in Hitler’s war crimes.
No, Italy committed its war crimes and had its war criminals, but they were buried under the trials of Nazi crimes, in fact no Italian war criminal was tried; Mussolini has his mausoleum, Graziani has a monument, Badoglio is remembered as a statesman, the king and his family were not affected. everything as always and as in every place.
“As the EU Army becomes reality, Western Europe will once again have resurrected and expanded the former revolving “Holy Roman Empires”…”
Who’ll be willing to fight and die for the EU?
The only soldiers the EU will be able to get are Muslims, Africans and whoever else is on EU welfare. The EU will have to threaten to cut their entire family’s welfare: no more food, housing or healthcare unless sonny-boy signs up.
When the son’s of these welfare lifers are forced into service they’ll make terrible soldiers. If they’re ever forced to fight fellow Muslims somewhere they’ll frag their infidel commanding officer before shooting an enemy Muslim “brother.”
Another “Holy Roman Empire,” in an EU-run Europe ain’t gonna happen.
Martin Wrote:
Who’ll be willing to fight and die for the EU?
My comment:
Nobody! But ultimately they will be forced to the Frontlines. Just look at Ukraine.
Martin Wrote:
The only soldiers the EU will be able to get are Muslims, Africans and whoever else is on EU welfare.
My comment:
The EU will cut everyone’s welfare to pay for its wars. That is why they call it the GREAT RESET.
There will be no more Energy, food, housing or healthcare unless you sign up as a mercenary for the Empire.
Martin Wrote:
When the welfare Europeans is forced into service they’ll make terrible soldiers.
My comment:
That doesn’t matter. There are 300 million Europeans, and if 100 million die in battle, there will be more land and property to take over by the Elite, for pennies on the Euro.
Another “Holy Roman Empire,” has happened several times during the History of Europe. Check it out
There will be no EU army/military. The EU itself will be gone with 5 years.
The entirety of the “west” has been so loaded with debt by the zionist/western oligarch cartel in the biggest ponzi scheme in world history- there is only another year or 3 of printing available before the house of cartel fiat collapses.
As more and more people and businesses cannot make their debt, shelter & sustenance payments- a snowball of defaults, bankruptcies & unemployment will cause tax receipts to plummet.
The last cycle of printing/borrowing is nigh.
Most people of the “west” have no idea how fast and how severe their lives are about to change for the worse.
It is not a recession or depression coming- it is the end of an era.
Putin referred to it as “the vampires ball is ending”.
The long time victims of the vampires ball(BRICS & the global south) have a much better future with the vampire vanquished to and confined to its home territory.
But the citizens of the vampires home territory are now trapped with & face a hungry and angry vampire.
The EU army/military is already being planned.
The EU itself may be gone with 5 years, but the Fascist Imperial European network will still be intact. https://www.karlspreis.de/en/laureates
All former European Empires have Risen and fallen but the core of the Empire have survived to this day.
Nick wrote:
The entirety of the “west” has been so loaded with debt by the Zionist Fiat lenders in the biggest plunder in world history- there is only another year or 3 of printing back before the Western fiat currencies collapses.
My comment:
That is true. But you forget that a nation like Weimar Germany post WWI could continue functioning and still build up for war, even when its population was in deep poverty.
In fact the buildup of the NAZI war machine created work and income for the impoverished population.
The Zionist Fiat printers will gladly print to such an Imperial endeavor, like they did for NAZI Germany.
However, when Empires mobilizes it changes the dynamics of power.
The power of money becomes irrelevant to the power of military force.
Nick wrote:
Most people of the “west” have no idea how fast and how severe their lives are about to change for the worse.
My comment:
That would be correct, unless the western populations wakes up and unites to end the Imperial slavery.
Start strengthening our Nations independence and engage in peace and fair trade with other Nations.
If we can avoid the destruction of our Nation during a major war, the next generations will not be bound to debt slavery for the rebuilding, but can go directly to the next level of making our Nations even better.
Australia will do whatever our Lord and Master, the US, tells her to do.
[NATO is] “35 years past the sell-by date.”
Same goes for the D.C.-based American-style Democratic sh*t show we’ve had ruining our country for decades.
“Basically, liberal democracy has failed.
The American system is a disaster, the American subsidiaries in Europe are all disasters.
Some type of “authoritarian” leadership which rejects pluralism based on first principles is always going to be the natural system of human governance. It’s been this way since the days of the tribal chieftain. Pluralism is stupid. Societies should be unified under a shared identity that is defined by a shared history and heritage.
This should have been obvious from the beginning, but assuming it somehow wasn’t, it is certainly obvious now. In the West, everyone is fighting with each other and protesting and disagreeing about everything, while in Russia and China and non-pluralistic societies, people are getting along and supporting their leaders, who they feel represent them.
“A leader who represents pluralism” is an oxymoron. Who does he represent? He represents multiple groups of people who disagree with each other on first principles? How is that possible? It’s just a recipe for corruption and tyranny.”
Andrew Anglin at The Unz Review
Seems like the only people scared of Russia are the ones running some of the western governments. The people of most of the nations whose “leaders” (as on a leash of Mr. Money) don’t care so much.
I wonder if all these nations who have been stealing everything the citizens have might be more afraid of their victims and are getting awful nervous about having trouble like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and later Robespiere had for trying to keep their country poor.
Now Monsieur Micron is looking over his shoulder. Sholzi is fronting for his generals that are going to do what their nazi relatives couldn’t and win glory.
I’m assuming everyone is lying as usual.
I wouldn’t mind Putin as President of these United States. He just needs to get a birth certificate saying he was born in Kapiolani Hospital in 1961.
Yeah. If Barack Obama could get a certificate, why not Putin? On the other hand, he or any other decent outsider would have to be really out of his mind to have a desire to become the President of USA which is on the verge of imploding under the weight of its internal contradictions
The real question is, “why deos the USA have two classes of citizen?”
Why cannot 330 Americans find proper leadership ?
Because there’s an all-powerful lobby that doesn’t let them. Nothing short of a revolution can save the USA. The problem with starting revolutions is that they need to be organised and financed.
The only thing that can save US is a good A$$ woo pen
Agreed. We need to stop conflating patriotism with blowing up Afghan wedding parties. No better way to achieve that than to experience Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, Version 2.0
This time though, I’d go from Northern VA to Boston, MA. , with a mirror op from San Francisco to Seattle. 😇
Agreed. We need to stop conflating patriotism with blowing up Afghan wedding parties. Best way to achieve that is to experience Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, Version 2.0
This time, though, I’d go from northern VA to Boston, MA, with a mirror op from San Francisco to Seattle. 😇
Maybe recreate the great Chicago fire in-between?
Revolutions typically grow out of repression and despair- driven by the repressed and cornered.
When the choice becomes outright slavery & survival- self preservation kicks in.
“They” know this. This is why “they” have been weakening western males for 40 years and why con-vid was launched- to pump the greatest number of people possible full of juice that causes their heart to give out when stressed.
In the end it will come down to the sovereign purebloods vs the system soldiers.
“They” may well have f*cked themselves by forcing the juice on their military.
Virtually every single pureblood hates the government and the “system cartel”- the “vampire” that is behind all of this.
It is going to take 10 to 15 years to play out- but I think the vampire of the “west” will have a stake through its heart at the end.
The only good outcome would be the USA collapsing and ceasing to exist as a state.
That would make the world a more peaceful place.
The US is a cancer on Earth.
They kill the first born male child, Its called Abortion now though.
After long years I ve found an explanation in a forgotten article somewhere WHY can those modern rich nations find a proper leadership.
It s because their societies are so fragmented in
internal ”established petrified intere$ts” = each
more egotist than his neighbor’s that only plain MEDIOCRITIES can be picked up and elected.
The key is in the “rich” part.
Because they are enamored with the charade they have been braindirtied into believing is the best system in the world!
Even our own Larry Johnson cannot get enough of it!
Yep, but more like 330 m Americans including migrants 350 m total.
because they don’t even know what that is
The U.S. is not a free country, just as Germany is not free. The U.S. is controlled by Zionist, who also are the neocons and the financier class. Countries that are not free do not have free and fair elections.
Unlike an overtly occupied nation by a foreign power, Americans don’t know they are not free. Watch them proudly chant ‘USA USA USA’ at the circuses of sports events
He could become king of US by defeating NATO😄
Another racket. The “birth certificate” that the Swampites circulated was a “certificate of live birth,” which is related but different. Anyone who tried to point this out at the time got shouted down. Anyway, who cares about pesky things like legalities and certifications.
And he even exposed himself as a dunce during the b cert issue when he went after McCain for being born in Panama, being too stupid a lawyer to understand citizenship issues regarding babies born to military families stationed in other countries.
Sadly a LOT of people are scared of Russia, because the MSM has done a very effective job demonizing Russia and only presenting the Ukrainian/NATO narrative. I meet and hear such people every day. They’re still thinking that the Ukraine is doing well. I’m afraid that narrative will only fall apart together with the Ukraine itself. Which I guess is why these politicians are getting so desperate. Once the Ukraine is doing well narrative falls apart they will fall with it to an angry electorate that demands to know what was done with their money and that they were lied too.
Or at least I hope. A man can dream, right?
People scared of Russia also seem to be the same people scared of a glorified flu bug. Do masks keep out the Russians?
“People scared of Russia also seem to be the same people scared of a glorified flu bug.”
Yes. The 24-7 Covid hysteria only ended with the start of the 24-7 Russia hysteria. Then the Russian hysteria was halved only with the beginning of the 24-7 Gaza Hysteria.
I have met so many veterans of recent wars that are still absolutely certain that Russia is still the Soviet Union. They have all been very educated, well read and informed. I just don’t get this one delusion at all.
“They have all been very educated, well read and informed”
There is your answer.
Educated by who?
Who have they read?
Informed by who?
One and all- system indoctrinated & brainwashed.
Honestly, when are people going to wake up?
It boggles my mind how blind people are.
Half the posters on conservative sites I visit have a Cold War era Pavlovian reaction to anything Russia. A couple openly wanted to see the West do to Russia what Israel is doing to Gaza. The bought into the Ghost of Kiev, and got angry at me when I pointed out their posted footage of Ukranian victory was from a video game.
If you suggest making peace with Russia and collaborating on, say, a space colony, they call you a Putin-bot.
They just don’t have any “Furrin’ Edumacaishun.”
I am curious about the Picasoesque drawing of NATO’s breaking apart. Where does it come from?
If NATO falls apart, who will pay unemployment benefits to all those thousands of individuals who are sadly unemployable elsewhere?
The Russians planned to have more hypersonic missiles than their adversaries? Well, ONE is more…
Kind of reminds me of ‘Guernica’, with an alternate ending
What do you mean “unemployable” – there’s an unprotected US border needing the US military.
More likely they will find cushy jobs in NGOs advocating against cow flatulence, fossil fuels and such and in the US they may indeed work at the border –more aptly named “point of entrance”– processing the migrants more efficiently for rapid distribution across the US and ensuring they get all their “rights.”
#Redclaw2024
I will build the border wall.
Using illegal aliens.
As the bricks.
I don’t think NATO will fall apart. Despite all Trump’s whining, the US contribution to NATO is cheap in comparison to the full cost of militarily occupying Europe with American troops. And given the destruction the US is wreaking on Europe right now, and the gutting of their economy still to come, the US is going to need a large occupying force. Better that tame French, German, Italian, etc, soldiers under the direction of tame politicians do the job- especially the job of putting down protests and rebellion.
Likewise, EU is such a useful tool of unelected political control over Europe that the US will go to great effort to keep it going- at, of course, the expense of the people of Europe.
Bingo.
That’s assuming the status quo remains the same…..it won’t, the combined west, US/UK/EU/NATO, are so inconceivably corrupt, debased and degenerate that God himself could hardly save them. The US has been freeloading and sponging of the rest of the world since the 1970’s and still finds itself bankrupt, the UK is a pathetic has-been and the EU is falling apart at the seams. They will all suffer a demeaning and humiliating collapse before the end of this year and there’ll be no sham US election in an attempt to paper over the canyon-wide cracks…it’s all over bar the shouting.
I think you’re being optimistic, but at least you present a hypothesis that will be proved one way or the other very soon. My question, if you’re correct, is what you think will happen when the west as a whole collapses, and what you think will happen if the US doesn’t hold sham elections? I don’t think there’s anything in the way of revolutionary movements anywhere in Europe and certainly not in the US, so whatever happens will be dominated by the hard right wing (in traditional parlance, nothing to do with American party politics). Military junta? Christian theocracy? A devolution into warlord city states? None of those strike me as being ‘all over.’ They’d be intensifications of the current problems.
I think of a great tyranny of “SCIENCE”
NATO has 4000 direct employees at HQ
highly productive folks
That’s the equivalent of an infantry brigade. Let’s send them off to Ukraine first.
Have you seen pix of London & Paris? Plenty of Sanitary Tech jobs would be available!
Have you seen pix of London & Paris? Plenty of Sanitary Tech jobs available!
Larry,
I think “our guys”(the bankers’s oligarchy and their corporate executors) do understand Russia, China, etc . The’re predators period, still able to wander around their prey, and thinking they have time on their side to get to devour “Russia” and “China”. In a way, history seems to be on their side on this approach to domination, unfortunately. For populations/nations to continually have leaders that are ready to sacrifice their lives to combat such Evil is an extremely challenging task. Unless you bring in the spiritual element in play.
Really appreciate your contributions to our reflexions.
“Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” – Lord Ismay’s (first Nato secretary-general) pithy explanation of the purpose of Nato.
Well, the Russians are happy to stay out, the Americans continue in and Germany could hardly be further down without invoking the Morgenthau plan.
I’d say Nato is amply fulfulling its purpose and will continue so. Of course, its other real purpose is to get European nations to buy overpriced, 2nd rate (or worse) American weapons. Despite the manifest failure in Ukraine of Nato (American) weapons, doctrine and training, I predict it will be business as usual.
Let the Games continue! Are you not entertained!?
More Bingo.
Let the Games continue! Are you not entertained!?
Mutti, Mutti, look…
99 Red Balloons.
If NATO falls apart Macron will rapidly put together ETO (the European Treaty Organization) with him in charge. He has already approved the sketches for the military uniforms, which will be very chic.
Everybody will wear suits like Macron and look like Pee Wee Herman.
Yeah, pink blouses and rainbow skirts with high heels!
Yes, that will be quite the powerful alliance – France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and last, but certainly not least, Estonia.
The very idea must put the seed of fear deep into the heart of Russia.
Yeah, the fear of choking while laughing so hard!
France rejected that in 1954
Yes, but France re-Joined NATO in 2009
European Defence Community 1954
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_the_European_Defence_Community
The treaty was initiated by the Pleven plan, proposed in 1950 by then French Prime Minister René Pleven in response to the American call for the rearmament of West Germany. The formation of a pan-European defence architecture, as an alternative to West Germany’s proposed accession to NATO
A European Political Community (EPC) was proposed in 1952 as a combination of the existing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the proposed European Defence Community (EDC). A draft EPC treaty, as drawn up by the ECSC assembly (now the European Parliament), would have seen a directly elected assembly (“the Peoples’ Chamber”), a senate appointed by national parliaments and a supranational executive accountable to the parliament.
The European Political Community project failed in 1954 when it became clear that the European Defence Community would not be ratified by the French national assembly, which feared that the project entailed an unacceptable loss of national sovereignty. As a result, the European Political Community idea had to be abandoned.[4][5]
He has already approved the sketches for the military uniforms, which will be very chic.
Yea, probably rainbow coloured uniforms, miniskirts, bras (worn on the outside) and high heels for the men, and baggy khaki jump-suits for the women.
Yeah, he’s probably already signed a contract with Hugo Boss
Vichy II. French Strategy of barking loudly, while hiding behind the Big Dog’s shadow.
NATO gives cult followers meaning & purpose, which feeds their souls. But the cult is based on lies, bamboozling people with good hearts–the “self-licking ice cream cone”. And so playing the hero turns out to be a sham, as hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have bitterly found out, to their regret.
What techniques can be used to deprogram good folks who have fallen prey to cult thinking?
10 feet of rope and lamp posts
I prefer the Bastille method.
The Covid jab method.
A night with Whoopi Goldberg
No need to be unnecessarily cruel and inhumane!
Get with the times: Wood–chippers.
Twas’ said that Saddam Hussein had him a wood-chipper-like device, with an entry portal able to intake humanoid-sized people, built for him, so that he could turn said humanoids into ground-round du people. Bon Appetit! and a jolly Allahu Akbar to all readers of this Blogue, Bon Soir All Y’All!
A few years spent “volunteering” in the Siberian oil fields on subsistence rations! Suggest Ursula, Josep, & Micron as kapos. Oh, and Jens too!
I think the contract riggers from Scotland who worked on Siberian rigs were well-paid
Sadly, it can’t be done. Think about all of the cults in the US for decades.
If the aliens were coming down to take them on a certain day and don’t show up, then the prophecy is rewritten and the cult continues. The unbearable psychological distress is too much for these people to overcome. They will not yield and give up their programming. They are dangerous! Do not trust them. They will report you and train their children to report you.
Appreciate the solid report and update.
Can NATO survive a loss in Ukraine? Let’s hope they can’t. It lost its purpose with the collapse of the USSR. Now they just cause mischief. Good riddance!
Totally correct Larry. We have not heard a single truth in the West since February 24, 2022. FI despite being a small country, was a rich European country before this conflict. In just over 6 months, due to the sanctions on Russia, which shut down gas and tourism and due to the increase in defense spending due to joining NATO, FI is half bankrupt. Literally. The regions bordering Russia, which make up half of the country, are totally bankrupt.
The FI has already started to reduce the welfare state and this week the biggest ever strikes by state workers began. The UK has been bankrupt since the City stopped receiving Russian rubles and Ukrainian Hryvnia. Macron’s FR, which has the advantage of not having shut down nuclear plants like Baerbock’s Germany, after being expelled from Africa, now depends 90% on Russian uranium. The fuel used by plants to produce electricity, who has already increased several times since the beginning of the conflict. In polls after the French rooster started to crow, 80% of the FR do not support Macron
The EU is a union of countries in debt since the 2008 US subprime crash. And Brussels already knows that the US is leaving the UA and most likely Europe. With Trump this scenario will only get worse. The US, after many years of asking for more money to Europe for NATO, is now putting pressure on the EU to take care of the Ukrainian baby and create a true European army, in addition to NATO. Basically to buy weapons from the US. Which will require joint debt issuance in the EU. The majority of over-indebted countries will not agree because it also implies cuts in the welfare state that the populations do not accept and that the US has wanted to destroy in Europe for many years. Which in itself is reason enough for the end of NATO and the EU. And Putin knows this too and is no rush to catch the new European security framework.The war of attrition is not just on the battlefield in the UA. This is the real situation in Europe, which the media does not report.
No gas, electricity, less nuclear, (drought) Massive debt unpayable. The end of Nato and the end of the EU?
Europe’s share of global resources looks to be shrinking when you compare stats like G7 vs BRICS. There are lots of grandiose weapons plans, 6 gen fighters, tanks, etc, but you need the productive and resource capacity which is getting away from the EU kleptocrats. A willing unified population; there again I’d suggest not so much which has been supported by falling recruitment. Compulsory service – you could be training people who would overturn the rule by klepto. And as BRICS+ economies grow it’s possible to see reverse migration that would reveal the real population dynamics within the combined west. So far “leadership” by focus groups, psyops, and BS isn’t moving the needle in the right direction.
The US is like the UK writ large: a paper tiger.
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/70-or-more-f-35s-may-not-be-combat-capable
The more devastating part will be products becoming too costly to sell in the world because Chinese, Asean products will be better and cheaper. Africa will stop buying costly processed food because they will grow it themselves Or get it from Russia and technology and products will come from China and Russia. Who needs Europe then?
The value of the Euro was a direct relation of cheap Russian energy inputs into high-value German exports
That is now gone and high- priced LNG does not help you compete against China
BCG apparently showed US costs at $10-15/MWh v China at $30/MWh snd Germany up at $50/MWh
Long way for Germsn wages to fall to compete
The pains the masses endure all because their “leaders” want to be right rather than helpful to their citizenry.
Can it survive a defeat? It can not. Its ego will melt into a noxious pool of steaming slime like the fate of the wicked witch of the west in totoland.
Can NATO survive a defeat? First we need the answer to the question of whether NATO will admit defeat. Don’t count the spin doctors out just yet.
As to the late entrants, I’m sure there were stragglers keen on getting last minute tickets on the Titanic too. Except in the NATO case it’s just a matter of greasing the right politicians. What’s defence got to do with it? It’s just about money, specifically redirecting taxpayer funds to the right pockets.
The spin from the MIC viewpoint will be “see, we told you we need more money, they caught up with us.” The only thing that stops this nonsense is an economic collapse, but that’s bad news for everybody. The “good” or “better” options have long since passed us by.
well said
Re-quoting: NATO exists to deal with the problems its existence creates.
I think NATO is already limping, and will simply limp more pronouncedly after UA is done and dusted.
If NATO itself disappears, either something like it will have to re-appear in the form of a European defence force, or it will have to follow Bismarck’s advice: “The secret to (European) politics is a good treaty with Russia.”
It is inevitable that, as the US withdraws to the N. American continent (and/or pivots to Asia) Russia will emerge as the dominant power in Europe, and beyond. It’s already the largest economy on a PPP basis, and if one calculates on the basis of the real economy that produces real stuff, especially energy, its economic dominance of the Western end of Eurasia will match its military dominance.
Security analysts never consider intent in their threat assessments. Intentions come and go with the political winds. Only capacity matters, and (regionally speaking) on that basis Russia’s economic and military capacity means it holds the same cards as the US held 5 decades ago. Actually, its proximity to Europe means Russia enjoys a level of leverage that the distant USA could not.
So, that leaves Europe utterly vulnerable in security terms. What Europe has to understand is that it can make a deal, but not until it [a] unhitches its wagon from the US’ hegemonic horse, and [b] loses its messianic delusions of being the only garden in a world of jungles. In short, it must recognize the value of the Russian & Chinese “gardens” and join them in making as many, and as varied gardens as possible around the world.
For that, NATO as we now know it must go away to be replaced by the “indivisible security” of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and reinforced by the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe. Once the US horse leaves Europe’s wagon behind, it may remember that it signed up to those fundamental principles and learn to live in the real world.
Is Europe capable of that? Not today, I’d wager but political forces are growing in Europe that show signs of recognizing both the need and the value of such a shift.
It’s interesting that 2 small ex-Soviet states are leading the way in recognizing that.
West europeans whining: OMG, russians are going to invade us!
The russians: You wish!
Politicians whining
No one else
I stand corrected.
Indeed, the ordinary citizens in EU don’t care about the quarrel between the russians and the ukries; they have more immediate problems and most of them created by the said politicians.
Fascism in the present is much more subtle and skillful than it was in the last century. Thanks to the power of lifelong propaganda from the mainstream media and indoctrination in schools and universities. Now comes the legal step.
Canada seems to be an experimental field. But the EU is right behind it. EU laws are becoming more and more totalitarian. Today we have the “thought crime” again. Having a different opinion to the government is becoming increasingly dangerous. Now this has been cast into the category of “serious crime” in a law. The next step will be repression.
Nevertheless, I don’t see any support for war among ordinary people in everyday life. But there will be no revolution from below in NATO Europe. The conditions are different today than they were in the 20th century.
Did you read about the Smurf event in Germany this week? Police bullied a kid for saying that the blue smurfs were like the AdF’s party colours. If the Germans had any balls, this would turn into a “Let’s go, Brandon!” moment and Germany’s scummy leaders would see blue smurf signs wherever they went.
There will be no revolution in Germany. And once digital central bank money has been introduced, it will be too late. The German people have been re-educated in pacifism since 1945. Men are turned into “women”. Or some kind of hybrid thing. Totalitarianism is the new democracy. That’s what politicians and the mainstream media tell us every day.
“Totalitarianism is the new democracy.”
Unfortunately, that’s true. The good news is that the eastern europeans have a long experience how to live in totalitarianism and how to outlive it. Western europeans are yet to learn how to do it simply because they’ve been brainwashed from the kindergarten to be “law abiding citizens”.
Bulgarians have a saying: законът е врата в полето – само идиотите минават през нея. Literally translated it means: the law is a door in an empty field – only the idiots go through it.
The western europeans simply have to learn how to go around the laws; they’re not of any use for the ordinary citizens anyway.
“The good news is that the eastern europeans have a long experience how to live in totalitarianism and how to outlive it.”
The not so good news is that they learned to outlive it by one method only: deep and widespread corruption
Whatever works. When your country was sold by the so called “elites” just for the tap on the shoulder (not even 30 pieces of silver as the classic bribe goes) one can’t really afford to be noble and principled.
Since Germany is wedded to CASH it will be an uphill struggle – also in Germany banking is especially inefficient and many places do not accept anything but folding money
Actually she said ” Germany was not just a country, it was her “Heimat” ie. “home”
This was in Mecklenberg in former GDR. The School Principal was from West and a member of SPD Party. He called police because she used word “Heimat”
Police found nothing illegal but warned her……………….
That is exactly how GDR functioned with reporting to Stasi and then pupils in school being intimidated
That is why it is scandalous – SPD politicians defended this school principal for “party reasons”
SPD is become like GDR SED
This.
Fascism will be driven by totalitarian A.I. tools.
“…ordinary citizens in EU don’t care about the quarrel between the russians and the ukries; they have more immediate problems and most of them created by the said politicians.”
The biggest problem being the destruction of the quality of life for the average European through massive, mostly Muslim, third-world sh*thole immigration, Not only do these immigrants rob rape and steal at rates more than ten time that of the locals, Europeans also get to pay for them with their receipt of life-long welfare.
The politicians are whining on behalf of the elite that put them there to protect their interests. Most of the politicians probably don’t even know why they’re whining.
Said elites are the ones who are genuinely worried – worried about losing their wealth, and above all the position they’ve enjoyed for at least a couple of centuries. Over generations, skimming the wealth of the world’s producers has long since become a birthright. Losing it is anathema, a betrayal of their ancestors and their successors.
The notion that it’s the East’s turn again has no place in their world.
“West europeans whining: OMG, russians are going to invade us!
The russians: You wish!”
Tell me about it. I’d gladly swap the 30% Muslim population (mostly Moroccans, mostly on welfare) in Brussels for Russians (mostly educated, hard-working and Christian).
As it happens, I do know some educated and hard-working Moroccans. Care to guess where they live? That’s right – in Morocco.
I wonder if anyone noticed that the people who don’t emigrate to western europe (this, BTW, is valid for the former socialist countries in eastern europe as well) are mostly educated people. One may wonder why they chose to stay in their own countries. Perhaps, being smarter than the emigrants they’re fully aware what kind of cesspit western european cities have become (no offense).
You know why OSCE was formed ?
Is that a trick question?
To oversee Helsinki Accords implementation
Failure Kosovo
Failure Donbass
You mean, to oversee non-implementation of signed things.
That is how US perverted its role……yes
You said “Killing off a bureaucracy — whether civilian or military — is nigh impossible.”.
Correct but it can drown under it’s own weight however! 🤣
Bureaucracies don’t crumble under their own weight ; they thrive with over-complicated process only a fully fledged bureaucrat can handle and will ask the taxpayer more money for yet moar bureaucrats in return.
Cut the money instead : those cunts are far from working for free…
Indeed, the primary goal of every bureaucracy – either government or corporate – is to ensure that everyone in it contnues to receive a salary. The only way to kill a nureaucracy is to starve it to death.
Not in its current form. This war ends when Russia gets the security agreements it asked to negotiate in 2022 (NATO out of eastern Europe), and I do not think NATO can survive that as it raises the point – why?
No European nation has manpower or equipment
No European country has the No n-Muslim cohorts to draft
No country can afford a conscript army
It is all talk for media
Ukraine had the best equipped army NATO could field
No US troops would make it alive to a European war
Therefore US cannot restrict war to Europe
“Ukraine had the best equipped army NATO could field”
and an army of well-trained (Soviet style), resilient, highly motivated (indoctrinated) fighters no European country has. Most of it went down into the Russian meat grinder.
If europe finally makes a mature peace with Russia, NATO won’t be necessary. Then a new europe centered on Russian resources can consider what its military requirements might be- to defend against whom and where? Russia would want to bring China on board in a mature peace along with the ME under the new Iranian-Saudi accord. This is all a frightening prospect for the US and more immediately, for those European leaders who have hung their own tatty flags to its rotting mast. Most of them will have to go. Many will do so in forthcoming elections.
But the real loser will be the US who snatches defeat from the jaws of the oh so sotto voce victory of turning europe into a lame colony and perpetual fighting ground against the resource dominant and so hated Russia-China. Still, it will have Canada-Australia-Japan…. although Australia will reconsider where its own best interests reside- and will revert to an alliance with China so joining the Asia-european block. The US can keep Japan with its ancient animosity to China, although Japan may well rediscover its more recent heavily suppressed animosity towards the US (that dropped an atom bomb on it not that long ago) now the US is no longer that super-power that defeated it, but a decrepit old man. Hating China had so much to do with looking to the US as the future. Seeing a revitalisation of Asia might just tip it the other way.
Canada, Taiwan? Who knows, who cares? India joins the european bloc, ever the great pragmatist, choosing to extract support for its own local issues as its price. Pakistan hauls Imran Khan out of prison and dusts down its new NWO credentials.
The US finds itself the entity against whom almost everyone who is anyone unites. Exactly what it tried and failed to do to Russia. History likes symmetry.
The US is going to have to rethink itself, in the course of which it will finally bin the dead weight of Israel. You think Jewish donors will be able to stop this? They will turn their coats first putting their best personal financial interests above all else. The Jews will sink back into the diverse cultures-races from which they emerged. By the time this is all obviously in progress a mass exodus from Israel will have sealed its own fate.
A new WO will emerge, just not the one the US envisaged. There might not even be a US if it has one last try at rigging the vote to keep Trump out, just lots of little states like it had planned for Russia.
This is what Karma looks like.
Two things should be posited here:
First, the Anglo-Saxons will have to come to terms with their global, historical Failure. That’s a hard sell to a people even more narcissistic than the Jews.
Second, part of that coming to terms will be a pogrom that makes Nazi Germany look like a Church Picnic. Charlottesville was just the appetizer.
For those geniuses who believe “precious” metals are a “store of value” I have news for you. The stuff is only useful as an engineering material, or artistic medium. Ya can’t eat it. REAL WEALTH is arable land, clean fresh water, clean air, along with brains and calloused hands.
I’m just looking at people grabbing the gold sold by Costco and Walmart, did they never learn even from their own history? Didn’t the US government outlawed and confiscated all gold from private citizens in 1933? I don’t see why they’d not repeat it today, killing 2 birds with one stone-drying out a lot of cash from private hands by luring people into buying gold, and then by forcibly confiscating of this gold from Americans.
Begs one question: what does Europe have to offer that entitles them to be part of any partnership?
No natural resources, no manufacturing base, a debt infested Euro, a green insanity making things worse daily and a migrant demographic which makes Bosnia 1992 look like the Garden of Eden. Russia doesn’t do charity, certainly not for a Europe that has hated everything Russian for centuries.
Yes countries will move towards the “winners”. That’s common sense. There should be a move towards the BRICs. But that window of opportunity is closing fast and no country in the West is realigning. Even Canada, whose success is based on riding the coattail of two world empires, is content to lounge on the Titanic deck chairs. With the West’s lunatic political class, there will be no shift to the winning side. How does Europe get rid of its EU bureaucrats without first destroying the entire society?
Europe will be a garden full of thorns and thistles. No value to anyone. Bring on Dark Age 2.0.
Its interesting that other commenters here posit that Australia will rethink its position. There is no sign of it, our media runs anti China and anti Russia rhetoric incessantly which most of the public believe. I dont know anyone who has heard of Richard Sakwa, John Helmer, Johm Mearsheimer and can talk even basic history. Thats why i love this forum!!
our Foreign Minister posted on X that Australia denounces the Russian election result and commits to Ukraine. That the 3rd highest politician would say this publicly, in my mind, points to both astounding ignorance and complete subservience to US foreign policy.
[…] Zdroj […]
I don’t believe that the USA will withdraw from Europe. The USA is sucking the marrow from the bones and the blood from the veins of the Europeans. It is still profitable. Besides, they can station their nuclear weapons close to Russia.
The crucial question regarding war is: “How rationally do the decision-making bodies in the USA think and act?”
The second question is: “When will the US economy crash?” I’m not talking about the manipulated GDP, but the inevitable end of fiat money. I am curious what plan B there is.
There is no Plan B…
Hoping for a huge asteroid to hit Russia
“Don’t Look Up”. Outstanding movie worth watching.
NATO is no longer a “treaty organization”, but instead a “shell” corporation: Its major reason for existing is to collect dues from member states’ defense budgets, and send these dues to multinational defense contractors within the organization. They, in turn, supply a non-member state with armaments to conduct a war against another non-member state.
Also known as a “protection racket.”
I think in addition to Hungary and Slovakia, the only sane country in Europe knowing the dangers that would exist in an all-out war against Russia is Italy, whose government has recently voiced opposition to any direct EU-NATO military intervention in Ukraine. If body bags of Italian soldiers start coming home, the government of Giorgia Meloni will go the way of Mussolini in a week where the population is highly opposed to the war in Ukraine. Italian pro-Russia sentiment is very high and the steroid-laden penis playing “Ukranian” comedian posing as president went so far as to “threaten” Meloni about it in a bilateral conference a few weeks ago .
Furthermore, most other Southern European nations would be reluctant to send troops there. I say, if the Nazi-lovers in Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, France, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia are so convinced of their virulent anti-Russian fervor, well let them go at it without us ’cause I know for a verified fact Russia will not target certain countries in Europe in the event of an all out war. Personally, it’s been the more well-to-do northern European elites who have been milking the southern countries since the EU became a unified bloc in 2001 who are the most bellicose towards Russia. The reason being is that they stand to lose the most because they see their lifestyle of thieving going down the shitter. The 500 years of “vampire colonialism” as Putin described it is over. Macron, in a rare example of intellectual honesty, even had the balls to recently admit it on a televised interview; saying “it will hurt the French a lot if Russia is allowed to win.”
For me, I’ll just continuing making my home-made limoncello and mirto and enjoy la bella vita.
Most of them just want to be on winning side whichever that might be. It is like being back and school where teacher takes out two ‘leaders’ to represent two opposing arguments in a previous discussion and asks everyone to go over to the one they think is right.
A few brave souls make their own decision with a move in one direction or the other, and then everyone else rushes in behind where-ever the place of safety in numbers appears to be, sometimes changing direction several times as the tide shifts but most of them driving these tides not caring a fig about the argument, just being on the winning side. Teacher must be careful however not to signal approval-disapproval for either side, or the herd will go with his-her preference as the ultimate power .
I adore Italy as a country, and I like the Italians a little less. It seemed to me that many Italians look at Russians with distrust and a little down on them. But my personal perception doesn’t matter. Right?
Therefore, I want to speak for all Russians about what I am sure of.
Despite the fact that it is generally not typical for Russians to hate anyone, it is difficult for them, in the current conditions of confrontation, to get rid of the feeling of hostility – for some more, for others less.
Four southern European peoples: Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks are more favored by Russians than the peoples of central, eastern and northern Europe.
The Italians are generally above suspicion. The very last thing that could happen is a war between Russia and Italy.
Thank you for your misplaced trust, but I remind you that part of the Italian army fought in 1918 on the side of the Whites together with the other €u against the Soviet Union.
And that Mussolini wanted to repeat the experience, despite Hitler’s unfavorable opinion, sending 350,000 dilapidated ARMIR men to freeze to death on the Don. Those who survived must thank the great hearts of the Russian-Ukrainian population.
Thank you for reminding me of the pages of history I have forgotten. But I was talking about what has been preserved in the people’s memory. In this stereotypical representation of Russians about Italians, there are many things that we love Italians for – for their skills (music, painting, architecture (below you are reminded of Rastrelli, thanks to whose genius we have masterpieces of beautiful St. Petersburg). Italians are loved for their beautiful language, for their temperament, for Paganini’s First Concert, for Stradivari violins and songs by Toto Cutugno and Celentano, for Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroiani and a whole galaxy of great artists. I can’t list everything.
Don’t try to persuade me – I won’t stop loving Italians.
According to Vladimir Putin himself, Russia has a special bond with Italy as recently stated with young Italian students in Russia during the World Youth Festival. We’d have to give credit to the notoriously narcissistic and perfidious Barack Hussein Obama who instructed his goons at the CIA to topple the Berlusconi government in 2011 for the strain in Italy-Russia relations today, a relationship which had been expanding enormously prior to that time. Up until 2014, Russians had become the biggest tourist group in Italy spending more money than the cheap-skate penniless Americans and other northern Europeans. In closing, for a country that once had the biggest Communist Party in Europe outside the Warsaw Pact, I don’t think you’ll have a lot of difficulty in finding many pro-Russians here.
Rastrelli……..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Bartolomeo_Rastrelli
and Putin is a St Petersburg man… those sights do something to you
St.Petersburg, the Venice of the Baltics. Thanks for the info! Didn’t know about Rastrelli’s work in Russia.
“Arrangiamento!” My favorite Italian expression.
L’arte di ARRANGIARSI!!
Ci arrangiamo, as we say!! The art of making ends meet, an Italian art.
Well, if I had not bought a nice apartment on the Adriatic coast I would not mind that aviano is hosting nuclear weapons. Arrangiarsi con chi? Americano o Russia?
Arrangiarsi da soli!!! On the Adriatic, I would have advised nothing above Vasto in Abruzzo. Ostuni and Osimo in Puglia are the pearls however.
Tutto Europa e una perla se noi viviamo senza guerra. Saluti da Bibione….
arrangiarsi = make do with oneself, not with someone
.I would like it to be like this, but in case of total war do you think that the Russians could do without destroying the U$ANATO bases of Sigonella (your island…) of Ghedi and Aviano with long-range missiles armed with Nukes of latest generation, the naval base in Naples, the Piombino depots (larger than €U) and dozens of other bases scattered across the peninsula to safeguard the Italian people? the life of peoples, all peoples, is not worth a damn to those in charge after all, we wanted it; I don’t see many revolutions around Italy…
You forgot Camp Darby in Tuscany, which is the US’s biggest arms depot in Europe, I think. There is also Camp Ederle in Vicenza, home of the US’s 173rd Airborne Ranger brigade. They’ll be hit subito!!. Closer to me though, Sigonella Naval Air Station, over a 100 kms away, will be hit first, no doubt. When you consider that those P-8 Poseidon MPAs take off from there as well as all the RQ-4 Global Hawk drones that spy on Russia in the Black Sea, it’s a prime target. A tactical nuke will do it. “Que sarà, sarà” Connie Francis used to sing.
Doris Day sang Que sera, sera,
Italians sang Che sara sara
another song: “…sarà quel che sarà…)
Connie Francis did too. She was a favorite of my mother along with Connie Stevens.
Que is Spanish style
Che is italian style
whichever you choose, match the verbs then
Nuclear weapons were important when conventional rockets were inaccurate. Improved accuracy reduces need for major blast
Peppe,camp derby è a Piombino( Toscana)
Giusto! Sapevo che era da qualche parte nella provincia di Livorno, ma non esattamente dove.
My understanding is that the U.S. occupies Italy roughly the same way it occupies Germany, Japan, and Ukraine? With not only troops but spooks, tight control of the news, and loose control of the gov’t? Could you address how much of that is there/visible to you?
Google Airport Abiano. And compare to Buechel in Germany.
Gee. Listenin’ to youse guys makes me wanna hide out at da Social Club in Howard Beach! Or mebbe a nice, quiet place in Sicily. So much for La Dolce Vita. And I had such high hopes for Signora Meloni.
are you not that old if you still have faith in Western politicians, or is yours a “pathological” trust?
The big bureaucracies were great fun gravy trains in peace time where what the people on the train decided only hurt the powerless beyond their own insulated carriages.
Now they are in danger of hurting themselves, they are like rabbits trapped in the headlights of a power they thought had quit the stage forever, the power of the true righteous cause.
The UK isn’t pleading poverty over tanks. It hasn’t any spare at all. Currently we’d be lucky to be able to field 80 working Chally2. Many have been stripped for parts and indeed will continue to be. Some of the parts manufacturers are no longer in business. In particular the main gun is now irreplaceable as the manufacturer closed down and the factory was stripped and sold for scrap. Also we no longer have a real steel industry, we were using Germany but….. So looks like we’d have to get China to supply us, maybe ship it via the Red Sea 🤔
Gordon Brown charged a 3% Capital Charge on Public Sector Assets which led to hospitals selling land and military selling off spares and munitions stocks
They have been cannibalising for years and same in Germany. Those Challengers probably came from U.K. inventory in Sennelager
Love your articles Larry but you are deluded on this one. This will have no effect on NATO because it will never be communicated as a loss. Simply a change of objectives. The vast majority of the populations have no clue either so there will be no back lash from them. To admit failure is a trait of a rational, intelligent, straight forward human being. Have you seen any of those lately?
Agreed. However, European countries are not going to be able to afford to re-arm. They will need every spare penny to fund the flagging welfare states as millions of taxpayers join the dole queues due to the catastrophic folly of divorcing affordable Russian energy.
Eventually, the penny will drop.
Actually it is rising interest rates on Debt piled up when ZIRP made borrowing fun
Oh NATO will survive. Plugged to a life-support system but it will survive.
surely Stoltemberg and his henchmen will not die of hunger…
Larry seems to enjoy slagging down the UK’s armed forces….. Trouble is, I’m a Brit who served in the British Army, ’75-’87, and……. I have to agree with him.
We did use to have a good military but, as I was leaving, ’86-time, we older hands (no, this is not a when -I-was-a-lad-it-was-rate-better story) we were noticing that in Training Centres the Cpls/Sgts were being held back – less of the shouting at the recruits, less calling them useless tossers…….
An incident to explain: In ’75, whilst on the Range, one of my mates had a jammed SMG (Sterling SMG) He turned round, holding the said SMG. Said: Sarge, the gun’s jammed…. We were quite happily digging ourselves into holes…… The SGT said: Don’t worry son. Turn round. Face the Butts. Put the gun down, facing the Butts. Good lad. Now, over here….. To which he then smacked him and said words to the effect that do that again and you’ll etc etc…. I read a newspaper article at the end of the 80s about a Para CPL in charge who did the same thing for a similar incident. He was Courts Martialled and down-graded a rank….
Basically, the British Armed Forces are not even capable of defending the UK. The navy can’t even defend the English Channel from Illegal Immigrants…..
Every time I see a tank burn or a little missile hurtling dow I think of the human lives destroyed. Russian and Ukranian! Not only about those incinerated people but also about their kin. For years to come sorrow will overflow from their hearts. nurturing the horrible hate that will endure for some generations.
I know how I hated the Germans because of WWII.
Lives destroyed, any slight change of a little happiness obliterated, because the psychopatic Western leaders need their ballooning ego’s even more pumped up.
I repeat a gulag naar Kolyma is the least they deserve.
Russian guards and Chinese re-educators.
After twenty years or so they are themselves begging for the hoped-for-bullet to enter their brains.
Finland is 6.8 billion NOT 68 billion.
The Duran the other day said that Macron had herd from a reliable source that Trump would not be president, now based on who his previous employers where , I’m guessing it was from them? Why is no one talking of this
Because Macron is delusional and his Intelligence Service failed in Africa and failed in Ukraine and failed in Syria and Lebanon
Unlike Mr. Greenwood, I’d take Macron’s word that he heard from someone who knows the fix is in. That someone was likely British.
The Borg is sailing hard between Scylla and Charybdis. A loose cannon on the deck is the last thing they need.
FWIW, I wouldn’t trust Trump further than I could throw him, but neither does the Borg and the Borg’s vote is the only one that counts.
That video is not in the Donbass, at least that is my understanding. It is some of the equipment that was destroyed during the failed attacks on Belgorod. I think most of it was supposedly on the Ukrainian side of the border before crossing into Russia.
You are right.
https://rutube.ru/video/5293395981f909ba209d9b66db6f2bd9/
area of the village of Spodaryushino, Belgorod Region
NATO is an extorsion racket to get the EU countries to pony up for weapons purchases. It is all about revenue streams. This is also why so many NATO weapon systems fair poorly on the battlefield; they were built for profit, not for actual war.
extortion yes, but legalized
[…] Source […]
LEGACY OF ASHES – I read this book by Tim Weiner as well about 13 years ago. The CIA is more INCOMPETENT than it is COMPETENT. His book ENEMY about the FBI shows how corrupt it is as an organization long before Obama/Holder politicized it.
The United States of America functions on a daily basis by the SES- GS 16s plus. They always survive despite presidential and congressional elections. They show no leadership or personal integrity because they want to work post retirement in the industries they regulated as Feds. A terrible situation.
Despite all of this, tell me why NATO is now operating in the far east for the coming war with China? They’re training in Japan and sending warships to cruise up and down chinas coast. .
As a Brit, I’m fine with the Brit-bashing, Larry. God knows we deserve it, having played a malevolent monkey on America’s shoulder, egging her on to even worse crimes. I’ve told my kids in no uncertain terms that they WON’T be joining the British Army and risk dying for Neocon/MIC Inc. However, a bit of balance is needed. My grandparents, like many of the American readers here, fought bravely and well to help defeat Hitler. Also, we didn’t fight that badly in the War of American Independence. We were beaten by the size of the terrain and the French fleet. Peace, and death to NATO!
Brits still have formidable engineering talent and that, with their financial wherewithal of past decades, were perfectly poised to become one of the major beneficiaries of investment opportunities in Russia, when it was prepared to welcome Brits with open arms.
Boy, did you guys blow it.
Except the Political Class care zilch about business having sold off everything to foreigners – to the point where the Chemical Industry, Steel Industry, Electronics Industry, Engineering Industry…….is all GONE
back to being a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ but now having declared China an enemy what will they stock their shops with?
What shops 🤔
My grandparents, like many of the American readers here, fought bravely and well to help defeat Hitler.
That must be reassuring. My family members fought……and died……because they were invited by the government to wear a uniform and sent off to fight GERMANY and JAPAN and KILL Germans and JAPANESE
How did the NATO react after Vietnam? So, when the Ukraine is lost, I would expect most politicians to say: You see, we need a stronger NATO. I suggest that they will try to re militarise the western society. And realistically, this will not work. Why join the army? 52 percent of Germans stated that they are not willing to defend Germany. So, we will see idle attempts to build armies. I don’t think that people will overwhelmingly vote for parties that want to abolish NATO.
Also the economic decline will take years. Russia declined for ten years in 1990.
I see more trouble in Israel, that could face annihilation. This is something that the USA would also weaken as nobody in the world would fear them any more.
Bit of a side topic (it’s all related though, isn’t it?) on Navalny’s proposed swap and the forces behind his demise.
I’m not dismissing alternative reasons, natural cause, Russia’s hand etc. but this version’s gears mesh nicely in the world of actual conspiracies and intrigue we inhabit today:
1) Navalny was talked, urged, forced into returning to Russia and his forewarned arrest by those who ostensibly were ‘in his corner’ but I propose, saw his as no more than a disposable means to an end.
2) Then, when (or if) an actual swap was proposed days before his demise, those same ‘in his corner’ lawyers who visited him in the interim, simply slipped him a fatal mickey.
After all, he’s always been far more valuable dead than alive. Or do I exaggerate?
Plausible scenario
Putin has stated that an exchange arrangement was under negotiation, on the main condition Navalny never return to Russia.
<i>When you consider that 50,000 Brits fought in America during the Revolution of 1776 and were defeated by a threadbare group of Colonial rebels</i> With only the assistance of the Kingdom of Franc, the Kingdom of Spain and the Dutch Republic.
They were NOT “British” but Hessian mercenaries press-ganged and sold into military service by little duchies in Hesse and Rheinland
Wait until Paul says he is going on vacation. Watch for a couple of days to ascertain he has not posted any new comments. Then and only then post comments on history again.
Thanks for confirming this tactic of the self-appointed “cancel squad” making it public knowledge. Wondered where curious, bonbon etc. were at recently.
And it’s worth mentioning that another poster (not I) noticed it is possible to “double (triple?) vote” by using an IP-connected device (computer) and again using cell/mobile connected devices. VPNs too?
Suddenly the “down-voting” isn’t as legitimate a statement when revealed it’s not “one person, one vote” anymore.
The Kosovo war happened because NATO needed to defend its existence after the demise of the Soviet Union. One of the war’s chief propagandists was Jamie Shea, who held a high position at NATO headquarters.
Kosovo war was because US wanted a base in the region – Camp Bondsteel 955 acres.
Clinton had a deal with Iran that radars would be switched off at night so they could fly in flighters for KLA……….it was a means of hemming in Russia’s ally Serbia.
Putin and Xi might as well be considered benevolent dictators, who, as long as they are perceived as providing prosperity and security, will be supported by their populations. The ruling oligarchies in the West have put their citizens in economic strangleholds and can not ennunciate any clear vision forward, i.e. no popular support in leadership. Also the US and NATO aligned allies have no unified chain of command that seems to be able to act in a concentrated manner towards an objective. In a conflict, at this point, Russia and China both have a balance of sorts, whereas the US and Nato are in a state of imbalance. One might estimate that the US will follow the trajactories of past Empires: Bitish, German, French, & Spanish. Also , one might guess that failing to provide properity and security, whatever form of government, might causs the general population to demand and seek a change in leadership. Regarding Nato: if no one is in charge, it will be piecemealed over time.
“Putin and Xi might as well be considered benevolent dictators”
If I have the option to choose between benevolent dictator and unelected Politburo, a.k.a European Commission, I’ll chose the benevolent dictator every time.
If history is any indication, the benevolent dictators tend to actually care about the people they rule. Faceless bureaucrats usually don’t.
They will not admit defeat in Ukraine. Once Russia is done reconfiguring what will be left of it, and rump Ukraine will be a demilitarized/denazified buffer statelet, they will forcefully and repeatedly claim that Russia was unable to take all of Ukraine despite a “brutal, unprovoked invasion,” and a long war during which Russia, and Putin personally, committed many war crimes, notably kidnapping children from Ukraine, a war that weakened Russia and created so much internal opposition that any day now a new Navalny will rise and finally topple the dictator.
The US will not leave Europe. NATO will be reorganized into something resembling a federation with division of labor assigned to its regional branches, all basically designed to protect Europe from the Russian threat by purchasing weapons from the US (made possible by generous loans from the IMF).
Poland, the Baltics and Romania will monitor not only the borders but also the “human and civil rights abuses” expected to occur against Ukrainians in rump Ukraine as well as in Transcarpathia, by then incorporated into Hungary, who will leave NATO.
To compensate for the loss of Hungary, NATO will welcome in Moldova, a military power and an economic powerhouse long aspiring to join NATO. Romania may initially opposed it, claiming that Moldova is Romanian territory but will be convinced by a promise of assistance to get Schengen status in the EU.
The leadership of NATO will be reshuffled to appease the desire for independence from the US expressed by some European leaders. To that end the US will set up a 2-year rotating management system and will appoint European leaders as necessary every two years. To mark this profound change NATO may be renamed… European Defense Organization (EDO)?
It will have no connection — and will always deny it— with the spontaneously organized International Brigade for Ukrainian Liberation made up of volunteers recruited from the Ukrainian refugees living abroad, dedicated to carrying out strikes against Russia, which will not be described as “terrorism” but “resistance.”
Once the other big reshuffling– the one in Israel– happens, with Netanyahu replaced by Gantz and the removal of Palestinians from Gaza and most of the West Bank is completed, Israel can no longer be accused of apartheid or any of the crimes `allegedly committed that I don’t even want to mention. At that point, it is time for Israel to join NATO, now EDO, just as it is part of the Eurovision competition…….
The Russians are liberating areas of Ukraine their grandfathers fought to free of German and Romanian and Italian forces……….it is a searing tragedy to die to recover what your grandfathers liberated and from the same forces in effect.
Stalin rebuilt Ukraine and it had a generous patrimony of technology businesses in 1990 which it basically looted.
It is not self-evident Russia will rebuilt electricity supply in most areas outside Donbass and Kiev or Kharkov or Odessa.
Hungary is improving relations with Turkey and may move into closer economic union with BRICS as the land bridge from Russian ‘borderlands’ draws nearer.
Poland will collapse financially. Germany is heading for insolvency and civil disruption – the number of strikes ignored by Media is quite substantial. UK will implode after 14 years of Tory mismanagement having reduced real incomes below 1997 levels and the tax burden the highest since 1948
France is a basket case after Hollande and Sarkozy and Macron – each supposed to improve life in a country beset by ethnic and economic strife and serious decline.
There will be no military in Europe. The Bundeswehr really should be abolished……what John Helmer reports about Schneider and Wilsbach of USAF is enough to have Gerhardzt and Graefe etc jailed for treason………..
NATO is dissolving.
There is no possibility of building up military capacity – simply the hardware on order will explode budgets and reduce funds for manpower…….in countries desperately short of bus drivers, tram drivers, electricians, doctors – they are even importing Vietnamese as “trainees” in Thuringen
Well, if you put it that way….
repeatedly claim that Russia was unable to take all of Ukraine despite a “brutal, unprovoked invasion”
True. But as long as the russians achieve their goals, they really wouldn’t care what Western Europe and US would say. As the saying goes: it matters not what they say about you; the important thing is to outlive the bastards 😉
The are not saying these idiocies to the Russians but to their own sheep
The West is in a state of internal collapse. The question is whether it will be a controlled demolition or a free fall. NATO’s days are numbered, even though there might be a manikin left as window dressing to save face – an office in Brussels with a rag tag detachment. Israel too cannot last long.
“The West is in a state of internal collapse. The question is whether it will be a controlled demolition or a free fall.”
It will not be a collapse in its own footprint, but more like an accelerating crumbling, all along accompanied by propaganda identifying the culprits as (1) Russia and (2) their own sheep who destroy he planet by not submitting to the WEF mandates
yes, with Greeks, Italians, Spaniards who are darker, they will organize the European ISIS and will finally destabilize Russia …
DECEMBER 27, 2016 10:58 AM CET
BY GIULIA PARAVICINI
High-ranking NATO official Yves Chandelon, whose body was found in his car in the Belgian town of Andenne on December 16, killed himself, the chief prosecutor in charge of the case told POLITICO.
Chandelon, a 62-year-old Liege native, was auditor general at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NPSA), charged with logistics for the alliance’s headquarters in Capellen, Luxembourg. He may have also been involved in probing terrorism financing and money laundering, according to media reports.
Above article is from Politico. Recap : Yves Chandelon an auditor general at NATO was suicided after auditing NATO spending .
Is NATO a military alliance with graft or is NATO graft posing as a military alliance.
Will NATO survive? I doubt it. Somewhere a “red line” will be crossed, and likely by Le petit chapon Macron, thinking that once French troops are in Ukraine, and being slaughtered, the rest of Europe will join the French.
I believe Macro will find that he stands alone, and has slaughtered his own troops for nothing as the U.S., and most of Europe will be loathed to interfere…fully understanding what Russia will do to them.
It is an election year in the U.S., and Brandon & Company will not risk an all out conflict with Russia. That spells the end of NATO as the only reason for any presumed strength in NATO comes from U.S. backing. That U.S. backing is missing and will not ever be there again. The cost is too damn high.
Whatever the results of the election, the Deep State will win. Trump was completely neutralised and made ineffective during his first term.
What makes anyone think things will be different this time? He cannot single handedly take on establishment even if he was a skilled politician which he is not. He is a businessman and real estate developer and reality TV host.
Look at how indicative the election results are abroad.
Election results abroad:
Warsaw: Davankov (51.01%), Putin (19.78%)
Prague: Davankov (59.89%), Putin (15.68%)
The Hague: Davankov (56.88), Putin (15.22%)
Vilnius: Davankov (39.22%), Putin (29.74%)
Haifa: Davankov (40.82%), Putin (33.93%)
Baku: Putin (77.26%), Davankov (14.23%)
Bishkek: Putin (73.81%), Davankov (18.94%)
Genoa: Putin (70.86), Davankov (19.55%)
Phuket: Putin (48.24%), Davankov (38.93%)
Seoul: Putin (41.47%), Davankov (39.65%)
Sofia: Putin (59.93%), Davankov (28.01%)
Tallinn: Putin (75.22%), Davankov (12.76%)
Tashkent: Putin (57.95%), Davankov (31.92%).
interesting but not surprising. I was a little surprised by Tallinin, where I expected a lower number for Putin.
This is what surprises me.
People left Russia. They do not support the course of our country, do not accept the choice of the people of Russia, and vote in protest against Putin. Why don’t they renounce Russian citizenship? Why do they keep their Russian passport, because it’s obvious that they don’t like Russia?
It is understandable that they support the policies of the countries in which they live. But voting contrary to the choice of compatriots who remained with their homeland is so dishonest.
Tallinn didn’t surprise me too much. There, the authorities crossed all boundaries in Russophobia and drove local residents to the last extreme.
That was the way I read the results posted by you. Where the numbers are high for a Putin opponent it is obvious they are disenchanted with Putin and Russia. If that is the case and they are living abroad, then they should renounce their citizenship and move on.
Many Russians in the U.S. bitch about Putin, bitch about corruption, bitch about the police, they bitch, bitch, bitch, about the same things we Americans bitch about also, except we are bitching about our politicians, bitching about Biden, bitching about corruption, bitching about the police, etc.
No country is perfect, all have problems. What matters is how the individual approaches it.
As the Empire’s fist weakens over its foreign domains, look for the boot to come down harder on its own citizens. Even the pretence of democracy is likely to be abandoned in the West.
This was one the best articles I read this past week on the confusing signals coming from the EU:
https://www.sott.net/article/489880-Western-troops-in-Ukraine-How-a-big-lie-could-lead-to-the-biggest-war
“Even the pretence of democracy…”
So naïve.
Today the Nato-flag was hoisted outside the parliament in Stockholm, but some people cried: No to Nato!
Many people find Nato, as an alien
pact of all former nazi-colonialpowers
Europe can assemble, worst bunch of butchers, to imagine, and now they will turn on Russia, like Hitler, 1941.
Suddenly a squad of JAS39, 10 planes
going low, over the city, 2-300 meters arrived, formed like an arrow, the establishment imagining they are at war with Russia, but Sweden and the
Polarcircle will be the first target to be
nuked, Swedes don’t understand big
risk of joining Nato, so close, to the Russian Murmanbases, their 2ndstrike
facilities, and close to Moscows staffs,
much more distance to the Pacific.
‘the raison d’etre of NATO-”
Was always the occupation of Germany. Not the defense of Western Europe against a Soviet Block invasion. If it really were the case, NATO would have disbanded in 1990. But Germany can’t ever be allowed to be a sovereign European nation again. Or be allowed to make peace with Russia, and to return to the traditional good relations that have generally existed between the two countries. That would threaten England, and the Anglosphere’s dominance of Europe. Therefore, NATO still exists, because it has become a vehicle for the Anglo occupation and dominance of all of Europe, not just Germany. Tangentially, the EU is controlled from Washington and London, like NATO is, to support this purpose. However, a powerful, prosperous and sovereign Russia threatens this dominance, and the ultimate goal of the establishment of a one world government, controlled from Washington and London.
The Cold War was essentially a sham. From the perspective of Germanic and Slavic Europe, France, England, and finally, just the Anglosphere, or Orwell’s Oceania, if you like, are the enemy. And have been, since 1814-15, when England began to grow hostile to Germany and Russia, and to grow closer to France. Which they saw in London as a super proxy, and as a shield against both Germany and Russia. This war began two hundred years ago, and it’s reaching it’s final phase in Ukraine. It’s no coincidence or irony that some people are calling it the second Crimean War.
The excuse that all of this ensures the economic viability and prosperity of the English speaking peoples, is collapsing, as the economies of Oceania begin to crumble under the sanctions that are in actuality, imposed on Europe as a whole, not just on Russia.
The EU will collapse, along with NATO. But only after the Anglosphere loses it’s capability to field nuclear weapons, which are it’s only real claim to power left, or it simply collapses economically and politically. Which will force the Anglosphere to withdraw from the European Continent, and end its 80 year old occupation.
It is one thing to kick France out but us? US??!!
Why is Niger so uppity? The story of the “yellow cake: we said they were supplying to Saddam Hussein still bothering them? They can’t be that petty after all we’ve done for them.
They are setting a bad example, I’m afraid.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/niger-severs-ties-us-military-after-alarm-raised-junta-will-supply-uranium-iran
human ingratitude is astonishing!
The EU has decided to deliver the Taurus. If the following is true, then we are on the brink of nuclear war and this will also affect the USA.
“Is the German government aware that Taurus cruise missiles can be equipped with various weapons (multiple warheads, modular payload) and thus also with nuclear weapons, especially in view of the fact that the development of a nuclear arsenal in Ukraine is being debated as an option, for example by the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, and Claudia Major from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and is it true, to the knowledge of the German government, that the discussed range limitation of the cruise missiles (AFP of 15 August 2023) is not irreversible according to military experts? August 2023) is not irreversible according to military experts.
…..
“Reply from Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Hitschler dated August 29, 2023
The question cannot be answered in open form.
Classification as classified information with the classification level “VS – ONLY FOR OFFICIAL USE” is necessary in this case with regard to the public interest*.
…..
A denial sounds different.
So let’s assume that Taurus cruise missiles can be equipped with nuclear weapons. Or at least that Russia should be led to believe that this is the case. What would that mean for a delivery to Ukraine, which is at war with Russia?
Taurus from a Russian perspective”
https://norberthaering.de/news/taurus-atomwaffenfaehig/
German Bundestag voted overwhelmingly AGAINST furnishing Taurus to Ukraine.
But the EU has passed its own law that requires the Taurus to be delivered. EU law takes precedence over the respective national law. That’s what these scoundrels always do when something cannot be implemented nationally. So it will be interesting to see what happens.