I will try to make this simple. It is a complex question, but it is something we should be contemplating if the world is going to avoid a nuclear holocaust. It boils down to three possibilities:
- Unconditional Surrender
- Negotiated Settlement
- Prolonged Conflict and Exhaustion, i.e. Stalemate
From Russia’s perspective the military operation in Ukraine is not a war. War means destroying the enemy — physically, materially and politically. Despite the claims from Western propaganda, Russia has shied away from inflicting mass civilian casualties. Russia has not tried to destroy Western ISR platforms, Ukrainian government infrastructure or Ukrainian political officials. In short, Russia has only played a few of the military cards it holds. Going to war means you go all in.
Ukraine and its NATO allies hold a diametrically opposed view — this is a Russian war of aggression. In contrast to Russia, Ukraine has not only mobilized its population of military aged men, but it has dragooned youth under the age of 18 and men between the ages of 45 and 65 into uniform and sent the cannon fodder forward. Ukraine’s ability to sustain a war footing going forward is entirely dependent on money and weapons supplied by the United States and other NATO member states. Without foreign support Ukraine cannot continue to fight a modern industrial war.
So let us review some crucial facts:
- Ukraine is suffering devastating military casualties and does not have a trained reserve force it can send to the battlefield.
- Ukraine lacks a viable fixed wing combat air capability.
- Ukraine lacks a stockpile of tanks, vehicles, artillery, artillery shells.
- Ukraine does not have secure training facilities/bases on its own territory and must rely on other NATO countries to provide training. (This means the training is limited and not standardized.)
- Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which was supposed to breach Russia’s Surovikin defense lines, has failed and Ukraine lacks the combat power to escalate attacks.
- Russia, by contrast, has ample numbers of trained troop reserves, artillery ammunition, artillery (mobile and fixed), cruise missiles, drones, more than a thousand fixed wing combat aircraft, attack helicopters, and massive air defense systems.
- Russia is self-sufficient in critical natural resources required to supply its defense industries.
- Russia is no longer dependent on the West for trade and its economy is growing in-spite of Western economic sanctions.
Many Western analysts insist that the situation unfolding in Ukraine is a stalemate and postulate that the war with Russia will drag on for years to come. Nonsense. Given the facts outlined above, the advantages fall entirely into the Russian side of the ledger. Ukraine does not enjoy a single advantage over Russia at this stage. In my view, it is unlikely that the Russian/Ukrainian war will produce a stalemate.
What about a negotiated settlement? Possible, but any deal will be on Russia’s terms. Russia will insist on international recognition of Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk as permanent parts of Russia. This is non-negotiable. Ukraine’s political leaders continue to insist that is a non-starter. In other words, there is no deal in the offing.
Which leaves us with the third possibility — unconditional surrender. Ukraine’s military is heading towards a breaking point because of mounting casualties. Ukraine does not have a cadre of trained reserves waiting in the wings ready to rush to the front to continue the effort to breach Russia’s defensive lines. Ukraine is facing a situation like the one that confronted the Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox. Lee’s beleaguered army still wanted to carry on the fight against the North but, despite their spirit, they lacked the logistics and manpower to continue. Lee recognized the futility of the situation and agreed to the generous terms offered by General Ulysses Grant. I believe the moment is approaching when Ukraine’s General Zaluzhny will face a similar moment of truth.
I think the most likely scenario is a major rift between Zelensky and his military commanders over whether to continue the war. Ukrainians having a desire to fight is no substitute for having the necessary supplies of weapons and, more importantly, trained troops to use those weapons. At present, Ukraine has no viable path for sustaining military operations without guaranteed support from NATO.
The wild card in these calculations is NATO. Worst case — the United States or other NATO members decide to intervene by sending their own troops to Ukraine . This will mark the end of the “Special Military Operation” and the start of a full fledged war between NATO and Russia.
If you are interested in some of the “scholarship” on ending wars, I am providing links to some academic efforts on this subject below. I do not endorse or agree with some of the conclusions, but I thought it would be useful grist for those who wish to delve deeper into the subject.
Why Wars End: CASCON’s Answers from History
How Wars End: The Role of Negotiation (A Harvard Course)
It is commonly thought that wars end after a decisive military battle produces to a conclusive victory – one side surrenders and the other side emerges victorious. In fact, recent history suggests things are typically much more complicated: negotiations between the disputants commonly play a critical role in ending armed conflict. One only must consider Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This reading group will explore the role of negotiation in terminating wars.
How Wars End (a book by Dan Reiter)
Dan Reiter explains how information about combat outcomes and other factors may persuade a warring nation to demand more or less in peace negotiations, and why a country might refuse to negotiate limited terms and instead tenaciously pursue absolute victory if it fears that its enemy might renege on a peace deal. He fully lays out the theory and then tests it on more than twenty cases of war-termination behavior, including decisions during the American Civil War, the two world wars, and the Korean War. Reiter helps solve some of the most enduring puzzles in military history, such as why Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, why Germany in 1918 renewed its attack in the West after securing peace with Russia in the East, and why Britain refused to seek peace terms with Germany after France fell in 1940.
How Does It End? What Past Wars Tell Us about How to Save Ukraine (a CSIS paper)
The time for crisis diplomacy is now. The longer a war lasts absent concessions by both parties, the more likely it is to escalate into a protracted conflict. Despite the bravery of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russian aggression, that is a dangerous prospect. The refugee crisis will grow. More civilians will die. Russia will become even more paranoid and irrational. In addition to punishment, Russian officials need a viable diplomatic offramp that addresses the concerns of all parties.
Let’s remember Putin’s original demand from Dec 2021 in Vienna. THAT is exciting.
Further comment by William Schryver
– In recent months, many of the most influential voices in Russia have reiterated the demands made of the NATO bloc in December 2021: it must withdraw its military forces to their pre-1997 posture.
– Great dangers and momentous changes lie ahead — some in the relatively near future; some not far over the horizon.
Prepare accordingly …
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/the-summer-of-fraying-threads
Thanks for posting the link to Schryver’s outstanding analysis and prediction, the best I have read anywhere so far.
I was only left frustrated by the ending, “Prepare accordingly.” How exactly can we, powerless John and Jane Shmo, “prepare”?
Move to the Southern Hemisphere as far from nuclear fallout as possible?
The West is ruled by maniacs and morons with nuclear weapons, and there is no prospect on the horizon for this to change anytime soon.
LOL !
It is not the 1950’s anymore
US americans have bases in Australia, in NZ, Africa, Latin etc – all valid targets !
God, Australia? You must think us masochists. I’d say Uruguay’d be a reasonable choice, or Argentina in the pompas with a year’s worth of survival gear and eats.
I don’t think that there are any US bases here in NZ Fred. Pretty sure I would have heard about it if there was.
If I am correct, I believe it was Great Britten’s Chamberlain that long ago recalled, that the most important thing to remember about his studies on the Rules of War was clearly written on the first paragraph of the first page of the first chapter where it unequivocally states, rule number one in War is, NEVER FUCK WITH MOSCOW!
Why? Because when you find yourself entangled with Moscow, and you are deluded enough to think you are winning, she will do something so dangerous and so daring that you will rue the day you forgot rule number one!
History has enshrined this first rule of war in a phrase, so as not to forget it –Crazy Ivan!
We can’t change what “leaders” are doing so you can only do what you can do – that is, build and/or strengthen relationships with neighbors, your vendors (your mechanic, doctor, dentist, banker, grocer, etc.), your family and friends. Have enough food set aside to feed your family for a couple of months, have some firearms and know how to use them. Go to church (not a woke church, a real church – I’d recommend you visit a Russian or Serbian Orthodox Church and attend Divine Liturgy) and be active there. Prepare yourself mentally and spiritually for severe disruptions and frustrations.
In the end, all you and I can do is secure our own little part of the world and strive to make it unassailable.
That.
Except, if You are not well on Your way into it, You are – probably late. Unless You are a lucky chap. You can`t put a price on luck.
This is a war of existence for the perpetrators of victim culture. They are insane, useless parasites and will not survive this conflict if they can not force a W. – and they understand this for a fact. Their diaspora is EVERYWHERE. Their volcano demon promised them rule upon this world, so they are all in. Problem is, that the parasite cares not an iota for it`s host. This is not a symbiotic relationship. Never was.
nafo and the people of the “west” WILL enter this conflict directly, one way or another. Listen to me. You will be sacrificed – unless You fight back AT HOME, before their mindfuck virus takes over completely.
Life, as “we” knew it is over. Let that sink in.
Whatever happens, whichever side gets the upper hand – a new paradigm is upon us. I can not define what is coming – I can only urge you to try and keep your options wide and open, the best way you can think of.
…and when you see, that a fight is inevitable, hit first and hit hard. Then shovel and shut up. Remember all those cannon fodder being pressed into the meat grinder on the streets of 404.
You have a similar test coming your way SOON.
It will be presented to You by the best magic show these charlatans are capable of conjuring. Mark my words.
Or a Greek Orthodox Church. In general any Orthodox Church with a true priest (not one going with the narrative). God will save all who stand with Christ till the end.
Why do you start of with an outright lie to deceive everyone here?
“Let’s remember Putin’s original demand from Dec 2021 in Vienna. THAT is exciting.”
As “evidence” you quote:
“In recent months, many of the most influential voices in Russia have reiterated the demands made of the NATO bloc in December 2021: it must withdraw its military forces to their pre-1997 posture.”
Your quote and your link does not say that. The confused author just only wrote “influential voices”! He did not cite Putin or any Russian leader. This could be TV commentators or bloggers! Yet later in the article he says Putin only demanded an end to NATO expansion, not a roll back.
“Putin’s original demand from Dec 2021 in Vienna…”
Yes, that is wrong. Putin’s only 2021 visit to the West was in April to the summit with FJB in Geneva.
Concerning the demands:
– no new members for NATO, esp. Ukraine and Georgia, i.e. former Soviet Republics
– a revision of the NATO-Russia Founding Act from 1997 (https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25470.htm?selectedLocale=en)
– no deployment of troops and weapons to NATO-members which became members after 1997.
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/?lang=en
I believe he did but ‘roll back to ’97’ was clearly negotiating leverage.
Yes – rollback of NATO is a key war aim of Moscow.
Therefore – any peace aggreemwnt will need to be between Moscow and Washington.
I believe that “rollback” means specifically going back to 1997 locations of “defensive” missile sites. It does not mean the expulsion of all European countries added after 1997 to NATO.
DIplomats intentionally use vague terms, so things can be modifed on the fly. Denazification and demilitarization are also examples of that.
“Russia has not tried to destroy Western ISR platforms, Ukrainian government infrastructure or Ukrainian political officials”.
Keeps the Ukrainian Armed Forces, what is left of them, coming to The Russian Front to die or be disabled.
The War of The War Machines.
____________
“Ukraine lacks a viable fixed wing combat air capability”. So did The Taliban. They did a better job.
____________
“Russia will become even more paranoid and irrational. In addition to punishment, Russian officials need a viable diplomatic off ramp . . . ” – CSIS comedy piece.
https://les7eb.substack.com/p/washingtons-war-part-viii-narrative
The West will want to continue sending weapons but Ukraine is running out of men. The new recruits don’t count because they more scared shitless than ‘patriotic’. The army will fall apart. In fighting begins…
Sending NATO in depends on US politics. How will they lift Biden’s popularity, or whoever they want to be his successor. Will war help or not? Their response might also be a reaction to RFK, whether his anti-war narrative gains traction or not. But, deep inside, the blue collar workers of America are anti-war too. It’s one reason why they liked Bernie Sanders and Trump.
The most important decider will be their reaction to Russia’s impending offensive.
The NATO members will not dare even to fart without command from the Master – NATO is USA – first and last. USA is circling the drain – in more ways that can be described. So, we have a dying so-called “hegemon”, with the demented, “one foot in the grave” so-called president and a bunch of psycopaths behind him, pulling the strings – what can go wrong?!
Thank God Russia has an incredibly capable, patient, strategically thinking President who had prepared his Russia well, to withstand anything and not just to withstand but prosper and WIN! Russia indeed has been blessed, once again..
Notice the Czech stance, as Mercouris discusses today. I started making little baby voices after hearing that re: “Aw, poo widdle Czech wepublic. Scawed to be pwessuwed wike before under Kwaus or wike Hungawy for not jumping to attention when da big bossman tells you to.
Now you sit on fency poo and say: Ooh, counter offensive not going wike you said. We towed you so.”
When will West start returning Draft-Dodgers to Ukraine ?
Telegram has a pretty pic of the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s son in his high-spec Mercedes in Monaco living it up on US taxpayer dollars
Why are draft-dodgers sheltered during a war waged by a NATO ally ? It is unheard of…….
Wars are for the plebs to die in Paul. You must know that?
The scions of the wealthy are tasked with buying up luxury properties overseas for the family to abscond to once the plebs realise they’ve been had.
True, but Ukraine is beyond the pale. US feeds money to the well of corruption just in order to keep some semblance of an ‘alliance’ in place. Don’t know which will come first, the blowback from the Ukrainian plebs being had or the blowback from American plebs being had. It’s a race to Ukraine’s finish.
Whoa – one of the biggest benefits to Europe of the war is precisely those Draft dodgers. White cheap workers in EU and UK – perfect. Males dodging death, Females looking for men with 4 limbs, the old and sick stay in Ukraine, and a lot of what Europe is really missing: Children.
(Russia benefits the same too)
Of course what EU really does NOT want is losing Nazis forced out of Galicia and into a life of EU crime with weapons and military know-how.
So, you’re suggesting that in the final stages of Ukraine’s collapse – the EU will have an added incentive to keep the war going just long enough for Russia to finish off the ‘elite nazi troops’ that have commanded the fate of Ukraine since 2014, along with their euronazi mercs?
It’s a suboptimal solution but I could buy it.
Nazis turning Western Europe into an even bigger shithole filled with freezing Euros is my idea of payback. That, with Bidet bringing back the draft from the dead would put the cherry on top of the Sundae.
I’d buy that Sundae for a dolar.
Michael Droy
Well, I live in a country that is neighboring Ukraine, and every day nearly ten thousand Ukrainian refugees arrive in our country ! We can say that we have seen Ukrainian “refugees”, unlike those who have seen them on television ! Well, the ones I see are young 20-30-year-old well-dressed guys who drive in the latest luxury cars, for example, I see a lot of them driving on the Austrian A2 highway in the direction of the Italian Riviera, although I could be wrong that they prefer to go to the multi-million Euro luxury villas in Spain to the beach, to protect the Rogyina from a safe distance, while the poor are taken from the streets to die after three days at the front ! Anyone who thinks that these lazy work-avoiding golden boys will solve the labor problem of Western Europe does not live on this earth ! Their father the general will buy them a complete factory before they have to work!
Since it’s with our tax dollars, do we at least get shares?
@ Attila Flagellum Dei
Very well said. Anyone who expects a semblance of hard work from these perfumed princes, needs to have their head examined.
Kiev requested Interpol to round up and return draft dodgers.
https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2022/Ukraine-INTERPOL-General-Secretariat-statement
“It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character”.
So, as Kiev classifies anyone who engages in free speech off their narrative , the Kiev CPD information terrorist clause, did or would Interpol apply anti-terrorism clauses?
The Kiev leadership is delusional. Interpol has not got the madate nor the resources to be a collector of innocent young peple who want to live and send them to the Russian meatgrinder.
Kiev’s CPD defines information-terrorism, to be treated as terrorism.
CPD declares its “partners” are doing this right now. CCD in English.
That is why it applied to Interpol.
Is Interpol a CPD partner?
We will soon see.
Speakers promoting narratives consonant with Russian propaganda From Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD).
Acting head of CCD, Shapovalov, charged that people who deliberately spread disinformation are “information terrorists,” subject to be tried as “war criminals.”
And there is a war on, a war of ideas, whether non-combatants consider themselves non-participants or not does not matter.
That’s too bad. If all of a sudden, the party-going sons of Ukraine’s corrupt elite living it up in Monaco et. al. would be threatened with a short life in a front-line trench, the war’d be over in a few days.
Acting head of CCD, Shapovalov, charged that people who deliberately spread disinformation are “information terrorists,” subject to be tried as “war criminals.”
Sheesh, that a whole lot of western journalists. Will they have enough cells or will they just execute them on the spot?
Burisma money goes a long way.
The Russian military operation in Ukraine is not a war.
Russia has only played a few of its military cards.
Russia has shied away from inflicting mass civilian casualties on Ukraine.
Russia has avoided destroying civilian Ukrainian infrastructure and Ukrainian political officials.
So Putin was right in calling it a Special military Operation, instead of a war.
Ukraine cannot sustain its military operation without support from NATO. And NATO unity is ending.
If sole NATO members decide to intervene by sending their troops into Ukraine, it will unleash WWIII.
Ukraine has had unbearable loses of Soldiers and has started to drag boys under the age of 18 and men up to the age of 65 into uniform. Ukraine’s military is breaking up, as its Soldiers clearly showing fighting fatigue.
Given the facts above, peace may become possible on Russia’s terms.
A major rift between Zelensky and the Ukrainian military to end the war could easily unfold.
Such a rift will dethrone Zelensky and the military leaders could seek peace with Russia.
The terms for peace may be more lenient toward Ukraine than most people imagine.
I believe:
Crimea will stay as Russian territory.
There will be a new state called Novo Russia in all the Ukrainian territory east of the Dnepr River.
The state of Nova Russia and Western Ukraine will never be allowed to join a US, UK or EU led Alliance.
Western Ukraine will lose its southern territory from the Karahvolska Gulf to the Danube River.
This new state will be called Transnistria, and will never be allowed to join US, UK or EU led alliance.
But Western Ukraine may be allowed to keep the Black Sea port of Odessa.
NATO aggression against Russia will continue via Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia, until the US or EU goes bankrupt, or the western population rises up to end NATO.
After dragging the whole world into an avoidable conflagration, Ukraine should not be allowed a fishing village on the Black Sea. Anyway, Ukraine is DC property so even with minimal shoreline real estate the Swampites would build outward to accommodate warships or other military structures. Never underestimate DC tax abusers for creating massive, violent problems.
Zelensky just visited several of the fronts and met with Biletsky, who manages to stay out of harms way while heading Azov, continuing to shell civilians in Donetsk and commanding the conscripted trench fodder.
Meanwhile, the German finance minister and his ilk croons about how Russia’s sole purpose is to crush ‘liberal democracy’ in Ukraine.
I don’t know how he squares Zelensky’s pangs of ‘liberal democracy’ with the only thing keeping his army from collapsing is the intimate relationship he has with Azov, Aidar and Biletsky and company’s racist neo-nazi rantings, who ‘do what they do’, as he likes to say.
AmeriEuro-fools rush in where sane people fear to tread. I wonder how Patrick Leahy, who tried his best years ago to deny arms to those fanatical nazi terror groups that Austin et. al. seem to prefer, is taking all of this. Quickly fell in line with the rest of them, I’ll bet.
I’ve laid the west to rest for good. There’s no salvation after this one, far as I’m concerned.
Don’t forget. Bojangles Austin had the same experience with training ISIS recruits. The man’s risen at least five levels higher than his natural pay grade but he does a great song and dance.
From one of the cited authors: why a country might refuse to negotiate limited terms and instead tenaciously pursue absolute victory if it fears that its enemy might renege on a peace deal.
In Russia’s case, ‘fear’ is not the correct term. ‘Reneging on deals’ by Ukraine and by the West is a proven fact, not a mere assumption.
I assume Russia will have to eventually go for the jugular. The great danger, as Larry notes, is if as a final hail mary western nuclear response to a losing cause is the final outcome.
I vote unconditional surrender, conditional surrender with equal to unconditional surrender. Western policy has assured that outcome.
Russia will win, and convincingly. We may get an unconditional surrender, or the fourth option that is not listed: a clear and convincing Russian victory with no acknowledgement or acceptance by Ukraine or the west. Why would the US and NATO agree they’ve been whipped, even when it becomes obvious? Option 4 looks like a new version of the Iron Curtain, with Russia sawing off whatever parts of Ukraine it wants, and putting a “hard” border in place like in the old Soviet days to guard against terror attacks from the Ukro-nazis financed by NATO.
Looking at the antagonists, I see that as a more likely outcome than any of the three Larry suggests. At least until NATO and/or the US experiences some type of collapse that forces their attentions inward, and that process is sputtering forward simultaneously.
Sensibly Ukraine surrenders unconditionally, but there is a bigger picture at play that will drive this process, and other possible outcomes given the state of flux in world economies and affairs.
Watch for the first of Zelensky’s ‘inner circle’ to leave the country for greener pastures. That’ll be the signal that the end is nigh.
I’d have alluded to the first rat off a sinking ship but I’m trying to be nice today.
If Democrat wins the 2024 US Presidential election, prolonged low-level conflict, but only after Russia liberates Odessa and Kharkov. And risk of nuclear remains if acting president Nuland continues to escalate.
If Trump wins in 2024, negotiated settlement, but only after Russia liberates Odessa and Kharkov.
“Roast Pig on a spit.” The new “Chicken Kiev.”
It ain’t over until the total destruction of Ukraine. The world has had enough of Sanctions, made for TV colour revolutions, wars, moar war and the next war. (Primary colours for Americas who can’t find Texas on an American map.)
Plus 6 more wars planned, packaged and ready to fight tonight, for the next 25 years.
Pentagon yearly budget $20 trillion bucks and rising. Money money money!
There is one other option. Which will not happen, because the USA will not allow it. BUT. Ukraine falls back to the Dnieper. Gives up Kharkiv. Turtles up in Odessa. Makes every city a Bakhmut.
Russia is very casualty adverse. When they took the very expensive city of Bakhmut they used Wagner. Well, that ain’t happening again. For trust issues, and also, dude how many convicts they got left to send on suicide runs?
That would give Russia two options. Expensive blood assaults. Or. Finally take out all Ukrainian infrastructure. Turn out the lights. Turn off the water. No more coke rave concerts in Kiev. Or whores dancing around the elite pool bars in Odessa. And by the way? I believe the Ukrainian gas transit contracts expire in December.
Time to turn off the gas to Europe. And Ukraine’s still hefty money they incredibly get paid by Russia.
But I do not think Biden will allow the Ukes to turtle up. The West Point political appointee theory warriors will keep pushing the Ukes to Japanese bayonet charges. Which takes us to your political putsch by the Uke military. But to do that, they are on the CIA death list. If they go that way, they are almost forced to go all the way over to the Russian side.
If it was me? I’d fall back and go Alamo. Russia has not really had to go on offense in this whole damn war. The Ukes have just ran up and volunteered to die.
But war, like marriages and Evil Empires can go on a lot longer than they can or should. We’ll still be kicking this gong around in 2024.
Food for thought, for sure 👍
Curt, you really need to pull your head out from wherever it’s been stuck in.
You have a western opinion of Artemovsk/Bakhmut, unsurprisingly. Wagner decided to take that city alone, yes they are heroic patriots, but they did this outside of Russian Mod planning. Wagner does not fight without Russian Armed Forces support, it was shown with the 35 men killed by American bombing in Syria.
Want to go alone? Go ahead and take the consequences.
Shouting Shoigu on social media because of lack of ammunition and support should be seen for what it was, not shortcomings in Russian Mod but, back to, want to go alone? Go ahead…..
It’s easy to fight alone when the Russian Army is behind you, and to the sides, and in the air, and in space, and firing long range missiles from the air/ground/sea, and supplying everything, and paying billion dollars in cash.
Mariupol is bigger than bahmut, and russian regular troops+chechens take it in less time and with less casialties than bahmut. wagner is very hyped but their performance wasn’t so great, no surprise they’re sent in africa, much more suited for them. wagner is also in belrus, but their presence there is far less useful than tactical nuclear weapons
West Pointless political appointee more like. They used to graduate honorable and valorous men but now we are getting stuck with self impressed, woke military social climbers who get us into one unnecessary war after another.
Shut that place down and turn it into affordable housing.
LOL. A thought worthy of serious consideration.
Not possible. It’s illegal to have affordable housing in the USA.
Russia seems to be advancing on Kupyansk… no Wagner. That battle could be very similar to Bahkmut. It wouldbe rather embarrassing to the empire for Russia to take it at the end of the big counteroffensive too.
Next meatgrinder will probably be Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, if the war does not end before that.
That doesn’t take into account the lack of effective manpower on the part of the Ukrainian AF.
I’d say the war will end when the Ukrainians have Zelensky and his cronies hanging by his heels in Maidan Square and not before. I don’t think we’re all too far away.
You say that but I met a Ukrainian girl yesterday who had left at the outset and she was completely oblivious to how corrupt and depraved her leadership was. She was all anti-Russia and how corrupt they were/are. Like 80% of the Western populous, they have been brainwashed through MSM and groupthink to ‘hate’ Russia and made to think the sun shines out of Ukies… But perhaps like Mussolini a group of partisans will rise up and do the hanging deed. And only then will the truth trickle out. Once the Slavs wake up to having been used as Western proxies against mother Russia, they will be furious. Perhaps that is why it has to be, to the last Ukrainian, so that there are no fighters able to turn on The West when reality dawns.
Excellent point Henry. We all tend to live in our bubbles, and not understand how the “others” think. America is split 50/50. And both sides completely swallow the propaganda no matter how ludicrous. What seems obvious to us, is not even on their radar.
America’s 50/50 split is really irrelevant to anything of importance, since they don’t know a damn thing about what’s actually been happening over there for over a decade.
I’ve said since 2014, give me a week on the editorial board of any MSM outlet and with simple facts from the ground, will have the population screaming for Ukrainian blood.
Not met many, but I believe you are right.
Mind you here in W Europe most people have no direct involvement, have open access to a lot of news, not just the mainstream media, and have huge scepticism of the media, but the vast majority think Ukraine is on the right side and till recently thought they were winning big.
The power of the pen. I have no sympathy for the dissonance of these ‘European minds’, as they simply ignored the massacre of Donbass civilians for 8 long years, not to mention an Odessa Trade House massacre thrown in their faces and much more. One day, they’ll wake up to the ism once experienced by the German public called ‘we did not know.’
Some people a comfortable discussing things that they don’t understand. These “minds” are just such morons. They are so stupid that they confuse their own uninformed opinions with concrete facts, all the while ignoring mounting evidence to the contrary of what they are peddling.
These same morons get entire populations wounded, killed, and traumatized, yet they are oblivious to their contribution to widespread death and destruction.
Do not heed them for any reason.
The purposeful failure of Minsk II clinched the deal. Europeans could have easily risen up and said ‘We demand the fulfillment of UNSC Res 2202.” They did not. I blame the venal media for that.
populace = (noun) people living in a given country/area
populous = (adj.) having a large population
popular = (adj.) something Ukraine once was in the West.
You know, that in the current paradigm that can not happen.
Jews bobbing around in the wind might give people the wrong idea…😎
@ Tc
Why are you always beating about the bush about the Jews? Why can’t you say what’s on your mind? Jews responsible for the genocide of the natives in North America too?
Try taking blame where blame is due.
Why waste your few precious moments of life trying to defend the indefensible? Kindly F-off.
Don’t cut yourself on all that edginess.
UKR will have no port, no infrastructure. With a bit of pressure… RU could collapse the banking system in UKR. Game over…no more kick backs..no more $3 inertia.
What is left… the good people of western UKR…may join Poland… they may choose to just be a NATO welfare state… but it’s over for them as far as future as an independent nation.
Hitler had to learn the same lesson about attacking Russian across the flats. It’s brute force. The drones were an interesting twist…but still…in the end…
..brute military force wins the day. It wins the nation too. Crimea is Russia.
Yup, though dunno about the “good people of western Ukraine” – that’s Bandera country. As punishment, it should be given to Poland.
Ha! Jim, you got that one spot on! Totally agree!
How does Russia collapse Banking System in Ukraine ?
The whole DIIA database of population IDs in Ukraine is loaded up on Microsoft-Azure Servers in Poland………..the US has created Digital ID and CBDC in Ukraine……….US controls Ukrainian financial system and pays pensions and teachers…….it is US taxpayers working through Microsoft and Google and assorted IT Firms…..
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-diia-platform-sets-the-global-gold-standard-for-e-government/
““Ukrainians are not only fighting. For four years behind the scenes, they have been creating the future of democracy,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power commented at the event.
According to Power, users of Diia can digitally access the kinds of state services that US citizens can only dream of, including crossing the border using a smartphone application as a legal ID, obtaining a building permit, and starting a new business. The platform also reduces the potential for corruption by removing redundant bureaucracy, and helps the Ukrainian government respond to crises such as the Covid pandemic and the Russian invasion.
Since February 2022, the Diia platform has played a particularly important part in Ukraine’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion. ”
“In early September 2019, Ukraine launched its Ministry of Digital Transformation, headed by a World Economic Forum participant, Mykhailo Fedorov ……….USAID has been supporting Ukraine’s digital transformation since 2016. The volunteers that developed Diia were Ukrainians working with EPAM Systems, a software engineering company based in Pennsylvania. And EPAM Systems may be a private company, but USAID isn’t. It’s taxpayer-funded.”
Take down the UKR comms.
Jail the bankers…or kill them.
Scorch the earth…leave nothing standing.
The Russia central bank is also dealing with the cost of war.
They just raised the base interest rate 3.5% !!!
https://www.rt.com/business/581287-russia-central-bank-rate-hike/
350 basis points!
The Bank of Russia raised interest rates by 350 basis points to 12% at an emergency meeting on Tuesday in a bid to halt the rapid depreciation of the ruble against world currencies.
Not exactly. It was a bid to dampen an overheated economy a bit.
overheated economy? the ruble was 1 cent of a dollar
All of these digital platforms need telecommunication infrastructure so couldn’t Russia just take that out? No internet or electricity means no computers or smart phones.
Simply sabotaging the ‘Friendship Pipeline’ (not a simple task) still feeding Europe (and Ukraine) with gas and making it look like Yarosh & company did it, as he’s threatened on many an occasion, would be an interesting move.
Yes they could, but thus far have refrained.
My question is, if Poland goes it alone and tries to occupy NW Ukr, would Russia see that as a full on NATO action?
Once it is viewed that way, it’s WWIII.
The answer to your question is ‘No’. The consequences to Poland would be confined to their troops actually within Ukrainian territory.
Polish and/or Lithuanian troops enter Western Ukraine and that is where they shall remain because the Russians will bury them there.
Thanks for the article, Paul. I look forward to reading it. You and Femi and few others are among the most interesting commenters here. I would take issue with (from the article) “the kind of state services that US citizens can only dream of”. Digital ID (which would soon be biometric ID), coupled with CBDC sounds like a nightmare to me. I have a liberal brother, enmeshed in the DC power structure, would who think it’s great. What could possibly go wrong? Libs love those control measures, since they control all levers of power in the US, so they figure anyone who gets cancelled or debunked (or imprisoned for thought crime) must have deserved it.
Ukr central bank is basically running on cash hand outs from Uncle Joe and his friends in the West. Ukr has no economy left and wont be back for a while after the war. Russia is actually fairing better than the UK as an economy if you look at nubner such as inflation, exports etc.
Kadyrov nails it:
“There is no point in negotiations. We are not satisfied with this arrangement. We are winning on all fronts – both on the battlefield and in the international political arena. All that’s left is to finish what we started.”
My 5 cents -Russia now will believe nothing promised on paper, but only what’s taken by force and held fast. Ukraine won’t get anything even remotely looking like the Minsk Accords or Turkey draft in March 2022, it will be landlocked and vastly reduced in territory. I’m heartbroken for Ukraine as I remember it, and for normal people who are still plenty…
I agree. The hegemon is “not agreement capable”. Any release of pressure will allow the development and build up of new weapons, and continuation of subversion campaigns across Ru friendly countries. Russia’s leadership has been clear in its statements that this is understood, so there is no room for compromise and agreements. It doesn’t matter which hegemon puppet is in office, the “deep state” conspirators continue and it is they who must be removed. What seems apparent is that they will deepen domestic repression to hold power which leaves as the only option for “westerners” a cataclysmic endogenous shock.
Correct, whether the prez is Trump, RFK, or Kanye, it won’t matter, the Swamp Creatures that control the levers will ignore them.
I agree. It’s not overlooked but grossly underrated and ignored how the west has painted itself into a corner vis a vis its lack of trustworthiness. It’s worse than childishness it is both dangerous and dumb.
I’ve met people like this, you learn to avoid them, usually the hard way.
As far back as 1917, there was no country, nation or peoples of or from so called Ukraine. Ukraine literally means borderland, if the Tsarist Russia had not lost to the soon to be losing side of WW1 Germany, there would have been only Russian and Austrian-Hungarian regions in what is called Ukraine today. The Crimean War of 1853-56 involved the British, French and Ottoman empires attacking the Russian empire, no Ukraine or Ukrainians were present. The history of Ukraine began in 1918, it’s brought nothing but trouble for all who reside there, through to today.
Ukraine was a mistake, the quicker it’s gone for good, the better.
Prussia is a good example of what to do with constant trouble.
Yep, the parts that came from adjacent nations should be parceled back to their owners and the landlocked remainder which is currently referred to as rump Ukraine should be renamed
“Nuland’s Rump.”
Kadyrov is a ‘plain talker’, sort of like MacGregor. A Chechen MacGregor.
I’m also excluding a stalemate. “Panzerfaust on a wheelchair” as a recruitment policy has its limits…
I already said that those who made a negotiated settlement impossible have made an unconditional surrender unavoidable.
So the question is not how , but when it ends. War is like love : the longer it last , the bitter it’s end.
That ain’t love. Try co-dependency.
“Panzerfaust on a wheelchair” …
How about Bazooka on a Vespa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEcisp364VI
The French are crazy enough to make a working version of a dumb idea. I laughed.
But you missed the point. It actually refers to one of the doctrine in HOI4 : a WWII PC wargame . The icon is a man on a wheelchair holding a panzerfaust and it read : “Even invalids and cripples must be drafted, there can be no such thing as a civilian. Gain 3% more recruitable population”.
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_doctrine
It’s the step that come after the Volksturm. And here we are. Sad but true.
Those grand strategies were never my thing. I’m more of a Panzer General II guy.
I thought you made it up as a joke, inspired by the current insanity there. They are indeed recruiting those with disabilities. I guess we are no longer in “art imitates life” stage, but moved into “life imitates art”. Recently Zelensky made a video saying that everyone should contribute to war effort. I guess he really wants that +3% bonus. 🙂
P.S. I wanted to post a video where Ukros are transporting RPG-7 rockets on a trycicle, but could not find it.
P.S.2. French copy no one, and no one copies the French.
Let’s throw another wild card on the table.
Zelinsky asks and is granted political asylum in Russia. He already knows that he’s the next road kill ‘under the NATO bus’ so, he has little options to play. Under the Russian protection he can expose all the US, UK, and NATO machinations, while ending as an Ukrainian hero because he avoided maiming another million of Ukrainians, and stopped the war, imposed by NATO powers.
There is no safe place in the world for the little unshaven clown, but in Russia.
Almost 💯
I believe Volodymyr has some answering to do.
My take is also that if Volodymyr wants to live then he better run to Vladimir.
Oh, I’m sure he’ll enjoy a long retirement in Miami just like the Shah, until he’s diagnosed with cancer.
After all, Maidan was just a text-book repeat of the 1953 Iranian coup with the same exact protagonists leading the charge, the US and UK.
He might be safer in China. They could guarantee his safety as part of a peace agreement.
He’d have to quit the booger sugar. Drug trafficking gets you the DP
How does he get from *here* to *there* without winding up with a bullet in him?
The moment he makes that request his palace guards will open fire on him.
His best hope would be to slip the noose, rush to the waiting jet and bolt to Geneva.
The Swiss are unlikely to shoot him down, and the moment he lands he steps onto the tarmac and asks for asylum.
But the moment he does that his value plummets to zero. The Russians will have no interest in him. The Ukrainians/USA/collective-west will want him dead.
CSIS? do they get talking points from the MSN. its a very loud echo chamber one way or the other.
This ends when BRICS+ figure out their asset backed currency & workaround of SWIFT.
When that happens there will be a week or 3 where years pass.
At that time Paul O’Neil can ask heartless Dick Cheney to explain once again how US deficits don’t matter.
It’s obvious Biden promoted Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland to escalate everywhere, including Syria. Bolton’s WSJ op-ed today confirms this:
https://jamesburrillangell.substack.com/p/strange-diplomacy-victoria-fck-the?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Bolton should be stuffed and put on display at the Smithsonian.
I think Bolton should be given a rifle and sent to the Russian front in Ukraine where he can single-handedly win the war. If, by the slimmest of chances he were to be killed, then stuff him and put him on display in the Smithsonian.
Oh, and maybe give Bolton a platoon with other notables, like Pansey Graham, Mittens, etc. The real life version of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Just call them John Bolton and his useless dildos.
“why a country might refuse to negotiate limited terms and instead tenaciously pursue absolute victory if it fears that its enemy might renege on a peace deal.”
There is zero trust, or any reason to believe NATO would abide by any peace deal.
Finland’s accession to NATO is proof of this, it reneged on Finland’s very generous WW2 peace treaties with USSR and Russia as its successor state. These treaties prohibited Finland from joining any coalition that included Germany. In joining NATO which includes Germany, Finland abrogated/repudiated these treaties.
Question for any international lawyers out there.
What are the legal implications of abrogating/repudiating a peace treaty?
Does it give the other party the right, a legitimate casus belli, to resume hostilities to enforce the term of the treaty?
Russia’s Dec 2021 proposed treaties included elements I believe Russia would have compromised on. Likely now they will be a hard floor for any negotiations for a post war settlement
Iteexpat, haven’t seen you for a long time. You are at it again. Honestly, I do not know where you get your weird beliefs from.
Russian Federation and Finland signed the Treaty forming the basis of their relations on 20 Jan 1992, superceding the previous Treaty of Friendship signed between USSR and Finland in 1948. The new treaty consists of 12 articles, valid for 10 years and automatically extended for 5 years thereafter and can be cancelled by either party by giving 1 years notice.
No where in that treaty, does it prohibit “Finland from joining any coalition that included Germany. In joining NATO which includes Germany, Finland abrogated/repudiated these treaties.”
AND it does not preclude any party from joining any military alliance.
It is obvious you haven’t read it and are making stuff up.
I am referring to the Peace Treaties signed by Finland after the Winter War 1939-1940 and the WW2 Peace Treaty:
Moscow Peace Treaty 1940:
Article 3: Both contracting parties undertake each to refrain from any attack upon the other and to make no alliance and to participate in no coalition directed against either of the contracting parties.
Peace Treaty 1947 between Finland and USSR, UK, Australia, BySSR, Canada, Czechoslovakia, India, New Zealand, UkrSSR and S Africa
Article 3 states:
In accordance with the Armistice Agreement, the effect of the Peace Treaty between the Soviet Union and Finland concluded on March 12, 1940, is restored, subject to the replacement of Articles 4, 5 and 6 of that Treaty with Articles 2 and 4 of the present Treaty.
Therefore Article 3 of the 1940 Treaty continues to apply.
Since the Treaty of Westphalia, all nations are sovereign (although in practice some are more sovereign than others!). This means that international law or any treaty entered into is voluntary. What holds it all together as a system is actually peer pressure. A nation that wants to get along with other nations will obey international law and the terms of its treaties (more correctly, the domestic laws that it passes that enact the terms of the treaties). A nation that is willing to suffer the condemnation of other nations can choose not to obey laws or treaties.
So in your question, the other party gains no rights as such but it does get extra latitude, and perhaps even full support, from other nations because they know the other party is in the right.
Who among the west has anything to offer as a negotiator? Now add fair, truthful and reasonable. Now add one that Russia would trust.
Right, so let’s go back to unconditional surrender. Russia will demand it and Odessa oblast will be added to the list. Will the Black Sea will undergo some legal niceties updating whose lake it is.
Nato will fade and the EU will be disbanded.
Except for the reaction of the westerners losing their empire and the emperor won’t be able to hide the chaos behind the wardrobe any longer.
404 no longer has a voice except to sell whatever they can to the highest bidder. They will increasingly dehumanize and the world will see what the empire has done in 8K and 3D. Don’t think anyone will expect/allow 404 participation. They are incapable and would be a terrorist threat to all the lands near and far.
But it would be too easy and logical.
A comment by Michael Hudson comes to mind, the US doesn’t build weapons to fight wars, it builds them for the enemy to destroy so the MIC can keep replacing them at massive profit. Perhaps the boardrooms of Raytheon etc are where the West’s decisions will actually occur. They already have the EU on the hook for decades of profit, or perhaps they might try and bleed them a little bit more.
Ukraine will be jettisoned when the ROI is gone, then on to China…
Corporations are the true evil, they buy/create the conditions for mandated profit, whether that be Pharma and vaxxes or the MIC and wars. Who else is waiting in the wings for their turn to suck the taxpayer dry?
Maybe corporations are evil, but corporations do what corporations do, and act like locusts trying to consume everything in sight. The whores (politicians) who are amoral psychopaths/sociopaths that sell the rest of us out are arguable more evil, with an assist going to the voters who keep sending this type of creature back to office. Oh, I guess that gets us back to Pogo – “I have seen the enemy, and he is us.”
Time for all of us to accept that we own this whole mess because we have not been responsible as citizens. Cleaning it up will take a lot more effort than preventing it would have. I wonder how bad it will have to get before we decide to take responsibility and set about fixing things.
And I mean the general “we” as opposed to the minority of sentient, responsible types such as we find here.
In my opinion, barring NATO direct involvement which would lead to WW3, possibly a nuclear one, the most likely outcome would be ukrainian military unconditional surrender.
A military unconditional surrender doesn’t necessarily mean a political surrender; quite on the contrary – the terrorists-in-charge in Kiev most likely will run either in Poland or further west, declaring givernment-in-exile. The may be even kept alive by the west for a while – such government-in-exile could prove to be a good tool to apply pressure in whatever is left from Ukraine after the dust settles and the russians reclaim their land.
One of the Chechen Generals not too long ago predicted the conflict will end in about one year’s time. I think that is probably correct. By then Russia will have absorbed three additional Ukrainian oblasts into the Russian Federation to supplement the five it has already absorbed or is in the process of absorbing. These three are Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Odessa.
There are some factors that could alter this timetable:
1) The West’s ability to continue supporting this war is ebbing fast, cookie-cutter Nuland and mad/bad Bolton notwithstanding. The stark reality of what is happening on the ground is slowly seeping into the public sphere. The “Narrative” is not holding.
2) Ukraine is exhausted. She is already on her last legs.
3) Once the eight oblasts have been secured, I expect the Russian population to say enough is enough. No one likes the spectacle of an opponent being kicked when already down for the count. Russians are not cruel, but they are determined.
Will Poland be foolish enough to enter the fray? For everyone’s sake, I hope not. Belarus and the Wagner Group will be there to meet them.
My two cents worth – I look forward to reading others’ comments.
you are making a big mistake: Crimea was never a Ukrainian “oblast”. It was an autonomous republic, while Sevastopol itself was an independent city of the Crimean republic.
I’ve said it many a time and I’ll say it again:
Crimea is to Slovenia as the Donbass is to Kosovo
Korean War was stalemated only because of the intervention by a million + men of the Chinese “Volunteer” Army and the Soviet Air Force that was officially not there. North Korea, by the Fall of 1950 had no more men nor weapons–in fact, a lot like Ukraine. So will we see a million men NATO “volunteer” army? Not the few (tens of?) thousands we apparently have now, but basically the entire Polish, German, and French armies not even pretending to be “Ukrainian,” supported by the entire USAF in Europe. That is the minimum that will take to stalemate the war in Ukraine, and that may not be enough since Ukraine is far more important to Russia than Korea was to United States.
If lucky, we will have Ukraine capitulate soonish and that will be it. If not, I could see the war continuing until Russians retake Paris as in 1814.
Germany does not have an Army…………it has a rag-tag collection of underpaid, demoralised and frankly unemployable types who treat it as a way to get academic credentials and desk jobs in some bureau or NATO gig.
Wounded soldiers no longer get desk jobs because they go to women, to make quotas imposed by von der Leyen.
The corruption in Procurement is rampant and has continued for years with huge spending overruns as they buy of “proposed price” not TCO basis and then wallow in change-orders.
Germany cannot recruit…..that is why Baerbock’s Luftwaffe plane is stuck in Abu Dhabi and jettisoned 110 tonnes kerosene – she won’t get to watch footie in OZ now……..because Luftwaffe cannot pay or keep mechanics and fitters……..
Germany has a demographic problem – it has no manpower………….WHY don’t people understand, European demographics are disastrous – Italy, Germany, Spain, France – population is ageing………there are NO recruits for the military or for hospitals or schools – everywhere there is a shortage of bodies…………..
People blithely comment without looking at FACTS………..
Germany as always between East and West, has seen enough of what that means.
After the Wall fell, and the massively vast military buildup on both sides, I think a deliberate deconstruction started, not merely the “incompetence” of Von der Leyen as Defense Minister, to the point that even Trump had a fit about NATO fees.
Sure Germany is NATOized.
Now considering the feral calculations of some, just imagine all those refugees, mostly men of fighting age, mostly now Ukrainian. I’ll put 10DM on the table there is a calculation. Model – French Foreign Legion.
Out of the Fat, into the Fire?
There are no “NATO fees”
NATO is Not a subscription organisation
Members of NATO are sovereign states – they allocate certain forces to act within NATO training and buy compatible equipment.
Trump was off his rocker. USA spends TOO MUCH on Defence – some of which it uses in NATO but much of which is pure US stuff. Why is Gitmo “NATO” related ?
What has Pearl Harbour to do with NATO, or US bases on Guam or Okinawa or Queensland ? NOTHING !
UK meets its 2% target by including pension payments, MI6 and various odds and ends in “Defence Spending”……..it is a joke. Poland spends 3% GDP but that is only $20 bn………..UK spends $61 bn
NATO is a Buying Agency to sell F-35s to politicians in need of a kickback
“Members of NATO are sovereign states”
This put a smile to my face.
Should I have said a million “volunteers” from godknowswhere paid for by whoever in NATO?
“Wounded soldiers no longer get desk jobs because they go to women, to make quotas imposed by von der Leyen.”
What stupid things people post here with absolutely no embarrassment …
It’s amazing.
Remember Browder? He was ‘persecuted by Putin’ for having had the audacity to run a scam hiring disabled vets on paper only, so that he could save multiple millions in taxes and then taken to court over it. That Putin, what a bastard.
For intellectuals, Clausewitz, On War. For dummies, Machiavelli, The Prince.
Reliable.
The war of attrition is not only being fought in Ukraine but globally against Western imperialism and US hegemony.
The events in Niger, the Russian-African summit, the excitement in the Global South around BRICS are all examples of this. It would be a mistake for Russia to try to end the war in Ukraine quickly, IMO.
The joint exercises between Russia and China, Shoigu’s visit to North Korea, cooperation with Iran, Wagner in West Africa etc all need time to flourish.
Fatigued though we are with war and Ukraine, a quick decisive victory or armistice / conflict freeze might not best serve Russia or those of us against imperialism. Putin himself said it would take one or two decades to break the current system and create a multipolar world. I believe he is a patient man. We should be too.
Elial, I can only take you as a kindred spirit!. Thank you for such a succinct take on the last many years of this geopolitical ‘dance’. I have not commented on these or other platforms before but I must step up to back your summary of why the Russian strategy has played out as it has. VVP cannot be credited with omniscience but he and his team have certainly demonstrated that they know history and they know their opponents…indeed they have managed to keep to their clearly stated priorities since before 2008. You have provided a very clear reason why the full strength on the RU military has not been set loose on UKR. Best, Gaius
If the proxy war was meant to bleed and weaken Russia, the exact opposite has happened. Russia needs to drag this on as long as possible and take the relatively small hits that in the form of terrorist attacks. It also must be prepared to support proxy wars of independence in other parts of the world.
If Poland gets pulled in, that’s more hegemonic meat for the grinder. All this is also allowing the Global South breathing room to recover their own sense of sovereignty.
To stop too soon and let the US and NATO recover would be a big mistake. The balancing act here is to avoid a direct head on collision with the US and NATO, which would be too destructive on all sides. The frog must be boiled slowly.
Yes. This mess accelerates the US towards bankruptcy, or at least towards acknowledgement of it, whether by default or hyper-inflation. When you’re broke you can’t take on voluntary, needless expense, and that’s what’s happening here. This war is costing US/NATO in the range of $25-50 for every buck Russia spends, and depletes reserve stocks at the same time, running up the cost to replace materiel. The humanitarian issues are draining Europe, and causing unrest there too, as they are forced to de-industrialize due to lack of fuel from Russia, and thus diminish their ability to fund anything, whether war or expensive social programs.
The US can only recover from this by focusing inward and working on internal problems so as to rebuild industry and create a better country for its own people. In the end, NATO is dead, as is the US empire.
Russia needs a buffer against Western aggression, so before the war ends they have to install a puppet govt in Kiev to administer a demililtarized neutral zone in central Ukraine. The Russians will take the east and the south. They should coopt the Poles, Hungarians, and Romanians by offering them each pieces of W. Ukraine in exchange for refusing to host NATO weapons.
i think that the wild card is the lack of reason within the Zelensky circle.
They could refuse any concession unless they disappear as a negotiating party. They may drag this hoping to drag NATO and US into it. Look at one of his recent comments that Crimea is slowly, methodically being retaken. This kind of lunacy only belongs in the insane asylums.
Another cold fact: We can safely assume that 40k people flee Ukraine towards the West (including Romania) per each and every Day.
On Day 500 its 20Million. From the prewar population of maybe 37 Million, not even scratching the Eastward flock to Russian Federation.
George Orwell’s thesis in “1984” of endless war was only possible coming from Orwell’s time in 1948 when money had value. We live in a world whose cornerstone is that money has meaning. Except our money has no value.
This has been true even when it is common knowledge that from 1913 until 2008 the value of the USD had fallen 98-percent. The lesser the value the greater the meaning. This is how delusion works. The result is that today, there is a lot of meaning running around that has no value. No value whatsoever.
The remaining value of the USD, that last 2-percent, was eliminated in the Crash of 2008-09. Since 2010, the emperor and empress have been walking around butt naked. Bring this fact up and everybody knows that. We know. It’s like looking at a lighted pool on a hot summer’s night (the hottest summer night in all of history) and thinking “still not going to get caught dead skinny dipping in that.” Meanwhile, we are being told how the summer nights keep getting hotter and hotter.
Nobody knows what happens, wandering around in a world where money is not a thing but a meaning, and the value of your meaning is nothing. That has never happened before. Worse is how, since 2010, and for the past 23-years, the emperor and empress have changed out their wardrobes at least twice. Zero plus Zero still equals Zero. Right? How much more naked can you get?
Follow the money has become follow the Zeroes. Zeroes are like the buttons on a new set of clothes for the emperor and empress. Buttons are lying around everywhere, if you can see them. Follow the invisible buttons. The next step is to have everything mean nothing and count for nothing.
In this story they have gagged the little boy from shouting out. They’ve gagged him many times. Just as the United States has gagged the world from speaking out about these things. You can’t negotiate with a crazy person. President Putin will tell you that. The United States says Putin is a boy that needs gagging. A lot of gagging. Total gagging.
The American people? They mean nothing, count for nothing. As long as the emperor and empress remain butt naked so does the American people. It’s like skinny dipping fully clothed. Except you’re already naked. The American people just won’t face facts. They aren’t ready, yet. What they are certain of is how it’s the weight of their clothes that is going to drag them down, and drown them. Even if they are naked.
“George Orwell’s thesis in “1984” of endless war was only possible coming from Orwell’s time in 1948 when money had value. ”
Really ????????? You must be from a different universe.
In Britain the country was insolvent in 1948 – it had a coal crisis, a beleaguered population in Berlin needing an Air Lift. It introduced bread rationing, it still had clothes and furniture rationing. It lived off Marshall Aid and a $5 billion Loan from USA.
Germany had no currency other than cigarettes.
Japan was in ruins as was most of Europe.
If “money” had value it was news to Europeans
For every Marshall Dollar to Germany, 4 went to the UK. That Dollar did have value.
Germany is the worlds leader in reconstruction – it took 10 years. The UK speculated with those Dollars.
In 1971 Nixon pulled the plug – hence the Petrodollar and today’s total, complete, irredeemable bankruptcy.
Phew, thank goodness for those offshore money laundering havens, else the Brits would be back to stealing potatoes from the Irish.
It’s not what a potato is worth. It’s what a potato costs. A potato is still a potato. You need so much money these days just to get anything done. There is no relation between what a thing is and what it is worth. This is why money laundering has become such a big thing. Money laundering on the scale we are seeing is just the new 2023 wheelbarrows from the 1923 hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic days.
“God created the blight. The Brits created the famine.”
Will NATO disband when Ukraine is completely occupied? I don’t think so.
I suggest that NATO will offer either a reduction of nuclear weapons when Ukraine can become member of NATO, or build up nuclear weapons when Ukraine is completely occupied by the Russian army.
Russia can not reach both: A reduced NATO and a peaceful Ukraine.
Who thinks that NATO will disband? I see that the USA is weak, but it is not yet dead.
“The time for crisis diplomacy is now.”
Oh! Whew! I thought you said: “The time for crisis democracy is now.”
Oh! Whew! I thought you said: “The time for crisis democracy is now.”
Intentionally timed or not, America is now in it up to its neck.
As a Russian, the war concerns me directly, and the question of when and how the war will end worries you more than all of you. But I do not know the answer. And no one in Russia knows, except, perhaps, the General Staff and Putin. If I had known, I would have told you.
We have to focus on the stated goals, from which Russia by all indications does not intend to retreat: demilitarization, denazification, NATO within the borders of 1997, which means the expulsion of US military bases from Eastern Europe (for their own good). Only then is a peace treaty with the West possible. Obviously, these are distant goals for many years.
As for the territory, I do not see the possibility to digest in addition to the 3 more regions accepted into the Federation – Kharkiv, Nikolaev and Odessa with disloyal to Russia and Kiev population. Most likely, these areas will fall into the gray zone in the form of enclaves with conditional independence and sovereignty.
But, I repeat, I do not know.
I agree with the comment of Gazenberg. This whole SMO is transforming from an industrial war to a kind of demographic war. You can have all the western weaponry you want, but without people to man those weapons… Kaput?
Let us be clear: the conflict in Ukranazistan now only has one rationale, to keep enriching the military industrial complex and as a result of that ensure the survival of Bidet in office. The most catastrophic result for Bidet would be a Ukranazistan collapse and surrender a la Afghanistan 2-3 months before the 2024 selection: too late to memory hole the collapse, yet leaving enough time for Bidet’s opponent, whoever that might be, to make maximum political capital from it. Hence Ukranazistan has to either be kept going somehow until mid November 2024 (which of course is extremely unlikely) or cut loose and memory holed by April next year. My own feeling is that it will be the latter, but before that they’ll try everything that they can to launch terrorist attacks on Russia, create false flags to blame Russia, and ultimately murder Elensky (no way he’s going to be allowed to live to spill the beans!) to blame Russia. Of course, at the rate Ukranazistan is haemorrhaging it’ll bleed itself to death this winter, so the whole thing might be moot.
Our host gives us a level headed assessment, which has few posters responding in a like manner.
Remember, all conflicts end, so will this one…_
BUT…..will it end on its feet or on its rear end?
Although it is not the main topic of your article, but since you mention how carefully Russian army tries to avoid civilian casualties, it should also be stated that AFU is PERPOSEFULLY attacks civilians. They shell Donetsk and other parts of Russia (including Crimea and “proper” Russia) DAILY!
What is interesting, is that while they complain about lack of and demand more weapons and missiles, they do not preserve the missiles they have (such as recently Storm Shadow) for the front but use them almost exclusively against civilians in densely populated areas.
By now, most people that really want to know anything about this conflict already know that the AFU and esp. the neo-nazi militias within it, have been targeting civilians since the conflict broke out in 2014.
It’s quite despicable, really. It’s even more despicable that western nations spend so much effort in ignoring, denying and outright lying about it.
It makes you wonder, who is actually the more despicable here, the Ukrainians, who simply ‘do as they do’ or those self-declaring ‘liberal democracies’ that have supported them since 2014 with nary a harsh word. It’s quite mind-boggling actually, given this comic ‘moral-authority’ business the west likes to bathe itself and justify its military interventions with. Gives me the shivers if I think too long about it. Heebie jeebies, in fact.
Look at Chechnia today, after what was in many ways a far more horrific war. Many of those who fought the Russians are now true Russian patriots.
The EU is not going to be the shiny city on the hill in the future, but the BRICS family of nations will grow and prosper. All but the most fanatical nationalists will come to see their future as part of that world. I can see many central oblasts west of the Dneiper holding referendums to join Russia in the future.
When Ukrainians wake up to the realisation that they have been used by the west all along, they will not be happy. But Russia and China will help them, and welcome them back into the Slavic family.
Good points!
Build a tall wall along the Dnieper first. Western Ukrainians are beyond salvation. They’re like the rotted fruit the farmer must discard before the crop goes to market.
This “war” will not end. It is an American conceit that wars in Europe “end”. Anyone who knows any European History is familiar with Hundred Years War and with Thirty Years War – the latter was so devastating it created the Westphalian System 1648 which defined nation states and diplomacy.
It is the Westphalian System that USA set out to destroy repeatedly……….
It is the Westphalian System that caused USSR to promote the Helsinki Accord 1975…….and the Treaty with NATO and the 2+2 Treaty on Germany in 1990 – ALL of which USA has deliberately vitiated and abrogated.
Andrei Gromyko, who built the Foreign Ministry which trained Sergei Lavrov lost much of his family in WW2 and worked tirelessly to prevent a re-run. USA has always been hazardous.
There is no basis for any form of “peace” in Europe. Even the 1945 Settlement required millions of people to be displaced in ethnic cleansing across Central Europe with 100,000 refugees a week entering West Germany………
The Stalin Notes of 1952 were rebuffed by USA to avoid a unified Germany neutral along Austrian lines where USSR withdrew 1955………..
USA has always viewed this as a Manichean Struggle for Global Domination
Europe will become increasingly more unstable politically and economically backward…….it is inevitable. USA cannot furnish energy at a price to maintain European living standards – it simply is not competitive. Europe will be treated by USA much as Europe and USA treat Africa – exploitation and subjugation.
The US Empire is now stripped of its tinsel and shiny wrapping to expose it for what it actually is.
Russian Federation had left its western frontiers undefended and disbanded the military groupings there – TRUST – now it is being put on a war-footing. Russia knows that the threat from Finland is the same as 1941……..allied to a hostile War Lord from the West it will threaten St Petersburg.
The World is now on a nuclear trigger – and NOTHING – can reverse that. Every nation has seen the duplicity of USA and the pompous military posturing of Pompeo, Trump, Biden, Clinton, Bush, Reagan…………and the ignorance and contempt Americans show towards the other Civilisations on the planet
So long as the US exists the World faces the threat of nuclear war………it has now nailed its colours to the mast. It is Subservience to US as Global Master or Conflict. There is no other stable equilibrium.
I may add another long year war: the 80 year war of the Dutch 7 (seven) mainly protestant provinces for independance from Catholic Spain.
The Republic of the 7 provinces was granted autonomy by Spain and all then existing states in the Treaties of Westphalian town of Munster in 1648.
From then onwards over time the Kingdom of the Netherlands evolved.
Yes, I should have mentioned that…….and in Europe the War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748 and the Seven Years war 1756-63 which created the British Empire by defeating France in India and Quebec…….and Britain gave Frederick The Great £670,000 a year as their ally to prosecute war against Austria………
Americans seem to be ignorant of the faultlines in European History they are so busy fracturing……….
Europe is not stable – since Soviet Forces withdrew in 1991 – it has been unstable with wars of increasing intensity and scale……..which is why Ukraine will not constrain the scale and scope of the Wars the US is instigating………..
Europe has never been stable. It split into a thousand pieces after the demise of the Romans; no one before nor since has been able to put the whole thing together (the EU doesn’t count, it’s fake AF).
Perhaps that is its natural state.
Bandera’s Ukraine is the voracious fox that the EU has foolishly chosen to nurture under its tunic. They’ll see the fruits of their foolishness, soon enough. America? It’s effectively insulated as always from its foolish endeavors abroad.
Strange how British avoid the key point :
Cecil Rhodes in his 1877 will (aka: My Confessions of Faith) where the arch racist said:
“Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire”.
https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Rhodes-Confession.htm
This why Russia always refers to the Anglo-Saxons.
The Rhodes Scholars Guiding Biden’s Presidency
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/03/28/the-rhodes-scholars-guiding-bidens-presidency/
17 December 2021 13:30
Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on security guarantees
Unofficial translation
Draft
The United States of America and the Russian Federation, hereinafter referred to as the “Parties”,
guided by the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the provisions of the 1982 Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, the 1999 Charter for European Security, and the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Russian Federation,
recalling the inadmissibility of the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations both in their mutual and international relations in general,
supporting the role of the United Nations Security Council that has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security,
recognizing the need for united efforts to effectively respond to modern security challenges and threats in a globalized and interdependent world,
considering the need for strict compliance with the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs, including refraining from supporting organizations, groups or individuals calling for an unconstitutional change of power, as well as from undertaking any actions aimed at changing the political or social system of one of the Contracting Parties,
bearing in mind the need to create additional effective and quick-to-launch cooperation mechanisms or improve the existing ones to settle emerging issues and disputes through a constructive dialogue on the basis of mutual respect for and recognition of each other’s security interests and concerns, as well as to elaborate adequate responses to security challenges and threats,
seeking to avoid any military confrontation and armed conflict between the Parties and realizing that direct military clash between them could result in the use of nuclear weapons that would have far-reaching consequences,
reaffirming that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and recognizing the need to make every effort to prevent the risk of outbreak of such war among States that possess nuclear weapons,
reaffirming their commitments under the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War of 30 September 1971, the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas of 25 May 1972, the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Establishment of Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers of 15 September 1987, as well as the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities of 12 June 1989,
have agreed as follows:
Article 1
The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends:
shall not undertake actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other Party;
shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.
Article 2
The Parties shall seek to ensure that all international organizations, military alliances and coalitions in which at least one of the Parties is taking part adhere to the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 3
The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.
Article 4
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.
Article 5
The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.
The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.
The Parties shall maintain dialogue and cooperate to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military activities on and over the high seas, including agreeing on the maximum approach distance between warships and aircraft.
Article 6
The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
Article 7
The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.
The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.
Article 8
The Treaty shall enter into force from the date of receipt of the last written notification on the completion by the Parties of their domestic procedures necessary for its entry into force.
Done in two originals, each in English and Russian languages, both texts being equally authentic.
For the United States of America
For the Russian Federation
Yes. The peace deal – if there is one – will be between Russia and US. Ukraine and the EU will be irrelevant. How can Russia compromise? They know what will happen if they do. And this is what Russia has been asking for from the get go. So yeah.
It’s going to have to be formalized; The US will not be able to keep paying the costs. Nor will they be able to futz around the edges and continue to blow up pipelines and so forth. It will essentially be a surrender by the US. Sure, Russia will allow some sort of face saving mechanism.
The US is in deep shit already. I don’t believe there will be a 2024 election. We are drowning in debt. Yadda yadda. What we see going on now is only end state looting by the political classes and they will leave the woke administrative class to get run over by the bus. If there are any buses left.
I don’t think people generally know how fragile the US is now. I don’t myself; all I know is its VERY fragile. The deer mowed down my late planting of shell beans. I’ve been prepping for decades and am only half ready.
Well, I expect that RU will bleed both UKR and West for as long as it takes and then just walk in when all resistance is completely crushed.
Simply put, its easier, more morally acceptable and more practical to kill enemy in trenches and fields and crush any hope of resistance that way, then to hunt them in houses…
As time goes by, I am also of opinion that RU have lost Kherson and Kharkiv on purpose in order to draw both UKR and West in deeper and be able to completely dismember them, and not get some half-solution.
Yes, they were short on men, but “obvious loss” was very good for both internal and external purposes, since its easier to draft people if you need to protect people, and it also helped West to double down and thus get too deep in to quick sand to get out
Looking at the descent of the USA into lawlessness, propelled by the example set by the Justice Dept in persecuting and prosecuting the political Opposition, and taking into account an impending US election which no one expects to be anything other than totally corrupt and completely rigged, there is a fair chance that the conflict in Ukraine will be ended by events in the USA, not by events in Ukraine.
The three possibilities outlined above need to be applied to events in the USA and the ongoing political coup by the Democrat Regime.
My bet is nuclear holocaust. The warmongers who run the West will not ever back down. Like Hitler and Goebels, they can’t imagine a future where they’re not in charge and dictating terms.
If RFK Jr and Trump are removed from the Presidential contest, that is the sign that nuclear war is on the immediate horizon. For then, it won’t matter which D or R is elevated to Puppet in Chief, they’re all the same.
Russia may however save our sorry asses by preemptive conventional strikes on political, financial, and strategic military assets to avoid nuclear Armageddon. I don’t think many Americans (except University Faculty) will shed a tear for Pelosi, Graham, McConnell, et.al.
Who knows, America could be Made Great Again…
Finish wiping out the Ukrainian military.
Destroy any foreign force that attempts to retake or occupy any part of Ukraine.
Take Kiev and decapitate the leadership.
Install a military junta to manage until a new civilian government can be quickly established that will adhere to the standards of international neutrality and who will assume responsibility to de-nazify the country. (I suspect there are already Ukrainian citizens being identified by the Russians who could fit that role.)
Initiate a major international diplomatic effort to convince Russian allies and friendly nations of Russia’s actions to establish a permanent peace in the region.
Russia doesn’t have much choice here. There is no one to negotiate with – the entire West is agreement incapable and determined to destroy Russia, if not now, then at some point. The Russians know full well that if any part of Ukraine as it stands today is left to survive, the West will immediately begin a new effort to build their forces up again and do it all over again.
The idea of this, clearly planed, Nato aggression against Russia was to put pressure on the Russian society by applying tremendous economic and political sanctions, to round up the world against Russia by lying about the so called “unprovoked Russian aggression” and to pin down the Russian army in Donbass and Luhansk and then to attack Russia from all around by using some made up war crime to justify that action. Is like the west said it before, they want to brake up Russia in smaller parts and steal its vast natural resources. Why? Because Russia dared to trade internationally using its own currency, because the west is financially bankrupted and desperately need free natural resources to prolong its fall and because the western elite thought it can do it.
The west has lost and could not achieve any of their goals and that makes them even more desperate to do something unthinkable. We saw that desperation, when they gave tanks to the Nazis in Kiev. They now plan to give them F-16s. Next step are nuclear weapons.
No surrender. They will prolong this until the west sees it fit to do something else. The west is all in. Think about Germany. They scarified their economy by cutting themselves from very favorable gas and oil deals with Russia. They are not that dumb. There must have been some agenda making that war against Russia seem ok to them in the first place.
They (Germany) believed what the collective West believed:
That the Russian economy would collapse, Putin would fall, and they would get their greedy hands on Russia’s resources.
After all, Russia was just “a gas station posing as a country” with an economy “the size of Italy” and an army full of incompetent drunks with WW2 weapons.
Of course many Germans knew the truth, but if they had the temerity to speak up they were denounced as “Putin apologists”. As have all of those of us in the west who declined to undergo the Ukraine lobotomy.
Cheap Russian gas was too expensive. They wanted it for free.
[possible duplicate – 1st submit ‘disappeared’]
Ah, but they are that dumb; proof = Annalena Baerbock [Tip: Sgt. Schulz ‘defence’ = ‘only following orders’].
No nukes, please – we’re Dr Strangelove = MAD, and Mr Putin has said as much: A world without Russia would be no world at all = 1st zusa nuke and *all* Russia’s nukes will fly – except possibly the few they detonate deeply underwater off the zusa coast = littoral cities to be swamped by 1km high tidal waves = entire local populations would drown. The 1st ‘air/space’-borne nukes will be a ‘race’ between EMPs to kill the North American electricity grid and multi-GTs targeting the illegal squatters in illegally occupied Palestine – the latter a ‘must-do’ since Mr Putin&Co know exactly by whom/where the real troubles originate. And it is this last ‘deal-breaker’ which will prevent my 1st 1st above being ordered – a potential world without a ‘promised land’ will simply not be allowed [even if the so-called ‘promise’ reputedly comes from their ridiculous, non-existent deity]. rgds
I have to agree – we look for smarts & reason where there is none. The EU behaved like they were doing Russia a big favor by buying the “cheap Russian gas.” Even the words “cheap Russian gas” sounded like something dirty. The sly US fed the EU for years the idea of ” free market prices,” to wean the EU off the long-term/low price contracts, knowing full well what the “market prices” will be and cui bono. I don’t blame Uncle Sam – business is business, but the dumb & numbers sold the EU people in their own power grab and now one cold winter will do the EU in. I feel sorry for the regular EU folks but I recall how eagerly they were awaiting Russia to collapse, and be for grabs – how the Bible says, “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it.”
No one voted for the war with Russia. Don’t confuse people and their governments. If people have had the choice, they would not voted to “help” Kiev. By the way, Zelensky was about ready to do a peace treaty after a couple of weeks, after Russian forces wiped out most of his military. But the west didn’t let him. Again, this was the work of governments, not what ordinary people wanted.
“Russia will become even more paranoid and irrational”. Sorry, but I do not expect this from Russian militaries. They know exactly what to do and have all the tools they need. As the text expose, Russia still keeps untouched the ISR systems, government buildings, etc.
I think that everybody knows that in case of a real war, not even a brick in UKR will stay stand and Ukraine will have 100 percent of its territory under Russian’s hands.
To add some more professional comment to the article of Larry I suggest reading these comments written by Yves Smith of the nakedcapitalism.com .
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/the-west-and-the-war-in-ukraine-selling-and-buying-hopium.html
In this article he mentioned a quote of Blinken in the WP.
The Biden administration, convinced that Vladimir Putin has failed in his attempt to erase Ukraine, has begun planning for an eventual postwar military balance that will help Kyiv deter any repetition of Russia’s brutal invasion.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence…
Makes you think, case of cognitive dissonance?
Susan Webber aka Yves Smith has no real insight into Europe other than as an American in New York
It is self-referential. Americans are NOT in control of events……they have started a process they cannot stop.
It is pointless quoting Blinken – he is irrelevant……he has NO traction in China or in Russia – ZERO.
Yesterday I heard a German news broadcast in the supermarket – item 1 German Finance Minister in Kiev………item 2……Chinese Defence Minister to Russia and then Belarus to see military facilities……
Which item is REAL NEWS ?
USA is no longer the prime player – it is now in the same position as UK in 1960s…….the real decisions are being made in Eurasia and they are that USA is a global threat to security and must be brought to heel
Blinken is a man of limited intellect as are ALL US policymakers………..
Maybe I am crazy but I can see a scenario where Russia controls all of Ukraine, crushes its military capability, Ukraine offers unconditional surrender, and Russia says “Nyet”. The MK-41 launchers in Romania and Poland have to go. Russia says “take them out or we will do it for you”. Too much blood and treasure lost on the Russian side to leave them standing.
There is another possibility, from UK Diplomat Alastair Crooke :
Open Questions on the War: The Black Sea, Out-of-View ‘War’
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/14/open-questions-on-the-war-the-black-sea-out-of-view-war/
“Does the West’s despairing of Ukrainian military prospects imply a coming draw-down on the war? Or alternatively, a western strategic shift towards a different mode of attritional war against Russia?”
Aside, since the driving problem is the complete and irredeemable bankruptcy of the Unipolar “West”, any negotiations that fail to take this head on are doomed.
Russia knows this full well, and while the West is occupied with Ukraine, leads the Multipolar BRICS, choosing not to take this head on.
Well, more academic blathering about past wars is unlikely to provide insights. What has been termed ‘world wars’ last century were European, with the second seeing European poweres expanding into East Asia and the Pacific. (Yes, Japan was a a self-constructed ‘European’ power using Euro tech and Euro imperial ambitions .)
What we have now, is the continuation of these wars, and their antecedents across more of the globe, from Europe to the Mid-East to across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Significant expansion. Isn’t technology wonderful! About tech, now with all the great tech, total global war, and total global annihilation are truely possible!
Or is this an “Axial Age?”Babel’s tower finally tumbling down and a Second Coming? The Hidden Imam revealling himself? The 25th Buddhist King of Shambhala coming to defeat the Dark Forces of Evil?
“What has been termed ‘world wars’ last century were European, with the second seeing European poweres expanding into East Asia and the Pacific. ”
Really, Britain and France and Portugal went to India in 1600s
Britain built Malaya 1824
France went to Siam (Vietnam) and Cambodia in 1860s
France went to Hawaii 1837
Netherlands created “The United East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie” and occupied Batavia (Jakarta) in 1609
Quite why you think Europeans first went to Asia AFTER 1940 is unclear
Your response comment makes no sense. You didn’t understand what you read in my comment.
Clearly I wrote about WW1 and WW2 which were in the the last, 20th century (it is the 21st century now). That is where I began. Probably didn’t look at links that Larry provided either. Except in Reiters book where one of the chapters examines the US civil war, all examples from all 3 links are from 20th century wars. That is what Larry’s post references.
My point is that the SMO is a part of a larger, global conflict that because of tech, ISR and weapons, is a new situation and combing past conflicts is not likely going to find anything useful. Each war is a discrete case anyway.
In the paragraph after the one you got stuck on, I wrote: “What we have now, is the continuation of these wars, and their antecedents across more of the globe, from Europe to the Mid-East to across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Significant expansion. Isn’t technology wonderful! About tech, now with all the great tech, total global war, and total global annihilation are truely possible!”
Note: “…and thier antecedents…” refers to the wars preceeding the 20th century wars that Larry’s references and I were using as examples. Those 3 words include the examples you mentioned, plus many more, which are not directly applicable to the post or my comment.
Hope this provides clarity.
Siam is now known as Thailand not Vietnam.
Hasta que se expulsen los impostores y traidores de Kiev. Ucrania es Rusia.
Ah, but they are that dumb; proof = Annalena Baerbock [Tip: Sgt. Schulz ‘defence’ = ‘only following orders’].
No nukes, please – we’re Dr Strangelove = MAD, and Mr Putin has said as much: A world without Russia would be no world at all = 1st zusa nuke and *all* Russia’s nukes will fly – except possibly the few they detonate deeply underwater off the zusa coast = littoral cities to be swamped by 1km high tidal waves = entire local populations would drown. The 1st ‘air/space’-borne nukes will be a ‘race’ between EMPs to kill the North American electricity grid and multi-GTs targeting the illegal squatters in illegally occupied Palestine – the latter a ‘must-do’ since Mr Putin&Co know exactly by whom/where the real troubles originate. And it is this last ‘deal-breaker’ which will prevent my 1st 1st above being ordered – a potential world without a ‘promised land’ will simply not be allowed [even if the so-called ‘promise’ reputedly comes from their ridiculous, non-existent deity]. rgds
I am not being critical, Larry. Perish the thought. But recently you wrote a concise definition of WHAT constitutes LOSING A WAR.
While most liberals today will always find a workaround for the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 … still… for the benefit of the less insane variety… occasionally working that definition into your articles may serve as a catalyst for some of Zelensky’s “democracy”- worshipping, warmongering Washington D.C. congressional clapping seals — to finally pull the plug on the “Made-In-America” Ukrainian Slaughterhouse.
May the Triune God of Scripture — the Creator of the universe in 6 literal, 24-hour days — somehow overturn the greedy Washington D.C. money changers’ tables — as He did in the temple at Jerusalem over 2000 years ago.
(American” politicians who continue to support the slaughter because of a power or money motive should read Luke 16:20-25.)
Excellent article, Larry. Thank you.
When Russia takes Odessa and forces the remaining Ukrainians to end the Nazi reign, Russia will impose a missile free buffer zone across the river to be jointly administered by Russia and Poland, outside a NATO agreement.
It will last past the 2024 US elections to drive any hope of Obiden and his European Masters winning a fourth term.
If you are used to the outdoors, you will notice animal coats are becoming so thick, this early in the season. It indicates a very cold winter, at least in North America. This could mean huge energy problems and a total loss of face for the EU as an organization, when countries start to make individual peace with Russia for energy. Remember, Winter has always been Russia’s best season and turning Poland from a reluctant enemy into a reluctant friend is the Putin way.
Not usre about unconditional surrender being the end of the war, but military defeat of Ukraine along the battle line is almost assured. Yesterday Weeb Union posted a video on the fighting in one village in the Southern frint. 1000 Ukranian casualties while taking over a village defend by no more than 200 Russians. The armour fist failed now the human wave tactic is sustaining shocking casualties. At this rate taking over 100 villages will wipe out the best of the Ukrainian army at a casualty rate higher than 10 to 1. This is the same casualty rate the Pentagon papers had. I’m afraid Ukraine has already lost the war unless we get some NATO boots on the ground which i doubt will happen. Its now only a matter of time before Zhaluzny surrenders possibly with the ousting of the political elite in Kiev. For those hoping for a change in the Moscow regime, my answer is we will see a change in the eladership in Whitehall and Washington before there is achange in the leadership in Moscow. Just get the Slavic cousins to talk and sort this mess out now.
When your opponent is crippled, bloody and has no energy to demand anything, that’s a surrender with no conditions.
I remain unconvinced that NATO has ever operated under the illusion that russia was somehow incapable of winning any one-on-one conflict in ukraine decisively. if we assume this to be true, then the only other possibility is that NATO is ruthlessly calculating on eventually provoking a full-scale war with russia: sadly, on all current evidence, there are scant signs that this isn`t actually the game-plan.
then again, russia has obviously been planning and preparing for all sorts of contingencies. whether it is however able and willing to take on the full force of a combined arms attack by NATO remains to be seen: a “limited” polish intervention in eastern ukraine could well be the first sign of a whole new dimension of what russia has so long hopefully termed its “special military operation”.
According to MacGregor, western “combined arms” doctorine is obsolete … war is now about “ISR” … total surveilance, integrated with multiple forms of strike and response – in real time. It prevents the force buildup needed for combined arms… there are no safe assembly areas available
Combined arms have been a thing since WWI. They had tanks, and planes, and artillery, and all kinds of stuff. Using tanks properly have been a problem since their very first battle, and smart people were needed to do it right. Century after that, we have Leopard-Bradley-cavalry charges into minefields.
MSM “experts” talking about combined arms like it is something new, is an insult for intelect of everone with basic knowledge in warfare or history. Macgregor and others are just stating the obvious thing, that brainwashed masses can’t understand, or don’t want to understand because it goes against the narrative.
I read the article thoroughly and unfortunately the third option in on the table by the Biden Administration to introduce NATO, Poland and United States in direct confrontation with Russia in Ukraine. The accumulation of USA Arm Forces in Poland is notorious a preparation
for war not for defense. Hundreds of A-10 Thunderbolt II are been deploy to Ukraine border or Poland. Unless Russian finished his Military Operation before this year a more devastated
war will face the Western Hemisphere. Hopefully will not happen.
Thank you for articles MR. Johnson
“Hundreds of A-10 Thunderbolt II are been deploy to Ukraine border or Poland.”
Even if they are, so what? Is this supposed to be another wunderwaffe, that won’t go up in flames at first encounter with Russian missiles?
If America pilots get involved in Ukraine, I would fully support Russia nuking DC, as long as they take out Langley, Foggy Bottom and the Utah Data Center. If they also take out Silicon Valley and Hollywood, that would be OK, too.
NO US aircraft can function without AWACS………….simply crossing into Ukrainian airspace makes AWACS planes targets wherever they fly…….
Russian Voronezh radars sweep across to Berlin and know anything that moves
Where will the US stage its troops and material? The Atlantic is home to Russian subs that can sink any troop or equipment transport or any ACC. It took the US 6 months to stage for the Iraq without any interference from Iraq.
Also, the S500 an anti satelite missile is deployed or to be very soon.
Then the big question, once you are in battle against the Russian, how do you continue to supply the troops and from where? Is the US going to ask China for supplies? And if it does, will China support the US war effort against its ally?
Then, what will the US do, with 33 trillion in debt, to raise money for another war? Will the US send Yellin, with hat in hand, for another Trillion? What will China think? We loan you so you can beat Russia then turn on us?
Logistics are an order of magnitude over tactics. After the first sortie of A10s and assuming the Russians were courteous enough not to fire on the A10s, where will the A10s be based far from the reach of Russian rocketry?
Poland’s President Duda said recently that Ukraine is fighting to save the US. If “the US” is defined as the nation the “Davos crowd” that’s currently got a grip on the West’s short ‘n curlies wants it to be, he scored a direct hit.
That means that Russia will continue with the Gerasimov Doctrine’s Goldilocks strategy. Neither too fast nor too slow for the pace of external developments across the global spectrum of international relations. The pace and goals of the SMO will be continuously re-calibrated to both help drive and respond to world events. Dismantling the AFU is one thing, dismantling the financial and political structures that currently run the world is quite another – especially if one wants a relatively rapid return to stability on the other side of the inevitable crisis.
Socio-political developments within the USA will play an increasingly outsize role. I believe that they will become pivotal, and that little will change in Russia’s SMO until they do. The outcome of the 2024 election will do as much to determine how Russia ends the war as any count of tanks, missiles and troops.
If that is so, our ability to predict the nature of the war’s end is greatly curtailed. Its end will be whatever external events and developments demand it be. The SMO is not a war. It is a Special Military Operation that plays a role in shaping the world historical changes Xi mentioned when taking his leave of Putin after their private meeting in Moscow.
Lenin (iirc) said “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” We can safely add that there are decades where centuries happen. We’re in one of those decades, and we have but the vaguest sense of how the vast array of forces driving the changes will play out. Both 1984 and Brave New World are in view, but neither are inevitable.
For those hoping to see a full blown East vs. West nuclear conflict to be averted, the grim picture of the Deep State’s breakdown crisis portends apocalypse. The psychopaths of the Deep State, never in the best of times capable of rational thought, are in utter despair. At this point, the American people are simply hostages awaiting execution by the Deep State.
The Deep State script writers are serving up a witches brew for the 2024 election, perhaps even more fantastical than 2020. Without doubt, the 2024 election will impact Ukraine so it may be worthwhile to clear the air about 2020 election given that the dynamics of that election will drive 2024.
The 2020 election put on full display the Deep State’s ironclad grip on the selection process. One need only examine the final play of Jan 6th where the ball was pushed over the goal line to deliver the Biden win. An important memory holed lead up to Jan 6th was the two “Stop the Steal” rallies in DC utilizing essentially the same venue as Jan 6th. These rallies “set the stage”.
On Jan 6th there were over 100 congress members who had declared their willingness to contest the fantastical ballot results in the key states that Texas tried to contest but was denied “standing” by SCOTUS. Election fraud was a primary concern of the Founding Fathers and with an eye toward the rampant fraud in the end period of the Roman Republic they put strong safeguards in the Constitution.
The States legislatures are given sole authority to conduct elections as they were seen as closest to the people. In reviewing each States elector ballots the Vice President was granted plenipotentiary powers to conduct the session in the House of Representatives. The VP did indeed have the power to either throw out a disputed States electors such as in a case where multiple elector slates were submitted or the VP could return the disputed result back to the State.
In the case where a sufficient number of State’s elector slates were thrown out, if the remaining elector count threshold was not reached, then VP could have the House of Representatives vote for a President on party lines. Given the House was majority Republican, Trump would have remained POTUS.
Obviously the Deep State did not want an open, fair vote in the House. To head that off, a psy-op was carefully prepared to be portrayed as an “insurrection”. This created a delay in the proceeding and a smokescreen allowing a quick vote to certify the fraudulent election. The fraudulent election could never have withstood careful examination by the 100 plus Congressmen who had declared they would dispute swing States electors.
Everything Trump did and said Jan 6th was carefully choreographed. Trump broke no laws and merely exercised his 1st Amendment right regarding a political proceeding. For the Deep State, Trump’s role is to act as a cut-out in the event Biden fails miserably. Trump presided over the great vaccine hoax and his 4 years as POTUS saw a massive build up of the Ukraine military in anticipation of the Deep State’s insane plan for tanking the Russian economy and bringing regime change to Russia.
Events have gone horribly wrong for the Deep State. The Deep State script writers and psy-op specialists can conjure up many things, but hiding a massive military defeat of the US led NATO at the hands of the Russians marks a historical sea change that no amount of lipstick on the pig will disguise.
Unfortunately, because probably none of us here are members of the Russian Ministry of Defense, we can know only what we are allowed to know by reading or listening to reports issued by it. All we can do is consume those reports, websites like Larry’s that have valuable information, do our own analysis and draw our own conclusions.
Because of past experience, absolutely anything that I read or hear from the West’s MSM (other than the prediction of a solar eclipse) I instinctively assume to be a bald-faced lie and my instinct almost always turns out to be correct. But there is still some value in knowing what the western microscopic percentages want their herds to think, because very often the truth is the exact opposite – for example, when the western MSM claims that what the US is doing at the moment is “spreading freedom and democracy”.
So after 17 months in, the goals of the SMO are still the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. I have to assume that that means that after a successful SMO there will be no Russia-threatening military or, how to put it, “politically active” Nazis living on the part of the earth delineated on a present map of the earth as Ukraine. Is that goal reachable? I think that we will have a pretty good estimate of the likelihood of that happening in a few months.
But most of us, including Larry, have the irresistible urge to speculate on the future of that region. (Call that urge Martyanov’s “Reminiscence of the Future”.) I’m going to stop resisting mine for a bit right now by asking a series of intentionally provocative questions.
Let’s face it, US-imposed obstacles on Russia’s path to reach its two major goals have already appeared, big time, and will no doubt increase as time marches on, leading to greater a greater destuction in/of Ukraine. Will the microscopic percentage of the population that constitutes “Ukraine” even exist within the present land area of Ukraine after the SMO is completed, or will the present “Ukraine” be magically moved to London and be officially recognized by the rest of the West as the government of Ukraine “in exile” (as they dutifully did the ridiculous government of Venezuela “in waiting” with Guaido as its internationally recognized president), and will whatever national government, if any, that remains within the land borders of Ukraine after the SMO be declared “illegitimate” by the West and, thereafter, be subjected to continual regime-change operations with the stated goal of moving the government in exile back into Ukraine, having full sovereign control of the eastern regions and Crimea, “at some point in the future”? Why not? After all, there is a literally infinite amount of money available at the Fed to pay for that quest (as long as someone is willing to buy $1.3 trillion and rising worth of US Treasuries from here to eternity). All it will take to make that quest an ongoing reality is a never-ending supply of mercenaries who will be desperate or brainwashed enough to kill and be killed for that money. But the mercenaries will have to be paid in money that can buy whatever they want. They won’t accept “play” money. How long will/can the USD continue to act as “real” money?
Back to the UK and BM “Rasheed Sanook”. Of course “the UK” can call any group of people living in the UK whatever it wants to call them – for example, the UK’s officially recognized government of Mars “in waiting” (it’d be pretty tough to label it “in exile”). What is important is how many other nations’ microscopic percentages will support the UK’s latest future insanity. How many “in waiting” or “in exile” governments are “the international community” going to tolerate?
Will a nation, a country or a microscopic percentage with the label Ukraine even exist after the SMO? If it doesn’t, Russia’s goal of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine will either have to be modified to apply to the area of land that used to be labeled Ukraine, or it will have to be modified to apply to the new nation or multiple nations or autonomous regions or protectorates, etc. that come to exist on that area of land. My point in stating things this way is that I believe that what Russia wants is to have the area of land that is now called Ukraine not inhabited by people who are Nazis — people who also do not have a military force capable of threatening Russia, — regardless of the label that is placed on a map of that area of the earth’s surface.
Further, and more problematic, if a large part of what is now labeled “Ukraine” comes to be invaded/occupied/annexed/whatevered by “Poland”, will Russia then demand security guarantees (you know, no Nazis, a non-threatening military presence only) from the microscopic percentage that will then constitute “New Poland”………. or else maybe SMO 2? Will New Poland still be part of NATO and, if so, will the no doubt new and improved government of New Poland then be forced by other NATO members to rein in its new, still-Nazi-leaning population’s irresistible desire to keep shelling Russia-controlled areas from behind a new, much longer (perhaps even Maginot-style!) “line of contact, version 2”, which will then be called a “national border”? Is New Poland going to allow to happen on its newly acquired territory what it is today allowing to happen on Old Poland – US (“NATO”) military bases and a huge build-up of US (“NATO”) military forces?
What, if anything, will the microscopic percentage that constitutes “Russia” have to say about what may soon come to be called a New European Order (NEO)? Is Russia going to allow Poland to simply walk into the western part of Ukraine, plant its flag and declare that “this is Poland”, or is there going to be some kind of “negotiated settlement” between “Russia” and the US (AKA “Poland”) for that region? Negotiations between Russia and the West have gone so well lately that I think that this negotiation will be over and done with very quickly and cleanly, with all parties being very satisfied in the end.
While I’m typing, it’s now obvious, even to stone cold cadavers, that the microscopic percentage of the US population that constitutes “the US” is willing to fight the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to the death ………………….…………of every living Ukrainian, Pole, Fin, Dane, Swede, German, Italian, Frenchman, Turk, etc.. If all of these stupid, suicidal US dominoes eventually fall and Russia and China still stand tall, what rabbit will the magician US then pull out of its hat?
Oh,… these irresistible reminiscences of the future!
(While I’m typing, do you remember the RT “show” called “The World According To Jesse? On Dec. 11, 2021, just a bit over 2 months before the SMO, he did a show entitled “NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine?” It was an amazingly prescient show. At that time, Jesse could not forsee his own show’s cancellation on RT.
https://www.rt.com/shows/the-world-according-to-jesse/542825-russia-nato-ukraine-forces/ )
What if Ukraine offers unconditional surrender to Russia, and Russia says “That is not enough. We need NATO surrender in addition to Ukraine unconditional surrender”? After all, the reality is that NATO is already at war with Russia. What happens with that war after Ukraine unconditionally surrenders?
What is “Ukraine” going to surrender ?
Poroschenko revoked the Treaty with Russian Federation that defined any borders with Russia. There is no defined boundary which encapsulates a state called “ukraine” which is why Putin stated it does not exist.
Germany surrendered in 1945 but the German soldiers were not considered POWs accorded Geneva Convention because as Eisenhower stated – there was no internationally-recognised German State in 1945 – Germany did not exist.
In Russian terms there has NEVER been a “Ukrainian State” – it is a border region of the Russian Empire and formerly embraced Donbass which has ALWAYS been Russian since Catherine The Great……and the Galician Banderites set out to expunge the Russians in Donbass……….
These are not actions of a sovereign state and are actions totally rejected in international law……….there is no such thing as a “Ukrainian State”
Russia goes westwards, one step at a time. Transistria, Moldova, Danube Delta, pressure on Romania, some deal with Hungary and Serbia, maybe even war in Balkans. At some point NATO and EU will start cracking. In parallel with that, there is Africa. Also Taiwan. Middle East goes without saying. This won’t end anytime soon.
So many great comments today. I wish we could give thumbs up to some of them. I’m still pondering a wheelchair versus Vespa a a weapons delivery system.
I think that Russia will slowly move west until they occupy what will become permanent parts of Russia. They would continue to degrade both the Ukrainian military and the nazi structure there.
Russia has the ability to shut off all electricity in Ukraine. They can use that when they want to further motivate the Ukrainian population. The West already has the next war planned, a nazi resistance that would attack inside Russian territory (new and old). I suspect some kind of Ukrainian rump state will emerge, powerless, perhaps not even aligned to NATO. I don’t think that Russia wants the madmen running Poland to in any benefit or take territory closer to Russia.
I expect by the first snow in Kiev that we will see videos of Russian troops moving through Ukie villages with people cheering their advances.
“Sweden…in Sweden” as Trump use to say, think when the rapartist ASAP Rocky was jailed for some street quarrel.
But Sweden is still kicking: The 13th support package for Ukraine, today of
3.4 billions, quite bigger than the 12th of 250 millions. Munition for CV90 /infantry vehicle) =50 -1 = 49, munition for airdefensesystem, spareparts to Archer artillery, somewhere in the woods, and for Leopard 2 tanks, (still left ?) transport vehicles, and de-mining gears.
But the Rights government will lose this fight as the domestic fight against immigrant crimegangs, just every day a teenager is shot dead, next, a house entrance blowed to pieces, can people live there after that… But the Ukrainians fight for us, but we can’t observed that in our streets. The police wants more resources, sorry for us, soon the criminal market is flooded with antitank guns from Sweden, (the recoil of the recoilless guns.) But the government wants to be the best pupil in the Nato-school, (as in EU) anyway, but a disaster back home, and a flight from the realities, this elites had arranged for us.
A Al-Quran burned, a professor in philosophy claims is quite right to do, that, its about freespeech and if the book is used to suppress people in the islamistic countries. (But a serious crime if there’s a pogrom going on, and that book is used then for dangerous agitation, against ethnic groups.)
But Turkey wants every Quranburner extradited to Ankara, for punish-ment, and Sweden is creeping for Turkey, to join the same military alliance, and is now collaborating with the Turkish secret police, against the Kurds.
A Swedish journalist in the DN,(MSM) Finnish, was today not approved to return to Russia, and writing her usually heavy loads of Russiahatred, like a concerned troll, who “understands”, Russia, and so on.
That Bofors 40mm munitions will surely make a difference. 🙂
Last night I watched this surprisingly apropos lecture exploring the mindset of German generals in 1943: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SdO-btKuds
The war was already lost and many of the generals knew it. But rather than do the sensible thing and try to make peace, they went on a “death ride” motivated by Prussian militarism, Nazi ideology, and the belief that they’d been stabbed in the back at the end of WW1. They supported Hitler because he shared their fight to the bitter end attitude.
The Ukrainians, with their infamous admiration for the Third Reich, seem to following the same path to Götterdämmerung.
von Stauffenberg made one fatal error – they informed Churchill before the coup attempt .
Churchill’s diaries let the cat out of the bag – only declassified in the late 1990’s.
Aristocrats make that mistake all the time,
Scott Ritter’s Agent Zelensky Part 1 & 2 shows how this works.
Very soon, the situation will turn in Ukraine’s favor as Germany is about to send an ample supply of it’s latest and most modern wonder weapons to destroy the Russian invaders.
German V-2 rockets and the Messerschmitt ME 262 jet fighter plane will decimate Russian forces and drive them out of all the territories of Ukraine.
You can count on it.
Two things on my mind: Ukraine is a ‘basket case’, probably worse than we know. Stavka calculations have to include the need to feed Ukrainians & rebuild Kiev. The cost of that will be sky high, but it has to be done, hunger & unemployment feed the revolution!
The Russian army is on it’s way to 15 divisions, over two million men. Thats enough to go all the way to Berlin, again.
At this point Western support for Ukraine will have not change the outcome or even extend the war for long. By now, Ukraine’s soldiers know whether they receive F-16s or flintlock muskets it won’t make a difference. From this point, entire units as well as individuals will surrender. Though the events will be suppressed, Ukrainian soldiers will frag their officers and shoot their handlers. Morale is that low. Pretty soon the whole edifice will melt away.
A negotiated settlement in the traditional manner isn’t likely as there is no one for Russia to negotiate with. The current government is not a sovereign or credible entity. NATO is just an American vassal. The US is not agreement capable so the Russians can’t believe anything the US says or promises.
There is nothing in any of the NATO countries the Russian people need or want. So, the Russian Federation does not have a motive to attack NATO except in self-defense. The point of NATO’s belligerence toward Russia is to gain control of Russia and take control of its vast natural resources. Europe has a long tradition of wanting to conquer Russian resources. They used to call it lebensraum. Today it is called Decolonization. Today the US and NATO presents to same threat to the Russian people that Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers did. If the US and NATO win the Russian people will lead the same lives their ancestors would have had if Hitler had won.
I don’t see where NATO goes from here. It doesn’t have the power to conquer the RF. It can only engage in escalating terror attacks which will have no strategic benefit.
Russia has no need to invade Poland, break into Germany, race across France to the English Channel and then cross the fifteen miles to the UK.
Russia has absolute escalation dominance. Moscow could issue a press release that places Sanctions of all NATO ports. In forty-eight hours, any commercial vessel entering any NATO port will be subject to attack. To show they mean business the Russians could attack one European port. Modern ports are the giant cranes that loads containers. Destroy them and the port is useless. At a cost of probably less than $50 million Russia would have effectively won the war. No merchant ships will enter NATO ports. The crews are mostly from the Global South and they will not get involved in a war between NATO and the RF.
In these circumstances, NATO cannot prevail in a war against the RF.
For the last thirty years NATO has been fighting around the world. Imagine a football conference that consisted of the New England Patriots and a dozen high school football teams. That is how NATO picks it opponents. It is different now. The RF will do anything to keep from being defeated and they have the means to destroy their enemies. If the US and UK want a nuclear war the RF will accommodate them.
The new element, one that West has forgotten is the moral/psychological factor. If you believe your opponent means business you don’t engage in a low-key terrorist war.
In 1919, riots and looting broke out in Boston. Governor Calvin Coolidge sent in the National Guard with orders to “shoot to kill” looters. Looting immediately stopped because everyone believed Coolidge was serious.
Putin is the modern Coolidge.
Moscow’s key war aim expressed in Dec 2021 is rollback of NATO to 1997 borders.
That hasn’t changed.
I notice that you avoided the Russian/Belorussian fear of a merger with Poland.
I have a mundane question. At the end of the SMO or war (however it ends) where are Ukrainian women going to find husbands?
Maybe all those Muslim migrants will solve the problem – they can each marry up to 4 Ukrainian women and the problem is solved. A half dozen or 10 kids each, and presto, the population is more than before. Oh, and they’re more friendly with Russia too, so it would be a win-win.
They got in front of you there, and made same sex marriages legal.
You got me there, but, seriously, lesbian marriages will not procreate. In vitro fertilization will not make up for the loss of men. This will be a serious problem for Ukraine’s future.
They got you there too, with sperm banks with racially pure stuff. Yes, really, including from Azov regiment members. Bandera would be proud. They are also market leader in surrogate pregnancies, so those extra women won’t go to waste. Also, prostitutes from Ukraine have been a thing for decades all around Europe.
Former Soviet Republic of Ukraine never had any future. It was downhill from day one. No future, no problems.
Those that want normal life will move to Russia, with or without their land. Those that stay will live in dystopian world, so that USA can be #1.
A negotiated settlement requires partners that can be trusted to keep their word. Russia has no such partners in the West.
If Poland and/or the Baltics decide to throw in with Ukraine, maybe England jumps in, but many in NATO will choose to sit this one out.
England jumps in with what? 40 Challengers that are left functional? A ship in Black Sea with BBC on it, like few yers ago? Commandos to try a raid on Sevastopol?
My guess: not just “a major rift between Zelensky and his military commanders,” but a violent coup toppling him and his regime leading to unconditional surrender with Ukraine forced to break ties with the West, most likely occurring after the next major Russian mobilization of forces that would intimidate NATO and the US.
Larry,
When I posted a comment I asked to be notified of comments by email. I didn’t realize the number of emails that would generate. If you can, please revoke that option.
Thanks, Hank
Great comments and especially the scenarios and most likely outcome 🫡
When the Ukraine runs out of steam, their best option would be to ask an adult to take charge. The only available serious adult would be China — who might be quite happy to get involved under the right circumstances (with a wink to Russia).
Zelensky (or whoever replaces him) surrenders not to Russia but to China.
Russia agrees to stop the fighting on condition that the Chinese military occupies rump Ukraine to ensure that NATO/US stay out, along with certain boundary adjustments. Then Russia & China sit back and watch failed NATO dry up & blow away. Rump Ukrainians benefit from Chinese investment, especially in energy-intensive industries which move from Western Europe to take advantage of low-cost Russian gas. Europe & the US are the big losers.
Should “rump Ukraine” be formed into a NEW country called NULAND ???
SWEET!
Bravo! This suggested solution is *brilliant*!
Russia gets the ‘true Russian’ bits, all the way through Odessa to Transnistria, and the Chinese occupied section will not be attacked by zusa, NATO or EU – those just would never dare. A new law would be promulgated by the Chinese: Any person caught with any weapon would be summarily executed. That would take care of CIA-trained insurgents. rgds
Larry, I am skeptical. Yes, the Russians should have no problem defeating the Ukrainian army – on paper. But that does not mean they will – they may find themselves like the US military unable to squelch the Taliban. The problem with the pro-Russian commentariat is the same as with the pro-Western one. It generally sees only what it wants to see. So, here is just one morcel of food for thought: In eighteen months of the conflict, the vastly superior Russian army hasn’t been able (or willing) to relieve Donetsk, the only megacity in the East it has held. It has not found (or even looked for) a way to annihilate the Ukrainian forces in the city’s suburbia (Avdeevka, Pervomaiskoe, Krasnogorovka, Mariinka) which periodically shell Donetsk at random targeting civilians. Last week they did that using cluster munitions (!!!). Just let that sink for a second: this is the largest population concentration in the conflict zone, the one Sergei Lavrov complained about suffering “genocide” by the Kiev regime since 2014. Seems like a part of a winning strategy?
The fighting in the Ukraine might slow down and even stop; but the neocon war with Russia will go on and on. Those brilliant minds will look for a new supply of expendable manpower. It’s surprising that they haven’t tried recruiting China or India who have canon fodder by the millions.
Some NATO honcho is testing the waters. A pilot or trial balloon, is that correct English? Or should I say back tracking? Anyway. Somebody uderstands that NATO is loosing.
https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/jl7V5e/aapner-for-at-ukraina-avgir-territorium-i-bytte-mot-nato-medlemskap
Quick Translation
COMPROMISE? Stian Jenssen is chief of staff for Jens Stoltenberg in NATO. In Arendal, he talked about Ukraine’s future in NATO with Professor Janne Matlary Haaland (left), NUPI researcher Karsten Friis and Kate Hanssen Bundt from the Norwegian Atlantic Committee. Photo: Helge Mikalsen / VG
Open to Ukraine ceding territory in exchange for NATO membership
ARENDAL (VG) NATO Chief of Staff, Stian Jenssen, suggests that Ukraine may gain NATO membership in exchange for giving up some territory to Russia, and that this may be part of the end of the war in Ukraine.
ALF BJARNE JOHNSEN
Published:
Updated today 14:52
– I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory, and get NATO membership in return, Jenssen said in a panel debate in Arendal on Tuesday morning.
Stian Jenssen is chief of staff for NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels. Stoltenberg himself has not been willing to discuss possible solutions for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
The Secretary-General has consistently said that it must be up to Ukraine to decide both the time and terms for any negotiations with Russia to end the occupation.
Now Stoltenberg’s closest collaborator in NATO says that one must have some thoughts about what the security situation for Ukraine will be like once the war ends.
– It is important that we discuss our way through this, Jenssen said in a conversation about Ukraine’s future NATO membership, after the summit in Vilnius this summer.
He also clarifies, as Stoltenberg has said previously:
– It must be up to Ukraine to decide when and on what terms they want to negotiate.
Invitation
After great internal disagreement, the top leaders of the NATO countries gathered behind a formulation that an invitation to membership for Ukraine will come “when the allied countries agree on it, and the conditions are met”.
– There is significant movement in the question of future NATO membership for Ukraine. It is in everyone’s interest that the war does not repeat itself, said Jenssen.
– Russia is struggling enormously militarily, and it seems unrealistic that they can take new territories. Now it is rather a question of what Ukraine manages to take back, he added.
When asked by VG whether it is Nato’s view that Ukraine must cede land in order to achieve peace with Russia and future membership in Nato, Jenssen pointed out that the discussion about possible status after the war is already underway, and that questions about ceding territory to Russia is raised by others.
I’m not saying it has to be like this. But that could be a possible solution, replied Jenssen.
Published: 15.08.23 kl. 13:30
Updated: 15.08.23 kl. 14:52
Any comments mr. Johnson?
And on the Eastern Front? China has quit reporting youth unemployment numbers. “Because the youth is spending longer in college, and these numbers are no longer relevant”. Ahem.
Russia will be the next sole world power. They have energy, food, STEM graduates, and now a honed and taut military.
China? They have no energy. They can’t feed their own populace. They exist by bringing in goods or semi-finished products, working on them, and exporting them. And the US is onshoring or friend shoring or whatever. In any case corporations are being pressured to exit China. And when they exit? They take capital, and their engineering products the Chinese are so adept at stealing.
The Chinese current decline is not temporary. They made a lot of money working for us. They threw it away on Belt n Road initiatives with Third World shitholes that will never pay the money back.
I am constantly amused at the Russia will be a slave to China narrative. Not even close. Russia does not want a slave, but it will hold the whip hand. And by the way? The other burgeoning world power? India. Hates China’s fucking guts. And unlike China, the Indian’s are breeding like fertile little water rats. China’s paranoia about India is well placed.
The New Millenium. Russian dominance. Chinese decline. Indian growth. American fallback. European outhouse fire. Africa is fucking Africa. South America is Manana Land like always. And really? That is perfect. Russia is benign. India is benign. All Hail the New Order!!!
China imported 8.5% of its food in 2022. I don’t know what percentage of food we Americans import, but I’m eating tostadas from Mexico as I type this. China, average IQ = 104. India, average IQ = 77. https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php The Indians who move to the US are the higher caste, smarter ones. If a high fertility rate were the key to prosperity, the emerging world power would be Mali. China is a huge nation with a capable, hard working, highly educated people that has raised its national wealth more significantly and more quickly than any other country in history.
I was hoping this would end by the end of August but the EU is going to fund Ukraine for more years. I starting to think Colonel Doug Macgregor is right. If the Russians want a sound defeat of Ukraine, they better hurry things up, because it’s only going to give the West more opportunity to send more weapons and money dragging it out.
Hurry up where? Their enemy is The West, not Ukraine. Defeating Ukraine fast won’t defeat The West. Even if Zelensky was to sign capitulation today, the war between Rusia and The West would continue in other ways.
*** “The wild card in these calculations is NATO. Worst case — the United States or other NATO members decide to intervene by sending their own troops to Ukraine.” ***
Probably Russia is prepared for a big intervention by the “other NATO members”, but what if NATO starts using tiny groups of its own troops (disguised as Ukrainians) to make “pinprick” attacks. This would serve as both a stalling operation and also a chance to goad Russia into doing something rash. The WW2 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo caused the Japanese leaders to react in a really stupid way. Hitler’s Luftwaffe mistakenly bombed London, and this gave Churchill the opening to do the same to Berlin.
The bombardment of Donbass towns went on for 8 years, and small numbers of heroic “Ukrainians” could scoot around with their long-range missiles to continue attacking civilian targets throughout the new Russian provinces.
If Biden – or whoever is manipulating him – really wants to extend the war past the coming Ukrainian defeat, I fear he/they will find a way. Russia might be forced to create a “free-fire” zone of hundreds of miles.
“… to goad Russia into doing something rash.”
Good luck with that.
If I am correct, I believe it was Great Britten’s Chamberlain that long ago recalled, that the most important thing to remember about his studies on the Rules of War was clearly written on the first paragraph of the first page of the first chapter where it unequivocally states, rule number one in War is, NEVER FOCK WITH MOSCOW!
Why? Because when you find yourself entangled with Moscow, and you are deluded enough to think you are winning, she will do something so dangerous and so daring that you will rue the day you forgot rule number one!
History has enshrined this first rule of war in a phrase, so as not to forget it –Crazy Ivan!
**** “The Chinese current decline is not temporary. They made a lot of money working for us. They threw it away on Belt n Road initiatives with Third World shitholes that will never pay the money back.” ****
Have you considered that the Chinese may not expect to get the money back? They’re holding an enormous sum of US dollars, and they’ve watched the US steal every Russian asset within reach.
I’ve given some thought to the notion that China is quietly getting rid of its US $$$ stash as quickly and quietly as possible. That could include exchanging those Dollars for real things like roads and rails and other infrastructure – and possibly some Good Will. IMO getting *anything* would beat having their overseas bank accounts suddenly emptied by Biden & Company.
I appreciate your many contributions since I learned of your work via the YouTube channel of Judge Napolitano. Kudos for that. In particular it is useful to have a look into the ways wars might end. However, it appears to me, the more relevant question is the one about the reasons for starting the war and the conditions necessary to end it.
As the Ukraine is a tool of the US, I believe it is necessary to look into the pros and cons the Ukraine conflict has to the US. On the one hand there are huge profits to be made from giving weapons to the Ukraine. On the other hand there is a huge political penalty to the US in form of the increasing number of countries that try to get away from under the boot of the US. I would say, the US is ready to end this confrontation when the cons significantly outweigh the pros. It looks to me, that this condition is not yet achieved.
It also occurs to me that the US is capable of prolonging the conflict by funneling into it additional manpower, machines, tools and political support. Unfortunately I do not see a quick end of the conflict.
Germany commits $5 Billion to Ukraine thru 2027 is their ticket for entrance to the UKRAINE ASSET SALE (farmland , oil & gas , mineral/mining (iron, titanium , lithium, rare earth) , infrastructure. Germany doesn’t want Blackrock, Vanguard, Statestreet, Cargill, Monsanto, etc. getting all of the Ukraine people’s resources Zelensky is selling out to U.S.
NOTICE: THRU 2027 . NO MONEY NOW. IF (when) Ukraine collapses Germany cancels agreement. Nothing lost.
Zelensky selling country to the West as incentive to keep sending money, guns and lawyers. Zelensky will keep sending young Ukraine men to their death in this futile effort as long as he gets his vig.
Zelensky must be careful. When he stops being useful to the West , . . . . . then ?
Odessa could be a place where NATO and Russia clash and the proxy war becomes a world war. It is hard to envision Moscow accepting Odessa being taken into the fold of NATO, and yet baring an unconditional surrender, it may be difficult for the Russians to annex Odessa, Mykolaiv, the west bank of Kherson, and Transnistria due to the difficulties inherent in launching military operations across the Dnieper.
A very good piece.