Within sight of the Stadium Albert Speer built for Hitler’s 1936 Olympics there looms a high hill above the fashionable Grunewald district. A rare sight in flat Berlin, it once had a ski jump on it and is still used by skiers in the winter. It is capped by a deserted NATO listening station used during the Cold War to eavesdrop on Russian forces and their Warsaw Pact allies.
But there is nothing natural about it. It is called “Teufelsberg,” the Devil’s Mountain, for good reason. And it is made of the rubble from the tens of thousands of ruined buildings removed from Hitler’s Berlin as the city was painfully rebuilt.
That was a consequence of the last time Germany sent tanks into Ukraine. And the Russians left a conspicuous reminder across the street from the burn- out Wilhelmine Reichstag building. It holds the functioning German parliament now called the Bundestag, which Olaf Scholz runs as its current Chancellor. Close by stands the massive Russian War Memorial surmounted by two of the T 34 tanks the Soviet Army had driven from Russia to smash into the heart of Germany in 1945.
But that hasn’t affected the massive incompetence of the latest US compelled NATO equipment contribution to the failing Ukrainians, well on their way to defeat. The problem of the American response in general, is the same problem the United States has faced in all its other failed military responses in the last half century. We seem to be able to define our mission, but not our objective.
In this case America sees its mission as responding to the Ukrainian offer to provide the troops to fight the war to victory if the West will supply the equipment. Unfortunately, the American Administration and Defense establishment haven’t taken the trouble to understand much less analyze the military realities facing Ukraine. Despite having US advisors on site in Ukraine, the Ukrainians have run through the almost 2 million shells sent them. Apparently American military planners didn’t do the math in advance and now they have awakened and advised Ukraine it isn’t necessary to answer all the Russian artillery coming in, currently at the rate of ten shells to one Ukrainian.
And instead of planning its objective and evaluating what manpower and equipment would be required to achieve it, the American NATO defense establishment jumped right in and waited until the beginning of 2023 to announce two studies, by CSIS and Rand projecting rough prospects.
This may not be too surprising given the careful avoidance of anything as tacky as actual military service by anyone in the Biden Administration. But they do have strong “national security” opinions none the less. And they overrule any senior military officers who raises glaring military issues that might differ with their PR objective. And that is the only war they and the Zelensky government are really concentrating on.
Fortunately for the Biden National Security flunkies, today’s American military appears to be commanded by the most astounding assemblage of carefully selected moral cowards in our nation’s history.
So it is also not surprising, if political eyewash, not effectiveness, is the only objective, that numbers to bulk up press releases are more important than battlefield impact. So we reached into our inventory of obsolete equipment and coughed up, for example, 200 M113 armored personnel carriers. These are tinplated Vietnam War era antiques and may be suitable for moving corpses or the wounded, but little else. They might more easily defined as “targets.”
We also threw in 50 or more Bradleys and the Germans contributed 40 Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs)), designed 50 years ago, both undergunned and designed to be used today only in combined arms configurations accompanied by one tank to 3 or more IFVs. Without tanks and the combined arms training, they, like the 113s, are pretty much targets. The French came up with some wheeled armored cars with some nifty little cannon that at least might be useful as an antitank weapon if dug in, but would never survive long on a modern battlefield which is why the French use them in Africa.
There are some MRAPS, and Humvees to bulk up the eyewash numbers with more targets that should burn really well, some under-gunned artillery and obsolete missiles and other filler. The only problem with all this equipment is that a lot of it has to be “reconditioned” and once it all gets working it is a maintenance nightmare of incompatible parts and differing weapons systems. This equipment will arrive in dribs and drabs at yet to be specified times and all require specialized training from the diminishing Ukrainian manpower available.
The problem is Zelensky is howling that if he doesn’t get tanks by August, this is all an academic exercise. And Lt Col Daniel Davis, an armor officer, can’t see any way tanks could be reconditioned, provided and its crews trained minimally before the fall.
None of this interrupts the strong arming by the Biden National Security flunkerati. What counts after all is the PR campaign and making sure the US and NATO can be seen as dedicating all the phantom equipment it can to meet Zelensky’s absurd “needs” in his own PR war to maintain some credibility for his collapsing regime.
So after an absurd shoving match at a meeting at Ramstein, the United States commited 31 of its Abrams M1s (after reconditioning of course) complete with support vehicles and crew training. That’s a whole tank battalion in a war that in 11 months has seen almost 8,000 destroyed Ukrainian armored vehicles alone. And against protest from his own Army, Germany’s Scholz has gallantly agreed to provide 112 of their advanced Leopard 2 tanks in “an unspecified period of time.”
Now everyone has their press releases in order, the phantom equipment that supposedly makes it up will be painfully, and no doubt with considerable uanticipated delays, assembled. Military contracters everywhere will be working up bonuses they got from their local national NATO appropriations for the work it took assembling and reconditioning the largest convoy of obsolete equipment in military history.
And just possibly, as the leaves fall later this year, and Zelensky suns himself at one of his mansions in Florida, there will be the damndest traffic jam ever at the railyards in Eastern Poland.
Most of Ukraine itself will be under a temporary Russian military occupation as the endgame gets sorted out. And the general staffs of several Western countries, including the United States, will be delighted to hear that the tanks their governments had paid to update without affecting their departmental appropriations, somehow never got shipped.
Unfortunately there were unintended consequences. After enduring 30 years of perfidious post Cold War behavior by the United States and the fraud admitted by Angela Merkel in the Minsk Agreement as well as the Istanbul Agreement, the Russians now totally distrust the West.
NATO’s failed and miserably planned effort in support of Ukraine revealed the hollow shell it has become. It is now more an impressive assemblage of flags than a credible military power. And Russia learned its own competitive strength under the pressure of Western sanctions intended to weaken and fragment it.
While loudmouthed American generals blather on publicly about meeting the Chinese challenge over Taiwan, the recent experience of Russian generals make them wonder if the American military could defend Catalina Island off California.
The Russians have learned a lot. What has America and NATO learned?
What will Russia do now?
When the European Union was formed, its most significant strategic errors were not admitting Russia into the Union and not dropping NATO.
Why would they Bob, when breaking up Russia is their century old goal.
Try millenium-old…..
Also true, even starting in the 7th century.
Yes – and Trump was so right about dropping NATO when he took office. Organizations that have outlived their original purpose will find new purpose, often corrupt, in their effort to remain relevant.
Let’s get him back in office then so he can finish the job
No he won’t. He even promised that he would send planes. This was in in feb last year.
He killed Solemani and was an out snd out shill for Israel. The only thing he differed in was to take on China first.
Don’t look at the rhetoric, look at the content. Trump was clearly resisting the neocon push to assassinate Soleimani: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-authorized-soleimani-s-killing-7-months-ago-conditions-n1113271
One of many reasons why the Establishment ultimately got rid of him.
He can finish the job with the only weapon he yields….. hot air rhetoric.
…Trump will bend over backwards to be accepted by the American elite….like hiring pompous Pompeo and bushy Bolton
Well said.
Even the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, a notoriously criminal organization, began with a rightful and legitimate purpose, that was in the thirteenth century.
Those days are long forgotten but the organization has lived on ever since.
NATO is a Tupperware Club for Raytheon and General Dynamics
Trump was demanding Europe buy more weapons yet proposing closing down the Marketing Club –
That is the entire sum of our current federal government.
Except… that just *wasn’t* gonna happen:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1356047/Euro-federalists-financed-by-US-spy-chiefs.html
Great point! I guess they wanted to keep the perpetual adversary at arm’s length to justify keeping NATO in existence–and thus, keep American hegemony in Europe. NATO is a paper tiger, and the rest of the world is seeing the Wicked Witch of the West melting. What happened after the “meltdown”? The intimidation spell was broken.
Who formed the EU was Washington precisely to control Europe politically as it controls militarily with NATO! And what is at stake in this war is precisely the economic bloc of Eurasia, which is worth several times the GDP of the US! Even if the US only admits that it wants to disconnect Germany from Russia! So why the regime change in Moscow? Today, the US admits that it lost the war and, regardless of how each one interprets Bliken’s ceasefire conditions in the Post, what is at stake above all is Odessa and Russia closing the Black Sea! There is a lot of money from the West invested in Ukraine pressuring the White House for a ceasefire that keeps Odessa! And Russia will stay away from a Europe without autonomy. Which I agree was only possible with Russia. What the US never allowed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeLu_yyz3tc
You clearly have ZERO knowledge of EEC 1957. Worse than ZERO.
USA wanted to re-arm West Germany 1955 and create a military force. (GDR followed 1956). France did not want a re-armed Germany. The European Defence Union proposed to create a European Army to absorb German rearmament was vetoed by French Assembly 1954 after Dien-Bien Phu.
So USA had to bring West Germany into NATO but Turkey had a price………it was Gastarbeiter – Adenauer had to submit to US demands to import Anatolian men because of high birth rate in Turkey and find them jobs.
France needed guarantees beyond the presence of British, Canadian, US troops in Germany and the Coal & Steel Federation was turned into European Economic Community with Walter Hallstein (German) as first Head of the European Commission which was the Secretariat.
Germany had also to establish Convertibility of D-Mark which occurred same year 1957
1962 Erich Honecker finished his project – Berlin Wall.
Adenauer was furious Kennedy was so weak and failed to tear it down – GDR regime had NO authority in Berlin under Four Power Agreement.
Adenauer distrusted Kennedy – Kennedy rushed to Berlin to prop up alliance as Adenauer turned to de Gaulle and signed Elysee Treaty to have France force-de-frappe as protection for his Rhineland Republic.
That is why Kennedy said he was a doughnut “Berliner”
That is why France and Germany became the motor of the SIX. – BeNeLux, France, Germany, Italy.
It was why US pushed UK to join 1963 to keep influence through what de Gaulle called “Trojan Horse” and obstructed entry until US had him toppled in 1968………Pompidou as friend of Heath in UK and (both negotiators 1963) let UK into EEC
There was as much chance of USSR joining EEC as of USA becoming a Communist State……….and in 1991 Russia had been looted by Harvard “Advisers” and US Carpetbaggers so much that the Great Depression in USA 1932 looked like an economic boom
Bingo!
Tanks for Ukraine: Escalation or Mystification?
Jean-Luc Baslé – January 30, 2023
The war in Ukraine is not the result of chance or sudden and unexplained Russian aggression, but of a deliberate US policy whose ultimate goal is world hegemony.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Germany will deliver heavy tanks to Ukraine as well as Finland, Poland and Spain, for a total of 125 tanks – a number well below the 300 tanks requested by the Ukrainian General Valeri Zaluzhny during his interview with The Economist last December. If we add to this the fact that the German Leopard 2s will only be delivered in three or four months, that the American Abrams will have to be manufactured to be delivered in a year, that the training of the crews is a crucial question according to General Mark Milley , Chief of Staff of the American Armed Forces, and that the maintenance of this equipment requires qualified personnel, as explained by Scott Ritter, former American secret service, it is permissible to wonder what will be the real impact of these tanks which will be in insufficient quantity and without air support. By the admission of General Erich Vad, former military adviser to Angela Merkel, even 100 Leopard 2 tanks would not change the military situation. Colonel Douglas Macgregor, former adviser to the Pentagon, declares for his part, after recalling the military superiority of Russia, that: “Ukraine is on the verge of experiencing a war on a scale that we have not known since 1945”.
If Russia launches the campaign it has been preparing for several months in the coming weeks whether the promised tanks are ready for combat or not, its victory is assured. Western leaders know this. It is therefore permissible to make the following hypothesis: these deliveries are a media operation aimed at convincing the Western peoples that their governments have done everything to come to the aid of Ukraine. Washington and London would thus camouflage their failure. Ukraine will then disappear from the media to be replaced by China, its expansionist aims, or its treatment of the Uyghurs. This is the communication policy that was adopted after the humiliating withdrawal from Kabul. Overnight, Afghanistan disappeared from the international scene. It will be the same for kyiv.
In this war, the aim of which is to weaken Russia, propaganda has played a very important role. Europeans and Americans were subjected to exceptional media hype in November-December 2021 as Moscow tried in vain to convince Washington to reach an agreement to avoid war. This extraordinary propaganda leads the European nations to accept measures contrary to their fundamental interests!… Pierre de Gaulle, the general’s grandson, spoke out against this absurdity. Emmanuel Todd, during a conference at Sciences Po Bordeaux, recalled that the attacked in this affair was Russia through an unjustified expansion of NATO which places American missiles on the borders of Russia seven minutes from Moscow. Note that his analysis is similar to that of John Mearsheimer, professor at the University of Chicago. The Rand Corporation – the Pentagon think tank – makes no secret of its desire to see the United States reassess its policy vis-à-vis Ukraine and Russia in order to reach a peace agreement.
This is a setback for the United States – a setback that condemns a foreign policy that the neoconservatives have pursued since they took control of it in the 1990s. business, as some fear, but of mystification. That said, the Russian offensive will not end the war in Ukraine. Despite admonitions from the Rand Corporation, Washington is not done with its dreams of world hegemony. Those dreams will fade when the neoconservatives George Bush Sr. called “basement crackpots” leave the White House.
NATO, apparently, has learned nothing. Russia has learned that NATO is a paper tiger, all bluff and no real substance. In the face of media reports that show US/NATO rapidly exhausting munitions and equipment, with no ability to replace, and that it isn’t performing well in the field against the Russians, there are still fools claiming NATO could win a direct confrontation. It should be obvious that any attempt to get anything resembling a fighting force to confront Russia would end up a cluster fuck to put it mildly.
NATO has soldier and no necessary equipment for them to use. F-35’s are crap, Russia can handle anything they’ve got without breathing hard, as the US/NATO stocks are limited, spread out, and there is no productive capacity for munitions and replacement parts. Toss in a public against any more war and NATO is hooped right off the bat.
NATO better hope Russia doesn’t decide to go full on. They’re ready for it, and know what real war is. They’ve refurbed all their bomb shelters and built new ones. They’ve even thought ahead to protect their population in the worst case scenario. They’re ready for full-blown war, NATO isn’t, and can’t be for years. Hyper-sonic missiles and drones have changed the landscape so having way more men in army boots doesn’t matter as much. The US fleet is of no value here, and would be sitting ducks for the hyper-sonics anyway. And then there’s China. Taiwan would be re-integrated in short order.
NATO has learned nothing. Russia has learned it can do what it wants. What will they do? At minimum I suspect they’ll humiliate NATO and render it an obvious joke, if not go all out to finish it off. I would guess they want to at least fracture/destabilize NATO and the EU and indirectly start the collapse of the US dollar. Once that process gets some steam, it’ll runaway on its own. The question is really how much damage does Russia want to unleash on the west. Fortunately for us, they’re more thoughtful than their western counterparts, so not inclined to blow us up just to set an example.
excellent comment.
The empire is rotten from the inside. The whole of the global south and even some of our “allies” in the Arab world can smell it.
The tanks are a PR exercise, I think everyone “in the know” understands and sees where the whole SMO and proxy war are headed and that by the time the tanks arrive, the RFA will be past the Dnieper or at least firmly entrenched on it.
You would think that the neocons would have tried to get as much mileage as possible from whoever they can bleed dry economically locally from their own populations and from around the world – plenty of small and mid-sized countries fear(ed)/believed us still. Instead they chose to pursue this pointless proxy war exercise and in the process showed everyone that the rot is structural – accelerating their own demise. Instead of getting 20-30 years worth of mileage from exploiting their own citizenry through a combination of “financialized economy + neo-colonial exploitation of global south where the cheap food and junk come from”, they shortened the horizon to maybe what – 2-3 years tops?
Fun fact: did you know that Mexico is filling up with American expats? Prices are rising in many cities due to Gringos moving in. Developments popping up with apartments etc. Costcos being built etc. etc. “He who can votes with their feet”?
You can still get decent healthcare in Mexico too. You have to pay for it but it is relatively affordable and they actually try to help you rather than kill you.
Yeah, but watch out. Governors of some Mexican states were as tyrannical as Newsom, Whitmer and Cuomo with their Covid restrictions at times during the last three years. Mexico is also advancing along the road of vaxx passports/digital ID/CBDCs more than I would have thought.
I heard about all this from Hrvoje Moric, the host of the wonderful Geopolitics and Empire podcast and himself a resident of the Guadalajara area. Hrvoje is, in turn, in touch with several other American expat podcasters in Mexico, and serves as a consultant for people who are thinking about moving there.
I also follow the Tim Kirby Russia Hardcore channel on Telegram, where there are a lot of folks who have emigrated from the U.S. to Russia. More of those than you might think.
Lots of folks want to “get the hell out of Dodge,” and I don’t blame them. If I didn’t have a farm and kids — i.e., deep, deep roots here — I might be thinking about it too!
Just be warned that no place is perfect, you darn well better be fluent in the language, and you will always, to the natives, be a newcomer or even an outsider. When the chips are down, they’ll most likely stick by their own people, not by you.
Larry: I think this is all part of an overall face-saving off-ramp that the neocons want to implement, now that they know that their war in Ukraine is lost. Basically, it consists of the following:
1) Recognize Russia’s control over Crimea and the other territories that it just annexed. Pepe Escobar has described this in some length here:
https://thesaker.is/a-panicked-empire-tries-to-make-russia-an-offer-it-cant-refuse/
2) Create a demilitarized buffer zone between them and rest of Ukraine.
3) Save Western Ukraine, so that it becomes the “new” Ukraine, where NATO can station all its tanks/jets and other military equipment as a deterrence from further Russian attacks.
That way, the West can claim that they “deterred” and “scared off” the Russians from occupying/destroying the whole of Ukraine. And they will use this to continue to bolster their position in the world as a superpower.
Reminds me of the attempts at a similar face-saving resolution – via meetings with the Vietcong leadership in Paris – that Kissinger wanted to implement, just before the ignominious retreat from Vietnam. Kissinger and Nixon dragged on the Vietnam War for at least 3 years precisely due to this reason – they didn’t America to lose face. Unfortunately, America did lose face in the end, and I fear a repeat of this in Ukraine as well.
I read the Pepe article linked above, and also John Helmer’s post that Pepe refers to. Since I did not see anywhere any kind of an offer of recognizing Crimea as Russian, and the only suggestion of ‘demilitarization’ I saw referred specifically to Crimea, so it can “no longer serve as a base for attacks against Ukraine” and “with questions of final political control deferred”.
So I looked up and read the Washington Post opinion piece on which both these authors based their posts. In fact, it was stated that Crimea must eventually be returned to Kyiv’s control, but not by military means, as Russia “indicated that an assault on Crimea would be a tripwire for nuclear escalation”.
I am not a diplomat or analyst, so maybe there is a layer under what is written in the Post that is understood by journalists and statesmen that I can not see, but in no way that I can see is anything laid out that suggests any concessions or grounds for negotiation. Am I just too stupid or naïve to get it?
The Post piece can be read without the paywall here:
https://archive.is/4G38y#selection-1121.456-1121.535
Greetings Lorna… Crimea is the only warm water port with access to the Med that Russia has. It ain’t going back and Putin said as much when he mentioned the “trip wire” part.
Ukraine was intended as a base from which to destabilize Russia. Vicky built an army beginning in 2014 to eventually attack Russia. With that proven, along with Russia’s total loss of confidence in any Western adherence to any treaty, it would make sense, if you were Russia, to take it all the way to the Polish border. It is a good possibility, Ukraine will be no more in its old form.
The Neocons will double down on breaking up Russia but not in Ukraine. They have no more moves left and keeping appearances is all they can salvage. This is good news for the people of Ukraine or what’s left of them.
I understand FDR tried to make Lend-Lease to USSR contingent on a deal over Crimea – apparently FDR had a clientele in New York that hoped to acquire a Homeland for its Diaspora
your analysis is all garbage!
do you think the Russians spent all those lives and equipment so Nato can move into western ukraine?
My only fear is that Putin will be fooled again by the US. The US will make offers that Russia cannot refuse until it falls into the trap. Otherwise I have no doubt about the final result of the Russian offensive.
I think british MI6 SAS terrorists will organize a gigantic false flag after all tanks are burned(they did the NS sabotage, the Crimea bridge etc…) british army is a joke but in terrorism which requires less people they are good even better than the US.
09/11 will be a ‘joke’ compared with this upcoming false flag.If they don’t do it they know the western bankrupted financial system ‘rulled base order’ is finished(and they are all gone, their career is finished) and forever as today China for the first time accused the US of having started the war and demands an immediate stop of weapons flow to Ukraine.Multiple countries this week end refused to send weapons as well, the all south America continent + Mexico..even in Europe Croatia wants no war with Russia, Austria same + Hungary and Serbia already convinced since day one.
Macron is desperate he will decide tuesday if he send fighter jets.Macron faces today a monumental strike about the pension reform..if Russia wins Macron and all EU leaders will lose face to such a level that it will provoke regime change as people will ask why they have been forced to make so many sacrifices in their life for absolutely zero sane reason?
You make great points.
I wish you were right about the oligarchy soon to lose its grip on France or Germany (preferably both). Maybe it’s in the stars and I hope it is. Colonel McGregor seems to believe this, too.
Although popular discontent in these countries is real, imo it takes other powerful ingredients to produce a regime change. Popular discontent supplies the manpower then.
I think Putin has been wise to the perfidy of the U.S. for quite some time. He did, however, have way too much hope for Europe — and THEIR betrayal is what, I think, took him by surprise.
Now, it is evident to everyone outside the brainwashed West that Europe is nothing but the vassals of the U.S. In fact, that very word “vassal” is now being used outright by Putin, Medvedev, and even the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Nobody could have foreseen that Europe would so eagerly go along with its own suicide. The U.S. attacks its own ally by blowing up GERMANY’s pipeline — its energy lifeline, the key to German industry and its economy — and what do we hear from the victimized German people? Nothing. Crickets.
It’s like everyone in the West is under mass hypnosis.
Putin and his team are wide awake, though, and any remaining illusions they might have had of “let’s all get along” are long gone. And they ain’t coming back.
This American sees opportunity in this diplomatic/military/economic catastrophe engineered by neocon lunatics in Washington, London, and Brussels. With a little luck, it may force my native land to start acting like a normal country once again. All my life I’ve lived in the intellectual shadows cast by the Enola Gay, Bock’s Car, and psychopaths like Curtis Lemay. Frankly, I’m tired of this shyte and would welcome a change in the way the world is ordered, whether it comes by hook or by crook.
Agree
Well said/well written.
What will Russia do now? They better decide to end this; to mop up eastern Ukraine (excuse me, Russia’s western border regions) and then Odessa, if they want it.
Any notion that the SMO could be a slow grind to fix NATO and reduce them should be over now. As the piece notes, US and NATO are finding excuses to no longer send goodies to Ukraine. The jig is up. No more NATO targets are forthcoming. Finish it Russia, finish it before the US and NATO have the opportunity to take this to crazy to the tenth power levels, because they will, if you let them.
It appears to be more of the nato Bandstand are trying to say “we are deeply disturbed by the things we aren’t telling you”. They aren’t sending new or highly functional weapons, just promising old potentially functional ones. There is no intent to send them because there is no more money to make replacements and all the military bosses must be getting awful nervous that Joe is selling their gear down by the river. (Dnepr) After all, the Ukraine Peoples Front isn’t going to be paying anyone back ever.
Must, cause, collapse of the dollar or the financial system. Blame everyone else.
Ukraine will be soon abandoned. was there a peace offer from Putin, recently? A last, “We tried peace”, before the meat grinder is cranked up to full speed? Russia handed Vicky Nulander her tush in Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of two remaining platforms from which Russia can be destabilized. The other is Iran. Recently Iran was attacked internally by NGOs and externally by short range quad copters. Russia will not allow Iran’s regime to collapse or to become a base for destabilizing Russia. Knowing the West’s intentions, Russia will respond faster than it did in Ukraine. The Neocons have a number of assets in the area and might think they can pull and back a coup in Iran. However, those US assets are surrounded by Shia Muslims loyal to Iran and are all over Iraq, looking for so many paybacks.
The danger of a heavy attack on Iran by Israeli fighters fueled by US tankers, might unleash Lebanese Shia leader Nasr Allah’s arsenal of Iranian 1000 pounder warhead missiles on Israel’s ammonia storage facilities as warned earlier. Then, even a kosher Patriot system will not stop what is estimated at 2500 warheads. This could bring the area into a total meltdown with the blocking of the Hurmuz straight.
The Necons when they loose, they double down. The only way we can stop these useless wars is to send the neocons back to where they came from, Russia.
For the life of me, I can’t figure what the hell their end game is. I could easily see that they might have been arrogant enough to think they could control the battle at the start, when they had a large, fairly well trained and equipped army that was actively prepared for battle. You might think it would have given them at least .05 clue that they were in over their head when that army and airforce were chewed up, spit out and basically evaporated in short order without the bear so much as blinking. I suppose they might be trying to prolong it as long as they can while they search for a way to reach the exit without the planet at large noticing the big brown stain in the back of their shorts.
Their stated goal is Eurasia, for those who control Eurasia will own the 21rst century.
The US MIC has taken their weapons to War and proven that they are inferior and thus will not be in demand to buyers. Even the new B-2 bomber has lost its reason for being given Russian and soon Chinese AD systems. The S-400 or the S-500 are the best in the world and the Russian supersonic missiles make our Aircraft Carrier battle groups easy targets and useless cash cows.
USA, USA, USA has become a paper tiger. Will we learn to stay home and fix our home and it’s people? Hope so.
Alas, I think not without having prominent neocons dangling from Light poles. I hope I’m wrong.
At some point, Mr. Johnson, you will finally, perhaps grudgingly, come to accept that very little of the insanity and incompetence you rail against in your fine writings is actual insanity or incompetence.
No, at some point we must accept the reality, no matter how soul crushing, that the gangsters in charge in DC intend the very outcomes you decry. This isn’t accidental, oversight, blind hubris, or any million excuses you wish to dream up. These criminals are doing all these things because *that is precisely what they want.*
Furnishing obsolete, hodge podge military gear, dragged out in dribs and drabs is *exactly the plan*. Just as they blew up the Nordstream pipelines as planned, they are bleeding Ukraine dry while ruining Europe. They know all of the things you take so much time and effort to point out. Sure, DC is chock full of idiots, no doubt, but there are plenty of people every bit as bright as you and they see it just as clearly. The difference is that you are under the apparent illusion that the DC gang is stumbling their way blindly while they know and intend it. It’s a feature, not a bug as the saying goes.
The GOAL has always been “Fuck EU”!
My gut feeling says you are most likely correct. This is a ‘designed’ collapse of western society and the middle class. ‘You will own nothing and be happy’, remember? The intention is to reduce the world’s population by 60%, getting rid of the ‘useless eaters’, then enslaving the remainder under a ‘cashless credit system’ to keep us all ‘working’ on the 0.1%’s enrichment.
The German Parliament doesn’t need to look out the windows. There are walls within the Bundestag where the Soviet graffiti from 1945 was preserved. Supposedly, it was to serve as a reminder to the German people / government. Oh well.
https://bilddatenbank.bundestag.de/fotos/file7c4h4yoonx1153jhcp1e.jpg
They’ll draft the rainbow rump rangers and the fierce She-Ra wymyn warriors for the glorious victory.
Recruiting offices are lined up around the building and the XXXXL BDU’s are going fast.
The UKES will learn to work the Wunderwaffen in no time.
Ivan trembles in fear and Brandon will lead us to a 1000 year reign.
What if USA wants a weakened NATO, especially Germany?
There is no “weak NATO” goal , the only purpose of the shit was dismantling Russia , pillage it’s natural resources and profit. The “weak” germoney , weak NATO is only a consequence of the neocons failure with Russia.
The “B-Plan ”
It’s a panic move pillaging the already weak facing impossibility of pillaging the strong , but an economical weakened NATO is not so much in US interest. Who’s gonna buy US treasury bonds then ? The IMF ? It might kill the EU as a political institution in the end (good riddance).
Then with no toys , no friends , no money : what will the neocons do ?
That’s my theory. I even think that Putin and Blinken knew very well what damage the sanctions would do to Europe, either independently or in cahoots. The US can go green after the economic damage has been done to Europe and eat the carrion left behind.
Paper tiger or not, this can go a long way before it stops. NATO’s fetish has always been air power, going back to WWII, via Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf wars, bombing Serbia, Lybia, Afghanistan, and the list goes on. Using its air power is what NATO is clamoring for. It’s built into it’s genes, so to speak. NATO may not give up before it has gone that far and its air power has been neutralized by Russia, or not. We will see. NATO certainly has the means to try it out. The path to escalation is via the delivery of F-16’s, just as it is being discussed right now. The US has hundreds, if not thousands of F-16’s in storage. NATO also has hundreds, if not thousands of trained pilots. The only question is how many of them can be made to climb into a refurbished F-16’s cockpit to partake in combat operations. Yet indications are that some Ukrainian pilots are already being trained to fly F-16’s. An F-16 has the radar return of a barn door, so Russia will certainly shoot down lots of them, but that is not the question. The question is whether escalation can be avoided.
A thing to note about the F-16 is its weak undercarriage. Designed more for profit than for actual combat operations under adverse conditions, like so many other western weapon systems, this weakness requires F-16’s to be operated from smooth, long runways. Russia can easily find and damage any such runway being established anywhere in Ukraine. If NATO thus decides to operate F-16’s from beyond Ukraine’s borders, then Russia will be faced with the decision to let that happen, or to attack these bases. If Russia decides to strike, then WWIII will only be a hair’s breadth away. F-16 bases will be located in Romania and Poland. As soon as Russia has attacked them, these countries will claim Article 5, other countries will have to decide whether to contend with that and go to war with Russia, or perhaps to deny Article 5 on grounds of letting F-16’s take off from their bases makes Poland and Romania willing participants in the war. There is no doubt that denying Article 5 would have to be done in the face of a massive media storm and massive political pressure from both the inside and outside. Taking the path of least resistance as always, Macron, Scholz, Maloni and the like will probably cave in. Resistance against that from within society will not have enough time to crystallize and become effective. In that scenario WWIII will be on.
Another scenario is less fragile fighters than the F-16 being delivered to Ukraine. The F-18, being a carrier fighter, has a much stronger undercarriage than the F-16. On the face of it, that makes it much more suitable for Ukrainian conditions, however, just like the F-16 the F-18 also requires a huge logistics trail. NATO will perhaps try to operate F-18’s, of which there are many in storage just like with the F-16, from runways close to Ukraine’s western borders – so that the logistics become manageable, or so NATO will think. In any case there is clearly a long way to go left on the escalation path.
what if the f16`s used against russia are drones
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417/f-16-drone/
regards,
ralph
As has been explained to death here and elsewhere; Article 5 does not state all members must automatically ‘go to war’, but it has in it this sentence “such action as it deems necessary”. It gives them a free pass to do SFA.
perhaps to deny Article 5 on
Go read Article 5
It is about as helpful as your household liability insurance……..
It MUST be read in conjunction with Art 51 UN Charter and currently Russia has best claims on Art 51
Further Germany has breached Art 26:1 of German Verfassung
It has also breached 2+4 Treaty 1990 reuniting Germany
Germany – like Japan – its still listed as an ENEMY State in Charter of UN
Who thinks in earnest that NATO thinks it “must” use Article 5 together with Artical 51 UN Charter or any other legal paragraph witten anywhere? After Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Afghanistan, the Minsk agreement and how it was admitted to have been signed in bad faith? The Minsk agreement actually became part of international law, no less, because it was ratified by the UN security council.
Article 5 has to be viewed as a political tenet, not a legal one. As a politcal tenet, it’s very powerful.
mr. johnson- i guess the one thing they may do is remove the 2 t34 tanks and destroy the russian war memorial. With the way things are escalating ; this may occur in the near future which would really enrage the germans.
Close by stands the massive Russian War Memorial surmounted by two of the T 34 tanks the Soviet Army had driven from Russia to smash into the heart of Germany in 1945.
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almost 30 years ago the below happened when the survivors of both sides got together. At this time there was a chance for permanent peace to be set up between russia and germany which would have benefited the world immensely. Nordstream 2 would have been the final monument to this.
instead the anglo-american alliance neocons have done everything in their power to prevent Yelstins words from happening by putting their proxies into every european goverment and we know have the shitshow clownworld occurring worldwide that will only destroy the entire working middle class by a bunch of criminal elite neocon global homo demonic scumbags and their lackies who will reduce this world to ashes in the near future if not stopped in my opinion
Directed Evolution of Humanity
https://www.bitchute.com/video/9ZHCJNCkVpy6/
https://seed132.bitchute.com/OAx0XCP2TC4a/9ZHCJNCkVpy6.mp4
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i wonder if the neocon plans against russia began in earnest after yeltsin said this below.
https://www.deseret.com/1993/2/2/19030036/survivors-recall-battle-of-stalingrad
On Monday, President Boris Yeltsin used the anniversary to rally Russians who are enduring economic woes.
“Stalingrad is a convincing testament that however difficult it might be, our people can find the strength and the resolution to overcome harsh ordeals together,” Yeltsin said in a statement.
He also sought to dissolve lingering hatred of Germans.
“Former enemies have become partners,” he said. “We are brought together to the people of Germany by basic democratic and moral values, by a common striving for peace and stability in Europe and the whole world.”
Russian flags flew overhead, but the ceremonies at Volgograd were characterized by the same Soviet-style pomp of years past.
Real emotion surfaced when German and former Soviet veterans – their chests covered with medals – met informally at the opening of an exhibit at the Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad.
“Everybody has hugged me. Nobody has cursed us for being Germans. It’s unforgettable,” said Gerhard Dengler, a professor of international relations from Berlin.
Dengler, 70, was an artillery captain during the battle, which began with the German advance on the Volga River city in the summer of 1942.
He was one of 91,000 Germans left alive when the last Nazi unit surrendered. Only 6,000 German survivors from Stalingrad made it home after the war, many after spending years in Soviet prison camps. Of those, about 1,000 are still alive.
“I never experienced hate from the Russians. They had a lot of understanding for us,” said Fritz Pindel, a doctor from the city of Coburg who speaks good Russian from his years in a Soviet prison camp.
Victory at Stalingrad was used by the Communist Party as a symbol of Soviet superiority. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, many veterans remain fiercely patriotic.
“We defended our homeland. Whether it’s Russia or the Soviet Union, it’s all the same to us,” said veteran Ivan Zharkov.
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Waffen SS Veterans meet Russian Veterans at Prokhorovka 1993
https://feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32941
i recall watching the vets from both sides getting together . Do not know if it was this timewatch documentary on this that came out in september of 1993.
The Mother of All Battles • 00:00 • BBC Two
• 1993-09-29
https://www.tvtime.com/en/show/74120/episode/2440691#
this probably is no longer occurring either. if the neocons have their way there will be allot more cemetaries from both sides.
https://www.history.com/news/seven-decades-after-world-war-ii-the-search-for-germanys-war-dead-continues
In the last 20 years, it has repaired more than 300 cemeteries in the former USSR and has reburied more than 800,000 soldiers in 82 massive war cemeteries where internments number in the tens of thousands.
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i think it took 75 yrs for most but not yet all of the wounds to heal after the war of northern aggression as i like to call it; which the biden-obama regime looks like it is trying to resurrect.
2023.01.30 About The Coming Race Riots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g_iTImf__A
This is an interesting article below.
Remembering Last Reunion Of Civil War Veterans – 75th anniversary
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106259780
Mr. MCDONOUGH: More than 1,900 Union and Confederate veterans came. Awaiting them was a fleet of wheelchairs, 3,800 tents, 20 miles of electric wiring, 50,000 yards of mosquito netting and 27 cases of whiskey. Their average age now is 94, but only the whiskey was in short supply. It was a national event of remembrance unlike any the country had seen in a generation. Front page news in The New York Times and broadcast live by all four radio networks.
the ending of this star trek sums it up . easy to figure out the role the neocons are playing.
Ending Scene from the Episode Day of the Dove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf9MWaKKANA
Kang- only a fool fights in a burning house (My comments- which is becoming the world we live in)
Comrade Wireless Caller
4 months ago
If only the leaders of both Russia and Ukraine could take to heart the message of this episode maybe, just maybe there could be peace again! The message of this episode makes me proud to be a lifelong Star Trek fan!!
regards,
ralph
meant enrage the russians ; not the (germans).
I think the American neocons are following the script of the Wizard of Oz. He grants the wishes of the Scarecrow, who wants a brain; the Tin Man, who wants a heart; and the Cowardly Lion, who wants courage by giving them assorted medals or other tokens which satisfies them. All those tanks, MLRs IFVs etc are just tokens which mean nothing in reality just like the fiat currencies. That is all they know how to do.
Western battlefield valiance…
Eng: https://t.me/TrackAMerc/3242
Rus: https://t.me/dvesti22/21901
They called a person out to negotiate surrender, then they shot him down.
Focing others into a last stand.
Lack of both morale and efficiency.
” … today’s American military appears to be commanded by the most astounding assemblage of carefully selected moral cowards in our nation’s history.”
“In our nation’s history?” I don’t know, our history doesn’t go back that far. I think the sentence should end, “in all of recorded history.”
I’ll tell you what, if any current or retired American General utters one cogent thought before this confict is over, I’ll think about changing my mind.
Excellent read. Thanks for it.
advised Ukraine it isn’t necessary to answer all the Russian artillery coming in, currently at the rate of ten shells to one Ukrainian.
You mean the US advisers did not want them shelling Donbass civilian infrastructure and apartments ?
No doubt Ukrainians had them pussy-whipped into abject submission !
“Western Europe cannot forgive Russia for defeating the Swedish led war to conquer Russia (1709-1721), Napoleon’s Grand Armee (1821) and Germany and its allies in World War !!.”
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mini227?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.startpage.com%2F
Just been reading comments by this bonehead. Why is the US stuffed full of morons in tailored uniforms ? His resume is stuffed with Staff jobs and he b=never seems to stay anywhere to reap the results of his own actions…….
This braggart sounds like he is mentally impaired and should be in restraints.
Who talks this way ?
I’m surprised the UK hasn’t emptied out the Bovington Tank Museum…or sent horse calvery. I jest. When I heard M113s were being sent – I laughed, because we used that piece of junk in Korea when I was in.
R toppec- yu brought back a great memory
i was there in 2006 for the tankfest when they rolled the first tiger 1 tank to be in running order since the end of ww2. the crowd went nuts when they got it going and it was rolling around the horserace oval track. Before this they rolled out tanks starting from ww2 era on going around the track all up the way up to the challenger which really showed its stuff.
the tiger had been parked next to a sherman; and the sherman looked like a midget next to it.
they had set up areas with tents containing brit servicemen dressed in different ww2 uniforms including the brits, americans, britsh and germans. they had their replica weapons as well. you could buy souvenirs like ww2 field glasses as well.
at the end of the day in the area inbetween the oval they simulated a ground assault on the germans with the other guys. the germans of course died bravely.
it was a fun day. the museom itself one could spend several days in.
this was at a time when the world cup was in germany and all of europe was prospering . the mood of the people was upbeat. this was well before the crisis of late 07-08 hit.
everything of course know has changed.
regards,
ralph
Hey all…I would put the following article on your “must read” list…here is an excerpt that does a nice job of summing up what we’ve all been discussing on this blog/forum for some time now:
“While rising empires are often judicious, even rational in their application of armed force for conquest and control of overseas dominions, fading empires are inclined to ill-considered displays of power, dreaming of bold military masterstrokes that would somehow recoup lost prestige and power,” historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book, “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.” “Often irrational even from an imperial point of view, these micro-military operations can yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the process already under way.”
The full article is here and well worth the read:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hedges-ukraine-war-went-wrong
Cheers!
It’s not what Russia will do now, it’s what the Globalists will do now, and it won’t be war with China; the Globalists will turn inward with their tyranny again. The lout who’s humiliated at work by his boss doesn’t come home to pick a fight with a burly neighbor. He beats his wife.
Get ready for more pandemic lockdowns, more roundups of domestic terrorists and promotion of bug consumption as our energy production is crippled by the Green New Deal (yes, it’s really happening) and as our food storage, production and processing facilities are burned to the ground, one by one.
And if we can’t use our troops on somebody overseas, we can still use them right here at home to preserve “Our Democracy”.
It is and never was about winning the war in Ukrain. It was all about crushing Russian economy. It was about the sanctions. But evidently they didn’t work.
Now what?
At least we are one step nearer the Great Reset aka worldwide chaos and a fresh restart.
When Russia has won they should deal with those loonies from the angloamerican elites. And for a start put them to work to rebuild the Ukrain.
Why do people think that RU elites (Putin and alike) did not know what is going on and were tricked on every corner?
I think they knew exactly what is going on, and just were abiding time, pretending to be stupid and scared in order to prepare as best as they could for the upcoming clash.
I think that even USSR breakup was orchestrated by RU elites in order to appear as week as possible and in order to fool the enemy, because so many things happened just the way they needed them – for example, to get all nuclear weapons under their umbrella, or election of Putin who then managed to tame oligarhs (which means that levers to do that were probably ready/existing even before oligarhs were introduced, otherwise, you would have oligarhs problem like in UKR that would successfully break country apart into feudal fiefdoms.
What was the most important part of that plan in my opinion was to show to their own people without doubt that hate is against whole country+it’s people and not just leadership/ideology, and once they succeeded in doing so, their second goal was to be as ready as possible since they knew that if they planned it badly, it could easily backfire at them and maybe even really cause a real defeat – like for example if they couldn’t feed their people or make enough armaments/munition, etc…
– Did their plan go badly in some aspects? Sure, every plan does.
– Did their plan adapt as it was going? Sure, every plan does.
– Were they this time better prepared then any other time in their history? Yes, of course, because against Napoleon, WWI and WWII (and many previous events), they were far worse prepared and their casualties were enormous, while this time they are really keeping them at a very low level comparing to the total level of gain.
“In this case America sees its mission as responding to the Ukrainian offer to provide the troops to fight the war to victory if the West will supply the equipment.”
I have to admit I was astonished to read that Ukraine “offered” its services to an America they should have known, based on their history, would bale on them, if the going got tough. They baled on the Shiites they encouraged to rebel against Sadaam. They baled on the Georgians they encouraged to attack Russian peacekeepers when the Russians said nyet. Etc’s ad infinitum ad nauseam.
About that token Abrams commitment: I thought that pork-barrel procurement had generated a vast oversupply, so protests of inability to provide sounded unconvincing. Here’s someone else that agrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQtwybowcl8
Which suggests the reason to refuse immediate supply is political. Or economic (which is the same thing) – let the Leopards burn, but don’t lose any full-spec Abrams, then corner the Western tank market.
Of course, there’s also the consideration of not handing full-spec armour and electronics to Russia. Perhaps the delay is to build a new model that it’s fine for Russia to examine?
Bloggers and it’s readers are clueless. First, America`s so called ~failures~ in the XX century wars were not failures at all, but it’s total absolute victory. Look at the world today. Everybody now has an American computer, telephone etc and ~thinks~ ~american~. The Chinese and Brazilians, for instance, are even trying to be more American than the Americans, and are very close to it. Everywhere there is rootlessness and spiritual desert. Everywhere a total clueless fascination with technology. Failures do not produce that.
Clausewitz phrase is not valid anymore, since the epoch of the WILL TO POWER begun, around the time of the first world war . The essence of war since then changed, since it is industrial, and do not have any other goal except the driving of this industry to -over-drive . Nietzsche, not Clausewitz , should be read , if someone wants to interpret the world rightly. Politics itself is an INSTRUMENT of industry and power. And power is goalless. It’s goal is goallessness itself. Americans achieved the Übermensch in the late XX century, as a result of those so called military failures. They are infinitely POWERFUL , because they have the almost indestructible ILLUSION of total rulership over the planet, together with NATO. This illusion is not a result of stupidity. Even the Russians, unaware of that, are prey to it. Believe me. And this illusion is also the same of absolute moral righteousness, they are required by power. They are not to be destroyed without a world war. The Russians are themselves never going to go on a path on their own, because they are still affected by the same illusion as everyone else in the planet. Believe me.
Dude, I don’t know what drugs you are ingesting but i encourage you to cut back.
Americans have become superhuman…infinitely POWERFUL … an unbreakable ILLUSION…Even the Russians, unaware of this, become his victim. Trust me.
Perhaps I would believe it if I could understand the logic of reasoning.
But I am an unsuspecting Russian who is always a victim of something or someone who “cannot be destroyed without a world war.”
I have a question:
Is the goal of the American “supermen” the destruction of the Russians in the World War or the preservation of an indestructible ILLUSION?