Okay. I hyped the title. Scott and I had a detailed, respectful exchange regarding the situation in Ukraine that was hosted by Jeff Norman. We disagree on some details and have a semantic difference over the meaning of “game changer”. But we agree on the bottom-line that Russia’s military operation is comparable to those that defined World War II. In fact, I think Gonzalo Lira agrees with our bottom-line.
I respect both Scott and Gonzalo. They bring different and important perspectives and I believe they sincerely want to educate global audiences on what is taking place in Ukraine. Scott and I met one time–we played a round of golf at the Army Navy Club. We have exchanged emails over the years on various intelligence and military issues. Gonzalo is a new email friend. He sent me a lovely message regarding the passing of my mother. He is a Chilean mensch (and he is not even Jewish). I believe Scott, Gonzalo and I agree on one essential point– the cynical U.S. and NATO policy to try to extend the war in Ukraine in order to punish Russia is evil.
Great, just great exchange between the two of you! I am so glad to see the respect and information between you
I am not sure if Gonzalo apologized to Scott for his Youtube rant but it was seriously off putting. He didn’t just disagree he was unhinged and impugned Scott’s motives.
Another issue as of late is that many Youtube channel commentators have conflated the Russian situation with China. I have always been a Putin supporter ever since he took office as I knew he was trying to clean house and was good for the Russian people and tried to play by the rules and try to create a win win.
The same cant be said for the latter. The only one who clearly understands the situation is Robert Barnes. Yes the corrupt leaders of the West especially the US leaders have allowed the issue, still there are other issues.
I do like most of Gonzalo’s commentary as they are entertaining but that one video was uncalled for
since when do stating a criticism toward scott ritter ‘uncalled for’ ? ritter was judged by many as a attention seeking guy who shifted his position for the sake of attention.
and G Lira even if he is just casual non military commenter have better wisdom than ritter who hide behind his credential as veteran
I think you are being a little harsh on Scott. He is human and has made mistakes, some really big. But he loves America. I wish I could heal the rift between Scott and Gonzalo. Better to have us all pulling in the same direction.
Obviously, Buntalanlucu, you did not watch that video. I did. It was definitely unhinged and I terminated my subscriptions to his work. And while it is Geschmackssache, I only watched Lira for information – his style turns me off. I find better, more to the point information with Mr Johnson, Mr Macgregor and Mr Ritter, though Mr Ritter does get a bit theatric and heated at times. Ritter and MacGregor and Judge Napolitano have short summaries, which I LOVE. I also love the Military Situation channel. So much better to see their maps than just hear and try to find the locations on the map. YouTube statistics clearly show that any video over 5 minutes doesn’t get near the hits as the shorter ones. Ritter has 2 minute summaries! Judge Napolitano has even shorter ones!
I treat Gonzalo lira as common people / casual commentator , thats why he seem more real. Ritter on the other hand seem to tend toward theatric and playing up for the camera , maybe thats his style and personality but i always on the fence when watching ritter.
i watched the video and can only stomach it due to the presence of LJ on it , the ritter part seem like a mea culpa to me but again i might be biased / too harsh on ritter.
why would lira apoligize to ritter when lira is correct is stating his opinion about ritter ? i call bullshit to ppl who want to deify ritter so much that a person giving honest opinion on ritter suddenly become the bad guy.
many of us saw ritter as has been with an opinion , and he made a nonsense “game changer” claim with exactly zero data backing him other than the influx of western toys into ukrop. aand the way ritter weave nonsense about russia’s strategic issues showed his lack of expertise and wisdom to discuss such things as he lacks data to make the assesment.
we treat false prophets with death from judgement , as as we treat ritter as cowardly pretender who constantly have to walk back on his rash opinions..
But thanks to LJ for the discussiin with ritter. And thanks to G Lira for exposing ritter ..
You don’t understand the nuance of the English language then. Game changer does not mean outcome changer. There can be many game changers in a game. There have been many game changers in this war but none have been outcome changers.
so far there’s no game changer in the SMO , so unless polack forces overtly enter ukrop to do war with russia (in pretext of peacekeeping) or NATO openly enter ukraine , then there’s no game changer
but that’s a hypothetical scenario ‘game changer’
heck one can also said if aliens came down on moscow then it is a ‘game changer’ too
The game was changed. If not for the infusion of western intelligence, targeting and weapons, the war in the Donbas would be over now. That doesn’t mean UKR will prevail. It only means the war will be dragged out and there will be more death and destruction on all sides.
Thank you Jeff, Scott and Larry.
The enormacy of the of the geopolitical game changer taking place right now is lost on many. The importance open criticism and debate is needed now more than ever.
You have become less and less relevant in my open source information queue.
Scott Ritter has been completely disqualified as a source of anything by telling you what you want to hear. The second he said Russia is gonna lose the war, then everyone in his audience erupted, all he did was just change his tune to Russia is gonna win the war and he thought no one would notice he’s a hack.
It may work on 15 year old girls that turn out to be police women, but it doesn’t for any one else.
Once a spook, always a spook?
I do not recall Scott saying Russia would lose the war. He proposed they would feel a lot of pain. So far not true, but certainly not impossible. And Russia has also has shown the inadequacy (of the inadequate stocks) of many vaunted NATO systems – for which this is the first test (Syria demonstrated that certain NATO hardware was useless against Russian hardware – as Andrei M argued in “Losing Military Supremacy” This may be critical for lowering the chances of NATO pushing right into thermonuclear war. So Russia was willing to risk “a lot of” pain now.
Analysts are people and people occasionally get it wrong. Better people admit mistakes and move on. NATO, neocons, and anyone who wants to be on the tele, repeat the same mistake and double the body count (see Scott on the MSM?). Time to lighten up (and dont believe anyone ever 100%).
Jeffglobalmotion
Who put a gun to your head and forced you to read and comment here? Grow up. It is probably better you go elsewhere. The folks who take the time to read and comment are intelligent and thoughtful. You miss the boat on both counts.
The way ritter kept changing his tune suits his skunk personality and everyone who watched ritter for the last few months saw this. but your insult to LJ is strange considering he never changed his opinion on the SOM, Blaming LJ for ritter is rather clutching at the straws.
i suggest you go back to SST and whoreship the resident propagandist TTG the lithuanian “ex green beret lol” who owned SST and run daily IO supporting ukrop propaganda narrarive.
It is hard to have respect for a mouse behind a keyboard. What do I mean? I will bet you would not dare repeat the same disparaging remarks about Mr. Ritter to his face. Arrogance combined with cowardice is a heinous thing to witness. Mr. Ritter is my contemporary and I remember the crucifixion he faced for speaking the truth to power. What have you done, except double down on bad manners.
Let me help you mature a wee-bit. If an opinion doesn’t agree with yours, welcome it. It will make you recompile your logic, either to prove its soundness, or it will strengthen its weak points. But to disparage another from behind a keyboard is childish and cowardly. You must be one of those Haifa housewives trolls producing mental vomit.
He never said that Russia was going to lose the war. Never. Do people not understand the difference between the word game changer and outcome changer?
Right. Game changer = change in tactics. Maybe change in strategy. Maybe more investment. Maybe more loss.
But the outcome (= Russian victory) remains the same.
I don’t understand the angst over semantics.
I would add that parties want a political settlement as well- even for Russia. Politicians at both ends must be thinking about this- how this crisis fits in the broader EU-Russia relation and how it can be used to find common ground for at least, greater security.
Russia is secure only if Europe is, vice versa.
From the RU view- while insurgencies in these lands are low because RU seems mostly welcome, there is still the risk of having border skirmishes over years to come.. Not to mention a hostile Europe that might sow the seed of a larger scale conflict.
In this sense, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has a different texture from China-Taiwan, where the issue of sovereignty is much less flexible.
Lovely debate, good banter all round!
Excellent, Larry! Cleared up some questions I had regarding Scott’s perspective as well as some general questions. I don’t see any material disagreement between you and Scott. Seems there are only small differences of emphasis. You both make sense to me. Time will tell which emphasis was correct.
I thought the war would be over after the first week of June; meaning UKR resistance in the Donbas collapsed with surrenders; albeit with Russia regrouping for a phase 2, which would/will include an attack on Odessa. My emphasis focused on UKR troops not being able to withstand the constant Russian arty fires any longer + degradation of UKR morale after the surrender of the last holdouts in Mariupol. I downplayed the impact of US/NATO supplied weapons and intelligence in the short run to draw the conflict out as Scott says it has.
New to Jeff Norman, many thanks, you asked good solid questions and thanks for hosting this important discussion.
This bs has been going on far too long.
There is a whole army of paid asshats out there who’s mission is to fcuk you guys up. Amazing, you evade everything they throw at you, so what do you do? you turn on each other. You spend a whole lot of effort to conflict with each other. You should all be listening to each other more. One of the group has thunk outside of the previously unknown boundaries of unacceptable thought. Instead of shouting and hollering start asking yourselves why this is such a drama.
You guys & galls are doing an heroic defence against MICIMATT, DON’T STUFF IT UP.
I learned so much from both Larry and Scott Ritter’s analyses. Thank you for informing us.
I think Scott is a little prone to hyperbole… not that there is nothing wrong with it 🙂
No one deserves to be subjected to ad hominem attacks, this is the absolute lowest level of intelligence and political analysis.
Having said that, I would have liked Scott to explain, why he said a few weeks ago that Russia will be forced to resort to general mobilization, because of Western aid, and that Finland and Sweden’s membership in NATO is a strategic defeat for Russia.
That is a valid criticism. I still did not get an answer to my question about who is Supported vice Supporting. The answer to that question really helps one sort out who is doing what to whom.
This is really one of the keys to understanding, and we probably won’t have the answer to this question until the end of this conflict.
On the other hand, there is a notion that I see conveyed everywhere in the Western media, which consists in saying that Russia will have difficulty in absorbing a large number of human losses, because public opinion could turn against the Russian leadership. But this zero-casualty warfare doctrine is pure western fantasy, and doesn’t apply anywhere.
My point is that Scott gives too much importance to the losses suffered by Russia. He spoke of 15,000 dead so far, and even if this number is true, it makes absolutely no difference to Russia, which I am sure did not expect a walk in the park, after the end of the first phase of this special military operation.
I am absolutely not taking sides in this debate because both people are honest presenters with integrity. But the US vs Russian spending is not comparable. A “dollar” spent by Russia for defense is not equivalent to a “dollar spent in the USA. That “dollar” goes a lot farther in Russia because of the padding of costs (let us say “skim”) that goes on in the USMIC compared to Russia. There is a magnification aspect that renders the two expenditures not comparable. So Scott Ritter is treating those billions of dollars as equivalent when compared to what Russia spends. This is my only quibble so far in what is an amazing revelation of military knowledge for our favourite pundits. Thank you for this.
L.
Great point!
Also the US MIzc designed their weapons platform to be profitable conitnuously with their high frequency maintenance cycle. All in the name of profit. While russia and china MIC make weapons for the best cost effecriveness ratio including fast production turn around.
theres a good thread about the difference of tank building in WW2 by the germans and the soviets. Basically the germans want perfect specimen of tank production while the soviet tank production philosophy is to treat tank as disposable (not last in combat for long) thus forgo all gucci features on their tanks. Easy guess who won the tank production volumes during WW2..
Thanks, Larry, for engaging with Scott. I have been a long time admirer of Scott and I believed that the buzz around his so-called “switcheroo” that Gonzala Lira and others hyped up to demean Scott was silly or worse.
Both Scott and you, Larry, in the manner in which you engaged in this discussion as professionals I hope will be taken as a lesson by folks that analyses and perspectives offered by professionals on any issue of substance might vary for good reasons and these variances help provide further clarity on the subject.
Much respect for both Scott and Larry.
I can certainly empathize with Scott and Larry when it comes to attacks on professionals. I was a litigator for 35 years and the internet is full of internet lawyers who never got near a law school much less practiced law for any length of time. It seems like it is part of the dumbing down of America when people have no idea of what they don’t know.
One thing I do know something about besides litigation, is banking as it pertains to war. And how important it is to have a banking system that works during war time. In our own revolution, the British counterfeited the colonial dollar to the point of worthlessness because the colonists had no means of protecting the dollar from being counterfeited. And this inability to finance the war hampered the colonists. During the civil war Lincoln printed greenbacks to pay the soldiers and the suppliers. Government paper money had never been used since the revolutionary war since counterfeiting had been such a problem in the revolutionary war. Greeenbacks won the war. Hitler actually did something similar to what Lincoln did with a new currency which is how he was able to finance the army and then used the old currency to pay off his war debts with money that was valueless.
So I look at this situation and think that Russia could do something similar to Ukraine and really make it almost impossible for Ukraine to keep going financially even if the west continues to pump money into Ukraine. In today’s banking, cyber security is the chief concern, while physical banking security is not. If Scott is worried (pissed) about Ukraine being able to pay for all of its soldiers (neoNazis especially) and paying the salaries of the government, then Russia should be physically attacking the banks and atms. This war would be over very fast if the means of circulating money just stopped.
In times past, before digital banking, the banks were physically protected even on the losing side till the very end. But with precision missiles banks and credit card processing centers are easy targets. Attacking them at night would cause few casualties and the next day when tellers could not exchange money because of the physical destruction to the bank buildings and ATM machines did not work because credit card processing centers had also been physically destroyed, it would be chaos. There would be no money for gas or electricity so transportation stops. No money for food, mortgages, rent, etc. The grid stays up.
LOL internet experts. When there’s an alleged pandemic, everyone with internet connection and a social media account becomes a doctor, epidemiologists and actuary all rolled into one. When there’s a war, every schnook on every sofa is Clausewitz, Sun Tsu, Patton, Eisenhower, Marshall and all the way down to an 11 series combined. If it’s a mass shooting, they become firearms, law enforcement and criminal profiling experts in a single package. When discussing the economy, non-college grads and liberal arts majors have a complete understanding of micro and macro economics.
So on and so forth
I don’t know why anyone pays for an education. Google is free. Why do employers ask for resumes? There nothing in this world that can’t be learned in 15 minutes or less with a few keyboard strokes and the confidence that one’s opinion is infallible.
My first comment here. Came from Andrei Martyanov site.
I did not know about the controversy concerning Ritter and Lira until today after watching Larry and Scott Ritter “debating.”
I remember when Lira went missing. I remember Scott being very concerned about it. In fact, it was Lira himself who warned us all to be very concerned about his fate if no one heard from him after 24 hours. It’s his pinned tweet on Twitter! So, we were all concerned. This was around the time Scott was kicked off Twitter. So, I read his posts on Telegram. He said that Lira had been captured by the Kraken unit. I thought Scott had inside knowledge.
Watching and listening to Scott Ritter gave me sanity in the early days of the SMO. I was dismayed that Russia did invade Ukraine, but have been pretty pro-Russia for many years now. Since Putin’s early days I think. Scott seemed to think that Russia would be able to finish off the Ukrainians pretty quickly. He also stated that he believed Russia wanted to keep Zelensky alive because Russia would want Ukraine’s bona fide leader to sign Ukraine’s surrender. So, when he started to sound warnings about Russia’s failings and contradicted some of his previous statements, I became kind of suspicious. I commented about it on Andrei’s site. I questioned why we should continue believing what Scott was saying. And I cooled it on watching Scott.
But watching him today, it is obvious that he has extensive knowledge of weapons, tactics, and Russia and Ukraine generally – as well as the U.S.
I think Lira was wrong to go on YouTube and claim that Ritter is being bought off by mainstream media or establishment think tanks. Lira often propounds his theories as fact. As a result, I don’t always take Lira seriously. His expertise seems to be social media and cultural issues. He has fairly solid knowledge of history though.
And, I think Scott is kind of a hothead, and he gets all riled up when he’s talking about Ukraine and Russia. I am wondering if his style is common in U.S. military circles. I find calmer people easier to listen to and follow.
I think Andrei is extremely entertaining. He reminds me of my long-deceased, Russia-loving grandfather. And I am learning a lot by reading his site.
I try to keep an open mind and don’t take what anyone says as gospel. I like the variety though.
Thank you Gentlemen for an excellent exchange. I am not sure if I am reading correctly the tea leaves, but are we finally witnessing a new mass of people who realize that the fight is not among ourselves but against evil and those whom worship it? I hope so.
“…And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock and not to roll…”
Led Zep – Stairway to heaven