If Vladimir Putin expected the western propaganda campaign to slacken in the wake of his speech this week announcing Russia is ready to accept four Ukrainian oblasts as new republics in Russia and ordering a partial military mobilization, he is very disappointed today. There has been a flood of reports claiming that the Russian stock market is collapsing and that Russian men of military age are fleeing the country in droves.
The reality is that reaction in Russia has been more positive than negative. Are there protests? Yes. Funny about that. I thought Putin’s Russia was the reincarnation of the bad Soviet Union and anyone protesting would be carted off to the Gulag. There have been a few arrests, but the protests have not been quashed.
Western sources are circulating videos on social media of lines of cars trying to get out of Russia and lines of young men at the airports looking for a safehaven overseas. Is it true? Well, there are other videos of lines forming outside military recruitment offices in Russia.
So let us look at the economic data. Consider the claim that Russia’s economy is collapsing:
Russia’s stock market crashed on Wednesday following President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization to support his campaign in Ukraine. . . . After resisting for months to Western sanctions, the Russian economy is now starting to show signs of a significant decline, as decreased energy exports to Europe bring consequentially lower profits.
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2755070907676/russia-s-stock-market-crashes-after-putin-s-partial-mobilization-message?noAds=1&_f=app_share&s=i3
Is that true? Not really. If we follow this logic then does the 20% decline in the U.S. stock market since November 2021 signal the end of America? Here are the facts about the Russian stock market:
The ruble-based MOEX Russia index closed 2.8% higher at 2,190 on Thursday, slightly rebounding after plunging 12.3% in the last two sessions as investors monitored corporate news amid further escalation of the war in Ukraine and fresh threats to the West. This week, President Putin ordered the country’s first military mobilization since World War II and emphasized Russia’s readiness to use its nuclear weapon arsenal after announcing plans to formally annex four Ukrainian territories through referendums set for this weekend. The annexation is seen by many as serious means of escalation, giving grounds for the Kremlin to consider Ukraine’s recent counterattack an aggression on Russian soil with Western weapons. On the corporate front, Gazprom shares surged 8% as its board announced interim dividends of RUB 51 per share for its record-setting profits in the first half of 2022. Banks also booked gains after the central bank announced it extended reserve requirement relief measures.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/stock-market
What about the Ruble? If there really was an exodus of Russians fleeing to western and Asian nations those people would need foreign currency. Why? Because the Russian Ruble won’t buy you a cup of coffee in Finland, Sweden or Germany. That means there should be a major increase in demand for foreign currency, which means the price of the Ruble should have plummeted. It did not. Check out this chart:
The price of the Ruble has remained steady since the end of July. There was no precipitous drop of any kind in the Ruble today.
The Russian ruble was at 60 per USD in September, remaining well above levels prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cementing its rebound from the record low of 150 touched in March, supported by strict capital controls and trade imbalances. Higher prices for energy and commodities since the start of the war lifted export revenues and relative ruble demand amid a collapse in importing activity due to sanctions. On top of that, monetary authorities mandated hefty fees and negative interest rates on currencies from “unfriendly” states. The disparity is reflected in the widest current account surplus on record of USD 70.1 billion in Q2 from USD 17.3 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year. Strength in the ruble withstood the CBR cutting borrowing costs to below pre-invasion levels, amid continuous weekly deflation readings and calls for ruble devaluation by policymakers in the central bank and the State Duma. .
I think Putin’s speech this week may dent his popularity, but opposition political parties are not likely to get a big boost. Putin is appealing to the Russian patriotism and that still has strong appeal in Russia. Also important to point out that the limited mobilization Putin announced only affects the men and women who serve in Russia’s reserves. He is not going to raid the universities and dragoon students into the army. The use of reserve personnel means that the training cycle for reinforcements will be accomplished before the end of the year, if not sooner.
Let me conclude by giving you some of the hysterical headlights announcing the impending doom of Putin and Russia:
Putin’s losses in Asia are bigger than in Ukraine
The end is near for Putin’s war against Ukraine
Putin’s call for Russian conscripts will require arms Moscow doesn’t have, NATO chief says
Putin was so upset about these developments that he said this in his speech today marking the 1160th anniversary of Russian statehood (you read that right, more than 1000 years):
During more than a millennium, our statehood has lived through many eras, including cruel enemy invasions, disunity and the tragedies of feuds, but each of these difficult periods invariably ended with the revival of the Fatherland. The heroic generations of our people overcame difficulties and adversities, withstood the trials. They created and expanded the grandeur of our Fatherland and covered their names with glory.
We remember and cherish these truly outstanding people: Rurik and Prophetic Oleg, Princess Olga and Svyatoslav Igorevich, Prince Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh and Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy and Sergius of Radonezh, Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible, Yermak, Minin and Pozharsky, Dezhnev and Bering, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, Lomonosov and Pushkin, Suvorov and Ushakov, Alexander II the Liberator and Alexander III the Peacemaker, Brusilov and Denikin, Zhukov and Rokossovsky, Kurchatov, Korolev and Gagarin.
These and many other of our compatriots were larger-than-life, complex and occasionally controversial historical figures. Some of them saw Russia’s future differently and were even on the opposite sides of the barricades. You know, when drafting this text, I scribbled in and crossed out names like Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin. Apparently, not enough time has passed since then from a historical point of view for us to give comprehensive and objective assessments that are free from the pressure of ongoing political developments.
However, all of them, including statesmen, workers, warriors, pioneers, scholars, ascetics and saints and, most importantly, all our people made Russia a great global power and determined its future. . . .
Being part of a diverse Russian civilisation means happiness, but, let me repeat, it also means responsibility and duty. Our civilisation is distinct. It has its own path and there is not a bit of arrogance or a feeling of superiority in this. This civilisation of ours – this is what’s important to us.
And we will fight for our Fatherland, our homeland of which there is only one, for our independence and sovereignty, for our culture and traditions. We will uphold and defend this in the name of our ancestors and our descendants, for the sake of Russia, its great history and its great future.
The Russians have seen a few more ups and downs than most countries, except for China. But this does not sound like a frightened leader who believes his back is to the wall and Russia is facing a new defeat.
Larry,
I listened to your parlay with Gonzalo, Alex and Brian this morning.
You are all in agreement that NATO has been planning a military strike on Russia for years and has fallen on using Ukraine as its proxy.
If this is the case, you would think that NATO would be prepared for all eventualities.
However, it seems to me that NATO is not prepared, has not been preparing and in fact has over the years degraded its conventional forces in Europe. (Although I believe there were additional forces gathered in Europe when Putin moved into the Donbas and Crimea some years ago.)
You all argue that Russia will be victorious in the current situation because NATO has totally inadequate forces in Europe, NATO cannot supply materiel from stocks for any length of time in a conflict with the Russians and that the US has virtually minimal industrial capacity to resupply and prosecute a war.
Doesn’t this strike you as odd?
If NATO had been planning a military strike against Russia you would expect that it would have been rebuilding its forces in Europe, it would have built up its stocks of materiel in Europe, it would have prepared its logistical organization and it would have revamped its ability to resupply.
So your own statements contradict the notion that NATO has been planning a military strike against Europe.
Furthermore, someone in your discussion this morning stated that Stoltenberg is inappropriately qualified to run NATO. He has no military background.
Don’t you think that if NATO was planning a military operation against Russia that it would be headed by a heavy duty military type?
Henry,
NATO confuses tough talk with actual military planning and the availability of salient resources. NATO is conducting a military operation against Russia by using Ukraine as a proxy. Washington and Brussels are too preoccupied with putting in place the correct pronouns. Hell, the Estonian General admitted the other day that one of NATO’s priorities is “DIVERSITY”. What the hell is that?
I agree. The west has been too intoxicated on fighting brave men in sandals armed only with rifles. Bit like the colonial wars of the nineteenth century.
Forgot what it means to prepare for war against an enemy with natural resources, a developed economy and modern weapons. Also forgot how to secure allies beyond the circle of America’s satellites.
All they have now is “propaganda” to fall back on. They are playing that one for all it is worth.
Stephen,
“The west has been too intoxicated on fighting brave men in sandals armed only with rifles.”
So has Russia.
I think you are missing something. The Russian have not fought “brave men in sandals” for a while now. That were the Soviets and a very long time ago.
Have you forgotten Chechnya and Georgia? More recent?
If you actually believe what you wrote, you should read “Losing Military Supremacy.” There also was a recent article on industrial warfare that has been widely noted. Russia kept (at cost) its industrial base to support its military.
Your evidence for intoxication?
Henry,
I think reality is always more complex than we believe. While your arguments in regard to NATO preparedness are correct, they assume that NATO would fight Russia directly and not via a proxy force.
Think about it, the US is facing recruitment problems and declining recruitment thresholds for years – even for West Point candidates. Wouldn’t be more preferable to have somebody else fight for you???
No problem with body bags, no problem with anti-war protest, no problems with army morale and potential opposition. Financing would be done via the printing press and if something goes wrong you can but blame on them.
During the crusades the church never had an army, they always had others doing the fighting.
i am beginning to believe you are trolling here , pretending to post ‘innocent questions’ yet your questions showed a russophobic undertones that is so prevalent in US/EU trolls these days.
That diversity certainly doesn’t include Russian speakers.
” Hell, the Estonian General admitted the other day that one of NATO’s priorities is “DIVERSITY”. What the hell is that?”
Disunity as has been the case in varying degrees and presentations since 1949.
Hence the continuing emphases on “propaganda” for “internal audiences” ?
Regarding “Diversity” in NATO. A woke associate of mine once said that the woke do not like Russia and China. I found that to explain why NATO seeks out the woke. They are ideologically persuaded regarding the identity of the enemy.
Larry, you were being unfair – Canadian forces, which are part of NATO, for example, are preoccupied with truly important military things besides “DIVERSITY,” like braids, facial tattoos, and shorter skirts.
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/defence/caf/military-identity-system/dress-manual/changes-canadian-forces-dress-instructions.html
Larry, do you think that the disconnect between their planning for war and the actual state of the NATO forces could be the ruling and managerial classes living in an information bubble? They really do seem to believe that Putin is on the ropes and that Russia is just a gas station with a now depleted military.
I have never been part of the ruling class but I have been part of the managerial class and I imagine it is career suicide to be the one in a meeting who points out that the Russians are in fact doing quite well economically and militarily. Consequently, a hive mind makes all the decisions.
You raise some good questions. Perhaps the fact that Stoltenberg is totally unqualified (a professional economist!?) is a clue to the answer. I would guess that the entire political leadership that led to his appointment are equally unqualified. I bet Andrei Martyanov would have some good guesses.
Stoltenberg is a puppet and not a leader of NATO. He does what he is told to do and is a propaganda machines. The “real” leaders/puppet masters are always in the background.
Apart from the “hegemony” tendency of the USA and its goal to control the world, its main reason for stirring up the possibility of conflicts is to sell arms. You can see that in the recent announcement of European leaders.
America has other strong “weapons”, e.g. the US Dollar and sanctions. America does not really, and always, need military actions.
However, the West is living in a bubble and have lost touch with reality. This can lead to disastrous situations, something that has developed in the Ukraine and with Russia.
These types of events can get a life of their own and escalate, something for which the West has not planned. However, the West can not back down and are now stuck with the unintended consequences of their actions. They thought they could control it with the usual tools, sanctions, but that failed miserably.
I am afraid this is going to escalate significantly due to the hubris and stupidity of the West. It follows a similar path of that which led us to WW2.
Sorry to say …..
Propaganda has worked wonderfully so far. Hell, they’ve gotten hundreds of millions to inject themselves with poison using it! I don’t think WEF cares about about anything except complete domination of the west and this proxy war with Russia will do nicely propagating that end. The only question in my mind is when the round ups begin will Patriot Americans stand down and do nothing. I think not!
Larry,
Fair enough with what you say.
But you have not responded to my point.
Is NATO that stupid? (don’t tell me that it is) – wanting to militarily take on a nuclear armed state – headed by an economist!
Your argument that NATO has been militarily preparing to take on Russia is absolute nonsense.
This is just Russian propaganda designed to cover up its paranoia and imperialist ambitions.
How can I give you the answer you say you will not accept. NATO is stupid. Sorry, but that’s how I see it.
Shit, I have a degree in economics, perhaps I can job with NATO designing missile systems?
Dude, They’d hire you in a heartbeat.
Larry,
NATO might be stupid, but it is not that stupid.
I’m sorry, but your argument is pathetic. It really is.
You cannot/won’t accept the viable alternative conclusion that NATO has never had any intention of militarily subduing Russia.
No NATO state has ever invaded Russia.
NATO did not attack Russia at its weakest moment after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, NATO proceeded to degrade and decommission its conventional forces in Europe.
Is that the behaviour of an organization that has/had plans to militarily subdue Russia? I don’t think so.
The nuclear stalemate has kept the peace in Europe. Who in their right mind would plan to militarily subdue a nuclear armed state?
You’ve swallowed Putin’s rhetoric/propaganda hook line and sinker.
I already see the flaw in your argument. You assume Western leaders are in their right minds. They are not.
NATO and Western leaders – who control/run NATO – may not be stupid, but they are prejudiced and that prejudice has influenced their decision making, leading them to make mistake after mistake. Else they would never have launched this suicidal set of economic sanctions against Russia, knowing fully well what the blowback of those sanctions would be on Europe. And they would also have taken the trouble to study Russian military history a bit more closely to understand how well Russia fights land wars.
I think the answer is: NATO was convinced it would not have to fight an armed conflict, because the economical war wold be more efficient and more than enough to bring Russia down. They really pushed Ukraine into the conflict, by providing weapon and training, suggesting there was a military solution to the Donbass situation. Remember that the OSCE observer detected intense bombing starting around Feb 18th, from the Ukraine armes force on the Donbass. Ukraine was instructed that they would not have to fight the war they were initiating, because the NATO countries would slap such sanctions on Russia that it would collapse in two weeks. However, sanctions have been slapped on Russia since the early 2000’s and never crippled the Russian economy. If anything, Russia has answered with a fine counter-sanction strategy, strengthening or reviving some key sector of its economy. It re-industrialized at fast pace.
It is enough to read the two 2019 reports of the RAND corporation on Russia, to assert that the USA (hence NATO) had a plan for dismantling Russia, and that the main vectors were economical war and informational war.
So there was a rational: it is too difficult to take down Russia militarily, let’s go for hybrid warfare. Yet, if the enemy has already successfully resisted your previous hybrid warfare, should not you question your strategy?
Furthermore, where is the logic of antagonising China AND Russia at the same time? Obviously you are pushing them into each others’ arms. So, for instance, you put an embargo on Russian energy, and at the same time opening the Chinese market to the Russian energy providers. You are blockading many industrial goods from the West, but at the same time making China more than willing to supply what you are not providing.
And at the end of the day, you are left with the option you were trying to escape from: military warfare!
So yes, there is merit to Larry’s assessment: I see a strange collective stupidity at work here.
I have read your comments again and I have to partially agree with you. NATO never intended to wage a war with Russia directly.
Pre 2014 the intend was to “contain” Russia in order to limit its influence on the rest of the world and thus allow America to retain its dominant position in the world. The idea was to use Ukraine, after 2014, as a proxy army and that is why they trained them after the coup.
The coup was part of something else. The idea was to use Ukraine in the same way as they are using Poland and Romania…. positioning of tactical missiles and raising the stakes.
However, when Russia annexed Crimea, that plan went to hell. So the remaining option was the Ukrainian proxy army.
NATO underestimated Russia and its military forces and overestimated the Ukrainian forces and that is why the Ukrainian forces are being defeated.
America over estimated the effect of Sanctions and the fact that the rest of the world did not support the Sanctions against Russia, something they truly believed in. That was a big mistake and probably due to their hubris ..
Well… what now… Now NATO, and by implication, America, is in a situation for which it did not plan. Yes, they never planned to fight directly , and you are right, but they planned to fight per Proxy, and there you are wrong.
Now the situation is this. Either they commit or they admit defeat. Lavrov has already issued a warning, a seriously warning, that America is on the edge of being considered as part of the war in Ukraine. Remember, the Russians do not threaten, and this is a clear, very clear, warning and MUST be considered.
>No NATO state has ever invaded Russia.
Is that meant to be serious?
Partial list off the top of my head:
— a dozen or so wars with Sweden in the period ~1500-~1800 (Sweden is to become an official NATO member soon, but has been a de fact one for decades). Sweden even captured Novgorod at one point.
— a dozen wars with Turkey in the period ~1560-1867, though none of those was a major invasion of Turkey into Russia. Still, 12 wars is 12 wars
— More than a dozen wars with Poland going back to the Middle Ages, including a major Polish invasion during the Time of Troubles
— WWI was fought against Germany
— WWII needs no elaboration at all, largest and most brutal war ever. And it wasn’t Germany alone – it was Germany with additional troops from Romania, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, backed by the industrial capacity of most of Europe.
— And of course backed by Finland – the Soviet demanded the territory swap the refusal of which resulted in the Winter war because they were worried about an invasion towards St. Petersburg/Leningrad and wanted a buffer. Of course invasion through that route is precisely what happened a year later, and the buffer gained in the Winter war did turn out to be of critical importance. The Finns just couldn’t help themselves but to side with the Nazis.
— Another well known story if how France, with much of Europe backing it, invaded in 1812.
— Crimean war 1853-1856 was France + Britain + Turkey against Russia, and Russia was invaded in Crimea, in the Caucasus, from the Baltic Sea, the Kola peninsula was attacked, and there was even a siege of Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka
— During the Civil War the US, the British and the French (with additional Italian, Czech, Polish, etc. contributions) invaded from Arkhangelsk, from the Baltics (which is a big reason why those gained independence, i.e. important pieces of territory were torn off Russia as a result), from Ukraine and from the Far East.
— It wasn’t a military intervention, but perhaps the most devastating invasion was the one in the 1990s, which resulted in such levels of deindustrialization, demilitarization and depopulation of the Russia (and the breakup of the USSR) that it is not clear at all if there will ever be a full recovery.
Given that long and brutal history that has resulted in tens of millions dead and loss of key territories, is it any wonder that the Russians are paranoid about the future?
“No NATO state has ever invaded Russia.”
Germany is a NATO state, it just wasn’t at the times they invaded.
When Russia was at its weakest, at the end of the Soviet Union, there was no need to invade as the acknowledged their defeat. The US was in triumphalist mode and glorying in its victory. They believed that the Bear was subdued for all time. They were ready for the plunder, and ex-colleagues of mine – investment bankers – went in for their share. It was disgusting, total exploitation of the worst kind.
After Putin took over suddenly they were confronted with a different animal. A patriot with a spine and brains. It is why they hate him.
It has become obvious that NATO believes in remote control warfare, and as Larry points out, they are stupid, just like the bought and paid for globalist politicians now running Europe, Canada and the rest.
The neocons are as dangerous as they are both influential and psychopathic.
Wake up.
Look at the history of NATO/ Russia relationship since 1990. Where is the need to add new eastern european members coming from? As you’ll find out, in 1990 dozens of western leaders go out of their way to reinsure Russia they would not expand towards russian borders. In return Russia agreed to retreat from eastern Germany. Which they did!
As of today sixteen(!) countries have joined NATO in violation of their promise. . What for? Imagine the russians did a similar thing along the mexican and canadian borders, Cuba etc. Wouldn’t Washington see this as a security threat and act accordingly? What you are basically claiming is that the US taking defensive measures would be an act of aggression and imperialism
First you need to understand that western logistics thinking is heavily in love with the idea of JIT, Just in Time. All of their planning, each time more and more theoretically influenced by the ways private industry operates, just assumes a continuous and perfect very complex supply chain.
Second, the US and the German have unlimited faith on technology, and the belief is that, the more complex a solution is, the more effective it should be. That’s how you end with MBT using a Jet Engine as a power plant, that makes them absolutely unserviceable in the field.
Third, the politicizations of the military makes sure that to advance in your career, you need to be a yes man and go with the flow. It is a very career damaging move to write a report suggesting that the F-35 is too complex and over-engineered system to be cost-effectively employed in a long sustained major conflict. It is a very expensive machine designed to neutralize the air defenses of third world countries in the usual shock and awe style of operations. But put this in a report is guarantee you will never have stars in your shoulders. So this guarantee that the feedback information flow that feeds planning is biased and overly optimistic.
Third, and related to the second, is the proverbial American attitude of provincialism and lack of interest in the world that leads to underestimating the enemy. When you have someone who by virtue of his position know better, saying that Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country it shows how deeply uninformed they are about the world. And a lot a of this is cultural and ideological. American tourists are always somewhat baffled when they visit non western countries and find out that they have modern infrastructure and a strong economy. Due to the exceptionalism ideology Americans (and NATO is basically an axtension of the US) are utterly uninterested since their early years in school to know much about the world outside the US and they are lead to believe that other countries must be somewhat backwards in every aspect compared to them.
Fourth, western culture has been long hijacked intellectually by advertising people, and thus the politics. Form and pompe is overvalued over substance. Spending more and more is seen as prove of superiority and policy is always subordinated first to the optics, before strategical considerations.
Fifth, for all the talk, western elites have a very low level of care about their people, even in the Cold War, you could see that civil defense preparations in Russia for a nuclear war were far more extensive than in any western country but Switzerland
Michael56,
“Germany is a NATO state, it just wasn’t at the times they invaded.”
Which is exactly the point.
NATO has done Russia a favour by checking Germany in check.
My point is exact and correct.
“They believed that the Bear was subdued for all time.”
Exactly.
They believed the bear went into hibernation.
This is where NATO was incautious and maybe, as Larry says, NATO has been stupid.
But I don’t think NATO is that stupid to move to war with Russia if it has done zero preparation for war.
“They were ready for the plunder, and ex-colleagues of mine – investment bankers – went in for their share. ”
Yes, I agree. But then the Russians got smart and kicked out the western carpetbaggers and replaced them with a home grown variety.
“The neocons are as dangerous as they are both influential and psychopathic.”
Maybe. So planning to murder tens even hundreds of thousands of your enemy and your own is not?
After what happened in Afeganistão I think the burden of proof lies on anyone who argues that the NATO is capable of sound strategical decision making
Kenan Meyer,
“What for? ”
Do the names Georgia and Ukraine ring a bell?
Kenan Meyer,
“Imagine the russians did a similar thing along the mexican and canadian borders, Cuba etc.”
This argument is replete with non sequiturs.
If Russia put a bunch of conventional forces along the US’s borders, the US would nuke them.
So, the Russians would bring their own nukes – there would then be stalemate.
So what is gained?
Anyway, Russia has nuclear armed submarines floating around all over the place.
The point is that NATO would be utterly stupid to engage in a war of any kind with Russia. There is a nuclear stalemate in place.
The reason NATO expands is to ensure that Russia stays out of Europe.
It has absolutely no interest in attempting the military defeat of Russia. It would entail the demise of the human race.
The answer is that NATO and EU leaders have a fervent belief that they are morally and intellectually superior to all other humans on Earth. The way they show that superiority is by “winning” in everything they do. That is why they never change course, never have a Plan B, because they believe the first plan of Superior People will always work.
Henry,
Russia is the largest country on the planet. Why would they need more land? This is just another pathetic cope from someone who refuses to accept the new multi-polar world order.
grantp,
I agree with your assessment as I see it in my friend circle here in Europe. 8 years of listening to snide remarks about ‘Russian speakers.’ Never mind that most of the Ukrainians that worked with us couldn’t speak Ukrainian! Then again it’s not like they can tell the difference.
What planet are you on? Don’t you see the expansion of NATO? Don’t you see color revolutions everywhere?
“Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country,” McCain said. “It’s kleptocracy. It’s corruption. It’s a nation that’s really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important.”
Also, maybe NATO knew that a conventional war against Russia wasn’t winnable. That’s what nukes are for.
The US and other future NATO nations invaded Russia in 1918.
The economic war that the EU and NATO has been waging against Russia is ongoing and your pathetic reduction of the types of war to only “militarily subduing” an enemy is an indication of either your duplicity or your ignorance.
It is quite clear that the US wants to weaken Russia. Does this mean a NATO military attack? Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevented that during the Cold War. But if the West could do it successfully by either a rapid strike or neutralizing Russia’s offense through a superior defensive system….
In the meantime, softer methods are being used. Check out this RAND study.
Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html#
This whole war could have been avoided if
1) Kiev honored the Minsk agreements
2) Ukraine remained a neutral buffer state
It seems clear to me that there are neocons and other Russophobes in the foreign policy establishment that wanted this war.
Henry,
As I understand, your perception is “virgin” NATO was never intended to attack Russia and never prepared this and Putin is an invador of the Ukraine teritory. And who does not agree is a rusky propaganda “agent”. OK you have the right to think as you wish.
The facts are NATO trained and sustain with military equipment Ukraine, intended to construct military base in Ukraine, controled all political class in Ukraine and created an Russian encerclement by controlling Ukaine. You do not need to enter in the house of your neighbour. Is sufficient to control all his outside exists and after make him pay each time he wants to take a walk. The NATO-Ukaine job is to block Russia on a huge border length and not to invade Russia. NATO is a tool for “west mafia” to secure their % of all goods that are coercialised. You don’t like this, NATO will contribute to make you love this. They did not prepare to invade Russia because other “smart guys ” told them is not necessary, Putin will be throw out by sanctions. Well…. did’nt work. Bad luck.
Did Russia invaded Ukraine, yes. Did NATO (more precise “west mafia”) let Russia have other acceptable choice than invade Ukraine, no. The other choice of Russia was to became the “west scalve”. Well, they did not take it. Can you blame?
Ukraine, via the “puppets” leaders, took it, and we can see, they became “gladiators expendable”. The “west mafia” is in tribune and demand more fights, until “the last gladiator”.
Henry …it’s difficult to understand that Ukraine and NATO it’s the same thing ? UKRAINE / NATO first attacked Donbass …the next would be Russia ! or I will need to draw to you ? Larry had a Buddha’s patience to answer you !
Sounds rather more, Harry, like you’ve swallowed CIA/DIA/NSA/White House/Pentagon/FBI propaganda.
You do realize all of those agencies have secrecy clauses to which their intelligence officers (i.e.: chief propagandists) are bound to upon pain of prosecution and imprisonment, right?
That has been the case going back to the early 1950s, when the US’s subjugation to its intelligence agencies and military+corporate elite started. Remember what Ike said? Nothing has changed, since then; it has only gotten worse.
Everything we’ve been taught about the so-called “Cold War” is 95% Western (i.e.: NATO–as in the F/uk/US/Germs alliance) lies.
The “Cold War” should instead be re-labeled “The US/UK Long War of Aggression on Russia and the Soviet Union”. The Soviet Union posed no meaningful threat following WWII, and the only reason it developed nuclear weapons was because the US already had them. It was a defensive response to a hostile aggressor that had already demonstrated its willingness to use them on the defenseless civilians of a defeated nation that was literally begging to surrender.
Is NATO “that stupid” today? It most certainly is. The fact that you claim to be “an economist” and don’t recognize that fact speaks volumes. Any economist worth the name has already recognized, these many months, that the sanctions “The West” has attempted to impose on Russia will hurt first-and-foremost the EU and then secondarily (but also gravely) the US.
Economists who actually know what they’re talking about were warning the governments of the US and EU precisely that in the run-up to their foolish attempts to injure the Russian economy. Nobody listened. Now we have runaway inflation across the entire “West” along with skyrocketing fuel costs both at the gasoline pump as well as natural gas sources. Factories are shutting down across Europe.
It was a stupid move. It hasn’t hurt Russia and there is no sign it ever will. This is precisely Larry’s point up there, in the OP. The numbers are starkly laid out before you–so why is it that you, a supposed “economist”, cannot argue against them with better numbers?
My guess is that you’re not really an economist and even if you were, you wouldn’t know where to find any because the stats quoted by Larry up there are the most relevant and applicable. Thus, arguing against them is simply impossible.
So instead–good little propagandist that you are–you hop on here and start insinuating that Larry is “infected” or “suborned” by Russian propaganda.
Your post smacks more of a corporal or maybe a Lieutenant or Ensign (the lowest form of life in the US Military, right?) working off of some script out of some low-classified propaganda mill.
I am not sure about other NATO countries but the “Russian Experts” that I see in the USA seem to think that the Russia of the 2022 is pretty much the same as it was in the middle or late 1990’s. A lot of these experts do not appear to have been in Russia since the 1990’s (or ever?). They do not appear to have realised that Russia is not the the USSR of the 1980’s.
I have to agree that NATO, at least its current political leadership, is stupid.
Hi Henry,
Can we agree not to slap a sticker “Putin propaganda” on anybody? It’s really such a cheap shot and used to shut down different opinions but the “party line” I grew up under Communism in the USSR, and I can’t even tell you how the current USA “party line” on Zelensky’s Nazi regime reminds me of the USSR.
Before you scream, I’m an American from Ukraine, and my family and friends are still in Ukraine, where my ancestors lived for centuries. So please spare me of your “Putin troll” branding – Zelensky is no hero to me, and he orders massive systematic terror purges where his goons go in Mykolaiv door-to-door, scrutinizing people’s phones, arresting, killing.
It should tell anybody capable of critical thinking that if en-mass searches are warranted, it means the civilian population doesn’t support Zelensky’s regime and fights by all means possible.
Look at the photo of the so-called “mass grave” presented today in the U.N. Security Council – it fails the very definition of a “mass grave” – they are clearly individual graves with Christian crosses on top!
Are you aware that Governor (Gubernator) Vitaly Kim (Mykolaiv Oblast), refuses to collect the fallen Ukrainian soldiers from the battlefield and the Russians have to bury them so the animals (packs of stray dogs) wouldn’t get them?
What I REALLY want to know is who among the US senate/congress OWN LAND in Ukraine? Zelensky began rabidly selling the land in Ukraine to American/EU oligarchs as soon as he came to power. Ukrainians (not all of them Nazis!) are terrified that if they say anything against what the USA wants (including signing a peace treaty), the USA would take most of Ukraine’s land from them.
I read NATO offered Gorbachev NATO membership, but the Soviet hardliners refused.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong-in-the-media/interview-the-plot-to-seize-russia-make-it-a-nato-vassal/
Have you even looked at a map of NATO expansion over the past 30+ years? It is clear that NATO’s intent was to encircle Russia with NATO countries. They have installed ABM sites in Romania and are in the process of adding them to Poland – ABM sites that can be converted in less than 24 hours to fire nuke-capable cruise missiles. The flight times from the existing and proposed launch sites to Russian nuke-capable launch sites (and Moscow) are around 15 minutes or thereabouts.
It’s quite clear, simply from observing, that NATO has been actively moving towards armed confrontation with Russia, or, at the very least, to put itself in a position of military dominance.
You’re correct that NATO did not militarily attack Russia when the USSR collapsed and it was somewhat vulnerable. This is because 1) Russia still had a capable military and 2) why have a war when you can buy off the leadership? Which is exactly what happened with Yeltsin.
You raise a good point in that “who in their right mind would risk nuclear confrontation” – US Neocons, that’s who. NATO doctrine was already pre-disposed to first strike use of nuclear weapons in Europe should the USSR ever invade. NATO doctrine called for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Soviet forces in the even they punched through NATO defenses. This has not changed, as far as I know.
What you don’t seem willing to accept is that the West could, indeed, be run by fools who refuse to see what is in front of them.
If anyone here is swallowing propaganda, it’s you.
“You cannot/won’t accept the viable alternative conclusion that NATO has never had any intention of militarily subduing Russia.”
Mr Johnson has not ruled that out. It just seems hard to square with NATOs constant extension eastwards towards Russia. It might on the final evaluation seem too dumb to believe that Germany actively antagonised its primary energy supplier, but that is on Germany.
You on the other hand have entirely ruled out any interpretation of events that might dispute that NATO is all knowing, all seeing and completely rational in the decisions it makes. It isn’t.
The real tragedy is that it is ordinary Ukrainian civilians who pay the price for this online performative showboating. Ukraine cannot win this war. Russia cannot lose this war. Russia has escalation dominance up top and including nukes. The longer Ukraine’s “friends in the west” encourage their doomed resistance to reality, the more Ukraine loses.
If NATO was smart, NATO media would not view conflict with a great power large enough to mobilise trained reserves greater than the standing armies of the UK, the French, the Germans and the Italians combined as some trivial effort. A month or two ago, Stoltenberg announced NATO was massing a 300K strong army to deter Russia as if that was impressive. Whereas Russia is at pains to announce, 300K is just a small, partial mobilisation. NATO media claims they are not impressed, because NATO is stupid.
Tbx,
These states were not NATO states.
Do you get it?
My statement is exact and correct.
TxJoe,
What planet are you on?
Read everything I have written before you shoot from the hip.
I have said NATO wants to expand to the Russian border.
There is no interest in invading Russia.
It would be madness and clearly NATO has made no preparations for war with Russia.
Larry and co, I’m afraid, can’t see the contradiction in their reasoning.
Joe,
“This whole war could have been avoided if…….1) Kiev honored the Minsk agreements….”
Gimme a break.
Putin undermined the process the whole way through.
He is the one that wanted war.
GhM,
There is a competition going on.
The game is win Ukraine.
A competition requires two players.
There are no rules to this competition except, win.
No-one is immune from judgement.
Pacifica_Advocate
“Sounds rather more, Harry, like you’ve swallowed CIA/DIA/NSA/White House/Pentagon/FBI propaganda.”
And whose propaganda have you swallowed?
seedeevee,
“The US and other future NATO nations invaded Russia in 1918.”
If you think about it a little harder you will get it.
Lika,
“Can we agree not to slap a sticker “Putin propaganda” on anybody? It’s really such a cheap shot…”
That’s fine with me.
Does that also apply to all those who have slavishly said I am a propagandist?
Larry knows I have a point on the question raised. That’s why he can only respond by saying NATO is stupid.
I agree with him in part.
However, no-one would plan to go to war with Russia without making preparations.
AndyS,
“Have you even looked at a map of NATO expansion over the past 30+ years? It is clear that NATO’s intent was to encircle Russia with NATO countries. They have installed ABM sites in Romania and are in the process of adding them to Poland – ABM sites that can be converted in less than 24 hours to fire nuke-capable cruise missiles.”
Sure.
So what?
What do you think Russia has done?
Armed themselves with slingshots?
Nick Athans,
“I do not think that NATO is capable of long-term planning in terms of possible interventions in other countries.”
It is not capable of long term planning because it is not interested in militarily subduing Russia.
The argument that you and Larry and countless others drone on about is circular.
If NATO wanted war with Russia they would be ready for it.
They are stupid in some ways but not that stupid.
“You’ve swallowed Putin’s rhetoric/propaganda hook line and sinker.”
i am sorry larry , this is an obvious troll.. his posts are FUD and lies and he constantly push russophobic nonsense here..
Randolorian,
“Russia is the largest country on the planet. Why would they need more land? ”
I suggest you put that question to Mr. Putin.
Henry Rech:
(a) ‘…NATO has never had any intention of militarily subduing Russia’.
Are you serious?
It’s what the American Governing elites have been planning for decades. NATO is but a camouflage for the US Armed Forces, the Americans run it, everyone does as it’s told.
Why didn’t NATO disband when the the Warsaw Pact ended? Why has Russia not been invited to join NATO? Why the encircling of Russia with NATO bases when it’s Russia that has been invaded by some of the countries now NATO members, and not the other way round?
Google for the Wolfowitz doctrine (1992), read it, it says the US can never allow another adversary akin to the USSR to emerge, Putin’s Russia is one of such adversaries, probably more powerful than the USSR ws, hence Russia has to be contained, her economy destroyed, the country balkanised or as the current idea in vogue has it – decolonised. It’s this doctrine that has guided the US Foreign policy on Europe for decades.
Have a read here:
https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/events/decolonizing-russia
(
French President Emmanuel Macron of France described NATO as “brain dead” a while back. Don’t forget NATO contains by a lot of lifetime military bureaucrats.
There are plenty of examples in history of nations talking themselves into wars they were in no way prepared for – Napoleon in 1812; France triggered the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 without any serious preparation; Britain went into WW2 which they declared on Germany with no army to speak of – how stupid is that? Italy went into WW1 and WW2 with great enthusiasm and totally ill equipped with disastrous results not once but twice. I could go on.
Don’t forget Western political leaders believed that the Russian economy would collapse when sanctions were announced. Most “educated” westerners are still totally unaware that Russia produces around the same amount of steel as the US. Most westerners believe that Germany has the biggest economy in Europe when in reality it is smaller than Russia in manufacturing.
Larry,
If NATO is stupid, it is stupid because it did not prepare to deal with obvious Russian ambitions in Europe after the Georgian-Russian war of 2008.
The Russian ambitions were a figment of NATO’s imagination. Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers using US weapons (familiar?)
Russia defeated Georgia easily but took no land. US aggression has been used as evidence of Russian aggression ever since.
Michael Droy,
“Russian peacekeepers”
LOL!
bro you really cant make the difference between propaganda and realty,,, really how many people have have to explain to you in order to see that your logic is not there….. as incredible at it sound YES NATO was preparing a War against Russia and YES we have INCOMPETENT, CORUPT and STUPID leaders who live under a bubble and cant see what’s going one all over the globe…but this it can eb seen in your case you really belive all what MSM told you and OFC is the fault of all those dam ruski,,,,HOW long you ll put the blame on others insted to blame yourself 4 voting those incompetents and 4 the fact that u cant understand what’s going one in the world because your moral high ground posture do not allow u…
Steffen OPPENHEIMER
Who’s this MSM mob everybody keeps talking about?
OFC, haven’t seen that before. Truly.
I work things out for myself.
One man’s propaganda is another man’s truth.
One thing I have learned in my longish life is that you take no notice of what people say and you only take notice of what people do.
Just like the West, the Russians and Chinese have done their share of dastardly things.
“HOW long you ll put the blame on others insted to blame yourself 4 voting those incompetents”
You have no idea how I complete my ballot cards. 🙂
Georgia was “welcomed” into NATO along with Ukraine in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration. Western stooge Saakashvili started his invasion of the disputed territories 4 months later in an effort to make formal admission to NATO possible. Why would Russia have territorial ambitions? Does that make any sense? It doesn’t have enough people for the territory it has and doesn’t need the (lack of) resources in South Ossetia. But it did contain many Russian speakers who needed protection in 2008.
Nato doesn’t dare to engage directly against Russia because they’ve lost the technological militar race. Should they attempt to do it , Russia can wipe them out with nuclear hypersonic missiles, there’s almost no time to detect/intercept them. But I’m sure they will attack Russia not during Biden but I think the next president will do it once they develop their own hypersonic weapons (it doesnt really matter who wins: Trump, Sanders, De Santi, Pompeo whoever gets elected, will please the Deep State). You seem to imply Nato or better said the West would never dare to launch a nuclear attack against Russia… doesn’t Harry Truman ring a bell to you?
Not wrong as they don’t understand Russia and seems that they think they are dealing with a bigger Iraq. Were they expecting the Russians to turn and run when confronted by NATO’s proxy army in the Ukraine? I think probably.
IWick,
C’mon.
Can you tell the difference between Iraq and Russia?
If you can , I am sure NATO can.
I agree with your assessment.. Nato is indeed braindead from the honest look on it.. even macron said it aloud. and stoltenberg, what can i say, not only does it make me ashamed to be from norway, more like ashamed to be of the same species.. if we even are.. he started as a youth politician demonstrating and being against Nato, until he saw career opportunities in being a lackey psychophant for the empire. Try also to look into how him and jonas gahr støre did a complete turnaraound on libya war after 2 things.. utøya massacre wich was blamed on 1 man they cosequently build a whole prison to contain only for him. Then the phonecall from HRC to støre. Then suddenly all proper form and law regarding declaring war was ignored and the norwegian leaders all decided via txt message that they would send fighter jets to carpetbomb libyan infrastructure back to the stone age. After almost 10 years they made a sham investigation of their own actions and concluded that they never did anything wrong, that they were proud of the norwegian military war effort and the result in libya after. These people are not only stupid, they are narcissitic evil parasites. And just because some puffed up egocentric has a school degree in econimics from a university doesnt mean they understand a crap about real life, nor do they care, as long as they get what they crave.. power and position and all that comes with that… plenty of psychphants in the western eu puppet governments
EXACT. STOLTENBERG, THE GUY TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU MUST NEED TO KNOW… A SHAME… ABM
Thanks i didn’t understand this correctly until i listened to the latest round table where you said the eurocrats busy working on soviet union 2.0 actually believe what they say. Even though you have mentioned it many times that there is no plan suddenly it all sunk in and made sense.
NATO is stupid because they have never really understood the power of Russian real economy compared to their own financial economies. They didn’t adequately prepare military because they thought theybwill be able to collapse Russia’s economy using mainly financial sanctions, and there will be no need for a prolonged conflict. Jacques Baud said this is exactly what Arestovich declared that Ukraine was promised by NATO: lure Russia into attacking them to give the West an excuse for sanctions to cripple Russia economy and quickly bring about its collapse, clearing the way for Ukraine’s formal accession to NATO.
Needless to say this plan is backfiring big time, and mainly because those people do not understand real economy.
You actually answered part of your own question. The word “economist”…
The rhetoric before the SMO was that Russia “will suffer dire consequences. We will impose sanction to a level that you have never seen before.”
They thought it would have an affect, but it failed. Now they are sitting with a military situation and they can not admit defeat.
They thought they were military ready for a conflict based on the size of the American Military, which is huge and can not be denied. NATO is America, not Europe and Europe is not prepared.
The problem is America can not afford body bags and therefor need proxies. Well, there is Poland, who have always been stupid enough, and Romania and the other small fanatic countries.
Henry,
It’s not that simple. This is not a question of stupidity. We are talking about an international military organization with complexity in terms of its operation.
What is certain is that the arrogance of America also possesses NATO with what this entails in the formulation of strategy, organization and operation.
I do not think that NATO is capable of long-term planning in terms of possible interventions in other countries.
It is more the long arm of America.
I also take for granted the perennial will of America to seriously damage Russia with a combination of different actions, but this does not happen overnight. So the planning is there and intensified in 2014. What we are seeing now is probably America’s knee-jerk reaction to Russia’s unexpected, albeit provoked, reaction.
They probably thought that Russia would not sacrifice the economically successful opening to Europe.
In addition, however, we must not overlook the simultaneous blow that is being attempted, successfully, on the EU economy and especially on the German one.
Henry,
I was born in the 70s and I never ever saw such provocations from NATO towards the USSR/Russia. They could drink each others blood during the cold war, but there was still respect. When Russia (USSR) drew some red lines, this was respected. Look how the Cuba missile crisis was handled. Nowadays, NATO is throwing dirt at Russia as if they were some sort of a rag-tag country. Totally insane how they treat Russia. They never did this at this level during the cold war (IMO). So, is NATO stupid? Yes, they are!
“NATO has been militarily preparing to take on Russia”
The greater the interacting variables including time, the greater the probability of failure.
Preparing is an evaluation of those who prepare, which is validated or not through implementation of preparations.
The probability of failure is a function of interactions of the facilities of those who prepare, and the facilities of those against whom the preparations are made.
Phenomena do not need to be perceived in order to exist, facilitating the propensity of some to believe that “NATO has been militarily preparing to take on Russia is absolute nonsense” since seeing is believing although apparently we the people hold these truths to be self-evident, thereby re-iterating that “Phenomena do not need to be perceived in order to exist” as a function of self-evidentness.
However NATO colloquia since 1949 attest that “NATO has been militarily preparing to take on Russia” and before then “The Soviet Union” and the Warsaw pact which are no longer in existence, although some who apparently lost China through alleged loss of direction facilitated by “evil doers/enemies-of-the-people, believe that “The Soviet Union” still exists outwith the half-lives of memories, thereby illustrating the binary lost/found, despite Mr. Heraclitus observing that you can’t step into the same river twice.
“Is NATO that stupid?”
– Yes, and much more. But that’s only my opinion. And the real, actual truth ( Who’s constantly lying? Who’s right? Who’s stupid? Who’s paranoid? ) will be obvious to all in one way or another on… let’s say October 15?
i find your posts here are exactly what larry said about increased trolling in all media , you always ended your post with anti russia nonsense and without single shred of proof.
i saw a LOT and i mean a LOT of troll posts in Moa , Smoothie , Saker and here. Seem like the NATO astroturfer division work overtime trying to beat russia lol
people have been engaging your posts here with civility , but you never responded to their advices and you kept plugging on with anti russia nonsense and lies.
which marked you as obvious troll pretending to ask questins while posting anti russia FUD and lies
You’re not wrong in your assessments. But look at the people in charge. Political conformity has replaced competence as the key criterion. They think shaping public perception of events is a sufficient substitute for logistics and planning leading to positive outcomes They really thought the sanctions were certain to work, wouldn’t shut up about them for months before Russia attacked. Rather than admit error, they double down, attack critics as Putin stooges, and look for scapegoats like people using cars and thermostats. Not that legacy media does its job holding the powerful to account, with a few exceptions. Alt journalists end up on the Ukranian kill list there are so few. Expecting basic competence is asking too much.
CJLB,
” They think shaping public perception of events is a sufficient substitute for logistics and planning leading to positive outcomes”
Really?
I think your assertions need concrete evidence.
Just vacuous rhetoric on your part.
Get real.
Should we remember you how the “pandemic” thing was managed ?
Should we remember you how the “terrorism” and 9/11 was managed ?
Should we remember you how the “WMD” thing was managed ?
Only by shaping public opinion with mostly irrational fears.
Covid was not the black death ,Bin Laden was in Pakistan and no WMD was found in Iraq … but , they now have access to your medical history , they now can legally tape your phone-calls , they now can survey who buy a gun etc …
All the policies done at any given time needed at least some public support, and that is maybe too easy to get with fear , threats , lies … the usual pile of bullshit.
I already gave the example of sanctions boomeranging and them blaming energy consumers for using energy. But I see now you simply refuse to see. Which is understandable given how horrible and nefarious our leaders are.
The sanctions problems well in hand. I read an article on RT yesterday headlined “US Treasury looking for sanctions wizard”. The pic in the article says it all.
I vote Harry Potter as they’ll need a heapin’ helpin’ of the most powerful magic to solve these problems.
I think NATO and the west are not used to fighting peer competitors either. Too long they have gotten their way by beating the shit out of weaker opponents and I don’t think they expected at all to be in this situation with Russia as they expected Russia to be too fearful of the economic pain and the threat of US weapons. It turns out Russia was afraid of neither, much to their surprise.
Travis,
” It turns out Russia was afraid of neither, much to their surprise.”
Putin is ever the opportunist.
He’s been biding his time.
He’s seen the sharp social and political polarization evident in the US – he knows NATO has degraded its conventional forces in Europe and has diminished capacity to wage war – he thinks he has Europe by the balls with gas – he thinks Europe is divided and dysfunctional.
Pure calculation.
Which all negate Larry et al’s proposition that NATO has been planning to militarily subdue Russia. Putin moved because he knew NATO was unprepared.
Wow, your assessments are so flawed, one can’t even decide where to start. Putin did not move on anything. It was NATO that moved their trained and geared up Ukrainian troops to invade and crush the people from Donbass and Luhansk as Kiev never wanted to fulfill the Minsk agreements. EU had all the sanctions prepared, Scholz the German chancellor has admitted to this publicly, that all of this was already prepared in advance.
NATO and EU leaders a utter incompetent and inapt to run a lemonade stand. I would not even state that they were outsmarted by the Russian leadership as they never ever stood a chance to surprise them with anything in the first place. Russia nonetheless had to take that “move” very seriously as they suffer real causalities and had to actively change course in economics, finances and their military development/plans.
So “get real” yourself. The evidence is everywhere. NATO is not even smart enough to cover their own anti Russian agenda, same goes for EU and the US. There is nothing ambiguous about this, at least to someone who is open minded and has a reasonable judgement to simple facts.
Top Gum,
“The evidence is everywhere. NATO is not even smart enough to cover their own anti Russian agenda,”
I don’t believe the bullshit about an anti-Russian agenda.
Firstly, no-one in their right mind would take on a nuclear armed state. All the evidence, and Larry et al concur, that NATO is totally unprepared for war. NATO does not want to go to war with Russia. It did not anticipate having to go to war with Russia. I would agree that is a stupidity on their part.
Secondly, I would agree that NATO is committed to keeping Russia out of Europe and expanding to the Russian border. But that does not mean it threatens Russia militarily. Putin’s rhetoric about NATO threatening Russia is complete nonsense.
NATO has been able to expand because the new member states have chosen to do so. Sure, NATO has done everything in their power to get them in. But in the end this would not happen if it was not politically feasible, i.e., the vast majority of people in these states want to be part of Europe and want the protection of NATO. They are fed up with Russian oppression, corruption and meddling in their affairs. Yes, get real.
I also believe that the West would rather do business with Russia than do war with Russia. Plenty of evidence to support that.
The Donbas is part of the sovereign territory of the Ukraine. Just because Putin disagrees is not reason for him to invade.
All you need to know to show that NATO/EU is incompetent is they (apparently) never conceived that Russia would reduce and/or cut off their energy supplies. Their economies and way of life were completely dependent on cheap and reliable energy from Russia, but they imposed sanctions on Russia and sent weapons to Ukraine without any backup plan in place for replacing Russian energy. Now their response is that people should take showers together.
Ah, yes … “Putin did it” … Well, he still “thinks”, and recently he thought that the Federal Republic should open NS2 – a thought he mentioned to Chancellor Scholz – which obviously fell on deaf ears there – and we may guess, why Putin probably had this idea, if he has Europe with gas by the balls yet …
But let’s not expect too much. “Thinking” is an “art” which is apparently not very common in the “free West” …
Henry Rech
some parts of the west would prefer to do business with the Russians, especially
the Germans.
But some don´t want and prefer to push the russians out.
They use Ukraine for this purpose.
and seems they have succeeded.
George Friedman from Stratfor said in 2015 that it is important to prevent that Germany and Russia work to closely togehter.
The problem in the Donbas is not that Putin considers it as part of Russia.
The problem is that Ukraine treats the ethnic russian minority very bad and they are absolutely not willing to change this.
Ukraine also treats their other minorities very bad, for example hungarian
Henry
Could there be another possibility? That NATO did prepare, but said preparations were inadequate? NATO has been training and supplying Ukraine for many years. And is now supporting them in an almost fetishist way.
You make many points that I consider weak. But perhaps the most obviously incorrect is the statement that a NATO expansion to Russia’s border does not mean that it’s being threatened militarily.
Perhaps YOU and the Americans dont think so, but the only opinion that matters here is that of Russia, and which has been clearly articulated for decades.
NATO and the USA will not acknowledge, let alone try to address, Russia’s security concerns. Why? Hubris and arrogance? Racism?
Daniel James,
“Could there be another possibility? That NATO did prepare…”
Where’s the evidence for this?
Larry et all tell us they are totally unprepared for war with Russia.
Are you saying you disagree with Larry et al?
“NATO has been training and supplying Ukraine for many years. And is now supporting them in an almost fetishist way. ”
The answer to the first appears to be yes. I don’t know what the second sentence means.
Here’s another incongruency.
Larry and co. argue that NATO has set the Ukraine up as a proxy.
If this is correct why didn’t NATO move to supply the Ukraine with the wherewithal they needed to defeat or at least hold the Russians at bay, post haste? Why?
Why weren’t these weapons in place years ago? Last year?
The Ukrainian forces could have been trained to use these weapons in good time.
NATO knows exactly what it has to do to prosecute a war with Russia? Why wasn’t it done?
Instead, NATO has stuffed around and dribbled out weapons to the Ukrainians leaving the Ukrainians in the jaws of defeat.
Does not make one ounce of sense.
The conclusion can only be that there is something else going on and that the notion that NATO is using the Ukraine as a proxy does not hold water.
Correct. RF leadership know there’s a small window of opportunity to solidify a buffer vs NATO.
of course by “NATO,” one must be clear. It’s simply the trans-Atlantic arm of Washington. Now simply combine Washington’s track record of “spreading democracy” at gunpoint with multiple policy papers by influential thinktanks, academics, statements by corporate leaders and US legislators as well as with years of US State Department’s deceptive propaganda campaigns and soft power manipulations–all pointing to an end goal of gaining institutional control of Russia.
Now add in the changed US Nuclear Posture Review, withdrawal from INF treaty and Open Skies, US patriot missies to Poland and US tanks to Estonia, US Naval patrols of the Black Sea, years of sanctions and finally the defacto NATO-ization of Ukraine (after co-opting its government!) with the final aim of installing a NATO-friendly base at Sevastopol.
If Russia had nothing to worry about, then clearly—CLEARLY–US and NATO had nothing to worry about. That’s the logical corollary.
But if US and NATO had “nothing to worry about” vis a vis Russia, then what in the hell were they doing (see list above)?
You’ll be hard press to explain how the “what” NATO was doing had no nefarious “why,” no ultimate end game to deny Russians their sovereignty on behalf of the Atlanticist “we enjoy our hegemony just fine, thank you” leaches.
Luckily for Russia, Russian intelligence know exactly what US and NATO were “doing” and “why” they were doing it. Whether NATO was capable at the present time to wage war vs Russia has no logical implication for whether their long-term goal is to do precisely that. Also luckily for Russia, current RF leadership has impeccable timing.
Sorry mate. There is ample literature in the historical record dating back to WW2 that outlines the wests intention to break apart Russia.
Just because they currently do not have the means to accomplish their doctrine does not mean they would not pounce on the opportunity to execute when able.
Why would Russia allow NATO to sharpen Ukraine into their spear tip to use against them? Clearly the ultimate goal of the west in regards to Ukraine is as a weapon against Russia. The diplomatic language from the west, the think tank publications from the west make this very apparent, not to mention it fits the MO of the past decades.
I think the west. NATO made the same mistake as Napoleon and Hitler. they underestimated Russia. they thought the Russian military was weak, they thought the Russian economy was weak. they thought that Russian diplomacy was weak. kick the door in and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. they were disastrously wrong in all three assumptions, evidently. the west/NATO planned this war but Russia prepared for it in all three arenas noted above. the condescending arrogant western pastime of looking down on and demeaning Russia has once again borne the usual fruit, calamity. coexistence was working well until a small fraction in the west decided they didn’t like it. all of this could have been avoided
the leadership of the west is a bunch of imbeciles.they looted the planet for 500 years and wanted that to continue forever.they are all living in their “herrenmenschen” bubble where everybody has to follow their rules or get sanctioned,bombed or colour revolutioned..oh boy,thats over
the reason they did not raise the convential forces of nato is that western leaders “knew”(all western thinktanks “knew”that..) that russias economy would collapse after few weeks of western sanctions.russian people would take down this evil mr putin.victory..next one-china..
well,that didnt go well-instead the western economies are in serious trouble and their proxy is getting destroyed.on top of that,most of the supplied western “wunderwaffen”prooved to be rather not so wonderful in real combat situation.
the west is loosing this bigtime
Because RU is nuclear power, nobody is crazy enough to attack it directly, and that is why military buildup did not make much sense. Also, through the cold war, west knew that in conventional warfare they couldn’t fight for longer then few weeks against USSR, especially since as far as I know, USSR had enough military stockpile to fight with 5 million army for more then 3 years without building as single shell, and that sort of commitment west could never match.
Also, direct nuclear attack from the other side of the world did not make sense, since RU could retaliate, and then there goes entire planet (4-5k nukes would destroy everything though nuclear winter and huge amount of radiation that no-one could really escape, especially not for hundreds of years that it would last)
So, what other ways to defeat and destroy nuclear armed country like Russia can you think of? You are left with essentially only one way, and it is what they are doing right now.
You arm and strengthen UKR for protracted conflict by:
– Making tranches, bunker systems, and everything else you can to make any rush advancement very costly
– Completely fix/modernize UKR army and its huge arsenal* (will be better explained later)
– Bring west officers to lead them, bring west soldiers to fight with them and use complicated western equipment for them
– Provide them with satellite, awacs and any other type of intelligence
– Provide them with all the money and food and similar that they might need (as you know UKR doesn’t have an economy anymore, its all payed and provided from abroad)
– Provide them with stockpiles of arms and ammunition from ex Warsaw pact countries and remaining factories (like Bulgaria for example, that is for last 8 years producing soviet style ammunition in overdrive)
– Provide them with logistical support of repairing their equipment outside of the UKR, and sometimes, even inside it
– Provide them with training of troops outside of UKR that cannot be attacked
After you do all of that, you provoke RU into attacking that fortress UKR, hoping that together with heavy sanctions you can destroy RU economy, inflict heavy military casualties on RU and turn its people against its government, topple them, install puppet regime and together with puppet regime you brake down country into dozens of small countries, pit them up one against the other, and slowly corrupt all of them and disarm them enough that they do your bidding.
If RU doesn’t take the bait and attacks UKR, you attack Donbas with that powerful and modernized army, heavily torture and humiliate RU speakers and if RU bites its lip and lets that happen, you wait a little bit, prepare a little bit more, and do similar with Crimea. If they let that happen as well, you will have heavily demoralized RU population who will lose any will to fight anymore (a lot of infighting would occur), so you can again try with regime change.
If all of that fails to provoke RU to attack UKR or produce wished regime change, so many humiliations would reduce RU society cohesion enough to make RU paralized country, after which, they could bring nuclear missiles on all the RU borders, (especially in heavily fortified UKR that is in their underbelly), end attempt first strike on RU nuclear installations and military at which point, there would be no hope of RU fighting back, since its spirit would have long be broken, and its generally very hard to stop or even notice on time low flying missiles that can reach their targets in a matter of few minutes.
* I have purposely marked UKR huge arsenal with [*] symbol because I wanted to point out to something that has been rarely said, and which should additionally explain why there was no need for west troop buildup if they control UKR – basically UKR war arsenal was always huge – just google amount of equipment that UKR had before the war, since as ex USSR country, they had probably about 10% of huge USSR arsenal, and most of it was modernized since 2014 (with west’s money ofcourse), so we are literally talking about multiple tens of thousands of modernized military equipment, and hundreds of thousands of very motivated soldiers right on the RU doorstep, so what would be a purpose of greater buildup if such a force could not make a dent?
So altogether, if west really believed that sanctions would brake RU economy, everything I just wrote would be a very easy to implement (without economy, military cannot fight, so you loose the fight as well), and complete breakdown of RU would be pretty much inevitable, and small price of having energy cuts for few months or years would be nothing if they could in the end own RU and all its natural resources, and by owning RU, they would also economically choke and defeat China (since China is hugely dependent on RU resources), which would mean global world domination,and that was the real goal of this exercise.
However, what appears to be happening is that RU have to some degree understood what west’s plans are, and they prepared for it by making strategic alliances with other countries in the world (like China, India, Iran, whole Africa, etc…), and the reason why those strategic alliances were possible is very simple – all of those countries understand that if RU falls, west’s global domination is inevitable, and RU is the only country in the world that has economy*, military*, and way of life* that can fight west’s might, so not only that all of those countries know that it is existential for them as well, most of them were so many times humiliated by the west in one way or the other, that they all were practically waiting for RU, the only country in the world that could actually say NO (Nyet) to the west to do it, so that they could help it.
Also, dolar as a global currency was so over-abused in recent years, that all those countries might have felt as complete idiots to work hard and give their own natural resources in return for the pieces of paper, and RU NO could mean end to that monopoly as well.
Ofcourse, most world countries try to avoid conflict with the West (so they are not openly supporting RU), and try to obtain some benefits from this (ofocurse, if you can take political points home, or get cheaper energy, wouldn’t you?), and that is why sometimes it might appear that they are not strongly behind RU, but in fact most of them are, since they know what RU defeat means for them – i.e. being completely dominated in every aspect, working for printed paper and accepting all sorts of humiliations on regular basis, if having countries at all.
To finish this up, I will now explain why is RU such an enormous problem for the West, and why it is the only country that can say NO to them.
– Economy – it is the only country in the world that has every single needed resource inside their borders in abundance. That means that sanctions, blocades and similar cannot get them to an existential crisis, at best, they can reduce standard of living, and even that, only if implemented by the rest of the world.
Also, RU economy is constructed in such a way that it is mostly debt free, not super-optimized (therefore can take blows without collapsing), and is mostly standing on it own legs – i.e. it is not over-streched like CHN economy and it is not heavily dependent on other peoples markets or resources, unlike CHN.
That is also a reason why it is so heavily underrepresented in GDP and similar terms, exactly because main focus of RU economy is to be healthy and sturdy, and not overinflated, as sturdy economy can take blows, but overinflated cannot.
– Miltary and society – Not only that they have huge stockpiles of USSR weaponry, ammunition and everything else, huge amount of military factories and resources to produce them, they also have approach in a country that allows them to take their best people into military, as they were doing for decades before in cold wars. That is the reason why they couldn’t make luxury cars, but could make space rockets, because when your internal focus of the country is to defend your natural resources that everyone would like to take from you, you are putting military needs first, and your best scientists and planers are going in those branches, therefore, RU to some extent is a military country (they also have military service for civilians which makes their potential draft capabilities in tens of millions of people, they have huge shelter systems for their civilians, etc), which means that they are probably the best prepared country to fight wars, especially wars that they perceive as just or righteous where they could gather whole population behind them.
Unlike them CHN is not using their best and brightest in the military, as their society was always oriented towards trade and production, and usually preferred to pay off their enemies then to fight them. That doesn’t mean that they cannot fight fiercely, but overall, since they are not military country like RU, their fighting potential is greatly diminished, and their overinflated economy doesn’t leave much room for heavy fighting in general.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I could not spend whole day answering to your posts on piece by piece basis, so I decided its better to cover it all at once 🙂
Great answer. I agree. NATO doesnt have abundant arms and energy it needs to continue fighting for another year or 2 against Russia . Just the opposite. So in spite of posturing , NATO would need a negotiation which is likely ongoing . Spoiled oligarchs dreams die hard here with NATO failure . Maybe the oligarchy can get their media to spin as a victory but not for long with SCO and the changing dedollarized world.
Ask yourself, was Geobels a “heavy duty military type”? Judging by your name, you are more than qualified to know the answer.
I would argue that NATO didn’t have much say and didn’t plan much at all, it just held up and jumped on harder on the enlargement bandwagon. The Neocons and Straussians did though, but shockingly they failed to see de-dollarization and they are panicking since then. They might possibly also have underestimated the Ukrainian resistance, planning for a shorter war, so that the sanctions wouldn’t last and backfire that much, although they might also not and planned for them lasting and ruining Europe and in particular Germany ever more- Europe and in particular Germany’s politicians and people are extremely naive in that regard, to put it mildly.
But the real driver to me always was and is the MIC and the OGMC, as just answering Cui bono? strongly suggests.
The formers dream has come true and the worse and the longer it goes on, the better for them.
The latter has not just minted it, but won an important break with regard to its replacement by renewables.
Win, win for both, regardless of progress and outcomes.
Clearly, you believe the people running NATO, all of them in Washington since NATO is a puppet organization serving American interests, are much smarter than they actually are. The neocon/neolibs who rule the US really believed sanctions would destroy Russia regardless of what happened on the ground. Of course, they were completely wrong, but they bet everything on this notion because they’re truly stupid people. Think George W Bush-level stupid or John Bolton-level stupid. Like these two warmonger clowns there are thousands in DC. The mistakes they make are never small.
Henry, let’s turn this around: EU imposed many rounds of sanctions on Russia. They _thought_ they would destroy the Russian economy in a matter of weeks. Instead, they destroyed their own.
What does the above tell us? a) They are operating from bad intelligence and b) they are arrogant – considering Russia as it was 30+ years ago, not today. While the West was busy trampling international law all over the world – Russia was quietly arming itself and forging connections and alliances all around the world. Apparently the whole intelligence apparatus in the West totally missed this, despite all the 3 letter agencies that have 100 of billions of $$$ at their disposal.
Now, when it comes to NATO – after 30 years of bombing campaigns against people who cannot fight back, one tends to get arrogant. Couple that with my above observations and who knows what NATO was thinking about who they would be fighting. Finally, NATO is really USA and UK – Turkey will not fight Russia and the EU is a joke – who in the EU do you see wearing a uniform and going into a conventional war in a trench like the Ukrainians are fighting. That’s right – nobody – that’s WHY the Ukrainians are fighting this war for NATO, not some Dutch dude high on pot in Amsterdam or some college student from Germany who has a travel vlog on Youtube.
Oddo,
“Instead, they destroyed their own.”
Yes, in the short term they have and I am sure they knew what they were walking into.
This speaks to their commitment to stop Putin dominating Europe.
In the medium term, the West will replace what Putin supplies.
And maybe, in the longer term, if the world gets to dealing with ending the use of fossil fuels, Russia will lose anyway.
Perhaps Putin has moved now because he can see the time he will not be able to finance any major military operations as the usage and price of oil and gas go to near zero.
Rsrsrsr! faltered, huh Henry? And he started to use arguments that until recently he attacked his opponents. Typical one-note Atlanticist.
You are being very naive. What climate zone do you live in? Methinks, not a northern one. European and US hubris has brought us to this point. A dumb-down European and NA education system has contributed greatly (add in poor journalism) to the ignorance of understanding geopolitics. The UK comments at UN SC yesterday where they spoke of the turmoil of one family…geez approx, 900K men, women and children died during their most recent intervention into the ME. What short memories the arrogant have.
Let’s see how going off fossil fuels works out for the EU this winter, and please get back to us with your thought always love to hear the other side’s perspective and analysis. Be a good chap on that. Cheerio tut tut and all that BS.
Oh, quick thought, so MI6 and CIA had nothing to do with the Oct 14 Revolution? Asking for a friend in Donbas.
Henry,
I don’t think the EU knew what they were walking into. They simply do not have the capacity anymore. Look at who is running the EU countries, let alone people like Von der Layen or Borrell. These people are incompetent to the core.
Besides, Kosovo, my friend. We have still not heard one explanation from the West on how it was OK to bomb a sovereign country and take its territory and just proclaim the taken territory is a new country. Apparently this is OK for Kosovo but not OK for the Donbass. It is obvious the West is drowning in hypocrisy and at the same time decrying the trampling of the rule of international law. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Both Kosovo and Iraq interventions were unilateral and without UN security council resolutions….. But I guess ’cause America done it, that’s enough to justify it?
Hey, Henry
Please reply to the post from Whoknows.
And do it point by point instead of by gain saying.
Larry, me and just about everybody else sees you for what you are.
I realize I’m violating Rule #1 as regards trolls like yourself by even acknowledging you exist.
Please don’t argue that you are contributing anything useful to any conversation here.
What, did you get booted from The Saker under the Comments Policy?
Get bored with the sewer over on South Front News?
Just crawl back under your rock or chamber a round, put the pistol in your mouth and pull the trigger.
And I say that in the kindest way possible.
Slava Russia
L
Henry Rech:
You keep yapping about but why not answer three basic questions?
Why didn’t NATO disband when the the Warsaw Pact ended? Why has Russia not been invited to join NATO? Why the encircling of Russia with NATO bases when it’s Russia that has been invaded by some of the countries, now NATO members, and not the other way round?
You’re ignoring the elephant in the room, which is Ukraine. The US went to great lengths to overthrow a government sympathetic to Russia, then trained and supplied an army that became the second largest force in Europe after Russia. Ukraine, one of the poorest and the most corrupt country on the continent was able to have a world-class fighting force precisely because NATO provided it.
You’re also forgetting that strategic goals can be achieved with an indirect military operation. The west knows that an all-out war with Russia is very dangerous, they are not that stupid, so, barring an invasion, the second best thing is creating instability and forging regime change.
Would NATO strategic goals be achieved with a regime change? yes.
What you need to understand is that the NATO war against Russia is not a future event, but an ongoing war that has its roots even before the Maidan. Goading Kiev to prepare to smash the Donbas and Lugansk was crucial to the operational goal of overextending Russia, weakening his economy, and thus creating internal dissent that would lead to the strategical goal of regime change in Russia, hopefully breaking it into smaller countries and installing a docile government, Yeltsin style, while american and european companies took control of the Russian natural resources.
NATO left it all in Afghanistan.
Henry, the answer is simple: NATO and Washington firmly, deeply and sincerely believe their own agitprop about how fragile Russia and its leadership are.
That impacts the nature of the strike they planned on Russia.
It never occurred to anyone at DoD or in The Blob that a real war, involving the kind of real war preparations you describe, would be necessary to achieve their goal of overthrowing Putin, dismembering Russia and winning access to its mineral and energy resources.
They always believed (and may still believe) that disruptive low-grade military sabotage, cross-border raids, the reconquest of Donbass and terrorist operations (including perhaps a ‘plandemic’) staged out of Ukraine – combined with sanctions, political shit-stirring inside Russia – would turn Russians against the Kremlin.
Western leaders and functionaries – down to a very low level – have led such physically and intellectually sheltered lives for so long that they simply can’t imagine a reality that clashes with their many demonstrably false assumptions.
I suspect you understand this just as well as we do. Nice try anyway.
If I’m wrong about that, maybe you should read up on ‘mass formation psychosis’.
NATO was not deconstructing the alliance. In fact they added more members and moved to Russia’s borders. MIC profits grew with new members. Not friendly acts. You are in fact pushing the NATO narrative that they peaceful. NATO believed that pointing a gun at a next door neighbor was not aggression (try that with your own and see what happens).
What NATO/Eu did was to construct a military based on their ideas of the threats to them. The model was developed after Viet Nam based on attacking and defeating countries with either no or militarily inferior armies. This model including seeing Russia as a weak, hapless, and incapable enemy. For example, Obama dropped tens of thousands of bombs on about seven different countries. And not one bomber shot down–absolutely no consequences (I don’t think one NATO bomber was taken down by Libya). The entire leadership and MIC was based on that model of who the enemy was.
That model was so twisted and out of touch that leadership thought that just by sending Ukraine the dreaded Javelin, the war would be soon over. While NATO was building up to fight the Taliban (Russia) again, the Russians were building up to fight all of NATO in what Ritter calls Big Arrow war.
Henry Rech, I recall an official in the Whitehouse saying that they had trained and armed Ukraine for the last 8 years. The Ukrainian military built fortifications and trenches during this time as well, hence the slow advancement by the Russians over the last 6 months. It was also noted that the Ukrainian fighters participated in military exercises with NATO since 2018.
The Azov Battalion were supposed to be the proud accomplishment of the West. How did that turn out for them?
Nato and the West clearly had no clue how Russia’s military industry works. Military “experts” were saying on several occasions that the Russians were running out of ammo and missiles. NATO assumed (wrongfully so) that their “preparations” over the last 8 years were sufficient. They missed the mark on “intelligence” gathering once again.
Honestly, judging from the military analysis and assessments coming from “experts” in the West and EU, NATO members should be very worried if a conflict comes a knocking on their door.
Aria Yves Poetry
“They missed the mark on “intelligence” gathering once again.”
US intelligence said that Russia was going to invade Ukraine.
Putin was denying he was going to invade.
Need anything else be said?
“NATO members should be very worried if a conflict comes a knocking on their door.”
Perhaps, but that is because they have not prepared for war.
Larry and co cannot explain the contradiction in their thesis.
a) NATO mispredicted the Russian response. They expected them to run rampant and then get bogged down fighting insurgents and stay behinds. They didn’t anticipate the ruinous slow grind which chewed up and spat out everything they sent.
b) They also relied on sanctions to bring Russia to its knees.
Of course, it might well be that NATO (the US) has known for years that it would be turned over quickly in a full scale conventional war with Russia. As such, I tend go along with those who say that the US has long planned to go nuclear as soon as it becomes clear that conventional defeat was imminent. The problem here is that Russia has better than nuclear equivalence, as it has unstoppable delivery systems, some of which have range enough to reach mainland. The US may have mad people at the helm, but Russia will have to ignore that and do what it has to do. If not, it will forever it will at best play second fiddle, while the US conducts the orchestra.
US and EU aka NATO miscalculated badly
– they think economic sanctions will destroy russia and precipitate regime change in russia against putin.
– they think a mass propaganda / narrative shaping campaign will sap the will of russia to fight
– they think after training and equipping ukrop for 8 years they are ready to face russia , even with no overwhelming air power behind ukrops (note that Western doctrine is to have overwhelming airpower and they always fought like this in the past)
– they underestimate the russian modern weapons like A2AD , Missiles , MLRS and artilery. the airpower doctrine of NATO totally obscure the reality of war , that artilery is still king and airpower can be easily disrupted by a good A2AD. All the SEAD missions in the past are performed against weak targets , and this is taken into doctrine which is useless against layered A2AD deployed in SMO
– they think racist and russophobic isolation of russia will work and EVERY nation on earth will follow US/EU orders to isolate russia. Thing is US/EU bring nothing on the table except threats , of course every countries saw this nonsense and balked except the obvious western slave nations like singapore or japan or occupied korea.
– the EU leaders after watching their own sactions blow back , double down on the rhetorics and even OPENLY sacrifice their own economy / population. This is suicidal move for a gain of nothing.
You are assuming that we are talking about intelligent rational individuals without superiority complexes. NATO and western governments are not filled with serious people. You only have to look as far as the Covid debacle to see that. These people are literal idiots.
They didn’t prepare for a war with Russia because they did not look past the need to train Ukraine to fight for them, they felt with economic sanctions it would be enough. When you only fight weak adversaries you begin to believe you are invincible and become lazy in your preparations.
At this point, no western government is sovereign, they all are captured by corporations, billionaires, and NGO’s. Politicians are puppets elected through fraud by elaborate schemes to make them seem legitimate. Unfortunately many of these politicians are egotistical, sociopathic, idiotic maniacs who, without proper guidance, forget their place, and frequently stray from the reservation, making decisions of their own volition with severe long term consequences that can’t so easily be undone. Their puppet masters that control them do not care about this, since they are mostly insulated from the consequences. The consequences lie on the politicians themselves, if they cannot dig themselves out of the hole they created, they suffer the consequences and their puppet masters replace them with some new recruit, and the process repeats.
This would explain the many different stages of grief we are witnessing among western pundits and politicians. They are now making decisions based only on fear for their own well being. They are witnessing their own demise of their own doing. They will now bury their own countries economies, and sacrifice their own citizens lively hoods to save their own skin. They are literally throwing excrement at the wall praying for something to stick at this point. They are so used to punching down on weak opponents that they have forgotten how to take a punch.
They did not prepare because they did not feel the need to prepare. They felt it was impossible for them to lose and it is beneath them to even have to try to win. It only takes one look and their enemy will faint with fear. The downside of living in the eco chamber they have created for themselves, where they are never wrong and everybody loves them. Reality has finally caught up with them. And now we all will pay for turning a blind eye to their crimes, as we became fat and happy with the nice size crumbs they threw us.
Now versus THEN
When the Berlin wall came down, US Army Europe (USAREUR) had 200,000 troops and 70000 civilians: 4 Heavy Divisions, 2 ACRs, 2 Corps with Support and 1 Theater Support. An additional 6 heavy division (mech or armor) worth of equipment were stored in warehouses in Belgium and Holland (POMCUS). Total US commitment to NATO was 10 Divisions in 10 days after the Russians invaded and NATO promised first use nuclear weapons on the battlefield if necessary. (I spent 20 yrs in HQ USAREUR aka NATO Central Army Group working G3/G8). It took us 6 months to move equipment into Saudi Arabia in preparation for Iraq Dessert Storm. We now have approx 65000 troops in Nato countries with “no support” or 25000 combat troops with support. Our NATO allies (puppets?) have nothing. We can fight the Russians one of two ways: this minuscule “Ukraine as proxy war” that will end with a broken Ukraine or a nuclear exchange. We cannot possibly move adequate troops and materials to eastern Europe in anything under 1 year under the best of circumstances. (that is a positive assessment; might be more like 3-4 years.). Omar Bradley: “Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.” Our logistics circumstances suck! Using Klausiwitz metrics, we would need 3 million ground forces to invade European Russia. We used to keep ammunition stockpiled in Germany for several months of war; no one thought it would last more that 2. We still keep almost half our ammo in South Korea for the same reason. We have neither the capacity nor the knowledge to fight a “high intensity – long duration” war! I deployed to V Corps HQ during the first invasion of eastern Europe (joint endeavor) at an old Russian airbase near Kaposvar, Hungary; couldn’t understand then why NATO was involved in a Jugoslavian civil war. Now, 20 years later the NATO pattern of aggression is clear.
Bicycle clips on!
Some serious polling taking place over the weekend.
Another fantastic article! It seems like Russia has game played all scenarios for the better part of a decade. Especially in light of their correct counter moves (RUB for commodities and pinning the same to gold, etc.).
One question I have: do you have any information or details about life in the liberated lands? 7 months is not long, but it seems Crimea has received a large amount of investment and development since 2014. Cheers!
What choice do they have? They have to bark louder.
There’s an spanish quote from the book “Don Quijote de la Mancha”:
– “Ladran Sancho, señal que avanzamos”
– “They bark Sancho, signal that we advance”.
Your views are greatly appreciated here in my old heart. Thank you Larry. and bless your heart!
The level of infantile gullibility required to swallow The Consolidated Waste’s noxious Russophobic propaganda exceeds the power of mere words to describe, at least in prose. So I’ll try a somewhat different approach:
To Henry Reich,
Perhaps the EU was not on board with this and it reluctantly came on board after the 2014 coup. It took the Russian military response force on it by the persistent refusal to implement the Minsk agreeements to get the propaganda edge to bring the EU along.
So your argument is a bit too simplistic I think.
j
Cratylus,
My surname is Rech, by the way.
You might be correct. I would have to think about that one. The Germans, at least, have been willing to engage with Putin.
However, your point is irrelevant to my point.
How stupid would NATO have to be to take on Russia without having made the necessary preparations.
Larry et al claim that Russia is all powerful, maybe. Do you think NATO doesn’t know it?
Larry et al’s argument cannot believed.
Stupid enough to believe their own propaganda and powerprojections? Or just corrupt puppets doing what they are told by the empire ? Regardless what you may think the result is the same. Eu is being sacrificed and cannibalized by the empire under guise of «russia bad man» and the idiot poly-tics of eu says they dont care what their voters think- they will put defence of uk-ruin before their own country. They are forced to suicide their own economies to back nato. Maybe defeating russia was never the goal.. maybe the goal was to Drive a deep enough wedge between the Eu and Russia to make sure they cant join in the upcoming eurasia trade.. qui bono?
By golly, I think you’ve got it.
Keeping Europe subservient to America In Name Only, and ruining it economically and societally may be thought to have the desired effect.
If the delusional thinking that Russia would fold like a house of cards in the face of the “ever popular” sanctions regimes had panned out, they could have run the table.
Well, that second part, it is now very clear, never had a chance of succeeding, but the ruination of Europe through the self-sanctioning regimes certainly seems within their grasp, much to the delight of Klaus (bust of Lenin on his bookshelf…) Schwab and his Davos/WEF minions. When the Europeans are reduced to burning the furniture to keep warm, perhaps they might have some second thoughts (unlikely), but they will be closer to attaining Klaus’ dream of the populace “owning nothing, but being happy (or zer vill be consequences!)”
If it finally comes to that, I’m sure our thread disruptor, Henry Rech, will be “happy”, though. The signs are all there that he is certainly a condign True Believer.
your whole argument seems to be NATO isn’t stupid, when clearly it is. Keep flapping the lips, all thats coming out is hot air
Your whole premise seems to be that NATO isn’t stupid, when clearly it is. You can keep flapping your lips but only hot air is coming out.
You wildly underestimate the power of stupidity in Washington, the only NATO capital that really counts. See my previous post and always keep the Alfred E Newman face of W Bush in mind when thinking about these matters. Remember that that dimwit ran the White House for only eight years but still managed to destroy the Middle East while establishing the Security State St home. Stupidity is powerful and on steroids in Washington.
You mean like being completely dependent on Russian energy without any Plan B is Russia reduced or cut off their energy supplies?
No, I think ‘Reich’ will do nicely, given the circumstances. Seems not to have occurred to you that it wasn’t just a typo.
I can’t believe (actually I have no trouble believing) the baldfaced hypocrisy of the United States making an issue about the Russians calling up some reserves for their war against The Consolidated Waste. I mean, only this last year I remember reading about the U.S. sending the Florida National Guard to Ukraine to “train” some of the Kiev regime’s neo-Nazi cannot fodder. The word “shameless” does not come anywhere close to describing U.S. political, military, and “intelligence” bureaucracies.
Take a bow. Well done. Short and to the point. We will stick with shameless as I can think of no other word. Dang, wasn’t the National Guard called up for a few site seekers on Martha’s Vineyard? Memory has it – yes.
Putin’s speech is premised on the notion that someone is threatening his homeland.
He is constructing a strawman to use to deflect from the mess he has created.
The problem with Russia is that it has always wanted to be part of Europe, in fact it has always wanted to dominate Europe. This is evident from the time of Peter the Great. The Soviets did everything possible to acquire territory in Eastern Europe. Dugin, philosopher to the Putin court, has claimed Russia is entitled to every square inch of territory between Vladivostok and Dublin – there it is, Russian ambition and imperialism in all its starkness.
Russia has a landmass equal to one eighth of the Earth’s surface. It has a population of around 140M. It’s people are educated and industrious. It has a long cultural history. Its land is endowed with great natural beauty, bounteous natural and agricultural resources yet it seeks to expand its boundaries. There is every reason that it could be the number one economy on the planet in per capita terms.
Yet every time Russia gets close to making its way into Europe it shoots itself in the foot. In recent decades it has been developing strong economic ties with Europe. Now this era is at an end.
Russia has been raped and pillaged by Putin and his kleptocratic mates. Where has this left the Russian people?
Russian imperialism??
Number of countries hosting US military bases=?
Number of countries hosting Russian military bases=?
The pot is calling the kettle black.
Young,
No argument with you.
However, it seems that according to most of the commentators on this blog Russia is stainless and Putin is pure at heart.
Perhaps Larry should nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
If some facts turn out to show one side less bad than the other, does that mean facts are taking sides?
And why not? Afterall, Obama was given one. Maybe you can tell us what he did to promote anything except American imperialism.
No, I don’t think that Putin is stainless; no human is.
What I think is that non-Westerners support a brave soul who finally stood up to 500 years of western imperialism, vandalism, impositions, dictations, rape, plundering, aggressions, bullying, etc.
You really ought to read more books in order to broaden your perspectives.
You look like one who consume only Western narratives!
I think nobody thinks that Putin is pure at heart.
The mainstream keeps telling us that he is the worst evil ever.
And most the readers in this blog see that is not the case.
Yeltsin and his friends are the ones who started distributing Russian commons to Westerners. I remember the humiliating image of a drunken Yeltsin dancing alongside a hilariously playing saxophone Clinton. If I had been Russian, I would have been ashamed. Mr. PUTIN has restored Russia’s pride. Without him, we guess that this great country would no longer exist today. As for the alleged imperialist aims that you attribute to this country, it suffices to look at a world map to see how many military bases NATO has installed on the borders of Russia. As for the military biology laboratories, their number remains to be discovered. The Russians have not set up a single military base on the US borders. On the other hand, they developed, under the impulse of Mr. POUTINE, weapons unequaled to date to put an end to the conspiracies of NATO.
Henry, you’re an idiot and a troll.
The EU is subservient to everyone, the US, Nato, IMF, WEF, too many to name.. The people there have no real sovereignty anymore.. Russia does not want that for their country which is part of the reason they’re in the situation they’re in today.
Go read any of Vladimir’s speech’s it’s pretty obvious what they want. It’s certainly not to be part of Europe.
Bob,
“Henry, you’re an idiot and a troll.
Go read any of Vladimir’s speech’s it’s pretty obvious what they want. It’s certainly not to be part of Europe.”
Name calling is generally the refuge of people who have no arguments to make.
Do you think Uncle Vlad is going to tell you what he actually wants?
Your points are correct parts of the puzzle. But there are more parts than that. One is that states have different ambitions. Denmark for example never thinks about ruling the world. The USA has military bases around the world, satellites spying, organisations that care about the world. So, your points are true, but this doesn’t mean that the other points are not also true.
Yes, Russia extended westwards. But in 1900, there was no US military in Europe. Now it is there.
We could see it like this: The USA and Russia quarrel about Europe. Both claim that Europe wants them. None of them lets Europe decide on its own. In east Germany, the Russian army left. In West Germany, the US bases stayed. But never there was a decision made by the Germans. They had to accept it.
Can you also see it that way?
Roland,
“But in 1900, there was no US military in Europe. Now it is there.”
Why do you think they are there?
Firstly, it’s there to contain Germany. In this regard, NATO has done Russia a favour. (Now, stupidly, Putin has opened the pandora’s box.)
Secondly, it saw that the Soviet Union threatened Europe.
If the US had not done what it has done, borsch and vodka would be staples in Amsterdam.
No question that personally, I don’t want Stalin to rule Germany. I know well East Germany. But why did France send the American army home after they had liberated France? So, is Europe not strong enough alone?
DeGaulle was seen as a black sheep by the Americans during WW2. They bothered the big guy to an extent even Winston, that was not fond of Charlie , was complaining about it.
But DeGaulle also played his “allies” in the end ; it was him, the Nazis or the reds so …
The Frenchs were already occupied by ze Germans for four years , for them , the Americans forces in France was seen as just another occupation army.
So, DeGaulle , the Frenchs , the reds : everybody hated US presence at the time , it was wiser to left before another “resistance” was born.
Er… Henry, perhaps you missed the news, but the USSR went out of business three decades ago. NATO has only expanded since then. One needs to be dumb, deaf, blind, stupid, and perverse not to see what NATO’s real intent is. Vladimir Putin is none of those things.
Dugin has allegedly never met Putin. Very few informed observers see him as a philosopher to the so called court. In fact, he has been an opponent of the Kremlin.
You also realise that Russia has a parliament?
Zero historical evidence too for the assertion that Russia has always wanted to dominate Europe. In fact, most of her expansion was southwards.
I recommend some wider reading of Russian and western history. Yes, Russia has expanded through history. But so did every European state. Poland was partitioned three ways, remember. What was Manifest Destiny too? What was / is the Monroe Doctrine? Which country has invaded more places than any other? Both answers are English speaking nations.
Putin also actually turned Russia around after the west pillaged her in the 90s.
The west is good at propaganda and world class at hypocrisy. Also at selectively citing history. As you have done.
Stephen,
Thank you for reminding me. Russian invasions/occupations:
Poland 1939.
Finland 1940.
Baltic States 1940.
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina 1940.
Hungary 1944/1956.
Roumania 1944 and onwards.
Czechoslovakia 1944/1968.
East Germany 1945.
Austria 1945.
etc…..
Rech, you’re mixing up Russia and Soviet Union. The SU was a project with the goal, among others, to contain Russia. There was no communist party of Russia (as opposed to UA etc.). Stalin, Krushtshev, Brejnev and many others were all non-Russians.
If I’m not wrong there was a second world war still going on in 1945. The Russian were advancing from the east and the western allies from the west. Both had the same objective to free Europa from NAZI Germany. That’s why the Russians “occupied” Hungary, East Germany and Austria. And as a Austrian I’ll tell you that the Russian left Austria on the 26 of October 1955 after Austria declared it’s everlasting neutrality.
I think this is your problem, you confuse Russia with the USSR, which Ukraine and others also was a part of. The cold war had ended but NATO is still around and Russia become the new enemy to keep them feed. NATO is the core problem here and without it Europe would had good relations with Russia and together we would had become the great economical power block in the world – not god for China, not good for the US (NATO, MIC). I think you eventually can figure out the rest.
Either you have no idea or you write untruths on purpose.
First of all, the mentioned invasions/occupations were not Russian, but those of the USSR and secondly, these have taken their beginning in WW2. And unlike the USSR/Russia the US still occupies large parts of Europe.
BTW – Stalin was Georgian and Brezhnev, who was responsible for the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1668, was Ukrainian.
Hardrockfan229
Where was the seat of government of the Soviet Union?
Ukraine? Georgia? Uzbekistan? Timbuktoo?
So you’re equating USSR with Russia, while the latter was led most of the time by non-Russians! You definitely need to read more books.
zero
Henry is playing The Illiterate Historian Joke on all of us.
“ Russian invasions/occupations:
Poland 1939.
Finland 1940.
Baltic States 1940.
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina 1940.
Hungary 1944/1956.
Roumania 1944 and onwards.
Czechoslovakia 1944/1968.
East Germany 1945.
Austria 1945.”
😂😂😂
Enough of this bull. You’re lucky that everyone in this thread is much more patient than I am. Get lost, you’re an indecent propagandist and have zero interest in the truth. And people are too polite.
Stephen,
“Putin also actually turned Russia around after the west pillaged her in the 90s. ”
I remember listening to Radio Moscow a year or so after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Just before the news on the hour an advertisement was broadcast.
It was an advertisement for the sale of a chemical plant and a steel mill. A phone number to ring was given.
Can you imagine that?
I thought I was listening to the local broadcast station advertising soap powder.
Russia threw itself open, begging for assistance.
Sachs and his crew were invited in to help sought things out. The Russians soon wised up to him.
Why doesn’t your last paragraph bothered you?
Putin inherited a bankrupt Russia reduced to begging for IMF loans. A country that was treated with contempt by the West – Yugoslavia on my mind.
The evidence we have today shows a resurgent and strong Russia, with an economy that is doing well fiscally and monetarily. Russia is certainly not groveling today.
You really should try to tie your arguments together, and support them with more than your, apparently jaundiced, opinions.
I remember a phone call from a relative who lived in Moscow in 2002 for professional reasons.
He had already lived there in 1994/95.
And in 2002, he said situation has become so much better.
I have read something about life in Russia in the 90s.
for example young girls saying their professional whish is to become prostitute,
because it´s the only way to earn enough money to live.
Putin has improved the life situation for many many people in Russia. That´s why he has so much support.
In 2014 Ukraine had a governement which was democrately elected.
They had good relations with Russia.
USA (Nuland “fuck the EU”). organized the Maidan and the coup to throw them away.
If people in Ukraine were not satisfied with their government, the normal way would have been to elect another one , one year later.
Henry,
Could we just have a normal discussion without MSM rhetorics du jour and branding people as “Putin propagandists?” I’m an American from Ukraine, where my ancestors lived for centuries and my elderly mom, friends, and in-laws still live there. Let me tell you one fact I know first hand- my sister-in-law went to her “dacha,” a small country home, right after the Russian army passed through. The Russian soldiers only took a bottle of hooch from her fridge but left her a soldier’s daily ration of food (barter). They touched nothing else – not exactly Sherman. But guess what? She could have taken this Russian soldier’s food ration wrapper and wrapped in it any story she wanted!
I’m disgusted with canceling the Russian language, Russian culture of horrendous hatred pours out like dirty foam pouring from all holes! ENOUGH! I don’t want Ukrainian men killed and Ukraine destroyed for the legendary Ukrainian greed – Donbas, and Crimea are Russian lands! And so are Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kharkiv! The Ukrainian Communist bonanzas were beefing up Ukraine at the expense of the strategic Russian lands for decades. ENOUGH LIES! If Ukraine didn’t create and cultivated this Nazi culture and Zelensky’s ministers from the high podium wouldn’t brand the people of Donbas “non-humans” or “orcs,” didn’t broadcast the threats that Ukrainian kids would live and study and the Donbas kids rot in the basements and the more Russians are killed “the less our children need to kill” IT IS INSANE and the world is clapping?! The Ukraine of my youth, and this monstrosity it was turned into, I don’t recognize!
Take these rhetorics and replace the word “Russian” with the word “Jew” and you would get Germany’s 1930s set up in Ukraine!
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong-in-the-media/interview-the-plot-to-seize-russia-make-it-a-nato-vassal/
Lika,
Anyone can appreciate your heartfelt comments.
Yes, it is insane.
But that’s the world today.
Ukraine/Russia have a long history of hate.
Ukraine was responsible for the appalling pogroms against the Jews.
In the early 1930s, Russia took the Ukrainian grain harvest and was responsible for the death by famine of millions of Ukrainians.
The Holodomor famine was organized by the NKVD. At the time, Lazar Kaganovich, a Jew and a top NKVD operative, was tasked with managing the grain theft.
The Soviets oppressed the Ukrainians – Yezhov and Dzerzhinsky did their work diligently.
I would imagine that some Ukrainians saw the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression.
I can understand why some Ukrainians hate Russians – expressed in the ultra nationalism of various groups within Ukraine.
Putin calls Ukrainians brothers, why is he so easily driven to murder them?
I hope Ukraine can find peace and prosperity.
this was an interview done by gonzalo lira with dr. mccullough that youtube removed immediately
https://odysee.com/@GonzaloLira:1/Roundtable20-Brian-Berletic-Dr-Peter-McCullough-mp4:5
i hope this is true. IF any of you have any info on the sputnik vac and if there are yes or no side effects would appreciate any feedback.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/09/03/the-russian-covid-vaccines/comment-page-1/
There are four Russian Vaccines. None use the experimental mRNA technology.
Hi Ralph
I’m from India and I got the two doses of Sputnik vaccine. Just had some hardness at the site of the injection but was fine after 2-3 days. No fever or any other symptoms. Got covid after 7-8 months but recovered fast. Used an OTC cough syrup. Hope this helps.
I’m very happy to see Larry’s blog grow. Thanks for speaking the truth in such harsh times. Wish you would ban such nonsense posters as Henry Rech. There are morons but to be this ignorant requires conscious effort. My 2 cents.
the forces of darkness can’t have victory, Russia is the power of light that’s why evil can’t win, the power of darkness has rule but there is no victory so that humanity can live, until the Truth dies, the lie can’t win. The historical fact in the events of time in the world indicates that Russia is the force of that truth, and it is the heavenly or Cosmic one. The Russian people therefore have the Spirit of Truth, and Russia is a simple providence that is there at a great height, an opposing force that restrains the darkness, and it comes to the notion of history that will correspond to it, through which the human standpoint in the fight against darkness will be improved. This burden is carried by Russia Eon as a force of light.
Larry, fantastic analysis.
Another thing that’s missing are the photos and videos of thousands of frightened Russian men arriving at western / non Russian airports, thanking the Lord they escaped the call up by the evil Putin. Shouldn’t these be surfacing right now?
And where are the photos and videos of all those Russian guys crossing the Finnish border, weeping with joy at getting out of Russia? I haven’t seen any. Have you?
Funny that. It’s a bit like how we never see the photos and videos of all these thousands of dead Russian soldiers the Ukrainians have told us, who have supposedly died on the battlefield in Ukraine. You’d think the propaganda value in itself would mean they’d be everywhere. Nope.
Given the lack of any evidence, one could be forgiven for concluding that Russians aren’t in fact leaving Russia en masse to escape the call up. And that perhaps there aren’t in fact tens of thousands of dead Russian lads on the ground in Ukraine.
Maybe the stories are just a load of hot air. Much like The Ghost of Kiev, Putin dying, or Zelensky being a corrupt coke snorting narcissistic NATO errand boy. Wait a minute – that last one is true.
Anyway it’s the same with the shrill hysteria of the articles you mentioned. They’re like so many woke cable remakes these days. Extremely poor writing, with unrealistic/ fantastical scenarios and stories, and no evidence to back up the points being made.
I thought that good propaganda at least needed to be credible. Isn’t the idea to get people to suspend their disbelief, in order to manufacture their consent and/or submission? The west used to be good at it. Not any more.
People are waking up. Winter is on its way and with it, poverty and deep anger.
Their cognitive dissonance can’t be stretched to infinity, like a never ending rubber band. I hope these western leaders understand that sooner or later, no matter how much they lie, that anger will be turned on them.
Let’s see what happens.
The dark lords of the west must have some alien technology for this level of suicidal hubris.
Actually I have wondered about that. Not seriously, but the thought has crossed my mind. Maybe the USA managed to get hold of alien technology as in a Hollywood movie??
The awesome recklessness with which they go about business is just perplexing. And any *if* there were aliens out there, they’d be looking down on us with utter dismay.
We do need to tread with greater care, otherwise we’ll end up with a nuclear waste land (and Elon’s rockets to Mars are not ready yet).
What an amazing speech from President Putin. How is it that he can capture the essence of Make America Great Again (but for Russia)? I think this why he is hated so much by Western politicians. They know, deep down inside, that they simply do not measure up.
What the Western media is doing is a war crime. On the one hand, they convince their public and Ukrainians that they can defeat Russia. Even more terrible is Russophobia, because of which they turned a blind eye to the crimes of Ukrainians in Donbass for eight years. During this week, terrible crimes against civilians took place in Donetsk, and not a single western media mentioned them. Earlier, the crimes of Ukrainians against the local pro-Russian population in Bucha and Izyum were presented as crimes of the Russian army. The media are at the service of those who want to destroy Russia and the best indicator for Putin that he must go all the way. The misery of the Western media was best demonstrated by a recent event in France. Two women from Ukraine reported to the police that they were attacked by a Russian man. The media put the headline “Russian man attacked two Ukrainian women”. They had no doubt that the attack had taken place and that the attacker was Russian. Soon the police discovered the attacker and it turned out that he was Ukrainian. He told police he attacked the women because he thought they were Russian. The same media changed the headline to “A Russian-speaking man attacked two Ukrainian women”.
Western media have been doing war crimes for as long as I remember (which is from 1980s).
Hi Larry, as always great analysis. Keep up the good work!
With or without discussion and speculation, analysis and opinions one thing is in my mind very suggestive: a keyword in the US speeches is „ dominance „ in the Russian and Chinese speeches it is „ partnership „ and „ respect for independent progress „. I think that sort of gives one a inclination of intent.
Re. Stoltenberg. The head of NATO has always been the mouthpiece not the chief policy maker. This position is interchangeable and more of a reward posting. The USA is the leading light here. There is a big difference in the military approach to a operation. Russia has a different playbook and that confuses the issue for the West. The outcome will be seen shortly. One thing is clear right now, dominance is no viable way to save our species, cooperation is. The sooner this is realized the better for us all.
I too believe that labelling NATO & Co. as “stupid” is too simplistic. I think the answer to Henry R.’s points has too be a little more nuanced. (Apologies for the long comment and make some point obvious to most if not all readers).
To start with, I would like point out that the US has been engaged in conflicts (kinetic and non-kinetics) all over the world for centuries (South America, the Middle East, Asia and South East Asia ecc.). Unlike Europe that, once the colonial era ended, has been liking its wounds and trying to maintain a degree of (non-kinetic, i.e mostly through finance) control over former colonies. Hence US and EU have very different strategic plans and visions.
Secondly, US non-kinetics engagement relies on regime-changes and proxy armies to a large extent. This strategy has been arguably more successful than boots-on-the-ground (Afghanistan is a case in point). Indeed, it has been the preferred strategy to confront Russia and China: encirclement by destabilising neighbourhood countries and establishing military basis – mostly to make sure the hosting country doesn’t revert back to independent policies, e.g. Italy- setting and funding internal opposition, fostering anti-China and anti-Russia sentiments and attitudes. This strategy has been so successful in EU that NATO steadily extended to reach the border of Russia’s security limits. In other words, US has been engaged in non-kinetic conflict for decades with their major competitors – including EU. Its strategic objectives do not rely on major militar planning; it runs a full-spectrum war: economic, cultural, kinetic. It controls the financial system, the communication system, the cultural establishment in most of western countries, education and the propaganda machine. That’s how the US is engaged in war against Russia and China; that’s how it is prepared. In this war, military preparation and planning relies heavily on selling to NATO countries US hardware, training and sending military advisors. I think that the US was betting on the success of non-kinetic factors to tame Russia; that’s probably the strategic failure of US plan. But it is not a complete failure: its cost is falling directly on EU rather than US. This is planned rather than coincidental (“F**K the EU” – V. Nuland docet).
And finally, the US has no friends. Every country -apart from Israel- is disposable. Its own citizens are disposable. The rest of the world is waking up to this reality; that’s one of the reasons for the failing strategy against Russia: only few countries are following the US lead. And here we come to the stupid political class in EU; stupid because EU politicians believe US propaganda; stupid because they sold out their own country for ideological reasons. But if stupid is not enough, add the corrupts and corruptibles. And there you are: welcome to WWIII.
Larry, thank you! The Gaggle just posted a link to an interview with “Slobodan Milošević During NATO’s 1999 Bombing Campaign”. It seems to be like a preamble to the present Western ‘hybrid war’: https://www.c-span.org/video/?122772-1/yugoslav-president-interview.
As for an historical accuracy of “Russian invasions/occupations” of the comment above. I am sorry, but in 1944, the Soviet Union liberated the territory of the Slovak State, that was to become Czechoslovakia again in 1945.
Lubica,
The forced ceding of Carpathian Ukraine to the Soviets doesn’t count?
conta zero
And the forced ceding of Russian territories in 1922 and 1954 into the Ukraine SSR doesn’t count? How about the soviet addition of parts of Germany to Poland after 1945?
You are either ill-educated, or are practicing sophistry.
I have to agree with Larry and disagree with Henry Rech regarding NATO prep. Politicians often live in their own fantasies, and war is one. Remember Rumsfeld, when US GI’s were dying due to lack of armor…he said “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish you had.” Or how politicians thought they would be showered with flowers in Baghdad? Or in Vietnam when we let blatant racism get in the way of clear thinking and the generals lied about progress on the ground? Also factoring into this is considerable racism in the West about East Europeans and their abilities. NATO I suspect thought the “russkies” would be easy to roll over so why the hell not even though, excluding the first Gulf War, the US and NATO have lost every war they’ve been involved in after WW2…a 77 year history of failure.
@ henry rech. NATO is just a façade, the real war the coward bullyus is waging is throu economic strangulation
Let’s not overlook the fact that NATO is controlled by the US. Without the US, NATO is a toothless collection of misfits with no real military capability. From a policy perspective, the US drives the agenda and NATO goes along. Defeating Russia is a US national security (insanity) priority – NATO has been pulled into this conflict by the Biden regime and is now stuck. NATO members are seeing their countries falling into economic ruin with the prospects of social unrest growing by the day thanks to the US. The EU and UK are going bankrupt with mounting debt, inflation and surging energy prices. NATO is failing and Putin plans on finishing the job.
Checking system to see if I’m ‘on’.
I rarely comment anywhere. I expect to alter NO ONES position. I comment in this case to the position of Rech.
You speak of PREPARATION FOR WAR by NATO.
I speak as an enlisted Army Intelligence veteran (ASA) from more than 50 years ago.
First of all, NATO is USA. In ‘military’ terms, NATO may supply the bulk of O-1 thru O-5 (for civilians that would be 2nd Lt thru Lt. Col. O-6 thru the general officers are fully USA/Pentagon/CIA.
Insofar as ‘war preparation’, we, the USA decided long, long ago on a “new” approach. Particularly when taking on a highly developed ‘adversary’ (modernized and industrialized economy), it would be ‘better’ not to destroy that commercial system.
War by FINANCE has been the basis (largely) since WWII. The way that works is to have the elements on Bretton Woods (IMF, World Bank with USA commercial banks as agents) to LOAN MONEY to the “adversarial” (target) country. That country (say, Angola for example), to receive the loan provide COLLATERAL. Then, when economy pressure arrives and the bond payments can’t be made, default happens. The default puts the collateral onto the balance sheet of the US bank. So, what ‘you get’ is the valuable property without firing a shot.
The other ‘way’ is to stir up discord among the general population. Hunger is a big tool. What “we” are doing in that case is encouraging the lower echelons of the population to DEMAND A REGIME CHANGE. Again, “we” put no military assets at risk. Common name – ‘color revolution’.
The last thing I’ll mention is that HISTORY is a useful component of education to understand ‘how the world works’. Colonialism should be studied and learned. Colonialism is projecting power to GET THE ASSETS. The territory of the Russian Federation has been a “colonial” target for a couple of centuries. Just as Africa and South American went onto the European ‘balance sheet’, the territory and the territory’s assets has been the basis for much plotting. In the case of Hitler and the Nazi administration, a large part of the “justification” was that there was “superiority” (exceptionalism) of the German folk while those in Russia were UNTERMENSCH–the ‘underclass’. The ‘underprivileged’ are nothing and completely expendible.
About all of those Russians fleeing Russia. I took a look at the traffic crossing from the US to Mexico. Man, Americans are abandoning the country by the looks of the traffic.
Here Putin’s speech is being met by wall-to-wall commentary about how:
1. Putin has lost the war, definitely now
2. Putin has lost his position in Russian society, revolt will follow
3. Putin threats of nuclear strikes [?] must not be taken lightly:
A cornered rat will bite the cat.
It is amusing to listen to the ‘experts’ that are invited to comment:
1. They never cite any actual evidence or data.
2. None contested the meaning of the casualty figures.
3. They love to use Nato words for which there are perfectly good equivalents in the vernacular here, for instance: What Putin is saying about nuclear weapons is what we [the experts] call ‘signaling’.
Their refrain is always that Ukrainians are well-motivated and well-led, and that this is decisive (as if all third world liberation movements triumphed), whereas the Russians are poorly equipped, poorly motivated, and have no NCO corps. Of course by well-lead they mean ‘by Nato’.
None of these dorks is even aware that on the line of contact, it is mainly Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians (army vs. LDNR militia’s).
Never a mention of all the Ukrainian men that got out of dodge, or bribed their way across the border, or the manhunts in cafés and city streets for recruits; the local men & women forced into the trenches; the barrage troops shooting people who surrender or retreat in the back; the videos with territorials claiming they have no support, equipment, or training; the Safari & SBU units filtrating the population for collaborators who accepted a Russian sandwich. But of course they do know about this, because they project all of it onto the Russians ‘conscripts’.
“I think Putin’s speech this week may dent his popularity”.
Well. LOL. Popularity dropped to 69% from 70%. And “We need to go to the Polish border” increased to 7% from 5%.
Whatever you may want to make of it.
‘Let me conclude by giving you some of the hysterical headlights announcing the impending doom of Putin and Russia:”
As somebody said the other day, just substitute “Ukraine,” for “Russia,” and you’ll get the truth, or at least a close approximation of it.
I tried it with;
“The end is near for Putin’s war against Ukraine”
and it worked! Surprise, surprise.
Get that Rech guy out of here! His stupidity and evident ignorance of history and inability to absorb new information, make his comments a waste of time… disgusting.
Stupid is not. I don’t think he’s ignorant either. He is simply an intelligent provocateur, who brought everyone to his side (I bet few remember the subject of Larry’s article)
Larry , this ‘henry’ troll is doing what he is supposed to do here. Instead of discussion focusing on your post above , he steered the discussion board into replying to him. and while his 1st post seem like real innocent bystander asking real question, his subsequent posts openly showed him as anti russian troll posting even more nonsense / FUD and lies.
i guess there is no better example of trolling 101 as shown by the guy behind the ‘henry’ ID. Even if an admin ban him he will come back with different name as he is assigned to this site as per his daily tasking order.
bunta…
Unlike some people, I have the courage, some might say the foolhardiness, to use my real name.
Who or what pushe d South Africa to give in to sanctions and to relaese Mandela abolish aparteid and allow the ANC TO FORM THE NEW BLACK MAJORITY GOVERNMENT . Following Mandelas death South Africa saw a the real ANC in full view tThe ANC was an amoral venal communist wasps nest which set about destroying the South African economy and civil society
They gutted it like a pig and stole the entrails to hold power l as the brazen lying theiving murdering marxist elite.
The west and it s corporate cabals shared the ANC`S rapine on a scale comensurate with South Africas natural resources.
The Biden administration is inflicting on the USA is the exact same Plan which South Africa suffered under the trained marxists of ANC, designed by the corporate cabalists of the American millitary industrial complex
IWhy is PUTIN portrayed in the west as monster.and dictator?.
Post Soviet Russia was about to be economically destroyed and pillaged of resources . Yeltzin was decending into alcoholic oblivion. The country was on its way to economic oblivion. The US & its western corporate cabal was salivating at prospect mineral riches to steal.
President Putin saved Russia from penury and economic slavery to the west and intervened to help President Assad t save Syrians from the same fate.
” expected”
A dangerous word in any lexicon often facilitating waiting for Godot.