I would love to take credit for the following words, but they belong to a new friend. A now retired journalist who had an exemplary career. He reached out to me recently and expressed his appreciation for what I was writing and encouraged me to keep it up. It is humbling when a legend takes the time to tell you that you are doing good work.
I will leave his name out of this for now (unless he grants me permission to reveal his identity). But he is spot on in his analysis of what has happened to the U.S. military. While U.S. politicians keep insisting, like the Evil Queen in Snow White staring into the Magic Mirror, that the United States is the fairest of them all, the truth is otherwise.
19th century Britain went almost a century after Waterloo with no major war (beside Crimea). Its military became an expeditionary force dispatched on brief wars against various Fuzzy Wuzzie without first class weapons or even good tactical discipline. Rather like the US since Vietnam.
What Trump calls the “forever wars” (and I call the wars of sheer imperialism), after the fall of the USSR the Pentagon shifted planning and operations to what had been the stepchild of DOD for years — “Special Operations.” The Special Operations Command (aka SOCOM) came into being and the battle doctrine became dominated by Rangers, Special Forces, SEALS, etc and our military arsenal shrunk accordingly to support light operations with air control and total domination of the battle field. War by XVIII Airborne Corps.
Fielding of weapons became a lost art. Even paying attention to the Air Defense leapfrog by the Russians and Chinese, which we are seeing chew up Ukraine and NATO support weapons, became too much trouble. Now the Russians are exposing the paper tiger of American and NATO military power as they “demilaratize” us as well as Ukraine. Our response to the huge new challenge to carrier groups and old fashioned manned bombers is the Idiotic B 21. We are strangled by past legends, an arrogant assumption of continued postwar hegemony, and are sliding towards becoming a 2nd rate power.
Whatever US staff planned the support operation for Ukraine should be shot. We sent them the wrong armaments (lacking the right ones) and sat by while they ran through all the warehoused support we had like a drunken teenager. Now we can no longer support them. And they are hanging on the ropes.
After Napoleon, the Russians are the best artillerymen in the world. This war was always going to come down to artillery. And we sent them a air deliverable special operations design basic howitzer M777 that wasn’t tough enough for the job and easily disabled from excessive use and then ran out of ammo.We should have seen all this coming up front. We not only proceeded on an arrogant basis without proper study, We knew we were in an industrial war and that was a game we couldn’t play for long. This was a military catastrophe from the beginning. Any planner worth his salt would recommend against it. Looks like DOD is scared now and is going to resist Biden Administration neocon pressure to “escalate.” The muttering about Crimea indicates the Administration is beginning to think about the end game.
I have had the honor of working with U.S. military Special Operations Forces for 37 years. These units have some remarkable capabilities in conducting hostage rescue and raids. What makes them “special” is the selection process the various units employ for qualifying men (and some women) to carry out the missions. Notwithstanding their skill and smarts, these units cannot turn the tide of battle in a peer-to-peer war. They do not have magic powers to withstand sustained artillery bombardments. They may be able to endure the hardship better than a regular Army or Marine troop, but when confronted with a foe that commands the air and dominates with artillery and armor they are as susceptible to being killed or wounded as the average grunt.
I believe we are witnessing the end of America’s days as the World’s Policeman. The U.S. military is an expensive expeditionary force. Deploying troops and equipment to foreign countries to wage war is a costly business. Not just in terms of lives lost, but it requires, as we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, billions of dollars that are burned up on battlefields without achieving any significant political outcome that strengthens the security of the United States.
We are witnessing a new phase of this reality in Ukraine. U.S. weapons on the battlefield on the Donbas are not game changers. The war in Ukraine has exposed the weakness of the logistics capability of both the United States and the NATO members. We have reached a point where the United States defense contractors can only produce 20,000 artillery shells in a month while Russia is firing that many in one day and is able to continue supplying its troops.
The obsession of the United States in producing grossly expensive combat and bomber aircraft is self destructive. We have reached the point in history where piloted aircraft no longer are viable in light of the air defense systems that Russia and China have deployed. Technology has brought us to the point where a precision guided missile can do the work of a bomber or a jet fighter with only a fraction of the money required to deploy and maintain a manned aircraft.
The United States military is aggravating the mistake the U.S. Army made going into World War II:
The last cavalry charge made on horseback by the U.S. Army took place in 1942, when the United States fought the Japanese army in the Philippines. After that, the mounted cavalry was replaced by tanks.
https://www.ridinghall.com/when-did-the-us-cavalry-stop-using-horses/
Think about that for a minute. World War I and the advent of the tank and the machine gun rendered horse cavalry irrelevant to modern warfare. Yet, the U.S. Army insisted on maintaining that capability even though it was useless strategically and tactically. The U.S. military today is making a similar mistake — i.e., hanging onto legacy defense systems that have been made obsolete by technology.
I have said this repeatedly and I will say it again – when this is done and over with – we will find ourselves on the outside looking in. Nobody will respect us, nobody will even be interested in talking to us or doing business with us. We will be the pariah. Give me one good reason why someone in Africa would talk to USA or UK or France or any of the ex-colonial powers. For that matter, why would anyone anywhere outside of the western world talk to us anymore? We have demonstrated that we are willing to stop at nothing to protect our dominant position but we have also shown that we have no shame with our lies.
In a few years you may see countries starting to refuse to pay the debt or interest on debt. All that is needed is the new BRICS currency, which will make the USD worth nothing.
Not only that but soon we will find that due to being the pariah – everything will become more expensive – the “slaves” are figuring out that everything we have in America today is because of cheap labor, components and “just in time logistics” the West invented in its trade off between independence and profits.
But, do not fool yourselves – the leaders in the West know all this – it is just that there are no more politicians with balls to come out and tell us that we have at most 5 years before we turn into something like Venezuela. When the world shuts us out, we will find that 90% of the crap we have, the cheap food, the social media and the rest of the “multi billion dollar industries” – are just that – virtual. When that happens, I would not want to be (and will not be) here for it. The time has increasingly come where people who can – will leave this country in a hurry.
As Frank Zappa said, “Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex.” So their military adventures ARE a success in that they enrich the war pigs.
Actually the military industrial complex is just the trophy wife of the banks.
The one thing the flunkies, hustler, prostitues and psychopaths allowed in government can do effectively, is create the public debt the banks need to function. The wars are just burn pit, so more can be borrowed.
The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
Frank should know. His father was military intelligence. Military Intelligence seems an oxymoron, but back to Zappa. He and other counter-culture stars were created. Many, unlike Frank Zappa, had little musical acumen. In the 60s Mulholland Drive and the Canyon became a famous location where one could find Zappa, Jim Morrison and Niel Young types living and rocking among some more nefarious characters. Let’s not forget that the US Army intelligence units owned the largest parcel of land where it built a most prolific film studio, larger than any Hollywood studio, and situated of course in Mulholland Canyon. The Mulholland scene is revered as the home of the hippy free love experiment. It was an experiment, but not of the organic type. It was a US military psychological experiment. In his book, “Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon”, author David McGowan did a great job of exposing the operation. If you want to go deeper into how controlled our ‘free society’ is, I suggest reading Dr. E. Michael Jones’s epic, well I call it epic, book “The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing”. Sink your teeth into that.
Was the Mulholland Canyon scene an offshoot of the CIA’s Stanford experiments, circa 1960, that introduced Ken Kesey to LSD? The threads between the old counterculture and the government intel grow tighter! And that’s not even considering the role of police intel in the launch of the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the rise of the cult that invented the “African” (not) holiday Kwanzaa.
Miles Mathis has pulled together a lot of facts to give a credible case that entire 60ies Laurel Canyon scene (inc. Manson murders) were a CIA psyop.
Many of the musicians, Zappa, Morrison (who had never wrtitten a song or even sung before coming to the scene), etc were military brats. Same for many Hollywood actors and actresses.
I can’t find the pdf but have found his article on Manson/Tate which ties in with this.
http://mileswmathis.com/tate.pdf
Apologies, off topic I know.
Meh…. Mathis just spewed a bunch of rambling, incoherent, self-important nonsense.
So well said. I don’t see any other possible outcomes. Even using nukes in a desperate attempt to cling on to its power would only result in an even worse outcome for the usa
I have to agree with this. Politicians are whores. The corporate media is a huge brothel. The US is all about base appetites. Ukraine is just one battlefield in a war for the soul of humanity. And, of course, the Ukraine is collapsing. Bakhmut has become as symbol of that collapse.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/not-just-bakhmut-collapsing?
It is also a symbol of our collapse. This article BTW also mentions Larry.
Leave this country to go where?
I’ve recently begun looking at UN votes that were taken against Russia at the behest of the empire of lies. I particularly look at the abstaining/ vote against countries to see which one would make the best place to live.
One thing I know for sure – the English speaking world along with the EU are not good places to live now.
To a country that is self sufficient in food and energy.
Personally I like the Idea of China or Russia but China is definately my first choice for the travel food and a very mature country with a settled nature thats always striving to improve the peoples lot I could settle and live there very easily. Wheras Western democrasy is a very very greedy avaricious sick joke the poloticians apart from a couple of Irish in the EU Parliament are just lying back stapping thieves and hustlers out for themselves. The west needs thousands like this lady in their different parliaments Clare Daly Latest Top 7 Contributions in the EU. Look up her and Micks contributions in the EU parliament and bach home in Dáil Éireann they are the real deal not a hint of self interest or or swindling expences or having luxery living tens of thousands of other poloticians should but wont hang theior heads in shame. Sorry for going on and there is more look her up lololol.
I know just which two Irish you are mentioning. Love them.
If you haven’t set up an escape plan yet, complete with legal residency, it’s probably too late. Just hunker down and enjoy the sh*t show.
The general approach is sell your home in the US (pay capital gains taxes etc) and then use the equity to buy a overseas property with 2-4 units. Live in one unit and rent the others out.
The income from the rentals is usually enough to cover living expenses overseas – with local
Income secured; bingo legal residency.
Better a couple of years too early than 1 day too late.
(I know a number of Americans who have done this )
What was country did they decide on
The idea of purchasing overseas property for residency and income is a well tried and used one. I have done so myself. However it’s erroneous to say that countries offer “legal” residency as automatic if one buys property. Generally speaking property ownership does not confer it.
In Malaysia a (renewable) three year residency visa is issued with property purchase, whereas across the border in Thailand property ownership has no bearing on residency visas (and in fact they put up hurdles for foreign ownership).
Some Central and Sth American countries issue renewable residency visas/long term visas with little to no requirements.
Same goes for many eastern Europeans countries, but WTF would want to live there now? Not a nice feeling trying to sleep with Khinzals flying overhead and NATO scum everywhere.
But the window for escape is closing fast as they want to bring in travel passes/electronic IDs.
Accurate summary.
Those who can afford to leave will; most cannot.
Where to? Of the uber-rich? That class has no national interests. Why not Russia? They have everything and leadership within The Great Eurasian Union.
Deals can be done. Wealth can be moved. The rest can be sold out.
________
As for obsolete militaries, from a significant historian and national leader – “The United States is a paper tiger” – Chinese Historian MaoZeDong.
Furthermore . . . https://les7eb.substack.com/p/long-proxy-war-vii-crisis-of-failure
Spot on. Made the call myself, left the UK for the second time .. for Thailand. This time for good.
Can you say a bit more about this please? Location, cost of property, food, crime etc?
How about the prospects of severe cyclones as the climate goes to ye ol’ Dog House though?
LeZ . . .
I also have asked myself who in the world is going to want to do business with the West? Any country or corporation will be in danger of eventually having their assets stolen or property confiscated, or if an individual than thrown intro prison without charges and being left to rot like those in Guantanamo.
I cant get over my anger at these people who in their arrogance act like a cross between a bandit, brigand and pirate.
Once an alternative reserve currency is established, the United States will no longer be the favored spot for stashing excess cash. The recent agreement between China and Saudi Arabia to do oil trading in the Chinese yuan is the first, and most vital, step down that road. The shock that is coming to the US economy will be severe, but certainly no worse than what Russia endured following the collapse of the USSR. Unless, that is, super-wealthy people are permitted to vacuum up all the wealth that they do no already own.
Where would you go?
It’s not where, but how. One can not just move to another country, especially Russia.
Recently Putin signed a decree alowing foreigners to serve in Russian army (in warzone, of course), and get citizenship (and the salary is not bad). I guess it’s high-risk/high-reward thing. I would have seriously consider it if I was younger, but most would not.
Uruguay.
All the tech execs and billionaires got bunkers in New Zealand.
NZ is lost to the fascists. WEF whore, Adern, has them by the balls.
Two thumbs up, Oddo. You nailed exactly where we’re at.
As someone from Eastern Europe that has always been pro west, I can confirm what you wrote. I wish Russian army continues westwards.
Worry not, Friend Oddo! United States of America has many citizens of Indian and Chinese origin. They keep their original culture and family values and most importantly, their national work ethic intact. They understand all the failings of the American establishment and have insulated themselves from the eventual failure of the civil society. The Indians particularly maintain close ties with their country and take care to participate in community activities. When the SHTF and the crisis in USA that you are worried about actually becomes evident to the common public, these well-networked communities will becomes the growth centers of a new society based on their values. Everything will turn out to be just fine. In the meanwhile, if you know any Hindu temple in your locality, do make a visit, particularly on a festival day, try to get acquainted with a few friendly souls, invite them into your friendship and you will start feeling secure once again. When the BRICS currency replaces the USD, it is your personal friendship with these communities that will matter for you individually, not how much the US spends on the military.
Huh?
Yup! Tribal parasites are a problem for legacy Americans and American values. A collapse of government protection will make these carpet baggers wish they had stayed in Asia.
I totally agree, but take exception to our response.
We ruled the world for a few decades. In the process became proud and arrogant. Soon we will learn humility. And after that, return to our “founding fathers ideals”. Then, maybe, upon retrospection, take steps to keep from happening again. We have wandered so far from our roots, we are unrecognizable. This 4th turning “gonna b lit”.
In my humble opinion, we do not have enough social cohesion left in United States to “restart” the Republic. People are split right down the middle and if I am correct, what will happen here will be a slow disintegration into poverty, disease, scarcity – to end with dictatorship the world has not seen.
The alternative scenario is a civil war that will split the country in two but the problem is – the last one had a geographic component – north and south were REALLY north and south. Today it is all much more local – portions of every state are red and blue and splitting them “cleanly” into separate entities will be impossible with mass migrations.
Finally, even on the “conservative” side, there are no men who actually know how to lead the country and to what end – the corruption is systemic because we are an empire that has enjoyed the fruits of our domination for decades and in exchange for that, we have sacrificed not only our means of production, skills, knowledge etc. – we have also become dependent on the rest of the non-western world for survival – something that has resulted in men not being interested in work or knowledge anymore. You cannot simply press a button and become a pioneer again.
Blinken is working on the American Union like EU of Canada Mexico and Canada to create a mega country that is self sufficient.
Trudeau and Mexico are receptive to this and it’s been on the table for over a decade but now picking up steam.
Ash, you clearly do not live in North America. USA is barely keeping itself together, let alone becoming some kind of a union with Canada or Mexico 🙂
I remember when Hillary wanted that. We were seriously looking at Costa Rico.
Oddo my friend, don’t be fooled by this stupid Red/Blue divide. If you notice the Red/Blue crowd is switching against EVIL incarnate Xi and those low lives in China. But the ordinary folks who have had a good run on other world (I mean global south) subsidies and will soon wake up to the reality of empty super market shelfs realize the virtue of hard work and wouldn’t be so gullible to these circuses! It will be painful but I am sure we will learn the virtue of honest living on our own efforts.
I agree 100% with everything in your comment and must admit it is in line with my thoughts of the last several years. I would have one suggestion, that is for the Brics countries to adopt Bitcoin instead of their own currency. This is already in place and cannot be controlled or manipulated.
“why someone in Africa would talk to USA or UK or France or any of the ex-colonial powers.”
Unfortunately most African leaders are corrupt and see the West as the place to be, they have houses in the US and London, kids educated in US, UK, Aus or Switzerland. And ofcourse expensive holidays there. Some switch investments to Dubai as a hedge but the West remains the core financial and education elite for most of the south. There is very little cultural understanding of Russia amongst ordinary people beyond a vague appreciation that Russia has been a friend of Africa. Russia hugely neglected African relationships until recently, wasting the goodwill they had earned. China is as much viewed with suspicion as it is appreciated as there again there is little understanding of Chinese culture.
Africa still remains far more familiar and culturally connected to the West, it will take a huge effort and education process to change that irrespective of deep frustrations and growing divide with the West.
Don’t forget the Commonwealth includes African, Asian (India) and UK, Canada, Aus, NZ, and has deep roots. In sports alone other than Olympics the Commonwealth Games are the biggest sporting events for Commonwealth countries. These are old and deep ties.
The second biggest mistake the UK made was joining the EU and damaging it’s relationship with the Commonwealth as EU controlled trade relations. The biggest mistake the UK has made is tying itself to America. America will ultimately be the cause of the destruction of the UK and it’s relationship with the Commonwealth. Perhaps.
This may have been true a year ago but just like Russian “oligarchs” got their apartments, yachts and businesses illegally seized and just like RF got its foreign reserves “frozen” and considered for repatriation to by US/UK/EU to pay for rebuilding Ukraine, the African “oligarchs” are now wondering whether they are next on the list with their apartments, homes, bank accounts etc. At the end of the day we all thought that banking in the west was a matter of LAW, not who you like and who is your friend. This will make many rich people around the world think twice about spending any money in the west or keeping any money in a western bank. Yes, there are few alternatives right now – are Chinese banks better? Dunno. I know I would not trust a Russian bank, yet….
There is also something else – what I said above is an additional pressure on the global south elites in terms of explaining to their own impoverished populations as to why they are working with the West. They may not know the Chinese and they may not know the Russians but they DO KNOW the colonial western powers and all they know is negative, not positive.
Isn’t that the plan to reduce the United States to place similar to Venezuela?
While I agree with the general thrust of your position, in answer to your original question, Africa and all of the other grifters (grifters are not confined to the US, Europe and Ukraine) will continue to talk at least as long as the US and Europe keep giving them money and goods.
And while I agree de-dollarization is occurring and will continue, this widespread love of a non-existent BRICS currency makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t the relevant countries simply trade in yuan, rubles, rupees, etc and have material holdings of them for their foreign exchange reserves?
A “BRICS currency” is like a reincarnation of the euro but without the underlying political entity and policy management of the EU. The euro has actually been disastrous for participants. It has made southern Europe uncompetitive and deindustrialized and increased their debt without the capacity to depreciate their currency. It has seemingly boosted Germany’s economy but only through running up a huge debt by southern Europe which will never be repaid to Germany.
The euro can only exist with an ECB, setting monetary policy for all users, including interest rates and liquidity that invariably suit some and not others. Is there really going to be a BRICS CB, setting interest rates and monetary policy for all participants? If there is, that CB will be dominated by China and work primarily for the benefit of China and, consequently, the disadvantage of other users of a “BRICS currency”.
I expect de-dollarization of trade and investment will continue, but with much greater use of the existing currencies of BRICS nations (including Saudi Arabia, etc).
Una cosa es que alguien en el mundo piense eso de EEUU y su gente (yo misma lo creo por observarlos hace mucho tiempo), pero que un ciudadano estadounidense se sincere haciendo un analisis y critica feroces de si mismos, es muy fuerte.. Quizás sea un comienzo para algo bueno, quizás si sus gobernantes admitan sus errores. Pero aún tienen tiempo para cambiar el rumbo de las cosas.?
Superb 3 part interview with Dr. Michael Vlahos and Col Douglas Macgregor about Ukraine War, NATO and US Military
Part 1 (50 minutes)
Dr. Michael Vlahos & Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is the war in Ukraine entering its decisive phase?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhA1yofpkMg
Part 2 (44 minutes)
Dr. Michael Vlahos & Col. Douglas Macgregor: Why NATO strategic failure? A war of deceit, denial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvYCxK8THbg
Part 3 (29 minutes)
Michael Vlahos & Douglas Macgregor What is to be done? Can a corrupted US military be renewed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKgddWP_59I
Wish Vlahos’ intellectual ether had interrupted MacGregor less but all in all, excellent discussion.
This one from yesterday with MacGregor/Napolitano is the one the worries me: Biden and first use nuclear? https://youtu.be/XR01cIY6wDU
Correct 100%.
The great YouTube intellectual of the 21century, on auto talk with his hands up in the camera frame and eyes closed for theatrical effect. Bollocks!
Go the Colonel : one in a million as the sayin goes. The meat grinder is being fed civilians in uniform. Horrifying.
The NATO dead can be hidden with tax free cash, for only so long. The images of NATO troops limbless and disabled is going to hit the fan in 2023. Especially when they are passed their used by date and discarded.
When America moves on it never looks back.
Yes McGregor got not enough time to talk and was interupted too much
But still great inside knowledge and worth listening too
Actually, I sort of enjoyed Vlahos’ invocation of the spirit world to help in his grand unifying theory (GUT) of war and peace, other than its tendency to mildly usurp MacGregor’s themes long enough to incorporate them into the GUT, but once that was done it was back to MacGregor. Mildly annoying, as it threw MacGregor’s rhythm off a bit but nothing catastrophic. They were basically sympatico to each other, which is a rarity these days. If any of us had sufficient background in their fields, I think we might have appreciated the synergy more. (or maybe the opposite, who knows).
That was a brilliant watch. Thanks Groucho. The take-away for me was that structural reform in the West has only just begun. And we are only just waking up from a daydream to the realisation that there is the hidden nefarious elite, a cancer in our culture, that has to be expunged before we can be truly part of the wider world. It might be popcorn times now but its most certainly a bully beef time to come.
i just watched 1 st 2 parts..i read this and i ll go to watch 3 rd part..until now is a fantastic interview..
Mr Groucho
Thank you very much for the links. They are stunningly good. Mr Johnson, you deserve a vote of thanks for sponsoring a blog that has these kinds of resources. It does make your audience smarter.
Great interviews. I agree with Dr. Vlahos suggestion that revolution will be required to get a new “elite” he made at the end of the final interview. The system is broken
SOF might be more resilient but a lot of that “capability” comes from the drugs. If you have been with the bearded ones, you know what of I speak.
Doing a great job Larry, keep up the yeoman’s work.
Dog
These my are wars for MICIMATT profit. They are bankers’ wars as SB said. Nothing has changed in the last 1000 years. Sadly, I don’t expect things to change in my lifetime. Larry, fantastic job and you a personal hero to me.
No one asks the question, why is the west doing these things the first place?
Who decided Russia needed to be destroyed generations ago? Why can’t they stop this destructive obsession?
Greed.
Russia is the final frontier. From Pepe Escobar Telegram channel:
When in doubt, re-read Marx:
“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of black skins, are all the things which characterize the dawn of the era of capitalist production. The treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement and murder, flowed back to the mother country and were turned into capital there.”
Karl Marx
Capital, 1:915, 918
Don’t understand your desire to tie this conflagration to a discussion of Marx. This is a pure power play, period.
Simple, it comes down to a really serious character flaw amongst certain factions in power. “If I can’t control it, I must destroy it.”
All the subsequent arguments they use to turn this vice into a virtue is just so much window dressing, or if you prefer: lipstick on a pig.
It’s as if they were never properly socialized early in life.
There sits around a few intergenerational dynastic families around old europe. We are not allowed to mention them, lest we be labelled conspiration theorists. The resources of the immense russian empire have been coveted for generations. No number of men have been spared. They are so rich- they are NOT on the forbes list. In capital, not credit/exotic IOU’s…
elon musk, I am afraid- is NOT ‘da man.
why not read;
the creature from jekyll island
tragedy and hope
?
all this has been ‘semi’ official for decades.
-and
corbettreport.com has comprehensive info on most of it.
this time, i belive putin is correct when stating that this is existensial. for the culture of rus, and equaly for the entety within london city.
To stay on top in Biden’s new world order. Since the USSR collapsed the US has been concerned about losing superpower status to Russia, or China.
This is about empire.
It is far too late, however.
At the peak:
https://youtu.be/mcK4EYLg42Q
I was having a discussion with my wife today about the history of warfare and the rise and fall of civilizations like the Sumerians, Israelites, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Huns and Ottomans, etc. Imperialism and colonialism are terms being used for the recent history of western expansion and warfare but this bloodletting has been going on since Cain murdered Abel, nothing will change until Jesus rules over all Nations. I do enjoy your work Larry, you are always spot on, peace be with you.
Yesterday MacGregor and Napolitano were discussing Biden referencing US first nuclear strike use (tactical I assume) now on the table and Putin’s response and change in his own nuclear strike policy. This would only be discussed IMO if Biden was sweating a pending defeat in Ukraine. https://youtu.be/XR01cIY6wDU
Does anyone have further references or clarifications to Biden’s comments? Needs further clarification. If as represented, this is on the major end of serious.
I’ve enjoyed reading this blog, but not commented previously, but the reference to cavalry was something I couldn’t pass by.
The Soviets actually continued using cavalry all the way throughout WWII, the counteroffensive near Moscow was spearheaded by the newly formed 1st and 2nd Guards Cavalry corps (IIRC, Belov’s 2 GCC outflanked Guderian near Tula and forced his forces to withdraw, Belov proceeded to operate in the German rear area for months until his forces (incorporating paratroopers and partisan units he linked up with) escaped to friendly lines in 1942.)
At Stalingrad, 3rd Guards Cavalry corps and 4th Cavalry corps had prominent roles in operation Uranus as well.
After 1942, the Soviets reduced the size of the cavalry arm (due to enormous losses of horses in 1941 they couldn’t make good their losses), but continued to field 8 guards cavalry corps (I believe) until the end of the war, once they took the strategic initiative, cavalry corps often filled an important role in most of the Soviet strategic offensives, often being paired with Soviet mechanized corps in a ‘cavalry-mechanized group’ (note that due to their unconventional naming scheme, a two-corps cavalry-mechanized group numbered around 40,000 men, which often were responsible for offensive sectors with poor terrain that horse-mobile infantry could take advantage of.
For instance, in Bagration, Rokossovsky’s Belorussian front attacked the German southern wing through the Pripyat marshes, the cavalry-mechanized group played an important role here.
Part of the effectiveness of Soviet cavalry is that after 1942 (where the cavalry corps at Stalingrad took heavy losses), a great deal of heavy weapons as well as armored vehicles were incorporated into the cavalry corps, though sources differ as to whether this was a tank regiment per corps, or a tank regiment per cavalry division.
In short, while the other participants in WWII initially fielded ‘classic’ cavalry formations that were quickly reorganized once they were shown to be lacking on the battlefield, the Soviets continued to see a role for cavalry (even after they were devastated by their battles in 1941) as part of a combined arms formation, starting with the ad hoc formation of 2nd Guards Cavalry corps in 1941 (assigned two [undersized] tank brigades), and continuing throughout the war as the cavalry mechanized group.
Excellent comment. Soviet cavalry was invaluable in the exploitation role, keeping pace with mechanized formations (but with a much slimmer logistical tail) where rifle divisions just couldn’t keep up. In the later stages of the war the cavalry corps were often given lend-lease American “emchas”, 1 tank battalion per cavalry division.
Cavalry was an appropriate arm for the Philippine Constabulary before the war, where weather and bad roads limited the usefulness of trucks.
One of the reasons the British kept cavalry into the 2nd WW was that they prooved very effectve against the Turkish army including machine guns in Palestine in 1918. They soon changed their minds and converted them to reconnaisance and armoured troops.
However in Italy they went back to mules for supplying the troops attacking on Monte Cassino in the mountains.
The man who taught me to ride told me that the troops bringing up the mules were terrified of the Germans and the Guardsmen they were resupplying were terrified of the mules.
He was Sergeant Major in the Army Remounts and witnessed the last British cavalry charge in Syria where the Scots Greys heavy cavalry bowled over the Franco-Syrian light cavalry.
He found his niche in British racing when drug testing was introduced. There weren’t too many people around who could go into a loose box and take a urine sample from an excited stallion after a big race.
The other reason they kept them was because they prefered them to diesel engines.
Wars for profit? Seems like the only real motive from where I sit. But it wouldn’t be possible if the US and other Western societies hadn’t been infantilised by a Hollywood view of the world, where the good guys (i.e. us) always win and the bad guys (them) get what’s righteously coming. Or to put it another way, in the Hollywood universe Tom Cruise Always Saves The Day (by blowing shit up).
The very insightful Dmitry Orlov describes such an attitude as “committing suicide by reality denial”. Building a B-21 bomber or another Ford class aircraft carrier is a symptom of the same disease.
Then again, these two clips from the movie Lions For Lambs (strangely enough featuring Tom Cruise where he’s only encouraging other people to blow shit up) do tell a tale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzQjdpw73ZY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CKEXvHN9es
No one likes to let go of their glory days, especially when the future looks so bleak and you’re locked in a basement with a bunch of neocon crazies all screaming for blood, preferably someone else’s. Let go or be dragged.
You speak like Hollywood and the military industrial complex are distinct powers when they are highly entwined. The pentagon lends vehicles and equipment for free if they can okay the resulting release. Tech companies, Hollywood, and the newspapers are the tools of the elite just as the military is, it’s a big club and we aren’t in it.
Even the areas one could pretend are distinct – sexual minorities or racial issues, are areas of nationalism and control. The US uses these issues cynically to lead liberals around by the nose that the west represents human rights and identity politics. It’s untrue and not a real commitment to equality, but they can wave the gay marriage card at the international level and tut tut the nations without.
Well done Jack! Critical thinking! Well conveyed truths!
The clips are succinct!
Here is the primary problem as stated by Larry’s new friend: “Whatever US staff planned the support operation for Ukraine should be shot.”
…………..only Larry’s new friend misses the real problem; he just wants to hang the Corporal, as usual, instead of the senior staff who agreed to, encouraged and devised these boon-doggles for personal $ over the interests of ‘The people’ they took oaths to protect.
Their has been a complete absence of any kind of ‘personal responsibility’ for these enormous MISTAKES!
If the senior leadership knew, for certain, that they would pay the ultimate price for their failures, the US would not be facing the ‘reality’ that is now before it.
Greed is paramount, success secondary and no one ever has to take responsibility, pay the price, set the example for others and demand accountability & excellence!
Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller pointed out what no one in power wanted to acknowledge nor hear. What ever happened to; “NOT on my watch!”?????????????????????
The US is now lead by the likes of Sam Brinton’s and Dr. Rachel Levine’s – the faces of complete institutional decay and decadence.
When the collapse comes, who will make the many in leadership roles that enabled this pay the price for total failure?
Excellent post.
Is peer to peer warfare obsolete? I keep asking myself this question, as I watch old fashioned Russian mortars and artillery pieces drone hunting helpless trench defenders, and see little puffs of smoke as the relatively tiny shells detonate here and there, and occassionally amongst them, as the Russian mortarmen and gunners hone in, and think, my goodness, what if the they decided to use their land based B-52s, like their various Grad systems and Tos 1 Flamethrowers, and proceeded to kill them all with half a salvo?
(Actually, most of the drone hunts I’ve seen, and I’ve seen more than a hundred, a quarter of a salvo would be all that is necessary to kill everyone within the visual field of the overhead drone.)
I don’t care how fantastic your trench system is, if it is anywhere near ground level, you are either going to be eviscerated on the spot, roasted alive, or have your lungs sucked out, when these systems rain their firepower on your works.
A multi-layered defense based on trenches in the 21st Century, is the single stupidist idea in the history of warfare. Who needs to work one’s ass off to envelope an opponent, when he is willing to immobilize himself in front of your postitions in his own pre-dug grave?
March into the enemy’s kill box and remain there in a shallow ditch until you are dead, is not a war winning stategy.
As for fixed wing aircraft, tanks, armored vehicles of all kinds, the video evidence is in, unless you’ve already won the war, you’re opponent is beyond realing and is smashed to bits, the rolling over the dead and dying phase let’s call it, forget about it.
A fighter is a “flying barn*” on radar, and armor in the Age of the Suicide Drone might as well be made out tissue paper.
Professor Mike Vlahos intervies Col. Douglas Macgregor. Three parts, longish, but worth it. Thoroughly examines the subject, is there still a place for conventional war, and many others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhA1yofpkMg
*Flying barn, a borrowed concept from a commentator on another blog, would credit by name an date but I don’t remember who or when. Apologies.
An argument can be made that fixed wing aircraft still have a place in a conventional peer to peer warzone as a stand-off weapons platform, albeit a limited and expensive one.
A better argument can be made that they’re worth keepin’ around for those morale boosting stadium flyovers.
Russia has been using fixed wing to provide missiles a speed boost and thus also a range boost.
This is true.
Russian helicopter gunships have been using a pretty cool technique to increase the range of their rockets, they power into a quick verticle climb and release them when they reach what looks to be a 45 degree angle.
Like they’re throwing a shotput or a javelin or something, trying to find that perfect parabolic arc.
Either way, I’ve run into American warnerds mocking the tactic. “What are those clowns trying to do, shoot down the moon?”
No, they are attempting to strike dangerous ground targets from as far away possible, you stupid shits, just like our spear toting ancestors used to do when they hunted wooley mammoths with the aid of atlatl.
Exactly! It’s tried and tested tactics that saves aircrafts and pilots. Lowered accuracy is not that big of a problem because those rockets are chip as chips (and have been collecting dust since Soviet Union was a thing), and they are shooting at area targets anyway. Risking aircrafts and pilots in order to score couple of hits more would be dumb.
Americans close suppport experts can only understand fighting against guys in flip-flops shooting back from AKs. They did not even dare using Apaches against Serbians.
It also allows the missile logistics, supplies, and repair facilities to be much further from the front lines.
This approach is also used regularly by Israel from Lebanon, using the “stealth” F-35s against Syria. In the attack on Syria for the “purported” chemical weapons use, the US, France, and the UK all fired some missiles from aircraft while flying over the Mediterranean.
But one doesn’t need a 1.5+ trillion dollar program airplane to launch missiles from a stand-off distance, nor if you are targeting goat herders. Clearly the Pentagon understands this (e.g., Syria attacks)….
The classic definition of a Boondoggle (POGO!)
You are stretching it a bit. 🙂
Range increase from boosting is way too small to influence anything else than aircraft safety. Putting logistics “farther back” is achieved by additional fuel tanks and in-air refueling.
Long range missile launches don’t benefit from boosting because the enemy is already very far away. Cruise missiles are just dropped from strategic bombers in level flight. US attack on Syrian “chemical infrastructure” was done by cruise missiles (surface and air based), as far as I remember.
Israelis do indeed use every trick in the book against Syria.
US military recently released a video of a cargo plane dropping cruise missiles. I bet it still costs billions. 🙂
The real critical targeting becomes control centers way behind the lines, maybe even in major cities in other countries. That means the unthinkable becomes the most likely.
Hopefully, someday, they learn that war has morphed to become so unlike the movies and what was learned in military science classes and so unwinnable and costly that peace and cooperation become the only model that makes sense. Sadly, I think it will take a lot of deaths and destruction before that reality sinks in.
Being the “policeman” was always a cover for plundering and was admitted as much in 1948 but was practiced since 1945. The upshot is Neoliberal Parasites can’t govern and they are terrible militarists. By the time the MIC gets to where Russia/China are today, they’ll be even farther ahead. They have more human and natural resources and infrastructure.
If one is sane and not a victim of Pleonexia, the obvious thing to do would be to halt attempts at further plundering the planet and its people and call a halt to it all. Unfortunately, they are quite addicted to their behavior–Pleonexia is what the Romans had.
Pleonexia. Had to look it up. Perfect word. And yeah, the Romans did suffer from it, bigtime. In fact, the crazed and maniacal leftist Professor, Michael Hudson, believes the Roman Empire’s most lasting legacy was not the law, or language, but neo-liberal greed.
The depraved and radical Hudson also believes the Russian Federation is going to be forced, literally at gunpoint, to give up the neo-liberal quest, and become a sovereign nation-state instead.
Maybe. It remains to be seen I think. There does seem to be an internal struggle goin’ on over there around this question, and I do believe this has more than a little to do with the um … steady? … pace of this SMO.
China, on the other hand, seems to have their treasonous neo-liberals under control. That’s why China is and always will be, target number one.
“the crazed and maniacal leftist Professor, Michael Hudson”
“The depraved and radical Hudson..”
Most of the times, the adjectives describe more the one who speaks them, than the one they are trying to describe.
(Here, it simply shows how biased you are).
russia will be be forced to give up neo-liberal quest? forced to become a sovereign nation state?i do not understand these words.stupid is as stupid says.
> China, on the other hand, seems to have their treasonous neo-liberals under control.
Remember Jack Ma? He made one offhand comment about how China’s capital markets system is antiquated and it should be more like the one we have in the West. Well if you know anything about ML theory you’d know that is one of the pillars of Imperialism, and to put it mildly, something they are not down with.
They bitch slapped him so hard he fell off his horse. You don’t really see him in the news anymore, do you?
“They bitch slapped” … Ma … “so hard he fell off his horse.”
Lmao … Yeah they did. He got lucky too, the CPC gave him the exile option.
I was in a Reddit sub, to protect the innocent I won’t say which one, and I defended – hell, I advocated for! – China’s policy of executing billionaires when they commit treason, and I was promptly downvoted out of the house.
One thing I learned for sure in my 62 years, American’s love treason. They can’t get enough it.
Treason trickles down and lifts all yachts, you stupid dunderhead Max424!
With few exceptions they are all the same sub now: r/ShitLibCentral
> One thing I learned for sure in my 62 years, American’s love treason. They can’t get enough it.
Tell me about it. Had an argument with BIL about the Snowden thing maybe 5-6 years ago. He unironically said “I don’t care what the Constitution says.” This glasses wearing pseudo intellectual douche loves owning guns though! And he has expressed multiple times his desire to set up checkpoints in his neighborhood when everything goes to shit.
I suspect he’ll get his chance to LARP as a local warlord soon. NFI where he thinks he’s going to get his food from, however.
Pleonexia. Had to look it up. Perfect word.
Me too. Wouldn’t it be interesting if some society in the distant future created a film called Pleonexalypto, that alluded to our current society in the way that Apocalypto alluded to the Aztecs.
Interesting thing about America as the World’s Policeman is that it acts as regular American policemen, i.e. it kills innocent people of the wrong race/ethnicity/nationality and makes them pay for the bullets. I guess you can’t take those traditional values out of them.
None of the strategic concerns really matter in the light of the absolute and irrevocable bankruptcy of the US. They’re now the hopeless crackhead, running about looking for just one more (financial) bump, but nobody is interested in giving them anything, no matter how many sloppy toothless blow jobs they offer.
Bankruptcy of the US federal and local gov’t is now a certainty – will take a few years .
De-dollarization is very much a slow motion train wreck. Ask yourself what happens when gov’ts have to pay 5% or 7% interest on their debt ( up from 2%) ?
A crackhead with money printing machine, and nukes.
Larry, this piece makes sense and weaves together several themes you have brought up in other pieces.
Absent the US affording to field its military (as policeman of the world) – it is hard to see the dollar continuing to reign. Yves at Naked capitalism argues that it is infeasible that there will be a replacement global reserve currency ready for decades. She is probably right. That would force the world back on the gold standard and a massive contraction of global production – particularly in the West (and massive impoverishment).
Just saying that the military failure will have massive economic implications that will not be good for the loser.
The whole point of the multi-polarity concept so tirelessly (and in my opinion, rightly) promoted by the Russian government is just that: the creation of multiple poles of power. There will be no “global reserve currency,” and instead the world will become much larger, metaphorically speaking. Finance, among many other spheres of human endeavor, will once again become local. The future is all about decentralization, the proliferation of distinctive cultures and civilizations, and fundamental respect for both. It will be the totalitarian globalists’ worst nightmare, and I for one am happy to anticipate such a change in world dynamics.
> The future is all about decentralization, the proliferation of distinctive cultures and civilizations, and fundamental respect for both.
It’s a wonderful vision of the future and it’s really sad that our elites want no part of it.
Best video yet coming out of the meat grinder in eastern Ukraine: A Russian soldier was wearing a red Santa Klaus hat emptying his AK47 on Ukrainian military positions. There were dead bodies all around him after the shooting stopped.
Ha ha ha…ho ho ho…
Having young (mostly) men killing each other is no laughing matter. It’s an obscenity brought about by objectively evil people. I’m behind Russia in this war: they were left with no alternative. Our Western nations have abandoned Logos and enthusiastically embraced the beast, while congratulating ourselves on our humanity and compassion. We have become our own God, and surrendered to the embrace of the Beast. No laughing matter at all.
Would love to see that!
Aren’t you glad that the US empire of lies and murder is a declining military power? Shouldn’t you be grateful that all those points made about the impotence of the US/NATO military are points of potential victory for truth and justice around the world?
Isn’t it most convenient at this historical juncture, at this parting of the ways (eagerly hoped for) between the socially depraved and politically perverse western mafia and the rest of the world, that one of its enforcing arms (military) be rendered powerless, while the other one (economic/financial) be in the process of being made toothless?
US and European citizens of good will should rejoice and be glad for such hopeful opening of opportunities for the rest of the world – their only chance of making their criminal and venomous ruling oligarchy turn away from their self-destructive course.
Sam, It is a time of danger.
Will the elites say if the world is not to be ours, then it shall be no-one’s.
Russia has already stated clearly that a world without Russia is not a world worth existing.
It’s just never before has humanity had the (nuclear) weapons to destroy all human life.
All things end – it is the nature of mortals and their works, and this will include the US empire. And the end will greatly impoverish the elites (let’s call them courtesans) and moreso, the commoner. How to avoid the Thucydides trap? A peaceful transition from the US to China (As UK -> US)? Yeah right!
Ironically, I think the EU expected to be the next global empire.
A very dangerous time.
These systems, aircraft, bombers, carriers and surface ships in general won’t survive a peer war but are good for power projection vs guys in sandals to minimize loss and not going anywhere. Peer vs peer goes nuclear within hours and we got those.
Thanks for yet another perceptive and informative analysis. I particularly liked the comparison with the British army and navy between 1815 and 1914.
As for your observation on the US Army insisting to keep cavalry units until 1942, you might have been too unforgiving in your condemnation. After all, it is a well-known fact that military organizations are among the most conservative in the world, more often than not slowing down technical innovation rather than boldly going for progress in that field. Examples abound, such as the Dutch army during the 17th century. Despite possessing the most advanced army in Europe, both from an operations point of view and armaments, the Dutch military leadership refused to equip its infantry with modern wheel-lock rifles, insisting to maintain the reliable, but slower to operate matchlock rifles. The main reason was that it did not want to have to rewrite training manuals and drastically adapt training to suit the adoption of a new system. It would have entailed drastic changes in the rotation of rows of musketeers firing their weapon, returning to the back end of the row and then cleaning and reloading his weapon as they slowly moved up to the front to fire again.
It may be only after 1945 that technological progress has come to dominate military thinking, especially in the US, at least that is what I would suggest as an overall conclusion.
At the same time, there is a tendency in peacetime military organisations (i.e. not when engaged in a truly big war) to be intellectually rigid. In this respect I would strongly recommend Norman Dixon’s The Psychology of Military Incompetence, but I suppose you have also read it.
The war was predicated on Russia’s financial collapse. Plan B was a coup in the Kremlin. Plan C (now), seems to be triggering an escalation to the brink of nuclear exchange, hoping that Putin will be replaced by someone who can be persuaded to give up. Not saying that would work any better than plans A and B, just that that is what they seem to be doing.
The Zionists are making a huge mistake thinking it is all about VVP. He is doing what the General Staff and the majority of the political ‘elite’ want him to do.
There will be no coup in the Kremlin, there will be no Russian surrender or back down.
As many have stated, this to Russia is an existential war. To lose, they lose all.
If Putin was replaced, which I think is very unlikely, the West would probably be massively disappointed with his replacement.
When Zelensky said that he will negotiate only with next Russian president, someone made a meme about next president being Ramzan Kadyrov. 🙂
Lol, and it’s Lieutenant General Kadyrov. 👊🏻
Agreed. Plan C largely failed when the missiles aimed at Poland missed the fertilizer depot, so no one in the west could lead their countries into a real war with Russia. Plan D is probably to feed NATO forces to the bear so that the US can later control western Europe without fighting it’s armies. It will only need to mop up insurgents, much like in Iraq.
It´s as you stated a continual groundhog day ever since Korea, the same old imperial fleet shutting down the peripheral country, expeditionay force mentality, with the same consequences: the lack of internal cohesion to keep an endless war, the economical downturns as a consequence of the endless and expensive spending and ultimately the lack of support of the society, specially in the days of political shism in the western world. As a quote says, stupidity is the act of doing the same thing expecting different results.
A weapon system is only as good as the people that maintain it, deploy it and use it.
The US military has the best logistics, the best training and a very capable officer and NCO corp.
Afghan military was provided with so many weapons yet, without the will to fight they were beaten by lightly armed guerilla’s in a few weeks, once the US left.
This blog’s commentary section is heavily pro Russian but whatever you think of Ukrainian soldiers, they have managed to resist Russian attacks for 10 months and even managed to get some territory back. They’ve been doing that against a power that has much more artillery, tanks, missiles, aircraft, ammo, drones, navy etc.
The West is sending them dozens of different weapon systems, often obsolete and still they manage to learn to deploy and use them.
They say, where there’s a will there’s a way. The Russian military has many problems as well and if they do not solve them, they will lose this war.
In re Ukrainians troops: “Lions led by donkeys”?
wiz says
11 December 2022 at 06:07
The US military has the best logistics, the best training and a very capable officer and NCO corp.
Compared to whom?
ISIS?
Wait, ISIS’ metalworkers and explosive people are pretty damn competent.
It was a typo. D and S are right next to each other on QWERTY keyboards.
US military has best everying, on paper, written by themselves.
Ukrainian soldiers are as good as Russian ones, because they are the same people. Russians think about Ukrainians as their (literal) brothers that have been turn into zombies by drinking US Kool-Aid.
The West is sending them enough rope so that they can hang themselves. The goal is to kill as many Slavs as possible, which is traditional for The West.
All militaries have problems, except US one. They lose wars by having no problems whatsoever, while being the best in everything (including losing itself).
Afghan army lost what, some 40-60,000 dead during US occupation ? then logistics and air support pulled out overnight. It was never run as a complete combined unit.
“…whatever you think of Ukrainian soldiers, they have managed to resist Russian attacks for 10 months and even managed to get some territory back…”
Are you a troll or just an ignoramus?
Ukranian military have not resisted for 10 months, they were decimated within two months. It is all NATO since then.
They did not “get” territory back, more MSM drivel, the conceded territory for a better position and killed ten thousand enemy combatants in doing so.
Mr. Johnson, another spot-on analysis, Sir.
Ties in very well with your past articles:
‘WAR IN UKRAINE EXPOSES FRAGILITY OF U.S. AND NATO WEAPONS’
‘MORE EVIDENCE THAT AMERICA’S DIPLOMATS ARE NOT AS SMART AS THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE’
‘IF YOU THINK THE UNITED STATES IS READY FOR A CONVENTIONAL WAR WITH RUSSIA OR CHINA, THINK AGAIN’
Etc.
Also ties in with various reports like AEI on ‘Ukraine War Shows the US Military Isn’t Ready for War With China’, the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Yes, the US Military is Weak,’ and the New York Post’s ‘US military rated as ‘weak,’ may not be able to win one war, as tensions grow with China, Russia’, among others.
A habituation to war entails a body of predatory habits and thoughts-Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class. Ssgt Melger incident and the Eddie Cunningham incident should have been cautionary, instead we doubledown(one word?). I found Seymour Hersh’s address and thought about writing, those last London Review of Books piece blew me away- maybe he was the long thread of the Information Operation. Somebody find Danny Sjursen(American History for Truthdiggers) and Tyler Boudreaux(sp?) Packing Inferno, I think they have something to say:)
Don’t “onion” Ukrainians for they can take it as manual
https://t.me/Z_BOEV_LIST_Z/10325
Video: allegedly AFU’s tank with welded latches
I have a hard time believing this. It seems an invitation to the crew to reverse their turret and start firing on their own side.
I fixed the grenade problem on today’s strip, thanks.
Me too. Somewhat.
It would not be hard to take one’s own tank and wield somethign for a minute to make video, and we do not see much except the hatch itself.
So, yeah, “allegedly”.
That said, Ukrainians have a knack for implementing unbelievably absurd stunts, maybe just to see if they would work
Yeah, i saw 🙂
Cavalry was – very effectively- used by the Red Army through WWII. As Alan Clarke wrote in “Barbarossa”, it was, far from being an anachronism, of immense value. The soldiers were dragoons, that is, mounted infantry, who fought on foot, but who were not constrained by roads as the motorised infantry was. A Soviet cavalry unit could routinely traverse a couple of hundred kilometres in a night, and that along a tangent to the axis of advance, and their horses – “shaggy little ponies from Siberia” – were almost invulnerable to cold and cold go for days with a minimum of fodder and water.
“. . . after the fall of the USSR the Pentagon shifted planning and operations to what had been the stepchild of DOD for years — “Special Operations.””
The Russians are involved in their own “Special Military Operations” in the Ukraine. Or were, until the Crimea Bridge attack, the Kherson retreat, and continued direct attacks within Russian Territory by Ukrainian forces caused the Russians to step things up a bit. Irony? Sarcasm? Kind of makes you wonder.
How would the Vietnam War, or Iraq War, or the Afghanistan War have played out if these countries had shared a common border with the United States?
Isn’t Russia’s SMO conventional war on the cheap? Is perhaps the realization shared by both militaries an admission that conventional war has become too expensive, unsustainable, obsolete even?
If victory by conventional warfare is measured by the number of civilian deaths, then we can expect to see three (3) civilian deaths for every KIA; more in the cities which hold concentrated populations. This figure is borne out by the fact that during World War 2 almost 75% of the total deaths were from civilians.
The world population in 1940 was approximately 2.3-billion people. Today it is over 8-billion people. If a real conventional war breaks out that is a lot of expendable civilian deaths, and an incredible expenditure in men, equipment, ammunition, and material –that with the proxy war and SMO we haven’t seen, yet.
I think that if this conflict continues to escalate, that Russia and the United States will go nuclear. Efficiency will outweigh all other considerations — like profit.
We have entered a period of shortages in everything, weakness in maintaining supply chains. This is reflected in propaganda and other manifestations of mankind-made diseases. We are actually defining our problems in military terms, not human terms.
The continued use of conventional warfare is just nations writing checks the Earth cannot cash.
We can’t even feed ourselves, provide enough fresh water, house ourselves, educate ourselves, meaningfully employ ourselves, dispose of our own waste, provide a sustainable supply of the raw materials — the natural gas, oil, coal, minerals, and rare earths necessary — for the existence of a first world economy.
We are already in World War 3. If war is “diplomacy is war by other means,” then the world has already escalated matters. A proxy war is war by other means. Confiscation of another country’s bank accounts is an act of war. Confiscation of civilian private property and asset forfeiture is an act of war. Having the safety in your persons, property, and possessions, stolen at will, is an act of war. Terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure. Sanctions. These are all acts of war. The world, in fact, is already at war.
I try to keep things simple. All I want to do is get through the Christmas Holidays. Then the world can eat itself alive.
Keep your chin up. Maybe enough of the right sorts of people are reading here and at Martyanov’s blogs and youtubes. With tens of thousands and sometimes 100,000+ views of Andrei Martyanov;s and even at Col. MacGregor’s with Napoliatano’s channels, chances are good that the viewership pipeline is being seen and read by a few of the proper folks. I have hope, anyway. There is life after Christmas.
I will say one more thing here that many people borne into American capitalism do not understand: the state can always produce cheaper because the state has no interest in making profits and its enterprises are not traded on the stock market, they also are the last to go “bankrupt”, if ever.
This is reason #1 why the American MIC can never compete with Chinese or Russian MIC. Even if Chinese and Russian MICs were for profit, the state would immediately cap the amount of profits made to where it is always cheap(er).
In America we have a system where we pay taxes to support private industries making profits (MIC) and there is no cap on how much profit they make. Supposedly competition is expected to limit this but competing companies never _really_ undercut each other so much that they are barely profitable. Why? Because they a) know that the government needs a weapon X or Y and is willing to pay for it because it is paid with someone else’s money (tax payers) and b) lobbying as feedback look for money between MIC and government. This results in “silent” or “unspoken” collusion between the MIC companies.
The other reason is the standard of living – it is high in the West but the economy is a debt based economy. People always say “our GDP is 100x that of Russia so we pay 100x more for the same weapon”. Sure, only GDP measures PRODUCTION and we don’t produce much (this is why debt is where it is at – sky high). In other words, we are rich on paper but in reality living on a mountain of debt based on a promise (“I owe you”s like in the movie “Dumb and Dumber”). China and Russia have none of these problems as their economies are production based – they actually make stuff.
At the end of the day, the last 20 years in America are a “hit and run”. People, companies, whole industries, politicians, journalists etc. – they are all in it together. In Yugoslavia we had a saying “ako prodje prodje” – meaning – “if it works, it works” – meaning – you try something (absurd) and if you get rich, great, forget principles, national interests, national security etc.
The above comes from the realization that our days are numbered – we are corrupt and are devouring ourselves from the inside. The reason we are still around is that we are devouring others as well. THIS is what this Ruso-Ukrainian conflict as pointed out to the whole world and everyone can now see it. THIS is what scares the s*it out of the Western politicians. I know people have turned the “the truth will set you free” into a cliche but in this case, it has set the whole global south and non-western world free. For the first time they have an alternative and they can see clearly that principles do not matter to the West, only take, take take. A coup d’etat in Africa is encouraged but a coup d’etat in Germany is “oh my God, squash them all”. An illegal bombing campaign in Serbia and creation of an independent state (Kosovo) is OK but not OK in Donbass or Spain. Paying taxes in London, employing people and buying businesses with your money is OK and we will take it gladly, until we don’t like your country anymore, then we will seize everything without any legal basis or a trial. It is OK to live in a 3,000 sqft power hungry home in America and drive a 10mpg truck to work every day ’cause you have a 5th wheel to take once a year to the lake but Brazil is pooh-pooh-ed for cutting down the forest. All of this is out now.
“In America we have a system where we pay taxes to support private industries making profits (MIC) and there is no cap on how much profit they make.”
This has been changed from “we pay taxes” to “we print paper money”.
Taxes are a drop in the bucket compared to the printing that is keeping things ‘floating’.
Why would anyone think about “special” forces turning the tide of battle in peer-to-peer war, when they even can’t do it against guys in flip-flops. The only thing those “special” forces can do, is conduct terrorist attack against weak countries. British specials aka SAS, have become world known in that.
Armies always prepare for the last war. Smart people realised that machineguns will end cavalry, but generals had to send people into their death to verify it. Similar thing happened when battleships faced aircraft carriers, and will happen once aircraft carriers face modern antiship missiles.
I’m not sure your journalist friend has his timelines in order. As a fresh-faced 18 year old paratrooper, my first assignment was with the 4th PSYOPS Group, 1st SOCOM (Airborne), XVIII Airborne Corps in the early-mid 80’s, under MG Leroy Suddath at the JFK Special Warfare Center. It didn’t come into existence after the fall of the CCCP.
My recollection is that it was Pershing who was overly enamoured with the calvary, insisting it be kept on long past its use-by date.
Weakness? Color it profit. I’m a DC guy and served aboard Nimitz 76-83, for a bit in an S-3 Viking sub hunter squadron (VS-24) and then an A6 Intruder attack squadron (VA-35. Aboard Nimitz then, we had aircraft manufactured by Vought (the A-7 Corsair that replaced the A-4, McCain’s plane in Vietnam). Lockheed, the S-3, the F-14 Tomcat from Grumman, the A-6E Intruder, tanker and the E-2 Recon plane, and EA-6 jammer all from Grumman, Sikorski Helicoptors for ASW and pilot rescue. They replaced the F-14 and A-6 Intruder variants with the F-18. Compromises galore, but by then Northrop owned all of Grumman.
Point is, when you had many companies competing for contracts, you got better packages and a greater variety of methods to deliver air power. Now? Lockheed Martin owns everything in Naval Air. And they produce shit. F-35 and others. Northrop Grumman is bringing out the B21 bomber, another piece of shit. The new carriers, Ford Class, pieces of shit, look them up. Catapult problems, weapons elevator problems, 15-25 billion dollar price tag, Nimitz class 5 billion each. Naturally, they went Ford Class. More money.
So we have one manufacturer building our carriers, two or three building all our planes (when there used to be 6 or 8 (60 years back) and a complete lack of competition and economy. Now? F-35 became a trillion-dollar boondoggle, courtesy of Lockheed. All of it’s a profit center. 90% of our military budgets get siphoned off to stockholders. Until we break the grip of the stockholders, this gets worse. Russia runs 1/8th of our budget and they’re advanced far beyond us. Why? Because they do NOT allow military manufacturers to screw their budgets. Us? Budgets are profit centers.
It goes somewhat beyond that, but carriers and manned aircraft are all done, Martyanov, Larry and various others have pointed all this out and here we are behind the curve in missiles and the rest, but still pushing out profit-laden, but obsolete platforms like carriers and so many others. The few manufacturers left go to the the politicians, fund their campaigns and those scoundrels vote the obsolete platforms into being. Profit in defense spending has been the culture in DC since Vietnam. No more Dollar-A-Year men there anymore. The consolidation of all those companies led us to all our current deficits in weaponry. They went for profit, not quality, not advancement. And the boards vacuum up every dime as they deliver shit to the US military. And nobody in DC can even talk about it, their power is so great. Ain’t that a daisy?
Ya have to break the profit cycle. And, it’s very, very late in the game.
Woke corporate culture is another problem, fewer engineers (the few divided between space and defense), and qualitative failures
Yes, wokeness is a real problem in aerospace. I’m amazed at how the demographics changed at the large aerospace company I was at a few years into the Trump administration. And the CEO was just loathsome in his support for BLM and other dubious causes.
It’s also worth adding that many of the best engineers at US aerospace companies are Chinese. How many engineers are graduating in the US vs China? It doesn’t bode well. The US better start practicing a little humility and humbleness in its foriegn policy or it’s in for a rude awakening.
Not so sure, many are Indians, from India. Nonetheless, they aren’t quality such as in the 1960’s and 70’s. No offense. Boeing didn’t go down the drain for nothing. MAXX and so on…
The title of the articles is wrong. It should read
“The Ukrainian War has exposed the stupidity of the U.S. (Biden) Administration”
As to the strength of the US military, it is more than adequate to protect the homeland. We have no real threats and we are protected by two oceans. Thus, we don’t need a huge military or should we waste money on one.
Our bloated defense (offense?) budget is due to the fact that the US has shipped all its manufacturing overseas. Aerospace and defense spending provides a means for the government to provide jobs to people. Medical, education and government are three other bloated industries pushing debt dollars out into the economy as our trade deficit soars. As we destract and entertain ourselves to excess, we are happy and don’t dwell on the impending economic catastrophe speeding our way.
Far more than adequate. Yamamoto never actually said it, but he is quoted as saying if the American mainland were invaded there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass. That pseudo quote needs to be updated, we have MORE guns than people in this country.
To defend the homeland all we really need are a robust air defense system – which we can purchase from Russia – and a militia.
Concur. It’s all grift.
The US military is designed for decapitation warfare, not conventional peer-on-peer massed confrontation in either localized or theater battlefields. And the backup plan is to play a game of chicken with nukes if need be. This reality is driven by foreign policy imperatives that value political subversion and then putting “our guy” into office (the Zelensky model) as opposed to conquering by raw military force (the Napoleon/Hitler model). As many have noted, this is just imperialism masquerading as democracy imposition.
And never forget that we have two oceans that protect our flanks. No foreign adversary is going to cross either ocean to attack us with ground forces. So as long as we stay within our borders, we can survive as a nation. But the US political class cannot get paid (read graft) without foreign interventionism, so this bane will continue to afflict us until we get rid of the grifters.
The enemy is us.
Comments on this are as good the post, which is very good. There have been several frontline reports (sometimes based on POW accounts so grain of salt) about how the NATO advisors keep insisting on light infantry tactics against Russian lines. I get that Ukraine doesn’t really have the material and training at this point for much more than that, but I have to assume it’s partly because that’s all the NATO advisors know.
It worked in Kharkov oblast because of how Russian defenses were organized and manned. But outside Kherson or the current Russian defense along most of the LoC, it leads to 100 guys with one tank, an APC or two and a few technicals advancing into prepared positions, artillery and mortars. Often without any element of surprise because of drones. And they just keep doing it, like one time it will be so magically successful that the whole war will turn. 50 KIA here and a dozen there all over a long front line doesn’t make headlines but those numbers add up.
The industrial supply side is a different story but no less grim. There seems to be an idea that the US can turn on WWII style production anytime, but at least one commenter pointed out that the MIC is ridiculously concentrated and financialized. They want fat contracts to juice stock prices, not the messy costs of engineering and production. It’s hard not to worry that instead of a slow, controllable failure we’ll have to face one that’s punctuated and potentially cascading.
I am sure that NATO advisors still know how to use air strikes, and heavy mechanized units, and other stuff that they used in Iraq.
The “Charge of the Light Brigade” worked in Kharkov region because there were practically no defenses. Once you try it on proper defences, you end up like the famous one from the Crimean War.
Industial base is a very inert thing. It takes time to destroy it, and even more to build it. Russians have been preparing for this war for a while, The West did not.
“I am sure that NATO advisors still know how to use air strikes, and heavy mechanized units, and other stuff that they used in Iraq.”
Are you sure in practice as opposed to theory – that generation is mostly retired or on the boards of directors of Lockheed, etc., and Lockheed just can’t make an (dis) honest profit (no cost plus) off of artillery.
NATO stopped its tank games in 2018, and they were nothing like the Russian CTSO tank games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Europe_Tank_Challenge
I wrote that in a sarcastic tone (a thing that doesn’t work too well in text form).
I am from Yugoslavia, so I’ve been unlucky enought to see some in practice. Everyone with IQ higher than room temperature can conduct air strike campaign against country that can’t defend itself properly. I am confident that those NATO advisors are not below that level. I never said that they could do it against marginally compentent opponent (which Iraq was not). 😉
I saw a reference to Ukrainian tactics based on COIN counter insurgency operations….these are small unit tactics generally aimed at irregular forces….alot of long range in time or space clandestine patrols and then interdiction…..but small scale minimal support actions. The Russian army is centered on battalion tactical groups…but with a Western brigades allocation of artillery. a BTG and the Western combat team based on an infantry battalion with supporting fighting echelon was what I expected the NATO trained Ukrainian forces to roll out but most of the earlier fighting was Ukraine on the defensive in built up areas. The offensive seems to be smaller manoeuvre elements …. I can’t say I know what and where the training is coming from but Canadian JTF2 was training Ukrainian forces in the Donbas and since they are black/green team antiterrorism/ special operations it’s feasible that they where teaching counterinsurgency tactics and not large scale combined arms. On account that NATO didn’t send their heavy armour over until months into this thing…it may be feasible that NATO expected a huge conventional Russian army to steamroll Ukraine and then be bogged down by special clandestine stay behind units with prepositioned tube launched weapons to bleed Russia dry
The United States has been fighting low intensity ……mostly…..wars against third world armies for decades. This practicing of literal gun boat diplomacy with carrier groups against non peer adversaries and shock and awe against third world air defense systems has imparted a false sense of security. Carrier groups are obsolete and manned bombers are too thanks to hyper velocity platforms and integrated air defense systems. But we are basing our conclusions on the presumption that NATO is fighting to win. Let’s go back to 2019 where a respiratory illness initiated a catastrophic lockdown that crippled the Western economies….where in the name of pandemic response…. untold trillions of dollars where printed for economic relief programs and frankly..to buy votes. In the midst of this madness…every Western leader began parroting the same eerie mantra…”build back better”……well building back means something needs to be rebuilt because it’s flattened or unusable. What if everything is designed to create more chaos and destruction to facilitate economic collapse. This war and sanctions are bringing about catastrophe for Western Europe and the Ukrainian Slavs are being destroyed almost to a man….the United States is run by the biggest collection of virtue signaling deviant mentally ill clowns the world has ever seen and is driving the bankrupt nation into nuclear confrontation. At the same time we have thousands of farms being shutdown over climate change or restrictions on fertilizers that will decrease the food supply. All these policies are destructive and dangerous and make no sense untill you understand the true goal of the Globalists who formulate the policies is to collapse everything and build back better…in their image. Bill and Belinda Gates foundation plus the usual suspects have just completed in October 2022 another Global Pandemic simulation…this time a virus that originated in Brasil and has a much higher mortality rate as SARS-COV-2 virus…..and is particularly dangerous for children. I suspect COVID-19 was a test run….they want their white horse…..red and black horses too….. pestilence war and famine but watch out for the pale “green” final horse
Joe, You may be right. They are either evil or stupid (or perhaps both). If their plan is to collapse the economy to build back better they deserve the blowback that will follow. In my version of the story, they all end up at the end of a rope.
Unfortunately the precedent has been set…when serious social upheaval occurs..there is a fragmentation along family tribal social class lines and this division concentrates attention on immediate survival…. Tutsi and Hutu….Croats and Serb… Shia and Sunni…how many millions of south and Central American illegal has crossed into the u.s in the last decade…how many illegal north or sub Saharan African has filtered into Western Europe in the last decade…helped along by Shadow groups financed by Soros’or other scum bags who are also dictating the current events. In short we will be too busy trying to trap rats or find fuel to contemplate going down to these deep underground oligarch strongholds I fear
It doesn’t have to be that way. My working class neighborhood has lots of “recent immigrants” from Latin America. It’s been majority Hispanic for decades, and yet you rarely see a Mexican or Central American flag. I see lots of American flags though. Better yet, I see ZERO Ukraine flags.
(That might be changing though, there was one British lady in line behind me buying plant based food from the local discount supermarket. God help us.)
> how many illegal north or sub Saharan African has filtered into Western Europe in the last decade…helped along by Shadow groups financed by Soros’or other scum bags who are also dictating the current events.
I’m going to make a prediction. Since these groups will be the least likely to get along with the incoming fascist menace coming from West Ukraine, I think they will be at the vanguard of saving Europe from them.
Make no mistake, God is testing us.
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this war and I doubt they have been fully digested yet. For peer to peer war the primary question in my mind is one of western air power against Russian air defenses. Which one would triumph? If air power wins the day, then no army can survive against it. If air defense wins, then it becomes a traditional slog and war of attrition where Russian strengths would come to bear. For their part, the Americans have largely ignored air defense over the last forty years because they plan on getting air dominance over the battlefield in short order. The Russians, knowing they can’t really afford to compete plane for plane, have concentrated on air defense and it is better than anyone else’s.
And in the Ukraine this contest of strengths really hasn’t been tested. For all their support of the Ukies, western governments haven’t sent their air forces into battle. So, it’s still a question. If in a hypothetical war western fighter bombers can roam the battlefield at will, it’s game over. If they can’t, the Russians have the upper hand.
Air defense systems are highly jammable and beacons beckoning anti-radiation missiles. Same for a2a and a2g radar systems. Sensors need to be passive which are shorter range. Hilly terrain also poses difficulties for LOS. Add in low RCS platforms and it is a very complicated scenario with many variables. Lots of unknowns and risks. Stand-off weapons are generally the way to go. But better than that is peace! WTF are the clowns in DC thinking? How many more neocon inspired debacles must be fought?
What anti-radiation missiles? HARMs had problems dealing with Yugoslav air defenses. Russian modern anti air systems are shooting them out of the sky without much problems.
Stand-off weapons are indeed the way to go. Those cheap kamikaze drones turned out to be very cost-effective.
Larry: As a citizen of India I find this article quite revealing. The US has been badgering my government into buying its weapons systems, and India has indeed bought a small number of transport aircraft, helicopters and howitzers. But beyond that it has hesitated to buy any US weapons in substantial quantities. Now I know why.
Is the B-21 a boondogle or are stealth aircraft in general boondogles? I would like to believe so but then why are Russia and China going down the same route? They are not putting their money where their mouth is. The Russians speak of their photonic radar as defeating stealth, the Chines even of their quantum radar. Yet the Russian Su-57 clearly has stealth design elements, the Chinese J-20 too, and both countries are reportedly working on stealthy flying wing bombers, the Russian PAK-DA and the Chinese H-20. What is going on? Is one (Russian or Chinese) hand not knowing what the other one does?
I think you guys are missing the point. The US military was NEVER intended to fight a protracted conventional war w/ Russia (neither Soviet nor Federation). Conventional forces in Europe were merely a trip wire against a Russian attack and all scenarios quickly escalated to air and missiles (some missiles being from the sea and some from land bases). There was never supposed to be a conventional war w/ Russia. The US military only needed to defeat Russia’s proxies.
And that is why this Ukraine mess – with neither side willing to negotiate an inch – will go nuclear at some point. A proxy war in SE Asia can be fought for years with no existential threat to the US or Russia. A proxy war right on Russia’s border and involving ethnic Russian enclaves is a whole different game.
Agree Eric, there is an unpredictability here which is being treated casually by politicians and military leaders alike.
I had drinks with a British lieutenant -colnel today and he was saying how surprised the West was at how weak Russia is when they thought Russia had this tremendous army but are in fact emptying out prisons to get boots on the ground.
The nuclear threat is just ignored or brushed aside. There is no doubt that the West genuinely sees Russia as far weaker than they thought it was, both strategically and militarily. But for Russia’s nukes the West would be in there right now.
I hope that Lt Col is retired and not in the loop.
We will soon see if the Russian military is truly weak, or has just been trying to appear that way and doing Ukraine on the cheap. But this has been one of beleaguered points, as you know. Assuming Russia is trying to do it on the cheap and is holding back, they are encouraging the west to double down, triple down, etc…..that makes it less likely for reasonable viable peace settlements. You don’t give an enemy anything if you smell his blood in the water. Also, it’s harder to give up when you have so many sunk costs and your people thought you were winning.
That said, what does “weak” even mean when there is a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and we now know that Russia does indeed have very good targeting?
“I hope that Lt Col is retired and not in the loop.”
Very much active and gearing up to get stuck in on Ukraine. I have given up debating with him that Russia maybe stronger than they appear. Either he knows things I don’t, which is likely, or his briefing is misleading.
Well, to be fair, even your antagonist Andrei Martyanov has renamed this from SMO to SMAO or “special military attrition operation”.
While you may argue “Russia is trying to be cheap”, isn’t this how all wars of attrition are supposed to play out anyway? Attrition generally means depleting the other side of its combat ability and doing what’s possible just to survive and be the last one standing. So I’d likewise assume that Russia is simply strategically trying to *not* overextend, overinvest, etc — that is, it would rather dig its heels in, set up defensive fortifications, and do whatever’s possible to save resources for the much bigger longer attrition war ahead that no one knows when it will come to an end. So, *not* launching vast armies trying to blitzkrieg Ukraine in an instant may well just be position and card Russia is simply just being forced to play.
*Edit: granted, attrition warfare isn’t exactly “moralizing” for neither combatants nor the general public. No one likes protracted conflicts and I’d imagine any combatant sent off to war would likewise like to see his/her efforts rewarded with rather quick victory.
Given the state of the intelligence services in the west and their surprise at how unsuccessful the sanctions were, at how many friends Russia managed to accumulate in the global south and at all the hypersonics they managed to amass, I think the precedent has been set that their intelligence on the state of the Russian military is also pretty shoddy.
We are strangled by past legends, an arrogant assumption of continued postwar hegemony, and are sliding towards becoming a 2nd rate power.
Oops. The WEF advised that this was part of their 2030 agenda. So, not a surprise.
“The US military was NEVER intended to fight a protracted conventional war w/ Russia (neither Soviet nor Federation).”
Agree. One of the reasons I find this panic over the inability of our MIC to produce artillery shells so comical.
Artillery shells are to 21st century conventional warfare as spitballs are to gunfight. King of Battles my ass.
Now if people were bemoaning the fact that our privatized MIC is incapable of ramping up production of guided rockets, missiles, drones and military satellites at the drop of a hat, should we suddenly find ourselves in a peer to peer conventional confrontation, well, I’ll lend you my ears … for a few seconds.
But only for a few, because is there anyone out there that really believes this war isn’t a one-off?
And who amongst us believes the US is going to land on the Chinese mainland and shell China’s 155 cities that have a population of over 1 million, with their M777s, and thereby force them to submit?
Anyone?
“And that is why this Ukraine mess – with neither side willing to negotiate an inch – will go nuclear at some point.”
Agree, that does seem the way things are headed. The US has one peer to peer warfighting weapons system, and only one, and that is the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine.
I mean I get the Russian’s Verdun stategy. It’s a good one, a proven one. Lot’s of slaughter, lots of death, the time honored human meat grinder via the inexpensive artillery shell, but one does wish they would eliminate this menace on their border tomorrow so our life giving planet could breath a sigh of relief.
Which they can do.
Yep. The hand-wringing over 155 shell production issues and the like IS ITSELF fighting the last war.
I see both sides making judgments from this mess that might be wrong. American weapons aren’t necessarily useless because they are being employed piecemeal, without integration with other systems, in ways they were never meant to be. The Russian army isn’t necessarily trash because it didn’t roll over the Ukies while trying to limit damage against an enemy supported by the West in ways the Russians never anticipated before all this kicked off.
I wish we had sane leadership in America so that we could bring this to an end before it spirals. But we don’t. And when/if the Russians decisively gain the upper hand in a way that destroys this whole false narrative created in the West, it will expose the elites in a very telling way. And there will be time of extreme danger as that the Neo-cons and the extreme wokesters will scream for escalation and direct conflict with the Russians. I’m not sure that the few in the military and the rest of the establishment that know better will have the moral courage to resist them.
Exactly. You and I see things exactly the same.
The US military has SF and SOF to deal with small wars, international terrorism and limited special operations within bigger wars. US regular combined arms forces are geared toward small to medium sized wars, but not so great against insurgencies (though, in fairness, insurgencies are a challenge for the forces of all nations). Neither SF/SOF nor regular combined arms are geared toward achieving victory in a full-on WW3 involving military peers like Russia and China. Modern weapons technology has rendered such a conflict an impossible blood bath of historic proportions. Troop and armor formations would be annihilated by precision guided munitions before they could even engage; probably many even in staging areas thousands of miles away, before they even reached the front. Airplanes would be knocked out of the skies in great numbers. Surface naval vessels, including aircraft carriers, sunk near immediately. Satellites would be destroyed or otherwise neutralized. The losses don’t just apply to the US. All sides would suffer the same. The US would do it to them as well. The side farthest from the battlefield would suffer the most and lose in the short run, but everyone would lose in the long run. This is known and accepted by non-koolaid drinkers.
So there is no reason to even try build and maintain conventional forces that could take on a peer in a full-on war other than enrichment of the MIC. Rather, the real emphasis becomes one of air defenses, more and better precision guided missiles and advanced space based assets.
Arguing that there could be a limited direct war against a peer is a pipe dream. Obviously, there is an inevitable escalation spiral that takes you to full-on war.
“The U.S. military today is making a similar mistake — i.e., hanging onto legacy defense systems that have been made obsolete by technology.”
With respect, I disagree, the US has dominated globally to a massive degree. It has repeatedly pissed in the face of Russia and China, damaged their economies with zero comeback. This means they have done something’s right as they dominate the seas and land.
The US surrounds both China and Russia, it will adjust strategy taking note of it’s weaknesses in this war, it is killing tens of thousands of Russian soldiers with it’s proxies, firing weapons into Russia and testing it’s defences and it currently fully controls when this war ends.
So I don’t see foolish strategy. I see successful strategy that has achieved the US aims of global supremacy at all costs. The US has a financial boost, a whipped weak EU, huge weapons sales. They are doing just fine.
Where a problem may arise for the US is if the political class ignores what are very clear signs from the military to de escalate. If they push a nuclear and military power too far there is a risk. But really a very low risk unless they go really far. Is Russia going to fire drones over the US like the US is doing to Russia? I doubt it. Russia and China are desperate not to directly engage the US and so they take humiliation after humiliation.
Forget engaging the US directly, Russia still sells it what it needs, so does China. Forget directly, they fear even indirect engagement see US bases in Syria and Iraq and Taiwan.
So it’s not stupid to be the most feared power on the planet. Whether the US is an evil tyrant and the heir to Hitler in terms of national supremacy and economic exploitation of others does not detract from the fact they have sustained themselves at number 1 for a long time.
This war could break America but it could also make America stronger and more prepared for this type of conflict.
Yes America spent billions in Afghanistan and Iraq etc but who did those billions go to? US companies like Haliburton, arms companies, mercanaries, US NGOs…very little on the people of those nations. Plus they steal oil from Libya, Syria, etc and they steal food and minerals from these countries.
The US remains the heir to Hitler, they are far more brutal and offer far less value than the British Empire did, and are a far more successful enterprise that should not be underestimated. Hitler sought national and economic supremacy. The US has the same aim.
For example they successfully counter colonial and Nazi comparisons by ensuring their teams include black and brown people and leaders fully signed up to their colonial mission. See Obama, Powell, Austin, Harris…so it looks like a fair and just nation from the outside, you almost forget how Albright laughed of the death of 500,000 Iraqi children or how the US used chemical weapons or how an EcoHealth scientist has revealed the US created covid in the first shot of WW3.
The US is smart. I see no evidence of it falling apart as a military or global power.
When China and Russia start to directly confront the US and cross it’s red lines then maybe there is a change in power. The rest is wishful thinking. On its biological weapons alone the US could probably wipe out most of their enemies. And unlike Russia and China to an extent there is no human heart in their brainwashed populations or leadership there to stop them.
A more accurate score on Ukraine:-
US dead 30,000
US influence up -v- Russia influence down
US geopolitical power up -v- Russia down and more isolated
US trade up -v- Russia selected industries up but a mixed picture on rest
US propaganda win -v- Russia messaging failure
US has united EU under control -v- Russia trying to hold alliances together
US mainland free of attack -v- multiple attacks on infrastructure and civilian deaths in Russia
Yeah. Don’t see the US breaking sweat here. Every day Russian soldiers die and the US soldiers sit safe. So who is winning?
*US dead 30,000
Should read
US soldiers dead under 100 -v- Russian dead and injured over 30,000
I’m going to have to disagree with you. The US legacy military did what you say – which really amounts to intimidating and sometimes actually fighting – proxies while peer nations supporting the proxies stood down. However, Russia (and China?) are now putting an end to all of that. Russia is no longer standing down. I doubt China will stand down for ever on Taiwan. The US’ bluff is being called.
The question now is how will the US take that? IMO, it will threaten nuclear war. This could start in several ways. One would be to put US combat boots on the ground in Ukraine and dare the Russians to hit them. Russia then calls that bluff and kills a lot of them. Do you really believe that the US just folds at that point – or at any point before or after? Seriously?
…..should have added that I doubt China will stand down on not only Taiwan, but countries across the globe (Africa, Afghanistan…..everywhere they are expanding their influence).
I hear what you say. Agree that Russia and China have both taken action re Georgia, Ukraine and Taiwan.
However, I see it as the US gets right in their faces on their red lines and deliver provokes a response on interests on their borders. To me it’s not so much pushing US back as reacting to US deliberate provocation.
On risk of nuclear war I agree it is more real as the West is
reportedly planning to give Ukraine longer range missiles which can hit into Russia plus better drones, plus the build up in Estonia and Norway joining NATO the situation is just getting uglier. Yet probably no one in the world outside of the neocons would want any of this.
Ok. But something you and I and the Russians know is that the longer range missiles that can – and will – strike inside Russia are going to be essentially operated by Americans. So America shooting missiles into Russia. Putin recently spoke to that and said the response will be hundreds of Russian missiles fired at back and he made it pretty clear the targets would not be limited to Ukraine.
Another theme I try to push is that these escalating events take on a life of their own and it doesn’t matter much who wants it or not; or how irrational it may be. Obviously, the hard-ons in charge of US operations, both military and political, are too caught up in the whole thing already – and/or are too stupid and belligerent to understand escalation cycles in the first place.
I’ll tell you as a Gen X’er I feel lost in my own country when this mess is discussed. I see old Boomers talking about Russia as if it is still the Soviet Union and baying Russian blood. And I see younger people caught up in the euphoria of war and completely discounting the possibility that Russia could ever hurt us.
To a person, every Gen X’er I’ve talked to about Ukraine thinks it’s insane to get entangled with Russia over this and very much understands the devastation of a potential nuclear war. And as a rule, to paraphrase Bismark most Americans my age don’t consider the Ukraine or the entirety of Europe for that matter to be worth the bones of a single Alabama infantryman.
I think you are forgetting one thing – America’s population has lost all the skills, knowledge and desire to do work, make things, grow food etc. In our colonial policy we have become too reliant on the colonies. This is your classical problem – power until the colonized realize collectively that we depend on them and decide to start bargaining for everything they sell us.
BRICS is such a path – if there is a second player that can offer assistance or provide an alternative, you can bargain with the master – a critical mass kind of a thing.
An additional complication are the massive amounts of debt in America and the fact that our financial system is so tightly dialed in – that a collective bargain by the global south that makes things only a few % more expensive, would mean massive cost increases in America. The social state of USA is also on the brink – rampant poverty, more taxation for less services, prisons overflowing, violence rampant, healthcare quality worsening with life expectancy going down, scarcity increasing, people at each others’ throats due to political, social and economic differences – all this does not point to a master in control, rather a master on paper whose destiny hangs in the balance. For America the story was always binary – we were the best and the rest were not – meaning, nobody will care if we are only slightly better here and worse there – it will be as bad as total defeat/loss.
Also, I think Afganistan was America’s last foreign military intervention for a long while. Firstly, now that Russians have been labeled as immoral to invade someone, it will be impossible for any western country to wage war anywhere. Secondly, such an escapade would be further proof of our duplicity. So, our ability to project military power is hobbled for years to come, all by our own doing and people will know this and take advantage of it.
‘Firstly, now that Russians have been labeled as immoral to invade someone, it will be impossible for any western country to wage war anywhere. ”
US is involved in multiple wars, largely with proxies, eg Congo where America is paying Rwanda and others to get in militarily so it can grab Congos minerals. The Ethiopian conflict is US driven. They recently over threw Somalia’s good president with blessing of Omar Ilhan, Pakistan style, oh and remember Imran.
America is not stopping it’s theft and killings, it’s increasing them after a relatively quiet trump era.
Biden admin will be one of the most violent, explotative and be murderous in history. And be they are just half way through their term.
So far:-
– expansion of military bases, eg, Kenya, Somalia, Pakistan, Europe
– overthrow of Imran Khan, Pak
– overthrow of Ex Somali president
– war in Ukraine, theft of Russian assets and unjustified persecution and theft from Russians
– destabilising the Stans, Kosovo, Armenia
– provoking China on Tibet
– threatening EVERYONE with sanctions
– funding war in Congo to steal
– stealing Iraqi and Syrian oil and wheat
– working with EU to sanction African pipelines and ensure no African energy independence
– ripping up relatively balanced free trade Agreements Trump made, eg with African countries, to impose draconian terms
– botched Afghan withdrawal with total destruction of the Northern Alliance that were the good guys pre US, so left Afghanistan worse off than when they came
…all this in two years.
> “I believe we are witnessing the end of America’s days as the World’s Policeman.”
i think you mean the World’s Mafia Thug.
.. and, is it coming to an end? .. well thank f**k for that.
It’s a nice country you got in there. It would be a shame if something bad happened to it.
Frankly, I laughed when I saw pictures of the unveiling of the new mysterious”stealthy” B21 bomber that costs an arm and a leg and is stillborn obsolete. It’s proof if need be of the privatization of government in the USA by private interests. I don’t think it is curable given what we are witnessing today of the arrogance of governing elites, backstabbing ans payback against political opponents, censorship and plain miscarriage of justice and open wanton impunity of gangster-style misdeeds by prominent politicians. It’s rotten to the core.
With a defense budget nearing one trillion (!) dollars, coupled with a 30+ trillion national debt and a slipping of the hegemony of the dollar as a tool of continued prosperity, the US is experiencing the imperial danger of overstretched spending with declining revenues, coupled with moral and social decay, that bankrupted so many empires from the Roman empire, to the British, and more recently the Soviet empire .
The US empire is doomed; it will remain a large country similar to Brazil, but it will never again make people dream, nor attract talent or wealth from overseas. The US was wealthy and dominant for many reasons, not the least of them was foreign contribution to that wealth that flocked to bolster the US economy and prosperity.
The major outcome of the war in Ukraine is the loss of face of the US which was exposed with all its weaknesses. This comes on the heels of the various shameful wars in which the US literally destroyed whole nations based on lies. This made a majority of people in the world sick and tired of the ill-bred violent cowboy slinging cow dung all over the planet just to impose its will. Nobody likes bullies. So many people in the world now abhor and reject everything that the US represents and do not want to have anything to do with it. Just look at Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states! Who would have thought? Next will be the Europeans: they’ll end up blaming the US for their miseries. At that point, the US will be left alone with no friends, just like a pariah nation.
Welcome to the new world order.
My opinion is that the US will never permit that loss of face to occur. They will escalate until the entire civilized world is destroyed to avoid it – if the US can’t have it (global rule), then no one can.
Special Ops also hoovered up two generations of the best and most motivated NCOs from the line units. The backbone of any army. Would the wokery have advanced so far without this hollowing out? The best guys not resisting because the potential escape to greener pastures in SOF? Hollywood completed the loop of expectation.
Incredible comments very insightful commenters. I look forward to reading each day
Great job Larry
Thanks to all the commenters.
This morning I read in my local Sydney paper the latest in an ongoing series of articles from the last few years quoting ‘experts’ urging us to spend even more billions of $ on US military equipment. It was about the B-21 which I didnt know anything about.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/should-australia-spend-30-billion-on-these-very-cool-stealth-bombers-20221211-p5c5bp.html
Looked impressive and our Defence Minister thinks they’re ‘very cool’ but I recall reading lots of pieces ripping the F-35 to shreds and we spent billions on those. I seem to recall one of them refused to leave the ground but no compensation was forthcoming from the US. Kissinger’s quip about being a friend of the US came to mind.
Imagine my surprise when I read here this afternoon that, according to Larry’s anonymous but esteemed source, the B-21 is ‘idiotic’. Well I wasn’t surprised at at all, really. Shocked, but not surprised.
We might not mind paying over the odds for things if they weren’t obvious lemons. Even better, we could consider sitting down with the rising powers in the non-Western world to strike a mutually beneficial detente which would free up large percentages of our GDPs for things we actually need.
But that would put a LOT of free lunchers out of business. (I nearly said ‘out of work’ but that ain’t work) I would love to see the share portfolios and sources of income of all these warmongering shills who are given platforms to tout for the MIC in our media.
i applaud our friend and his post is very interesting and welcome.
one quibble: any “planner” worth his salt would have advised against the 2014 coup and arming and fortifying the nazis for 8 years. this plan began long ago.
US support of Ukrainian (and other) Nazis started in 1945. They were supposed to be tool against USSR, and later became a tool against Russia. Supporting extremist all around the world was always essential for US foreign policy.
None of this is new. Strategic goal of British Empire was to keep Russia from Black Sea (Crimean War is a good illustration of this).
YOUR friend oops.
Mr. Johnson- i agree with the authors assesment on the current us military whose current military thinking is obsolete.
there is allot of discussion that the fighting in Bakhmut is allot like the fighting was in passchendaele during ww1. if anyone wants to check out what this is like- the following documentary and movie describe both very well in my opinion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele
Before the battle started the allies fired 4,000,000 shells over a 10 day period destroying the drainage system of the area and that along with the rain turned the entire battle area into a total mudbog. This makes the comment that the usa can only produce 20,000 shells a month puny by comparison.
For King and Empire | Episode 4 | Slaughter in the Mud- Passchendaele, 1917 | Norm Christie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njlrDT-QfH4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passchendaele_(film)
Inspiration
This film was inspired by Gross’s relationship with his maternal grandfather, Michael Joseph Dunne, who served in the 56th, 5th, 14th and 23rd Reserve Battalions, CEF,[8] in the First World War. Like many veterans, he was reticent about sharing his experiences with his family. In a rare conversation on a fishing trip,[9] Dunne told the story of bayonetting a young German soldier, who had eyes like water, through the head and killing him during a battle. A long time later, as Dunne lay in a hospital bed in the last days of his life, his family was mystified by Dunne’s behaviour of asking for forgiveness, over and over. Only Gross knew that he was speaking to the young German he had killed.[10]
(My thoughts- i hope that Mr. Dunne and the german soldier he killed are know both friends in the afterlife and their their existence is allot more pleasant know than it was on earth)
The film is below if yu want to watch it
Passchendaele Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRHp1Gbyhec
if you do not want to watch the whole movie; this is where the battle scenes in the mud begin at around the 65 minute mark
https://youtu.be/vRHp1Gbyhec?t=3865
this is the song that was sung after the credits called after the war. it is very touching and i believe these are the thoughts of many widows and girlfriends of ukraine and russian soldiers who have died during the conflict.
https://youtu.be/vRHp1Gbyhec?t=6375
Sarah Slean – After the war – Passchendaele
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De8NimBUBww
————————————————————————-
This vid describes mariupol fighting quite well in my opinion . In this battle it was house to house from inside each house as anyone who was in the open on the street was killed. The building construction in ortona is the same type of heavy construction as is in mariupol .
The Battle of Ortona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu52xkfLzl0
regards,
ralph
As an 62 year old man my biggest concern are the nukes.
When the empire of lies and plunder (complete G7 and vasalls) will be excluded, will they try to find a new way or will the mobster show its real face?
When they are can’t threat anymore other countries with nukes they can threat everyone else.
“Hi Nigeria, nice country you have. Would be so sad if it becomes radioactiv. Let’s change commodities, oil vs. Dollar/Euro. Oh, both currencies are worthless? Think of the nukes.”
What about civil war? No ‘problem’ in Germany where i live, in most european countries, Australia or Japan, no nukes. But what about France, England or the USA?
What happens when after a a decade or more of suffer and hardship Ex-EU and Ex-USA see the rising of Warlords, Self-proclaimed prophets and the real Hitler 2.0?
That last sentence is outstanding. The future is posited under the current paradigm and so is confined to that box. The world that will be is not confined by the old paradigm and is wide open for conjecture. The one thing that is for certain is that the new world will not mirror our expectations nurtured under the old system.
The removal of central power is not the end of the world, it is the beginning. It is entirely unfamiliar territory and so the uncertainty is daunting. Conjecture is typically an futuristic extention of the status quo which is the very thing that is ceasing to exist. Your realism is informed by history whereas the prevailing mode of thought seems to be that somehow things will be different this time.
Warlords often function as the local government and are supported by the local people in whose interest they act. Cherry picking the worst ones fails to notice any benefit to the situation. NGOs such as the Italian mafia in the US kept their communities safe. The Mexican cartels feed the poor no less self righteously than any missionary or do gooder.
As long as nukes exist there will be horrendous potential. But the more likely threat is looking to be chem/bio in nature. There is so much research in that direction and we don’t know what they have but we know what they have done already. Spain admitted to aerial spraying with “biocide” when “covid” hit. Double whammy of biowarfare. Nakba was crude by today’s standards. Now you can stand in the center of genocide and not know that it is even happening. It’s enough to make you miss that old cold war nuke threat because at least it was tangible.
Long time reader and a 20 Year field artilleryman. This conflict is going to Russia’s plans and in the end, they will prevail in conventional warfare as the US does not have the forces to face Russia. There is a reason Field Artillery is still the “King of Battle” they cause the most casualties on the battlefield. The American people and our lame leadership in Washington including our flag officers have bought into the high dollar, high visibility, weapons that will no longer hold any territory that my dog will. All they can do is support the ground troops which lack good systems and again many not hardened for combat and very costly. The new bomber is not needed all of our bombers drop or fire their weapon systems at a stand-off position never coming close to an advanced air defense system, period! Our carriers have gone from 3 billion a pop to over 14 billion what a dam joke and this does not include their complement of aircraft. The ground forces get what’s left over from our air and naval forces.
i could go into a huge text wall about capitalism, the MIC and whatever…but i’ll just say “follow the money”. the hackneyed old saying that “war is great for the economy” is the “allah o akbar” of the degenerate boomers that have been runing the country into the ground but they never considered that manufacturing weapons means you have to manufacture wars and that the “economy” only likes it when you’re the winner. has war been great for the ukie economy?
the US has – since the 80s but to some extent for centuries – made its fortunes with MIC spending and financial voodoo. this is the MIC equivalent of a financial “recession” leading to a “depression”. combine crashes in both sectors (not out of the question currently) and there will be nothing left but wal-marts selling useless chinese crap. and guns. lots of guns.
Russia is waiting for the USA-NATO armies to start the invasion like Napoleon and Hitler did; Ukraine is something like the battle of Borodino, the real war has not started yet.
I like your photo of Dragoons. My great-great-grandfather was in the 2nd U.S. Dragoons patrolling the Oregon Trail betw. 1855-1860. I always wanted to see what they looked like.
The best synopsis of the US state of affairs I have read in a long time Larry. I am not an American, but deeply admire Americans like your good self that call it as it is.
Americans themselves are always their best critics.
The B21 to me symbolises many things. It appears like a prop from a Hollywood movie, is made of media puffed-pastry, and runs off hubris and arrogance. It could have been in the latest Top Gun movie.
So much money spent for such little gain, and I agree entirely with the shift towards more pilotless missiles.
“What makes them “special” is the selection process the various units employ for qualifying men (and some women)”
Aside from the fact that combat isn’t women’s role. The standards that allow any woman to pass is too low and too lax.
Women cannot be the best at combat like men are.