A Dangerous New Point In The War On Russia

It’s been apparent for a long time that there has never been any real prospect of Russia being defeated on America’s chosen battlefield—Ukraine. The talk we’ve been hearing of the vaunted Ukraine counteroffensive being designed to make serious gains on the ground that would force Russia into a favorable settlement—favorable to the American Empire—has faded into recriminations against the Ukrainians. However, there is a new strategy being advanced in the media—one which ends up in the same way as envisioned in the previous version. Russia will be forced—by military force—to either negotiate a peace or to at least agree to a ceasefire. The basic idea is that Ukraine will slowly fall back, to shorten its defensive lines and make up for its vast losses in personnel and equipment. In the meantime, Ukraine will gear up an armaments industry—basically from scratch—while Western aid keeps the war going.

What I see as the truly dangerous new development is the possibility that, in view of the likelihood that Ukraine will not be able to last as long as that pie in the sky scenario requires, Ukraine is being provided with significant new weaponry—almost certainly operated by NATO, including US, military personnel—with the idea of bludgeoning Russia into a ceasefire by inflicting heavy losses. Couple with this are some very aggressive new developments involving US bases. Here are a few examples:

• First we have the missile attack on a Crimean port that was previously out of range of the missiles that have been provided to Ukraine. While it’s not definite, there are reports that the missiles used may have been longer range Storm Shadow missiles from the UK’s store.

• The claimed use of Patriot missiles batteries—manned by US personnel—that had been moved near the front lines in the Kherson region. Japan, under US pressure, is apparently transferring Patriot batteries that may be redeployed to Ukraine. Russia has issued a harsh warning to Japan if those missiles are used against Russia:

Such a scenario would be "interpreted as unambigously hostile actions against Russia and will lead to grave consequences for Japan in the context of bilateral relations", [Zakharova] said.

• The agreement of Finland to grant the US access to all 15 of their military bases. This could place US forces in proximity to the key ice free Russian port of Murmansk as well as to Russian naval installations. Americans don’t usually remember things of this sort, but during the Russian Civil War British and American troops occupied Murmansk. Russians remember.

Predictably, the Russians weren’t amused by Finland’s foolish action: Russia Points North – "You Will Suffer First of All".

According to Russia, Finland will not only taste the consequences of joining NATO. The country will also be first in line to suffer if tensions between Russia and the Western world escalate further, warns Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov, as reported by Reuters.

Politico has an article that suggests that my fears are well founded—that the Neocons are intent on bludgeoning Russia by main military force into some sort of settlement that the American Empire will be able to spin as a victory:

The Biden Administration Is Quietly Shifting Its Strategy in Ukraine

For two years, Biden and Zelenskyy have been focused on driving Russia from Ukraine. Now Washington is discussing a move to a more defensive posture.

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, ...

U.S. and European officials are now discussing the redeployment of Kyiv’s forces ... into a stronger defensive position ... In addition, the Biden administration is focused on rapidly resurrecting Ukraine’s own defense industry to supply the desperately needed weaponry the U.S. Congress is balking at replacing.

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation.

The article then discusses US politics and Zhou’s shifting rhetoric—from “as long as it takes” to “as long as we can.”

Some analysts believe that is code for: Get ready to declare a partial victory and find a way to at least a truce or ceasefire with Moscow, one that would leave Ukraine partially divided.

The difficulty here is simple: How to get Russia to cooperate? Previous attempts to con the Russians have fallen totally flat. George Beebe, a former chief of Russia analysis for the CIA, points out that time is critical:

“The longer this goes on the more we’re going to have to concede up front just to get the Russians to the negotiating table.”

A shift to defense could buy Ukraine the time it needs to eventually force Putin into an acceptable compromise.

Read and parse that carefully. The Neocons understand that they don’t have much time to play with, and that the only was to pull this off is to “force” Putin to comply. Have you ever tried to force the leader of what’s turning out to be the most capable military in the world to comply with your wishes? I haven’t either, but it sure seems like a tricky strategy. One false move, and … Maybe that’s what that special flight from St. Petersburg to DC was about—the flight that sat on the tarmac for 54 hours. This is why I call this a dangerous situation.

At any rate, there’s lots more in the article, much of it having to do with the US political angle. But what about the Russian perspective on all this? Dmitry Medvedev—who, if anyone does, knows the mind of Putin—is unimpressed and, seemingly, unmoved:

Dmitry Medvedev @MedvedevRussiaE

Question by RIA Novosti: The collective West, having wasted almost all of its weapons, starts to push the Kiev regime to engage in talks in 2024. Is that possible?

Answer: What about the talks in 2024? It’s all perfectly clear.

1. The special military operation will continue, with its aim still being the disarmament of the Ukrainian forces, and abandonment of neo-nazi ideology by the present-day state of Ukraine.

2. Displacement of the ruling Bandera [i.e., Ukro-Nazi] regime is, though not openly stated, the most important and inevitable goal which must, and will be achieved.

3. Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kiev, as well as many others are Russian cities, temporarily occupied. All of them are still marked by the colours of yellow and blue on the maps and pads.

And so, yes. The “talks” are possible, of course. Russia never rejected them – unlike the mad authorities of Ukraine. Such “talks” have no time limits. They can go on till full defeat and surrender of the North Atlantic Alliance’s Bandera forces.

And, by the way, I’d like to inform you that since January 1, 2023, the Armed Forces of Russian Federation have accepted half a million people as servicemen under contract.

3:00 AM · Dec 28, 2023

Translation: The SMO will continue with the same goals as ever. Just to be clear, that means that the current regime in Kiev will be “displaced.” Inevitably. We’re perfectly happy to talk with anyone—talk, and talk, and talk—while we continue to carry out the SMO to its conclusion. Ceasefire? Don’t make us laugh! Oh, did we mention? Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kiev, as well as many other cities are Russian cities—it’s just that they’re temporarily occupied by the Bandera regime.

I’ll finish off with a very thought provoking partial transcript from Judge Nap and Matt Hoh:

Matthew Hoh: Who Really Controls US Foreign Policy?

The Ukrainians are going to be the next Afghans. They are going to be forgotten and left behind as soon as that's politically convenient for the US, as soon as the US can see another path in Eastern Europe. For the US one of the reasons why I think we may have an interest in a negotiated settlement in Ukraine is because the major aspect, maybe the most important aspect for the Americans is the domination of the energy market in Europe. For me this is where it all begins. How did this go from, in 2012, Barack Obama in debates making fun of Mitt Romney for suggesting that Russia is an adversary, to within a year the Russia phobia that we have seen? For me a lot of that comes from fracking and, then at the same time, the construction or the expansion of a dozen or so liquid natural gas terminals on the East Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico. They had to send all this fracked gas someplace and where's the best market? It was Europe. For me that's the genesis of the last decade's worth of tensions with Russia, as well as you know the genesis of the coup in Ukraine in 2014. So in that sense the Americans have won, at least at this point, because we are dominating that energy market. We are now the largest liquid natural gas supplier to the world with much of that going to Europe, taking over from what the Russians used to provide.

So, if the Americans can say, 'Look, we got this and this is what we really wanted,' we can always just spin what we did in Ukraine as, 'We stopped Vladimir Putin, he was only ever to able to advance 60 or 70 kilometers west, he only actually really took 10% of the territory because he had taken Crimea before, this is a victory. We stopped the tyrant in his tracks, he wasn't able to march on Berlin or Paris.' You can see how Biden could spin this when he's out campaigning for reelection. These are all the things that should make the people in Kiev realize that they are ripe for betrayal ...

We're coming out of Christmas and I think it's appropriate to understand the societal aspects of this--the philosophical, the metaphysical, the religious aspects of all this. What we are seeing is really something that is unholy, and I think you can use that in a religious sense but also in a secular sense: the moral horror of this and what that means for us as a people, who we are and, of course, what it has done to tens and tens of millions of people. But then, too, the nightmare of the Empire, the ever extending nightmare of the empire, in the sense that as things get out of control for our Empire, as it devolves, as it falls apart, as there's more fractures in it, as we try to maintain more control by putting pressure on things through violence, through military force, whether direct or by proxy, it causes even greater stress which cause even greater fractures.

So what that plays out to, then, is nations saying, 'This American hegemony just doesn't benefit us--it harms us. We have to not just get away from it, we don't just need to find alternatives like, say, the BRICS, but we need to actively oppose it.’ So what you see is things like what are happening in the Red Sea, with the Houthis or Ansar Allah as they're called, fighting back, and the harm that has caused because they can fight back asymmetrically against very soft parts of the Empire's global economy. It's causing effects that are really outstripping what our actual capabilities are and so, rather than seeing that the way to handle this is to address what they are are fighting about, what they are standing up against--basically stop the genocide in Gaza--the desire is to double down on it and to quash them militarily. So what we're seeing play out in the Red Sea, that could blow up into other things with consequences that we just can't foresee but are likely going to be bad, is something that is just lost on the Romneys the Grahams the Blumenthals, because, one, they are so ideologically driven, they are infested with this religious American exceptionalism, they believe it's good for their careers, but also this is how they're they're underwritten by the arms industry.