Briefly Noted: Persian Gulf Update; Russian War Spending
Yesterday we briefly tried to point out the significance of the UAE’s turn to Iran and withdrawal from a US-led joint naval security regime for the Persian Gulf. This occurred in the wake of US seizures of oil tankers for “sanctions violations”, and Iranian counter seizures. Commenter Old Frank later came up with tweet that demonstrates just how determined the Gulf nations—including traditional enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia—to assert their independence of the West and to take control of their own security. This represents a definite turn toward the Eurasian bloc, with the object of ultimately pushing the US Navy out of the Gulf:
The Sirius Report
@thesiriusreport
Washington will be thrilled:
Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman will form a joint navy to guarantee the security of the Persian Gulf.
8:45 AM · Jun 2, 2023
All the geopolitical shifts we’ve been discussing are happening at an increasing tempo. One would have expected a more gradual shift, but it appears that the Neocon “war on the world” regime and the firm response of Russia and China has induced fence sitters to make their choice. For Eurasia.
Now, here’s a remarkable article from a very mainstream outlet. It turns out that Russia is not being economically and financially weakened from their war effort. On the contrary, the collective West is finding itself being drained:
Russia is spending surprisingly little on its war on Ukraine
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has cost Moscow a small amount by historical standards, per the Economist.
Russia's spending remains opaque, but its war budget is about 3% of GDP.
By comparison, the Soviet Union spent 61% of GDP in World War II.
Armchair Warlord comments:
Armchair Warlord
@ArmchairW
Russia is apparently gassing NATO in Ukraine on $67 billion a year. Which is about a quarter of what their enemies are throwing at them.
Beyond showing that Russia can fight this war until doomsday, this is a damning indictment of Western MIC bloat.
8:58 PM · Jun 2, 2023
Will Schryver presents the numbers that show that Russia is crushing the West industrially—this can’t be turned around any time soon, will just keep getting worse if Ukraine keeps burning through supplies:
Will Schryver
@imetatronink
The Pentagon proudly announced that US artillery ammunition production is now up to 30k rounds PER MONTH, and they hope to double that by 2025.
The Russians average about 25k rounds of artillery ammo PER DAY, with surge capacity to 75k rounds per day.
And now the US is begging Japan to produce explosives for them, in order to supply the demand for US artillery shell production.
Col. Vershinin saw this coming:
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
7:09 PM · Jun 2, 2023
This isn’t going to end well. The feckless Uniparty is authorizing ramped up spending beyond already insane levels, while it’s becoming clear to all that the economy is heading for serious recession and the role of the dollar internationally is steadily decling.
"Russia can fight this war until doomsday..."
Saturday morning coffee thoughts...
That's the thing the Neocons have no answer for. There is no conceivable win on the NATO side...if there is somehow a "Spring Offensive' and Ukraine re-takes some territory, what do they expect Russia to do? Leave? No way. They will retreat, regroup and attack. Until doomsday. (Perhaps 'doomsday' is a nuclear resolution.)
Now that Biden and Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken have laid their cards on the table, I can't see any way Russia stops until Ukraine is no longer a security threat. There may well end up being NATO offensive weapons on the Polish and Romanian and Baltic borders, but there won't be any in Ukraine and it will have cost the West hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives to learn this hard lesson. In this sense I think Putin wins. The US will have to think twice (or more) before crossing any more RF redlines in the future. And of course, along the way, the US will have (stupidly) prompted a hard global re-alignment of economic, financial, military, political, trade, resource, and currency interests which will unfold in ways that the US can't possibly control. I can't imagine this is an optimal result.
Evidence of ongoing US failures accumulate. https://twitter.com/profplum99/status/1664264292785602568 [edit: click on the chart to enlarge]
How far does the corruption in Fed Gov't reach? This is an update/revised chart from Bureau of Labor Stats of Month over Month changes for Q4 2022. - BLS published stats just updated (Tweet is dated June 1). While shared from a business perspective, (as evidence of recession likely been happening for a while) what I'm noting is the BLS seems complicit in the big-fooling of the few citizens paying attention at all. These revisions aren't slight and are important markers of trends. It seems the goal of perverting public information has no bounds, apparently now including BLS reporting.
I am struck with the thought, how, if even possible, can this country return to that which is trustworthy not only of it's role in world affairs, but even to it's citizens?
Maybe the point is there may not be a path... Hard for me to swallow such a prospect. (Thanks to all for enduring my posts). Best regards Mark and also to your well-informed and thoughtful readership! (WrH)