Let’s do some Big Picture aggregating.
First, there’s a very nice half hour video available that takes as its overall theme: Inflating a Cold War State of Mind. That title neatly combines the two dominant realities of our world today, the dual threats of economic disorder and war on a global scale. This video actually dates back to April, 2022, so it provides an opportunity to judge how perceptive the two featured guests were at that time. Here’s the blurb at Youtube:
What do you do when inflation is so high, your people are having to choose between heating and eating? Well, logically, you should admit that your economic management has been poor. But the problem is, when it comes to the economy, Western nations are pretty bad at self-reflecting.
Host, Ross Ashcroft, met up with Author and financial expert, Matthias Weik, and Founder of Krainer Analytics, Alex Krainer, to discuss why Western nations are now looking around the world for a war.
Read all about it here: https://renegadeinc.com/inflating-a-c...
Read and download transcript here: https://renegadeinc.com/wp-content/up...
You’ll probably recognize Alex Krainer (whose segment begins around 14:00), who is a pal of Tom Luongo. Krainer, in his segment, focuses as much on geopolitics as strictly on economics, while Weik is mostly focused on economics—especially the prospects for stagflation. It’s all quite interesting and the two speak concisely.
Krainer, by the way, offers hope that a global escalation can be avoided—remember, he was saying this back in last April. In support of that view he cites, among other factors, the inability of the ruling elite to control the narrative entirely. On multiple fronts—Covid, election fraud, Russia hysteria, war mongering—the truth keeps seeping out to the public. The failure to scare the public into mass boosting—despite continued near constant panic mongering—is one indication that I’ve cited repeatedly. Readers have probably also seen two stories in the last day or two that point to the same inability to control the narrative: the admission in the WaPo that the Russia Hoax was, in fact, a hoax, and the DoD backdown from injection mandates—probably forced by extreme recruiting shortfalls. This same gradual shift of public opinion is happening with regard to the war on Russia. As I’ve expressed over the last few days, I continue to cautiously hope that reality will impinge upon the push to war.
Here’s the Youtube:
Secondly, I want to draw attention to a Tom Luongo interview on Rumble—which means that I can’t embed the video here. The interview is a three way discussion that took place just a day ago, which provides a contrast to the much older Weik/Krainer video, above. Luongo, IMO, manages to prevent the discussion from getting too diffuse. Like Weik/Krainer he offers his views on the prospect of a serious stagflationary period approaching. Also, like Krainer, he offers some grounds for optimism—in this case, with regard to US politics. Finally, he mentions that he will be having Danielle DiMartino Booth on his podcast fairly soon, which should be a fascinating discussion—I can’t believe that Danielle would come on with Tom to offer simple bromides. The video is an hour long, but I found it quite enjoyable:
More Big Picture, this time from Big Serge. Perhaps I’ve been negligent, but I haven’t noticed too much from Big Serge lately. However, today he has a Twitter thread in which he speculates on what will come next in Ukraine. In other words, what will the rumored Big Russian Offensive look like?
Right now, the contact line is some 700 kilometers stretching from the Dnieper estuary in the south to northern Lugansk oblast. Troop concentrations and active combat are broadly present on four major axes. (Maps by me).
The Svatove axis is where Ukraine's Kharkov counteroffensive was stonewalled after crossing the Oskil river and struggling to break Lyman in a timely manner. Ukrainian efforts to continue the advance have been repeatedly defeated.
The Bakhmut axis has been the subject of most attention lately, but there is a paucity of Russian regular forces in this direction. Most of the work here is being achieved by the Wagner PMC and LNR forces, assisted by VDV.
Most of the Russian army forces currently committed in Ukraine are currently on the Svatove and Zaporozhia axes in a defensive stance. Contrary to the impression given by western sources, the regular Russian Army has not been engaged in widespread attacking activity lately.
Note the Zaporozhia axis. This is what we referenced yesterday, citing Douglas Macgregor. Ukraine has been forced to withdraw a major portion of its forces from that Zaporozhia axis to shore up the crumbling Bakhmut front. That, as we said yesterday, opens an opportunity for Russia.
Much of Russia's combat power is currently uncommitted, and will be used to renew offensive operations in the coming weeks and months. The question is when and where.
There remains a distinct possibility that there will be no "Big Arrow" offensive, and instead we will see lots of "small arrow" attacks with Russia going over to the offensive on all the existing Axes. This would mean forward progress, but no major new fronts being opened.
This is one possibility speculated on by Scott Ritter yesterday. Why not simply continue the war of attrition that General Surovikin is famous for? After all, how likely is it, actually, that NATO will be able to provide game changing weaponry to Ukraine at this point? Perhaps time is on Russia’s side, as it grinds down NATO’s war making abilities, destroying it in Ukraine. My guess is that Macgregor will end up being right, that Putin will decide to put an end to this terrible war in decisive fashion.
Let's contemplate big arrow scenarios. There are four broad possibilities, so let's consider them in turn. The first (1) is for an operation aimed southward on the west bank of the Oskil river. This is one that I find appealing.
This would target the Kupyansk-Izyum corridor, and has two major advantages. First, it would collapse and potentially encircle Ukraine's force grouping on the Svatove axis. Secondly, the capture of Izyum (along with Bakhmut) makes Slavyansk essentially indefensible.
The second option (2) is a mixed solution which would repeat Russia's thrust towards Sumy at the beginning of the war. This is less mutually supportive of the existing axes, but has the advantage of pressuring Kiev directly and forcing massive internal redeployment.
I’m not so convinced of this one, because I believe (1) and (3) would also force “massive internal redeployment”, and would also be more closely directed at firming up the new borders that Russia announced after the referendums in the fall—refer to the map below.
Then we have the Zaporozhia option (3) which would push north, aiming to clear the east bank of the Dnieper. The draw here is the ability to interdict Ukraine's lines of communication.
Ideally, any offensive from the south would reach Pavlograd. This is the major city on the highway between Dnipro and Donetsk. Capturing or screening Pavlograd would wreck Ukraine's logistics on the Donetsk axis.
Finally, we have the nuclear option, number 4: the west bank offensive from Belarus. We've seen a huge amount of material flowing into Belarus recently, which has lent credence to this theory. This is the high risk-high reward option.
A Belarusian offensive would presumably target Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia, rather than Kiev. The obvious benefit of such a gambit is the potential to entirely interdict the flow of weapons from Ukraine's NATO partners, which must traverse the entirety of Ukraine.
Of course, an operation on the west bank of the Dnieper would be an independent axis, not supportive of other fronts and complicating Russia's sustainment problems.
I would point out that an offensive to interdict NATO weapons coming from Poland through Western Ukraine would not require that Russia engage in urban warfare in Zhytomyr or Vinnytsia. A simple push through relatively open country would accomplish that much, in combination with aero-space forces. So far we have no indications that Russia wishes to incorporate those areas permanently.
It's possible that we see some combination of these. Ultimately, Russia has a very very long border to play with (courtesy of Uncle Sasha and Belarus), and a significant share of their combat power uncommitted. They are spoiled for choice.
I am personally an advocate of the Oskil option, pushing forces directly south from Belgorod towards Izyum. However, the amount of material that has been seen flowing into Belarus leaves me unable to rule anything out at this point.
One thing is certain: Russia is going to win this war.
Lastly, I can’t resist including this Tucker tour de force that I picked up from CTH. It’s still not clear to me how this business of Biden - Ukraine docs went public. But it remains: It’s always Ukraine, somehow. US political corruption always seems to revolve around Ukraine:
Interesting but rather doom-laden article by Martin Armstrong today. He mentions the massive show of force by the Russian Navy in the Black Sea and thinks it signals a big uptick in the conflict. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out. However, he also talks about the pressure on Putin from the hardliners in Moscow, who, according to MA, might try and oust him by May if things don't move along more decisively. He's pretty sure that WWIII is coming our way. Also, Armstrong doesn't agree with Tom L and others about the reasoning behind the Fed's interest rates policy. He believes that the Fed is keeping interest rates high not just to fight inflation but because it knows that the Biden Regime is heading for war and "lowering interest rates would now cause a capital crisis when staring war in the eyes." I don't know enough about economics to know who is right, and I don't know Armstrong's success rate as an analyst. But this just shows how complicated it is for the average Joe to work out what the heck is going on behind the curtain. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/bonds/beware-the-plot-behind-interest-rates/
I believe Substack have instituted an update: you can now embed Rumble videos. Try it next time to see if it works, I've seen it on other substacks.