Logistics vs. The Narrative

Today Larry Johnson makes a smart comparison of NATO thinking to Napoleon’s thinking when he invaded Russia. Napoleon was able to force the Imperial Russian Army into a vast battle with his Grande Armée at Borodino but, far from inflicting a decisive defeat on Russia, the French led forces suffered such heavy losses that, while they did occupy Moscow for a time, they were forced into a desperate, and ultimately catastrophic, retreat from Russia. The result was that the French led forces lost the initiative and were forced into—are you ready for this?—a war of attrition:

When Napoleon and his men visited the city, he found that it was burnt and abandoned upon his arrival. While Napoleon was in Moscow, he sent a letter to the tsar who was residing in Saint Petersburg demanding that he surrender and accept defeat. Napoleon received no response. Whilst patiently waiting for an answer from the tsar, as soon as the cold winter and snowfall started to form, Napoleon, realizing what was happening, attempted to escape the country with his men.

Does that sound uncannily like the Neocon/NATO strategy? Trying to convince Putin to agree to defeat, when he holds all the cards? The problem Napoleon faced was that it proved impossible to live off the vast and sparsely populated Russian countryside, while the Russian army attacked at every opportunity. It all came down to supply lines—Napoleon had none that were viable. Here’s how LJ describes this:

WEST OPTS FOR BORODINO STRATEGY IN UKRAINE AND CHINA

The Battle of Borodino was the apogee of Napoleon’s reckless attempt to conquer Russia and set the stage for his ensuing defeat — French losses in securing their “victory” at Borodino, left them decimated and unable to finish the war they started. ... They lacked the logistics to sustain themselves in a zone of conflict. ...

Here we are more than 200 years since that debacle and the French are back on Russian territory (yes, the land we call Ukraine today was Russian territory in 1812). ...

But it is not just the French who are foolishly choosing to escalate the war with Russia, the United States and many of the NATO countries also are openly encouraging Ukraine to use Western supplied missiles to strike inside Russia, disregarding Russia’s warning that this is a redline. …

…

The Borodino strategy is not confined to Ukraine. The United States is intent on going to war with China. That is insanity. Just as Napoleon’s deep incursion into Russia stretched his lines of communications (i.e. logistics) to the point of collapse, the United States is talking about a military confrontation with China that it cannot sustain.

The failure of Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea, which ostensibly has nothing to do with China, is in fact a precursor of what the United States would encounter if it goes to war with China. Projecting power with surface ships in an age of drones and hypersonic missiles, is the 21st Century analogy of attacking a machine gun position with horse-mounted cavalry. I am not ignoring the possibility that the United States, through a combination of surface vessels, submarines and aviation assets could inflict serious casualties on the Chinese. But the Chinese will be punching back and, after an initial spurt of energy, the U.S. will be unable to sustain its forces in the Pacific, far from the U.S. mainland.

The lesson of Borodino is that a war of attrition favors the power that is closest to its supply lines. It is a lesson the West, especially America, refuses to learn. The U.S. ruling political class — both Republican and Democrat — have deluded themselves into believing that they can impose their will on the world by using force. Diplomacy, in their fantasy world, is for pussies. There is not a Presidential candidate who is advocating diplomacy rather than military force. The United States and Europe are stumbling towards a war that is entirely avoidable, but are refusing to take the off-ramps that would de-escalate the conflicts.

One other lesson from Borodino — even though Napoleon’s army suffered terrible losses, Napoleon maintained his insatiable thirst for conquest and refused to find a path to peace. It was that unquenched desire that led him ultimately to Waterloo. The Western quest to dominate Russia and China is likely to lead to a 21st Century Waterloo for America and Europe. Yes, history rhymes.

That last comparison—the West today, like Napoleon two hundred years ago—refusing to engage in diplomacy—or making only the most awkward stabs at diplomacy—is picked up by Alastair Crooke in his conversation with Judge Nap today. The West believes that magic words can defeat Russia, can persuade Putin to back away from victory. The logistical impossibility of waging an industrial scale war against Russia in Russia is to be overcome by a “winning narrative”:

Alastair Crooke: How the West Must Change

Crooke: There are times when you cannot stand on the beach and command the tide to go out when you'd like it to. You have to wait for the tide to change and then you can use those currents, hopefully, to move things. But diplomacy also depends on having channels open. I used to say to people when they would come and say to me, 'We'd like to go and meet such and such a group, or something like that, in the Middle East.' And I would say,'Listen, you can't just come here and sort of say, let's get to the bottom line. What's your position, what's our position, let's do a deal and take the first plane home.' You have to spend a lot of time investing in your meeting, especially in the East where it's different from the West and people think in a different way. So you can't just get on a plane, go over, and think you're going to resolve everything in a day on the back of an envelope, and hop off back to Washington or Brussels or wherever you come from.

So this is a different sort of diplomacy. Sometimes you have have to have the ability to look at a conflict and realize there is no solution at the moment, perhaps after there's been a trial of strength. People will be able to rethink their own position and maybe then you'll be able to move slowly towards some form of political settlement. But today it's all become very much sort of downgraded and attenuated to sort of simply quick call a solution. Sometimes there isn't a quick solution. Sometimes trying a quick solution makes things worse, and that's what we're seeing both in Israel and in in Russia too.

Especially when time is on the other guy’s side.

The Judge: When Tony Blinken goes back and forth between Washington and the various places he goes to, does he realize the dangers of deception or of actual lying?

Crooke: No--they think it's very clever. The whole shift in the Western way of doing business is to craft what they call a winning narrative--a narrative that suggests that the West is winning and that the other side, which generally is sort of evil and autocratic or intolerant, the other side simply has a clunky narrative and is not capable of winning. I think this idea of using winning narratives is really very dangerous as a substitute for really trying to hear and understand what is going on with the other people.

The difference this time around is that nuclear weapons are part of the matchup. Danny Davis addresses that in a 24 minute video (Why Are We Risking Nuclear War with Russia?). Like LJ and Crooke, Davis stresses that catastrophe is readily avoidable, but the West has painted itself into a corner from which they cannot negotiate and cannot accept peace—their “winning narrative” won’t allow the Neocons to negotiate with “literal Hitler.” One almost suspects that the narrative was constructed intentionally—to head off any attempts of dissenters to demand a rational approach to resolving any supposed differences with Russia. Because to do so would short circuit the big show—the coming war with China.

Our destiny is in the hands of madmen.