Earlier today we updated our assessment of the situation in the Middle East—where are the Neocons headed? That post was itself a follow on from yesterday’s
Is A Major Escalation Of The Neocon War On The World In The Works?
Here we’ll briefly update that post from the standpoint of Simplicius’ latest SitRep:
Biden Launches Attacks as Russia Again Breaches Major Avdeevka Lines
In spite of the very narrow sounding focus of the title, Simplicius’ SitRep is actually quite wide ranging. Let’s start with the sum of what we wrote yesterday—which was written with the then upcoming retaliatory strikes in the Middle East in mind:
The big prize in the Middle East, from a Neocon geostrategic perspective, is probably to collapse growing Russian influence and to detach Saudi Arabia from BRICS. The big picture reverts to the pipe dream of an Israel - Sunni alliance against Iran with pressure on Turkey to allow NATO entry to the Black Sea.
That being the case, how will the Neocons freeze Russia into focusing on Europe to the extent that Russia will refrain from an active role in the Middle East? Readers will undoubtedly be aware that the past months have seen three developments in the Ukraine situation. First, the US and NATO are once again upping the ante by providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine—yesterday saw the agreement to provide Ukraine, almost immediately, with longish range guided bombs (90 km.) that haven’t even been issued to US forces yet. There was also Nuland in Kiev this week announcing battlefield “surprises” for Russia and generally beating the war drums. With the devastation of Ukrainian manpower, this appears to be the only way to keep Ukraine fighting. Secondly, there have been more instances of Ukrainian terror and industrial sabotage attacks inside Russia. Thirdly, the US is rushing to set up bases in northern Finland and Sweden, within striking range of Russia’s key ice free Arctic port of Murmansk—a threat Russia will find difficult to ignore.
Simplicius spends a lot of time discussing what to me are largely speculative scenarios. Much of what he writes also revolves around the power struggle between Zelensky and Zaluzhny. As for the power struggle, I’m agnostic—I have no sources. However, I find it plausible that it’s actually Zelensky who is going to go. Simplicius provides plausible arguments in that regard, including these two: 1) Zaluzhny appears to have more support within the right wing (Neo-Nazi) faction in Ukraine, which dominates the NatSec sector, and 2) Zaluzhny’s recent writings on military matters (not authorized by Zelensky) suggest to me that he may be more in tune with NATO concepts than Zelensky. Zelensky has been a proponent of defending “fortress cities” to the last man—thus generating enormous and unreplaceable losses of manpower. Zaluzhny appears to be more open to withdrawing in order to shorten defensive lines (such withdrawals could be very significant in terms of square mileage), with the aim of fighting a more fluid defensive war to bleed the Russian forces.
For the rest, Simplicius varies a bit. On the one hand, he makes the important point that we do appear to be hearing a lot more about foreign fighters—most likely NATO professionals in Ukrainian uniforms—showing up in Ukraine:
On that note, there is again increased talk of mercenaries everywhere. As Ukraine runs out of men, NATO hawks hatch their plans for a desperate last-bell save, as well as pump their disrobed soldiers into the country to stem the losses. Not only have recent Russian reports mentioned a lot of ‘German chatter’ in intercepted comms in Kupyansk, but more and more foreigners have been eliminated in recent strikes.
That observation comes in the context of quite a bit of discussion about what appear to me to be largely unrelealistic speculation:
German, Dutch, Polish discussions on an agreement to allow for rapid troop movements across their borders—i.e., German and Dutch troops (does the Netherlands actually have troops that don’t go home on weekends?) moving into Poland, not Polish troops moving west.
UK crazy talk of deploying a NATO “expeditionary force” to the west bank of the Dnieper.
Polish talk of a 50 km. “no-fly zone” along the Ukraine border.
Simplicius’ own talk of a Polish move into Western Ukraine.
Simplicius’ speculation of an American blocking move to keep Russia from taking Odessa
My long-time readers will recall that I always said at the moment when Ukraine was near to total collapse, there will come a point that NATO will strongly consider creating some kind of ‘event’ or justification for them to save western Ukraine from falling into Russia’s hands. I talked about the American 82nd and 101st going from Romania to ‘block’ Odessa in the same way Russian forces once did in the Pristina airport incident. As well as other forces potentially in western Ukraine, particularly those that can create a shield for a Ukrainian government-in-exile once Kiev falls.
I find all of these notions irrelevant to wildly improbable. Which is to say, if NATO were crazy enough to attempt such schemes that impinged on territory within the borders of the former Soviet Union, Russia would put its foot down—hard. The 82nd and 101st wouldn’t stand a chance at blocking Russia from the Russian city of Odessa. Far less could any NATO “expeditionary force” stop Russia from achieving its full war goals.
No, all of these ideas appear to me to have a more limited objective. First of all, to keep Ukraine in existence past the November US elections. There will be no “desperate last-bell save.”
Beyond that limited objective, it’s possible that the developments that I noted yesterday, and repeated above,
First, the US and NATO are once again upping the ante by providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine—yesterday saw the agreement to provide Ukraine, almost immediately, with longish range guided bombs (90 km.) that haven’t even been issued to US forces yet. There was also Nuland in Kiev this week announcing battlefield “surprises” for Russia and generally beating the war drums. With the devastation of Ukrainian manpower, this appears to be the only way to keep Ukraine fighting.
Secondly, there have been more instances of Ukrainian terror and industrial sabotage attacks inside Russia.
Thirdly, the US is rushing to set up bases in northern Finland and Sweden, within striking range of Russia’s key ice free Arctic port of Murmansk—a threat Russia will find difficult to ignore.
smack of the forlorn hope that these moves will somehow place Ukraine in the position of being able to force Russian into a negotiated end of the war on terms that NATO will find relatively favorable—NATO would retain a toehold in Ukraine. Note, that this works well with the idea of Zaluzhny replacing Zelensky. I call that a “forlorn” hope because you could knock me down with a feather if the Russians fell for it. After something like 50k Russian soldiers KIA defending the Motherland, there is simply no way that Putin could agree to anything of the sort. This is not like America’s wars of choice around the world. The Russians regularly repeat their original war aims—a demilitarized, denazified, NATO free Ukraine. Their stated goals have only expanded over time and I take them at their word.
The only real question is whether Russia is able to play a strong hand in the Middle East at the same time that it continues its Special Military Operation.
I see that Jake Sullivan was on the Sunday talk shows spinning more fables for the clueless and claiming that the recent strikes had “degraded” Iran and the Houthi’s ability to indulge in more mischief. First question, “Ok Jake, if these raids did such a bang up job, how come the sea corridors are still essentially closed and why did a large French shipping company decide to stop transit in the area because the risk was just too great?” Doesn’t really scream success if you ask me, but what do I know, I’m just one of the great unwashed who needs to eat my portion of bugs and shut the hell up.
Of course if that’s not enough to spoil your Sunday, he did promise that this was only the beginning and there was lots more to come!
Looking at this guy spouting more empty neocon nonsense reminded me of something that Winston Churchill once remarked about another politician, “You just have to remember, there’s a lot less there than meets the eye!” Always loved that line.
I can't help but note that the true purpose of US support for the Ukraine war is not to defend Ukraine...it is, as we all know, to weaken and ultimately destroy Russia. Thus, as long as some progress (real or imagined and/or advertised through Western propaganda) is made in weakening Russia, it really doesn't much matter whether it is Ukrainian soldiers who are dying or NATO mercenaries who are dying. Or Ukrainian civilians. Nor, I would submit, does it matter much if the Ukrainian nation is being destroyed in the process.
This leads me to one of the baseline concerns I have (I hope we all have) with the US Elites (Deep State, Neocons, the intelligence apparatus, MSM) is their apparently fundamental belief that we must embrace without questioning global American hegemony, the US Rules Based Order, unqualified support for Israel and opposition to Russia, and Endless War as our bedrock foreign policy and their repeated lies and deceptions in support of these policies.
It was my increasing perception of and concern regarding the lies and deception that first brought me to this site sometime after Trump's election. In the beginning I was simply trying to understand whether, how and to what extent the government and the MSM had lied about Donald Trump in connection with his run for office and then continuing into his presidency. Before too long I became totally convinced that the government and MSM had lied to the American people repeatedly, deliberately and shamelessly in order to destroy Donald Trump and...destroy Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
The correctness of this conclusion is confirmed without any doubt by Glenn Greenwald's magnificent 2 hour + review of the Russiagate hoax first broadcast a day or two ago:
https://rumble.com/v4azhqc-system-update-show-222.html?mref=6zof&mc=dgip3&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Glenn+Greenwald&ep=1
Greenwald's comprehensive review is a must watch for anyone wishing to understand the depths of mendacity undertaken by the US Elites to destroy Trump...and bring down Putin and Russia. It is also a must watch because there is no reason to believe the US Elites will not adopt the same strategy (of deceptions and lies) in the upcoming 2024 election.
No one can be surprised when this happens.
Postscript: I meant to also say that I find it literally *impossible* to believe anything the Elites tell me today in light of the extensive, orchestrated and undoubted lies they told me between 2016 and 2020. Why would they have been lying then, but not now? I don't think human beings and human nature work that way.