Prepping The Public For Failure In Ukraine

Politico has an interesting, but very discreetly sourced, article about the coming—or possibly coming—Ukrainian spring offensive. The article:

Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive

Behind closed doors, the administration worries about what Ukraine can accomplish.

is mostly vaguely sourced to “administration officials” and and other similarly shadowy figures. The Zhou regime finds itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it badly needs some sort of Ukrainian initiative that can be sold to the American public as a success in order to maintain the flow of Congressional support, which is looking less and less sure. On the other hand, the likelihood that—instead of a success—Ukraine will suffer additional horrific losses looms, and is supported by such “intelligence” as the US possesses. Much of this dilemma stems from the attempt to portray the fall Ukrainian offensives (in the Kharkov and Kherson directions) as brilliant successes. The reality, as we know, is that—in combination with the Bakhmut meat grinder—those offensives turned out to be catastrophic for Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of much of their second iteration of an armed force. That false portrayal has led to increased and unrealistic expectations among anti-Russia true believers for the much promised spring offensive.

The Biden administration is quietly preparing for the possibility that if Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive falls short of expectations, critics at home and allies abroad will argue that America has come up short, too.

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Those concerns recently spilled out into the open during a leak of classified information onto social media. A top secret assessment from early February stated that Ukraine would fall “well short” of its counteroffensive goals. …

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… U.S. intelligence indicates that Ukraine simply does not have the ability to push Russian troops from where they were deeply entrenched …

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Many European nations could also push Kyiv to bring the fighting to an end. “A poor counteroffensive will spark further questions about what an outcome to the war will look like, and the extent to which a solution can really be achieved by continuing to send military arms and aid alone,” Starling said.

Here Politico tacitly admits what the US establishment seeks to deny. The US is losing the support and confidence of Europe.

Washington has also communicated to Kyiv some political realities: at some point, especially with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the pace of U.S. aid will likely slow. ...

“If Ukraine can’t gain dramatically on the battlefield, the question inevitably arises as to whether it is time for a negotiated stop to the fighting,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s expensive, we’re running low on munitions, we’ve got other contingencies around the world to prepare for.”

Of course, Russia has set its own conditions for negotiations, namely, no Western pre-conditions. For the US to accept that position would be a public admission of failure as well as a public admission that Putin is in the driver’s seat.

As it happens, Andrew Korybko has an article out today that addresses the implications of the Politico article and makes many of the same points that I expressed above.

US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive

Korybko cites several attempts by the elements of the Zhou regime to temper expectations of brilliant Ukrainian successes to come. These attempts, he argues, failed because of US propaganda. Left unsaid by Korybko, is the reality of deep disagreements within the Zhou regime, with some factions (in the Pentagon and Intel Community) seeking to temper expectations, while other factions (the Neocons) have actively sought to fan the flames of unrealistic expectations—and continue to do so. There is not a united front, and that’s an important consideration. That said …

… the Biden Administration is still struggling to correct the public’s expectations after Milley first tried doing so a quarter-year ago. The US’ earlier NAFO-driven propaganda successfully instilled unrealistically high hopes of Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted audience, which is now a major soft power liability owing to credible fears that it’ll fail. …

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That second development was publicly shared just like Milley’s for the purpose of tempering everyone’s expectations about Kiev’s counteroffensive, with Stoltenberg’s drawing attention to how much more the West needs to ramp up military-industrial production to stand a chance of winning.

Which hasn’t happened, and won’t. The collective West launched it’s war on Russia under the belief that Magic Sanctions would collapse Russia within a few weeks. There was no military-industrial preparation, and that can’t be ginned up in less than several years.

A little more than one month ago, the Washington Post told its readers the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. Several weeks later, the Pentagon leaks then confirmed this sobering assessment, which set the context within which Politico’s latest report was published. Accordingly, it’s now indisputable that leading Western officials and their allied Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets were preconditioning the public for the last quarter-year not to expect much from this counteroffensive.

NAFO’s failure to respond to those signals and instead defiantly redouble their information warfare narrative priming the public for Kiev’s ‘total victory’ sometime in the very near future therefore directly resulted in the present dilemma. …

Korybko continues at some length with his critique of the NAFO “wishful thinkers”, but the bottom line is that, with the presidential campaign system creeping up on us, the likelihood of a catastrophic foreign policy fail is increasing. Worse, that fail is likely to have effects on the domestic economy that will be difficult to hide or ignore. There is no quick fix for these self inflicted wounds. A quick capitulation to Russian demands—as contained in Putin’s “draft treaty” offer from 12/22, which the West contemptuously brushed aside—will not undo the changed geopolitical dynamics that the war on Russia has brought about. The flight from over reliance on the US dollar will continue, the changing dynamics of relations in the Middle East and across Asia all the way to Taiwan will continue to develop in ways that are unfavorable to established US policy. A policy shift of this magnitude cannot be put in place overnight. This will be a bruising process that may see the demolition of NATO.

And the cultural rot at home continues. The idea that going Woke would never affect national security and even economic viability on a global scale is being subjected to the inevitable test. Will American’s respond? It seems many are looking for ways to opt out:

Concerns grow as US military faces recruitment crisis for second year in a row: 'Cultural rot' is spreading