Russia Exposing Western Disunity--Including In DC

That the West is not united in prosecuting the war on Russia isn’t exactly news. It’s been a fact of life for decades that, without America, the Western military alliance is not up to the task of resisting, much less confronting, Russia. Not that Russia, with more limited force projection available than in the old Soviet days, is interested in military conflict in general. It’s taken years of prodding and poking to get a military rise out of Russia, and the scope of that rise is strictly limited. At this point. In the meantime, the collective West has discovered that its militaries—including the US military—are simply not equipped for full scale conventional warfare. Russia is, although war has been a last resort for Russia, forced by the existential threat of NATO imminent basing of strategic forces in Ukraine as well as in Poland.

Of course, matters were never supposed to get to the point that we’ve reached. The shock and awe of the sanctions war was supposed to collapse the Russian economy and, thus, the Russian state—Putin would be removed and the Russian Federation dismembered. This would obviate the necessity for conventional warfare beyond some proxy activity by the Ukrainians. Fond dreams! As the reality of failed sanctions and failed war sets in, with the threat of a very cold winter accompanied by economic hardship on an unprecedented scale (in post WW2 times), the populace of the West is getting increasingly restive. And the rulers are noticing. At this point the real European true believers include the UK and Poland. Romania is heavily involved, in terms of its resources, but the population is not happy. The Baltics, of course, are yapping, but they’re occupied territory—parceled out to various Western countries: Estonia (UK/MI6), Latvia (Canada), Lithuania (Germany). They are not significant for any purposes other than basing. The Scandinavian countries are still on board, but their military significance is strictly limited and almost entirely naval.

The Neocons in DC press on with their war, directed from the State Department. However, the American military has long been aware that military confrontation with Russia is simply a Very Bad Idea. As the sanction war failure has become ever more apparent, and as the loyalty of important strategic “allies” such as Turkey looks shakier by the day, the alternative of direct US military involvement looms. We’ve been supplying weapons, but the Russians keep destroying them and our arms cupboard is increasingly bare. You know how bare that cupboard is when Mark Milley talks about Ukraine’s need for an “integrated air defense system” while the US is shipping the venerable Hawk system to take on modern Russian missiles. The result is a Ukraine whose entire power grid is near destruction.

What we have seen in the last week or so is a series of leaks by Milley that reveal the US military urging that Ukraine has done “all it can” and should now try to negotiate a peace deal with Russia. When the NYT published Milley’s views, this represented a stark contrast to the official US government line, emanating from the NSC and State. That line is that Russia is near collapse and is being routed on the battlefield. Obviously, the military guys know that’s not true, and Milley has been forced to “nuance” his statements in recent days. Most recently, in the wake of the Ukrainian missile strike on Poland, Milley has stated repeatedly that the US will supply and fund Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” He claims that Russia is incapable of a military solution—which he conveniently defines in expansive terms that probably don’t represent Russian intentions. Nevertheless, the division of opinion within the administration is apparent, and significant.

The continued disagreement, and its importance, was on pretty full display during the kerfuffle over the Ukrainian missile that landed in Poland, killing two. Let me say up front, that I lean toward the view that this was an accident, rather than a Ukrainian attempt to ignite WW3. Nevertheless, the full hue and cry went up in the UK and … Estonia. Russia, the UK media outlets all proclaimed, had attacked Poland! Poland itself was slightly more cautious in its response—uncharacteristically so. The US initially was on board—AP quickly cited “sources” to the same effect, that the missile was Russian.

That all changed, virtually spinning on a dime. Zhou himself took time out from the G20 festivities to very quickly announce that “US tracking” had shown that the missile was not launched by Russia. The rest of the West pretty quickly fell into line, having gotten the word from the top.

Now, I think we all know that the US people tracking missile launches are employed by the DoD—not the DoS. It appears that the DoD, alarmed at the prospect of WW3 breaking out as a result of hoax rhetoric, got to Zhou and urged him in no uncertain terms to defuse the situation eftsoons or right speedily (Wodehouse). Which he did. Later, the next day, Milley announced that he had attempted to get in touch with Russian general Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff. My guess is that Milley wanted to assure Gerasimov that the US knew that the missile had been launched by Ukraine, not Russia. Apparently Gerasimov ignored Milley’s call, but Milley wanted everyone to know that he was on the case. Obviously the Russians were fully aware that the American military knew the truth of the situation and didn’t need Milley’s confirmation. The point is that the US military went into full crisis management mode to get Zhou to shut down the goofball Neocon rhetoric.

None of this has been lost on Russian intelligence. They know what the real military situation is, and they know that the US military knows. The US military fears what’s coming, what will follow from the massive Russian buildup, because the US military knows that there’s nothing they can do militarily. “Militarily” is a word that Milley keeps using, as he urges negotiations—he clearly wants to stay out of this conflict “militarily.” He can’t control the sanctions war, perhaps, but he can warn against military escalation. And the Polish missile kerfuffle is a strong indication of the deep divisions with the administration—even if those divisions go largely unremarked in the MSM. Nevertheless, in a sense it’s reassuring to receive what appears to be confirmation that the US military is attempting to inject some degree of sanity into US foreign policy.

In the meantime, the Russians have launched another massive wave of missile strikes. Russia is simply continuing to set the stage for their winter offensive—to the alarm of the US military, which knows it’s powerless to do anything effective about this.

I’m going to embed two interviews with Doug Macgregor that discusses all this. The first interview (with Aaron Maté) aired last night in the immediate aftermath of the Polish missile strike situation, before all facts were clear. The second (Andrew Napolitano) followed by a day, at most, later. There’s a lot of overlap in these interviews, but it’s all worthwhile. Among other things that Macgregor discusses is the palpable sense of fear that we’re getting from Milley’s current performance. He also discusses the extent to which NATO personnel are involved in Ukraine—in combat. When the Russian offensive comes, those NATO personnel will be decimated. This has to be a very concerning situation for the US military.