We’ve seen a continuing pattern of severe provocations against Russia by the collective West, using Ukraine as a proxy. The latest example came this morning with drone attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, headquartered—as it has been for hundreds of years—at Sevastopol in Crimea. “The collective West”, for military purposes, means the United States of America. All of these provocations add up to an attempt to induce Russia to respond in such a way as to permit the collective West—again, meaning the US—to justify to their population an escalation of the proxy war into some form of open war with Russia. Without US participation no such escalation is possible.
It is a 99.9% guarantee that the Pelosi's have a live-in house staffer. Do you think Nancy shops for and stocks her own freezer full of ice cream? Very common among upper class in SF and other large cities.
I have seen a report that Ukraine is asking for the ATACMS missile, which can be fired from the HIMARS launcher. Range is up to 190mi/300km. No idea if we're going to do it, but we don't have a lot of these things to pass out like candy. But the consensus at the Pentagon seems to be that Ukraine needs longer range artillery.
Wars are fought on the clock. In World War I, Germany was on the food clock. In World War II, the Axis was on the oil clock. In Vietnam, America was on the public support clock. There's always a clock. Ukraine looks to be on the munitions clock. So is Russia, to an extent, because a lot of their advanced weapons use/used Western components, and these are now hava no, but they have lots and lots of older stuff in storage, Ukraine's munitions clock is ticking down a lot faster. (China is the only Great Power self sufficient in chips and other components, since so much manufacturing has been outsourced there. To what extent China can make up Russia's components deficit I do not know)
To the extent that the contradictions in the General's statement can be resolved, Ukraine has had some recent battlefield success in part thanks to the weapons we've given them. If we are to ride to the rescue after the munitions run out, it's going to damned difficult with empty caissons and bandoliers, and troops that haven't trained properly because they are forbidden on account of the vax mandate.
I question the effectiveness of the sanctions. South Africa was also sanctioned, and still managed to build an amazing arms industry.
With 85% of the world not being part of the sanctions regime, and Russia having real money, I’m sure there is a lot of sellers.
In the US, a lot of military stuff uses old technology. It causes a maintenance nightmare. I wonder how much Western products Russia actually uses for Weapons.
My guess is due to sanctions, Russia will manufacture a lot of items they used to import. Which also builds their industry, both Civilian and Military.
China has cloned and improved a lot of Russian Weapons, so they are a source. And North Korea for Russian munitions, such as artillery shells.
And Iran has developed good enough, cheap drones. Russia appears to be building these under license.
What the US and Europe have done is outsourced our heavy manufacturing. More profit and reduced environmental worries / liabilities by doing so. Russia did not.
I don't think you're wrong, but what you're describing will take time. In the here and now, if Russia runs short of a weapon that needs Western components, they are limited to black market/smuggling/what have you. That puts a crimp on procurement, and maybe operations, in the here and now. If it needs components they can't get, then they have to conserve, or do without. As do we.
We're used to the idea that nations depend on a limited number of suppliers for things like advanced fighters and missiles, but we're normally talking about Third World nations. We aren't used to the idea that Great Powers would outsource their manufacturing of critically important items, but that's what happened. We live in a very strange time. There simply aren't "Lots of sellers" for some items.
The sanctions on components are effective. For now. How long they will remain so is unknown. (To me.)
Putin recently stated that Russia had always understood that Ukraine would not be a pushover. That explains why they have carefully conserved their advanced systems--not using them unless lesser systems wouldn't do the job.
I always assumed that they held some stuff back for "emergencies" and the definition of emergency included the aforementioned NATO riding to the rescue. Traditionally, the cavalry does not ride to the rescue with an empty gun, but I not a product of the modern Pentagon and perhaps do not grasp their advanced concepts of modern warfare.
I'd like to begin by saying 1) I'm very much in sync with DJL's comment a bit ago, and 2) the replies of Steghorn and Billionaire Wars express, I hate to say, not unreasonable worries.
As for my own thoughts, two developments lead me to be willing to cross my fingers tightly and very cautiously hope. One is the possible freeing up of the citizen's voice on the twatter, and the other is a veritable deluge of (apparently) not completely sold-out Republicans entering Congress very soon.
As DJL says, the American people are not in any sort of mood to go to war - a REAL war, a PEER war - a zillion miles away in a country no one gives a living @%*! about for a cause no one actually believes in. All it will take to get the anti-war protest going in earnest is for those who see what's going on and are strongly against it to be given a voice, and the one-two punch mentioned above has real potential to provide such a voice.
If the people can learn more about what is really going on and what really is at stake, they'll become strongly opposed and will make that opposition both heard and felt. Nothing more than the nearly complete blackout of the truth, made possible by the blanket censorship we're all too familiar with here, has kept so many citizens so deeply in the dark and therefore so quiescent. Poke a few holes in that blanket and the entire lunatic house of cards comes tumbling down.
Do we even know what the western interests in this war (WEF/Davos???) are? It seems as if "they" are deliberately keeping western citizens uninformed about this. If "they" see this as an existential war (as Russia has said they do), "they" won't have the support of the people to do what needs to be done to win. Since "they" are acting as if they really don't need the support of the people, would "they" ultimately decide to do what they need to anyway? Personally, at this point I don't see how this doesn't go nuclear in some way unless the Davos crowd unexpectedly collapses...
Thanks for the link - I definitely would have missed that article! I need to think about this for a while. Some initial thoughts: The current situation with Russia seems to originate with the 2014 coup orchestrated by the west (I'm assuming this). What was going on at that time such that American (or western?) security was thought to be at risk necessitating this action? Or was this simply an opportunity for the US/West to keep the Eurasian landmass divided?
How much division is needed before they put the brakes on or will they push all the way through destroying Eurasian industry, agriculture, etc. to a catastrophic outcome (e.g. nuclear exchange)? And how does this comport with Tom Luongo's theory of the Fed destroying the EU central banks?
FWIW it seems like the destruction is going beyond what is necessary to maintain division; that these people know they would not have the support of the citizens if their ultimate goals were made explicit; and that since we the people don't know what's really going on, we can't really know how far the shot-callers are willing to go before deciding to end this short of a nuclear exchange level event that would incapacitate the other side...
It actually goes back much further in time that 2014. Russia began to understand what was up at least as early as the Serbian campaign and the 1997 expansion of NATO into Poland (and other countries). The Bush 2008 statement that we would bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO erased all doubts. So 2014 wasn't a surprise. However, at that time Russia was still not ready to push back hard.
"we can't really know how far the shot-callers are willing to go before deciding to end this short of a nuclear exchange level event that would incapacitate the other side..."
Wouldn't a nuclear exchange level event ultimately incapacitate both sides? Back in the day, wasn't this referred to as 'mutually assured destruction'?
It was. It seems to me that back in the day, the leaders of the US/western countries were open about how this could go and why. In fact, we planned for the possibility (duck-and-cover). Today this is not the case. Forces are pushing towards the unthinkable however us citizens have little idea why this is happening. I think that is what I'm trying to understand, or accept that there is no knowing under current circumstances. You can name lots of factions (Davos, WEF, Biden Admin, Intelligence Community, etc.) but no one has really come out and said, "this is who we are, this is what we are trying to accomplish, this is why it's in your best interest, and this is why we need you to support us pushing towards a potentially nuclear outcome."
Well, if the US is going to war against Russia there hasn't been much of a mobilization. The US military footprint in Europe is a mere shadow of what it once was. How many combat brigades are available for immediate deployment after the latest reporting that the US military is in a sorry state of readiness. It is difficult to conduct a war without troops to fight it. And while airpower is today's kingmaker, it cannot win a war where boots on the ground still must hold the objectives. Then there are the Russian anti-air missile systems that can be counted on to run up the score on downed aircraft, much more so than anything experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the home front, I doubt Americans are ready to support another war after the Afghanistan debacle where the US military was sent by politicians to die, but not to win. Certainly not over Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.
Finally, it would be too transparent to see the real intent of a dementia addled nearly lame duck president try and shift the focus from the current miserable domestic reality to a new war few could care less about when compared to their pocketbooks. If military recruiting looks bad now, just wait because you haven't seen nothing yet if this escalates. The difference this time, in my view, would be a majority of Americans opposing war at the outset, unlike the two Iraq wars and Afghanistan where the public initially supported the actions.
Except as noted in previous reporting that the 101st was there to relieve another unit scheduled for redeployment back to CONUS. And that the 101st is a 'light infantry' unit, not a regimental or brigade combat unit with all the supporting elements. Those are the units that have not been mobilized. In fact, no additional units have been mobilized or else our astute news media that supports the warmongers would surely have reported on this.
"The difference this time, in my view, would be a majority of Americans opposing war at the outset, unlike the two Iraq wars and Afghanistan where the public initially supported the actions."
All true, DJL. But maybe that just means that if they don't have the conventional capability, they will go straight to some kind of nuclear "event". They are THAT crazy and stupid.
I’m sorry but Petraeus is showing himself to be a shill for the DC supper club. As Col. MacGregor said, the general with find out from whichever DC insider he talks to, what his opinion should be. I once greatly admired the guy when MoveOn.org called him General Betrayus maybe they were on to something.
https://twitter.com/RetroCoast/status/1586379469564116994
SWC:
It is a 99.9% guarantee that the Pelosi's have a live-in house staffer. Do you think Nancy shops for and stocks her own freezer full of ice cream? Very common among upper class in SF and other large cities.
I have seen a report that Ukraine is asking for the ATACMS missile, which can be fired from the HIMARS launcher. Range is up to 190mi/300km. No idea if we're going to do it, but we don't have a lot of these things to pass out like candy. But the consensus at the Pentagon seems to be that Ukraine needs longer range artillery.
Wars are fought on the clock. In World War I, Germany was on the food clock. In World War II, the Axis was on the oil clock. In Vietnam, America was on the public support clock. There's always a clock. Ukraine looks to be on the munitions clock. So is Russia, to an extent, because a lot of their advanced weapons use/used Western components, and these are now hava no, but they have lots and lots of older stuff in storage, Ukraine's munitions clock is ticking down a lot faster. (China is the only Great Power self sufficient in chips and other components, since so much manufacturing has been outsourced there. To what extent China can make up Russia's components deficit I do not know)
To the extent that the contradictions in the General's statement can be resolved, Ukraine has had some recent battlefield success in part thanks to the weapons we've given them. If we are to ride to the rescue after the munitions run out, it's going to damned difficult with empty caissons and bandoliers, and troops that haven't trained properly because they are forbidden on account of the vax mandate.
I question the effectiveness of the sanctions. South Africa was also sanctioned, and still managed to build an amazing arms industry.
With 85% of the world not being part of the sanctions regime, and Russia having real money, I’m sure there is a lot of sellers.
In the US, a lot of military stuff uses old technology. It causes a maintenance nightmare. I wonder how much Western products Russia actually uses for Weapons.
My guess is due to sanctions, Russia will manufacture a lot of items they used to import. Which also builds their industry, both Civilian and Military.
China has cloned and improved a lot of Russian Weapons, so they are a source. And North Korea for Russian munitions, such as artillery shells.
And Iran has developed good enough, cheap drones. Russia appears to be building these under license.
What the US and Europe have done is outsourced our heavy manufacturing. More profit and reduced environmental worries / liabilities by doing so. Russia did not.
I don't think you're wrong, but what you're describing will take time. In the here and now, if Russia runs short of a weapon that needs Western components, they are limited to black market/smuggling/what have you. That puts a crimp on procurement, and maybe operations, in the here and now. If it needs components they can't get, then they have to conserve, or do without. As do we.
We're used to the idea that nations depend on a limited number of suppliers for things like advanced fighters and missiles, but we're normally talking about Third World nations. We aren't used to the idea that Great Powers would outsource their manufacturing of critically important items, but that's what happened. We live in a very strange time. There simply aren't "Lots of sellers" for some items.
The sanctions on components are effective. For now. How long they will remain so is unknown. (To me.)
Re WW1, I suggest reading "Prolonging the Agony" to see about that food clock.
Putin recently stated that Russia had always understood that Ukraine would not be a pushover. That explains why they have carefully conserved their advanced systems--not using them unless lesser systems wouldn't do the job.
I always assumed that they held some stuff back for "emergencies" and the definition of emergency included the aforementioned NATO riding to the rescue. Traditionally, the cavalry does not ride to the rescue with an empty gun, but I not a product of the modern Pentagon and perhaps do not grasp their advanced concepts of modern warfare.
I'd like to begin by saying 1) I'm very much in sync with DJL's comment a bit ago, and 2) the replies of Steghorn and Billionaire Wars express, I hate to say, not unreasonable worries.
As for my own thoughts, two developments lead me to be willing to cross my fingers tightly and very cautiously hope. One is the possible freeing up of the citizen's voice on the twatter, and the other is a veritable deluge of (apparently) not completely sold-out Republicans entering Congress very soon.
As DJL says, the American people are not in any sort of mood to go to war - a REAL war, a PEER war - a zillion miles away in a country no one gives a living @%*! about for a cause no one actually believes in. All it will take to get the anti-war protest going in earnest is for those who see what's going on and are strongly against it to be given a voice, and the one-two punch mentioned above has real potential to provide such a voice.
If the people can learn more about what is really going on and what really is at stake, they'll become strongly opposed and will make that opposition both heard and felt. Nothing more than the nearly complete blackout of the truth, made possible by the blanket censorship we're all too familiar with here, has kept so many citizens so deeply in the dark and therefore so quiescent. Poke a few holes in that blanket and the entire lunatic house of cards comes tumbling down.
Do we even know what the western interests in this war (WEF/Davos???) are? It seems as if "they" are deliberately keeping western citizens uninformed about this. If "they" see this as an existential war (as Russia has said they do), "they" won't have the support of the people to do what needs to be done to win. Since "they" are acting as if they really don't need the support of the people, would "they" ultimately decide to do what they need to anyway? Personally, at this point I don't see how this doesn't go nuclear in some way unless the Davos crowd unexpectedly collapses...
It's a war based on a geopolitical theory--not anything that Russia has done. You can see this at AmThinker today:
America’s Strategy in World Politics
Geopolitical equilibrium in the form of ***a politically-divided Eurasian landmass remains essential to American security.***
That's the theory that commits us continual war against Eurasia.
Thanks for the link - I definitely would have missed that article! I need to think about this for a while. Some initial thoughts: The current situation with Russia seems to originate with the 2014 coup orchestrated by the west (I'm assuming this). What was going on at that time such that American (or western?) security was thought to be at risk necessitating this action? Or was this simply an opportunity for the US/West to keep the Eurasian landmass divided?
How much division is needed before they put the brakes on or will they push all the way through destroying Eurasian industry, agriculture, etc. to a catastrophic outcome (e.g. nuclear exchange)? And how does this comport with Tom Luongo's theory of the Fed destroying the EU central banks?
FWIW it seems like the destruction is going beyond what is necessary to maintain division; that these people know they would not have the support of the citizens if their ultimate goals were made explicit; and that since we the people don't know what's really going on, we can't really know how far the shot-callers are willing to go before deciding to end this short of a nuclear exchange level event that would incapacitate the other side...
It actually goes back much further in time that 2014. Russia began to understand what was up at least as early as the Serbian campaign and the 1997 expansion of NATO into Poland (and other countries). The Bush 2008 statement that we would bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO erased all doubts. So 2014 wasn't a surprise. However, at that time Russia was still not ready to push back hard.
@Kevin
"we can't really know how far the shot-callers are willing to go before deciding to end this short of a nuclear exchange level event that would incapacitate the other side..."
Wouldn't a nuclear exchange level event ultimately incapacitate both sides? Back in the day, wasn't this referred to as 'mutually assured destruction'?
It was. It seems to me that back in the day, the leaders of the US/western countries were open about how this could go and why. In fact, we planned for the possibility (duck-and-cover). Today this is not the case. Forces are pushing towards the unthinkable however us citizens have little idea why this is happening. I think that is what I'm trying to understand, or accept that there is no knowing under current circumstances. You can name lots of factions (Davos, WEF, Biden Admin, Intelligence Community, etc.) but no one has really come out and said, "this is who we are, this is what we are trying to accomplish, this is why it's in your best interest, and this is why we need you to support us pushing towards a potentially nuclear outcome."
Agreed. Why are they contemptuous of the voter? Why are they contemptuous of the concerned citizen?
Well, if the US is going to war against Russia there hasn't been much of a mobilization. The US military footprint in Europe is a mere shadow of what it once was. How many combat brigades are available for immediate deployment after the latest reporting that the US military is in a sorry state of readiness. It is difficult to conduct a war without troops to fight it. And while airpower is today's kingmaker, it cannot win a war where boots on the ground still must hold the objectives. Then there are the Russian anti-air missile systems that can be counted on to run up the score on downed aircraft, much more so than anything experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the home front, I doubt Americans are ready to support another war after the Afghanistan debacle where the US military was sent by politicians to die, but not to win. Certainly not over Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.
Finally, it would be too transparent to see the real intent of a dementia addled nearly lame duck president try and shift the focus from the current miserable domestic reality to a new war few could care less about when compared to their pocketbooks. If military recruiting looks bad now, just wait because you haven't seen nothing yet if this escalates. The difference this time, in my view, would be a majority of Americans opposing war at the outset, unlike the two Iraq wars and Afghanistan where the public initially supported the actions.
Except of course for the 101st airborne in Romênia. Practicing war games, no doubt as of this week.
Except as noted in previous reporting that the 101st was there to relieve another unit scheduled for redeployment back to CONUS. And that the 101st is a 'light infantry' unit, not a regimental or brigade combat unit with all the supporting elements. Those are the units that have not been mobilized. In fact, no additional units have been mobilized or else our astute news media that supports the warmongers would surely have reported on this.
"The difference this time, in my view, would be a majority of Americans opposing war at the outset, unlike the two Iraq wars and Afghanistan where the public initially supported the actions."
Yes
All true, DJL. But maybe that just means that if they don't have the conventional capability, they will go straight to some kind of nuclear "event". They are THAT crazy and stupid.
Good read backing up Larry Johnson’s post:
This Is What 'Ukraine Winning' Looks Like...
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ukraine-is-winning-this-is-what-winning-looks-like_4820879.html
Epoch Times has some surprising good content.
Epoch Times is by far better than any of the so called legacy mainstream media
I’m sorry but Petraeus is showing himself to be a shill for the DC supper club. As Col. MacGregor said, the general with find out from whichever DC insider he talks to, what his opinion should be. I once greatly admired the guy when MoveOn.org called him General Betrayus maybe they were on to something.
At cdrsalamander a poster thought Petraeus comment was a trial balloon.
I thought the same thing