One thing we can be sure of, there’s more to come before this whole sad episode is sorted out. Putin says twenty years of chaos, and I wouldn’t argue against that.
A few days ago I linked to a thread by Armchair Warlord that compared this war, at least on the Ukraine front, to the American Civil War. Warlord, of course, admits that no such comparisons in history constitute direct parallels, but it does make a good deal of sense. Especially given that the Civil War is often viewed as a sort of dress rehearsal for WW1 in strictly military terms, and WW1 is being repeated in a certain sense in Ukraine. Excerpts:
The closest historical analogy to the Ukrainian War I can think of is the American Civil War - ironically a conflict that Europeans have always shied away from carefully studying.
The underlying causes of the American Civil War festered for decades, finally erupting into open conflict after a series of political calculations and miscalculations brought down a national compromise that increasingly resembled a house of cards.
Ditto Ukraine. I've said elsewhere the number of political offramps available to Western leaders to avoid this war were so numerous that the fact war broke out can only be explained as the result of anti-Russian policy - clearly miscalculated policy given the results thus far.
Post-Maidan Ukraine spent eight years building a huge army, mobilized much of that reserve prewar, mobilized the remainder early in the war, and has been frantically press-ganging men since.
Meanwhile, Russia took months to even start recruiting volunteers on a large scale.
New technology rendered the battlefield far more lethal, heralding the end of the days of massed armies and the beginning of the modern "empty battlefield." Armies had to redevelop their tactical playbooks to remain effective in an age of trenches, rifles, and explosive shells.
The Confederacy received an enormous amount of foreign support from European states with axes to grind with the US, or who simply saw an opportunity for profit. Royal Navy officers "on leave" crewed blockade runners, and rifles from British Army stocks armed Lee's troops.
Ukraine has received an enormous amount of foreign support from Western states with axes to grind with Russia, or who simply saw an opportunity for profit. Western arms, ammunition, data, intelligence, planning, money, and advice have kept the AFU in the field for years.
Death stalked the land. Casualties in the North were substantial - one in twenty adult men died in the war. In the South, which took slightly fewer overall but had a far smaller population, it was closer to one in five.
Casualties in Russia have been substantial. [But not remotely one in twenty.]
Those in Ukraine, apocalyptic.
The Confederates did well in the first years, successfully maintaining their core national territory in the Southeast - so successfully, in fact, they repeatedly launched large-scale invasions of the North seeking to shock the Northern public and humiliate President Lincoln.
The Union eventually won only after ruthlessly severing the Confederacy from its foreign sponsors while mobilizing its national resources on a far greater scale than had been envisioned at the start of the war - Lincoln's 1861 call for 75,000 volunteers was comical in retrospect.
We've gone from Putin contracting out mercs in mid-2022 because he didn't want to pull the trigger on mobilization to the regular Russian Army adding a corps-sized element to its order of battle every month in 2025.
And even once that war-winning army had been built, this victory required a year of brutal combat from the start of the Overland Campaign in May 1864, through the epic Siege of Petersburg, to the Army of Northern Virginia's final surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
I suspect we are nearing the point in the present war where Grant is about to take command and cross the Rapidan.
In fact, of course, the Confederacy had lost the war well before Grant took command. But Grant crossing the Rapidan was a clear signal to those with eyes to see. By the same token, Ukraine lost this war long ago, it just hasn’t ended yet.
OK, so yesterday Big Serge came out with his own assessment of the war on the Ukraine front, and it, too, is well worth the reading time:
It’s quite long, so follow the link, while I’ll quote from the brief conclusion:
Trapped in an endless news cycle, with daily footage of FPV strikes and exploding vehicles, and a dutiful cottage industry of war mappers alerting us to every 100 meter advance, it can easily feel like the Russo-Ukrainian War is trapped in an interminable doom loop which will never end - Mad Max meets Groundhog Day.
What I have endeavored to do here, however, is argue that 2024 actually saw several very important developments which make the coming shape of the war relatively clear. To briefly recapitulate:
Russian forces caved in Ukrainian defenses at depth across an entire critical axis of front. ...
The main Ukrainian gambit on the ground (the incursion into Kursk) failed spectacularly, with the salient being progressively caved in. ...
An attempt by the Ukrainian government to reinvigorate its mobilization program failed, ...
Long awaited western upgrades to Ukraine’s strike capabilities failed to defeat Russian momentum, …
In short, Ukraine is on the path to debellation - defeat through the total exhaustion of its capacity to resist. They are not exactly out of men and vehicles and missiles, but these lines are all pointing downward. A strategic Ukrainian defeat - once unthinkable to the western foreign policy apparatus and commentariat - is now on the table. Quite interestingly, now that Donald Trump is about to return to the White House, it is suddenly acceptable to speak of Ukrainian defeat. Robert Kagan - a stalwart champion of Ukraine if there ever was one - now says the quiet part out loud:
Ukraine will likely lose the war within the next 12 to 18 months. Ukraine will not lose in a nice, negotiated way, with vital territories sacrificed but an independent Ukraine kept alive, sovereign, and protected by Western security guarantees. It faces instead a complete defeat, a loss of sovereignty, and full Russian control.
Indeed.
None of this should be particularly surprising. If anything, it is shocking that my position - that Russia is essentially a very powerful country that was very unlikely to lose a war (which it perceives as existential) right in its own belly - somehow became controversial or fringe. But here we are.
That closing note reminds me of an experience that Alexander Mercouris has repeated several times. Mercouris had attended the last Munich Security Conference, just before the actual start of military hostilities. He has described the atmosphere of giddy anticipation—I think he actually uses that word, or maybe “euphoria”—of the Euro vassal states at the prospect, as they saw it, of participating in the rape and pillage of Russia. Instead, what has been the result?
Here’s a brutal assessment from a Russian perspective. The Euro vassal states are being yanked out of their dream world into the brutal reality of Realpolitik. They don’t like it, but guess what? Nobody asked them. This is the way of the world, and if you don’t like it you need to plan for an alternative. Taking on the role of jackals wins you no gratitude or friendships:
The incoming administration seems to have a more realistic image of the state of American hegemonial decline and wants to take proactive steps to try to counteract and reverse it, breathing new life into the American Global Empire.
In this context, it makes perfect sense for the US to increase pressure on its vassals. I am not using the term in a pejorative sense. The US does not have “allies” in the traditional meaning of the word. It has vassals with different levels of feudal obligations and elite integration, and different tasks. Extracting more value from vassals -- whether through tariffs, increased NATO budgets, meddling in local politics or potential territorial concessions -- is an absolutely logical step in cementing and renewing America's position as overlord of its sphere.
There are three ways America's European vassals can react to this: look for protection outside of the sphere, try to make themselves more useful/necessary & advance integration, or take it on the face. Were we in, I don't know, the 19th century, Denmark would just ask Russia for military support in Greenland in exchange for mild economic concessions and never worry again. As it is, the Royal Danish Army does not have any artillery anymore because they gave it all away for the purpose of firing cluster ammunition at Russian children in Donetsk. They did not receive anything in return for that and it did not help any Danish purpose. They cannot defend themselves if push comes to shove and they can't ask anybody to help because most of their fellow vassals have done the same. The most likely option is that they'll just take it on the face. Not just for pragmatic reasons, but also because they genuinely enjoy being dommed geopolitically.
America has no obligation to treat its vassals better. I've seen Danish people complain on here about supporting the US after 9/11, participating in the American wars in the Middle East, etc. That's ridiculous. You know how a colony is rewarded for sending troops to its overlord's wars? It doesn't get beaten. That's the reward for a lackey. Any person who takes any of the NATO democracy liberalism pilpul seriously is just not a serious person, it was never real, it was always just voluntary submission to be absolved from existing in History.
The world that existed in 1991-2022 does not exist anymore. It's not coming back. You can just invade your neighbor. You can just fire missiles at international shipping lanes. You can just threaten to annex members of your military alliance. “You can just do things”, as the techbros like to say. The mirage of a post-historical order that only has to be policed from time to time but is never seriously challenged has disappeared. What did you think canceling the End of History meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?
It's not pleasant to be suddenly confronted with all of the above. It's not pleasant to have to admit to yourself that your existence was a coddled theme park that is existentially dependent on the relative position of someone else and how he feels about that relative position. America's vassals WILL have to confront this state of things and make hard decisions about their future. This means reckoning with their geopolitical impotence and either embracing dependency with open eyes or seeking pathways to autonomy that will inevitably involve risk, sacrifice, and a recalibration of their national priorities.
The era of coasting on borrowed security and ideological rhetoric is over. What lies ahead is a world where historical agency must be reclaimed or forever relinquished, and for many, the question may not be whether they are ready to make that leap, but whether they even remember how. America has now understood this -- and is mentally preparing to switch back to the cold logic that comes with actual History. The times, they are a-changin'.
4:31 PM · Jan 8, 2025
Why anybody ever trusted the Anglo-Zionists is anybody’s guess. That may also be a lesson that Americans will finally learn, too. Russia learned that lesson over a period of centuries.
Now, for another take on the wages of this war—from a financial perspective. Because all wars are bankers’ wars, right? Will the Average Joe finally learn not to trust the Anglo-Zionist bankers’ club? We ain’t in it.
Cameron Macgregor @ceamac
The tragic fires raging in California are not the only fires engulfing the world. Let's talk for a moment about bonds. The dominos have begun to fall and its too late to stop a Western reset at the hands of financial reckoning.
While US stocks have raged higher since the Trump Bump, global bond markets are continuing to meltdown, a process many years old at this point. Since Fed rate cuts started in September, yields on US Treasuries have soared) rising 100 basis points (equaling the Fed cut).
Similar arson is spreading across Europe where governments are descending into debt traps as recession, political chaos, economic mismanagement, open borders, and War in Ukraine is destroying confidence in the credit worthiness of Western governments full stop.
Let's focus on the UK. UK officials are now openly acknowledging the severity of the debt crisis combined by rising inflation and anemic growth. Basically, Act 2 of the UK Gilt crisis in '22, which nearly broke the Bank of England and forced PM Liz Truss to resign barely 90 days into her tenure, is about to begin.
Structurally, the UK is completely bankrupt, The historically unpopular PM Keir Starmer will be forced to resign just as Liz Truss did, and the Labor Party is headed into the gutter like the Tories before them. This will only add fuel to the fire in a fragile, racially divided country where average Britons have been squeezed into an ever more desperate situation.
Governments in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and most recently Canada are falling like dominos one by one by one and the UK will likely be next. Western governments are in the death grip of broken economic growth, spiraling and unaffordable debt, and the breakdown of social cohesion in the demographically unrecognizable West.
Remember, as yields rise so do interest payments, but demand for outstanding and new supply of government bonds also falls. Government bonds are ultimately subject to the same market forces as every other market, supply and demand.
The bond vigilantes are coming. Market forces are about to turn the current (bastardized) "democratic" order completely upside down. The eye of the storm is near and like so many suffering in the California Palisades, Western governments are bereft of insurance.
Watch the UK closely for the next shoe to drop.
The only way out is through.
Read more below:
https://bbc.com/news/articles/c1404j3xmxdo…
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12:34 PM · Jan 9, 2025
Time to start looking for meaning in all this. Without that you’re lost.
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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan slams France:
Some small European countries participating in certain operations under the U.S. umbrella and trying to assert influence bring no benefit to themselves or the region.
If they can conduct operations or deploy military forces in regions without U.S. support, let’s see it. But we know that’s not the case.
We don’t take seriously countries that hide behind America’s power to advance their own interests.
The failure of our generals (and those of our Western allies) to properly analyze the lessons of the American Civil War resulted in untold unnecessary carnage in WW1. The British lost 60,000 young men as they marched their troops, in column formation, straight into the German machine guns during the several days of the Battle of the Somme. Undeterred, they did this sort of thing time and again. They were imbeciles.
Will our MIC analyze the lessons from the UKR-Russia war and realize that warfare has fundamentally changed? Will the US continue to focus on the purchase of expensive manned fighters, bombers, and aircraft carriers instead of drones and missiles? Will we continue to underestimate the power of cheap artillery? Will we insist on rapid maneuver which can leave the army stranded without logistical support and subject to enemy artillery barrages? Old habits die hard. The Russians are stupid right? Incompetent. That's what we are still hearing from our armchair generals.
@clashreport
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan slams France:
Some small European countries participating in certain operations under the U.S. umbrella and trying to assert influence bring no benefit to themselves or the region.
If they can conduct operations or deploy military forces in regions without U.S. support, let’s see it. But we know that’s not the case.
We don’t take seriously countries that hide behind America’s power to advance their own interests.
The failure of our generals (and those of our Western allies) to properly analyze the lessons of the American Civil War resulted in untold unnecessary carnage in WW1. The British lost 60,000 young men as they marched their troops, in column formation, straight into the German machine guns during the several days of the Battle of the Somme. Undeterred, they did this sort of thing time and again. They were imbeciles.
Will our MIC analyze the lessons from the UKR-Russia war and realize that warfare has fundamentally changed? Will the US continue to focus on the purchase of expensive manned fighters, bombers, and aircraft carriers instead of drones and missiles? Will we continue to underestimate the power of cheap artillery? Will we insist on rapid maneuver which can leave the army stranded without logistical support and subject to enemy artillery barrages? Old habits die hard. The Russians are stupid right? Incompetent. That's what we are still hearing from our armchair generals.