Last night I listened to the entirety (1:43:32!) of a Youtube video featuring Scott Ritter and Andrei Martyanov. If you want to reduplicate my heroic effort you can find the video here:
The video is a showpiece of the worst of this genre of media—the salient points could easily be boiled down into an article that could be digested in a tiny fraction of the time that is required to listen to it. OTOH, it’s really quite interesting. I kept thinking, no, I’m gonna call it quits but, then, some new topic came up that got my attention. It also offers some contrasting viewpoints, which add to the interest. If you get off on military theory, it’s one of the better videos I’ve listened to lately. Also, the title is misleading, compared to my own, because quite a bit of time is spent discussing China—not just Ukraine and Russia.
Now, before we get into my summary, I want to insert a tweet that illustrates that this war of the American Empire against Russia is part of a much larger planned war that was intended to involve China, as well—which contributes to the timeliness of this video. The tweet is a bit mind boggling, from the naive standpoint of what the Ruling Class of the collective West plans and gets away with without offering a clue to its subjects—actually, while systematically lying to its subjects. Is Russia or even China any worse than this?
OK, two tweets, which demonstrate that the plan for many years has been for the United States and Europe to “manage”, i.e., subjugate, both Russia and China. The disingenuousness of these two creeps—Blair and McCain—is remarkable: talking about the “increasingly autocratic” Putin undoing “Russia’s democratic progress” under Yeltsin. The reality was something like the reverse—with Putin turning Russia into something resembling a country with a representative government, freeing it from thralldom to the “oligarchs”.
In 2008, Tony Blair told US officials privately that Russia should be made a “little desperate”. This should be done via NATO “activities in what Russia considers its sphere of interest and along its actual borders.” Russia, Blair said, “had to be sown with seeds of confusion.”
It’s for letting us peer behind the veil like this and see what our rulers really get up to that they want Julian Assange dead or silenced forever. Be in no doubt: the truth about how the world really works is dangerous + the US-UK establishment will kill to keep it suppressed.
Moving on. This will be a bit of a scattershot summary.
The video begins with fun being made of Zelensky’s humiliation at Vilnius. Ritter jumps to a limited defense of Zelensky, pointing out that Ukraine has done everything that NATO required of it. He also points out that Zelensky’s popularity in Ukraine is probably higher than that of any of the NATO midgets. Further, Ritter maintains that Ukraine has the second largest and second best military as compared to any of the NATO militaries—larger and better than the conventional forces of Germany, France, and Britain combined.
The discussion moves to the difficulties of what we could call the New Industrial and Information Driven Warfare. Ritter argues two things. First, the deployment of the US “ready reserve” is probably an indication of a US intent to shape its forces in Poland into an actual cohesive fighting force—which they are not, at this point. This is a greatly under appreciated aspect of running an actual armed force. Second, Russia, too, has been on a learning curve and wasn’t fully prepared when the SMO started. Russia’s enormous reserve forces have been undergoing constant training—and retraining—based on the lessons learned. What lessons? Russia has been fighting a very large and well entrenched Ukrainian military that is operating under the direction and control of US ISR resources. There is almost nothing that can be hidden on the modern battlefield, and that is part of what Russia has come to grips with and has been training its reserves to deal with. The other side of that coin is that, while the US has been providing these services to Ukraine, the US military itself is woefully unprepared to engage in this type of war.
Ritter is predicting that Russia will soon unleash its reserves. He predicts that the major axis of attack will be to take Kharkov, and then perhaps to wheel south to Odessa when Ukraine’s abilities are sufficiently destroyed. He further predicts that Russia will then offer a deal: Russia will return either or both of Odessa and Kharkov in return for “peace on its terms”—presumably neutrality, de-Nazification, and demilitarization. If the deal is turned down, war will continue.
I personally disagree with the idea that such a deal will be offered. At some time in the past it was entirely possible, but after the deaths of quite a few thousands of Russian young men, and with the realization of the depth of Western hatred for Russia—still at its borders, still breathing the desire to destroy Russia—I don’t believe that’s likely. Further, I believe Ritter somehow fails to understand the meaning in history that both cities have for Russia—Putin himself has spoken of this. My view is along the lines that Will Schryver sketches out in two maps (note the dates—also, the first map omits Crimea, which is a given):
Very possibly the entire non-blue area of this map.
I am convinced this map illustrates the most likely outcome of the war. "Ukraine" will be reduced to a land-locked rump state; Novorossiya will be re-established; Crimea is already reunited with Russia, and will remain so in perpetuity.
4:50 PM · Feb 27, 2022
Turning to China, Ritter presents something very similar to Luongo’s view of what led to Yellen’s visit, but with an important addition as well as some background. Ritter states that war gaming has convinced the Pentagon that a war with China is not only unwinnable but that the US would “lose”. This, he says, has been demonstrated consistently over at least five years. This led the Pentagon—faced with the insane war mongering rhetoric of the Neocons, based on thinking like that of Blair/McCain, above—to dispatch a “delegation” to the White House to strongly urge that the US needs to drop the war mongering and engage in something approximating diplomacy. Moreover, Taiwan is likely to install a KMT (pro-One China) government in January and Taiwanese—watching the US led war in Ukraine—are coming to the conclusion that they don’t want to be the Far Eastern Ukraine for the American Empire. The US withdrawal of Hawk AD systems from Taiwan, for provision to Ukraine, has also opened some Taiwanese eyes.
The problem was that matters had reached the point at which the Chinese weren’t even accepting or returning phone calls. It was only after much begging that Blinken and Yellen were dispatched to China to attempt to reestablish some sort of relations. But even that hasn’t gone smoothly. This may explain the latest turn of events:
With that intro, discussion turns to military matters. Here Andrei takes over. Ritter is adamant that the US would lose a war with China. Martyanov doesn’t contest that assessment but suggests that, while China is massively outproducing ships and planes, there is still a quality deficiency issue. For example, Chinese subs are far below the level (!) of Russian and US subs, and the DF21 ballistic missile—intended as a carrier killer—isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Apropos of submarine warfare, Martyanov mentions that Russian subs will be equipped by next year with fully networked Zircon anti-ship hypersonic missiles with a range of 1500 km—far beyond the range of detection of ISR planes protecting carrier battle groups. He then goes on to maintain that, while Russia is unlikely to provide Zircons to China, it appears very likely that Russia will provide the tried and tested—in Ukraine—Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. The Kinzhal has a range of approximately 3000km, outranging the F-18 launched systems coming online that have a range of about 1900km. Check.
American military planners are getting upset with their Ukrainian counterparts for their risk aversion. The Americans are telling them to assume more risk and the Ukrainians are saying we don't want to die. American opinion-makers like in WP are saying things are working out great for America even if Ukraine suffers the costs.
2:33 PM · Jul 20, 2023
Thanks for reading Meaning In History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Ritter talks a lot of sense most of the time, but there is no way Russia would give up Kharkov and Odessa. And they won't be doing any "deals" with the neocons. Those days are past.
It seems to me that a military that concentrates on PRIDE, racism, abortions, etc., is not in a position to go toe to toe with the Russians and Chinese. Reagan was right. Either the United States will be a nation under God or a nation gone under.
Ritter talks a lot of sense most of the time, but there is no way Russia would give up Kharkov and Odessa. And they won't be doing any "deals" with the neocons. Those days are past.
It seems to me that a military that concentrates on PRIDE, racism, abortions, etc., is not in a position to go toe to toe with the Russians and Chinese. Reagan was right. Either the United States will be a nation under God or a nation gone under.