The Russo-NATO war in Ukraine appears to be headed to some sort of final act or perhaps the penultimate act that sets the stage for the final act. All along the line of contact, the Russians are pressing the Ukrainians, slowly grinding down the defenses and advancing in key areas. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians talk endlessly about the spring offensive when they will deploy the much ballyhooed Western main battle tanks that have been slowly arriving since January.
Since last summer, it has been clear that the main battle in the Donbas would be in and around the city of Bakhmut. This is the lynchpin of the so-called Zelensky line that runs from Siversk in the north to Vuhledar in the south. Some say the southern end of this defense line is Marinka or Avdivka, which are strongholds to the West of the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk oblast. This is where the revolt against the Washington puppet regime began in 2014.
Regardless, there are three main battles going on at the moment. In Bakhmut, the Russians have the city surrounded and control about seventy percent of the city itself, while the Ukrainians have an estimated ten to fifteen thousand fighters in the city with up to forty thousand in the surrounding area. Reports from Ukrainian say that they are sending some of their best troops to Bakhmut in a relief effort, but that could just be what they are telling the West.
In the Donetsk region, the Russians have just about surrounded the garrison in Avdivka, having fire control over all of the main roads. No one knows how many Ukrainian soldiers are in this area. The Ukrainian deployment map shows up to five brigades, but these maps are not always up to date or accurate. Reports from the ground suggest up to ten thousand soldiers, but many of them are probably conscripts. The real value of this fortress is that is controls the southern part of the line.
What has been happening for the last few months is that the Zelensky government has been throwing everything they have into defending this line, even though their military and the Pentagon have advised against it. Logic says to withdraw to preserve men and machines, while putting together a counteroffensive. Politics, however, says the Ukrainians cannot afford to give up any land as it would risk losing support from European politicians, who are getting nervous.
It is that growing sense of dread in European capitals that is undermining support for the Ukrainian side in this war. There is growing unrest throughout Europe as a result of the economic problems caused by the sanctions war. Then there is the banking and energy crisis that has been hidden from the public, but is not going away no matter how hard they ignore it. The bigger issue is fear that the Russians could stoke unrest, as Tom Sunic explains in this post.
Of course, there is the practical problem of supplying weapons to Ukraine. Land wars are supply chain and industrial capacity wars. Russia has better supply chains and more military industrial capacity than NATO. Western countries cannot make anywhere near enough munitions to keep Ukraine going, so they have had to clear out their warehouses, which are now close to empty. One way or another, the war will be over this year, as the West is simply out of weapons.
Then we have the China issue. Xi Jinping’s recent state visit to Moscow caused panic in Europe because it makes clear that China is never going to sign onto the new world order proposed by the West. French President Emmanuel Macron was sent to Beijing to beg for mercy. He came back and immediately signed a trade deal with China in which the French will buy LNG using yuan. That LNG, by the way, is sourced from Russia, thus blowing another hole in the sanctions regime.
That energy deal is just one deal, but the symbolism is what matters, as it makes clear who has the whip hand now. Decades of bribing American officials has taught the Chinese how important narrative and symbolism is to Washington. By making Macron do that deal, they are telling Washington that China is willing to compete with Washington on every continent, even Europe. It also signals that Europe is very worried about what is happening to them in this war.
On the Russian side it is hard to know how they view things in terms of time lines and the looming end game. The experts all said the Russians would launch a winter offensive after calling up close to half a million troops in the fall, but instead they have been content to build fortifications and logistics hubs. Meanwhile, Wagner and units from the Donbas have been taking the fight to Ukraine. Western experts are suddenly quiet about what they think the Russians will do next.
The most likely answer here is the Russians have determined that there is no need for a big offensive at this time. The dynamics of the fighting favor them and they have minimized their losses while maximizing Ukrainian losses. They can also see the deteriorating condition of Europe, both politically and economically. You can be sure that there are lots of back channel conversations happening between politicians in Europe and their friends in Moscow.
The Russians have spent months building defenses in the south and that suggests they think this is where the much talked about Ukrainian counter offensive will happen, if it happens at all. It is increasingly clear that this will be Ukraine’s last chance to reverse the decline in support from Europe. The calculation by the Russians may be to wait for this attack in the south, defeat it and then wait for the political fallout to force the Ukrainians back to the bargaining table.
There is also the fact that the war will end and Russia will have to do business with Western Europe again. How the Ukraine war ends will determine how difficult it will be to patch up relations. From the Russian perspective, it is best for Europe to break from Washington and force Zelensky to sign the paper put in front of him. The Europeans save face and the Russians have international recognition for taking possession of the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine.
While the war is not close to being over, it is clear that the end game is slowly starting to form up as winter gives way to spring. The big talk about Ukraine sacking Moscow is a thing of the past. Slowly the talk is shifting to what happens after the war. Given the geopolitical changes that have come about as a result of the war, what comes next is not going to be a return to the status quo ante. What the world looks like a year from now when the war is over is up for debate.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.
Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.
Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at
sa***@mi*********************.com
.
There will be no American “boots on the ground” in Ukraine. At least not officially, inasmuch as I am confident that there already are quite a few clandestine ones there already, training and instructing the Ukrainians as well as manning the elint and other sophisticated weapons systems that it takes years to learn how to operate. Regardless, now that it has become clear that the American (by which I mean the cabal of anti-American, globalist forces that now rule in DC) strategy of sanctions and economic pressure coupled with fighting until the last Ukrainian is not going to succeed, the Europeans will eventually abandon what is left of the NATO coalition and start striking official deals with Putin. It is clear they have already struck surreptitious deals in order to get the necessary petroleum-based products to keep their citizens warm and working. They realize that neither they nor America (again, see definition above) have the will or wherewithal to conduct a long term military action and Ukraine is rapidly running out of warm bodies to throw against the Russians. NATO was never a European organization; it was an American organization with European LARPers who went along as long as America was footing the bill. And as far as engaging in a confrontation with Putin’s Russia in the vain hope that he will be overthrown (remember all those jackasses who called for his ouster, “regime change,” and then prosecution as a “war criminal”–yeah, including puppet Biden), I seem to recall that another hubristic fellow once thought he could take the USSR for lebensraum because all he had to do was kick in the door and the rotten edifice would fall down. That didn’t work out for him and his people, and this misadventure will not work out as anticipated, either. The fools who began this sad episode are not students of history, nor do they understand logistics. European members of NATO never had the slightest inclination to defend themselves, but relied on the American military juggernaut to do so. America, meanwhile was busy spending itself into oblivion, but was being hollowed out at its core by the same forces behind the current effort to overthrow its traditional ethos and replace it with the “progressive/woke” regime. The Mongols, the French, the Germans all failed to eventually conquer the Russian vastness because they ran out of men and their supply lines were stretched too thin to support further aggression. Since the Europeans lacked even the semblance of military manpower and equipment to support such aggression and American supply lines stretched across the other side of the globe, how could they ever delude themselves into thinking a military victory over Russia was a possibility? They simply never bothered to consider the magnitude of the task. It took nearly four years to mount an invasion into Normandy in WW II; these nincompoops thought they could invade Russia and overthrow its leadership with Ukrainian troops in a matter of months. Even they now realize this is never going to happen, neither with Ukrainian nor American troops. It is clear that history is merely repeating itself at the expense of those who did not bother to learn its lessons. The only question is what will remain of the current world structure when it ends poorly for those who so eagerly instituted this stupidity.
I think this is well though out , if the true goal was to overthrow Russia. Looking at how this all worked out, It seems more likely that the CCP puppets that are in charge of us the were told to do this by the CCP handlers who want to destroy the military of the west, and any industrial capacity in Europe and the us . Leaving china as the worlds manufacturing lodestone. Like the US in the 50’s
We left $85 billion of our inventory in Afghanistan. Our ammo depots and reserves have been sent to Ukraine. likewise European NATO has been exposed as a hollow edifice since they had almost nothing to send when called upon .
these same geniuses drove tens of thousands of our best out of the military with vax mandates. Between this and Woke gay sex stuff our military has been degraded .
It cannot be overstated how much Xi and china have gained from this war. Americans can talk about Taiwan until the cows come home but the us military is flat on it’s ass.no ammo left and no way to make more, it’s toast. the Taiwanese know this , the CCP knows this .
Europe(NATO) is descending into economic destruction . their industrial base has been gutted . They are now the economic peasants of their CCP owners.
Russia is now wholly Dependent on china for manufactured goods, and will give them cut rate natural resources to keep their support .
“our” Neocons , servants of international banking interest , got Christian Slavic men to kill about 300K and permanently maim another 500K of each other. the international finance community probably Hoovered up vast amounts of the close to $ 1/2 trillion in ” aid ” from the US, canadian,austrailian, and european taxpayers.
all the middle east, Balkan, and turkey got to fill their sex slave bordellos with lots of cheap young blonde ukrainian women. trafficked from the war torn anarchy in ukraine.
Lots of groups got a lot of what they like and wanted from this war.
the overthrow of russia was always a stretch objective.
“This is where the revolt against the Washington puppet regime began in 2014.”
That rings hollow after listening to Girkin’s old interviews about how his troops forced town officials to vote for secession to Russia at gunpoint.
Yes, and BBC “journalists” ran around reporting unhinged brutality by SAVAK and local police, and the virtuous freedom movement by a certain (British-Indian) Ayatollah (formerly living in a lux Paris villa, paid for by the CIA), when the Shah tried to nationalize Anglo-Iranian oil companies such as British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell.
What does whataboutism about the British media have to do with the public statements of Russian commanders explaining their military decisions to other Russian media, except as an attempt to downplay them because you can’t deny them?
Here, watch the original interview: https://vimeo.com/118459664 (skip to the 44 minute mark)
Not even close to the end. End of massive Ukrainian manpower, start of the US / Polish offensive. It is pretty clear now that the US and the Poles will seek to cut the land bridge with Crimea, and then take Crimea. Russia is digging trenches in Crimea to defend against assaults.
Will it succeed? Maybe? Probably not. I do know that Biden has sent over his budget that cuts the Navy by a 1/3rd, and the US Secretary of the Navy has said the most important priorities for the Navy is Global Warming and Diversity. So Taiwan has been written off, I think, Biden has stayed bribed by China. At least as far as that goes. Forces seem focused on Ukraine only.
Trump, however, is indicted, and could be arrested, hand cuffed, perp walked, and sent to jail (no bail for him) to be Epsteined at any time. No man, no problem as they say. Meanwhile Biden is laughing at the assault tranny shooting of kids and adults at the Christian school. Anti fa is being wound up, not down, in Atlanta, Which is the regional try outs for the big show on Broadway.
My guess is that the US forces will suffer some very big casualties, get bogged down as it won’t go all the way to hitting deep inside Russia and thus we will see some very big casualties possibly from tactical nukes employed by Russia if we threaten to over-run Crimea. [Again, only a guess, I could be wrong. Hope I am and there is no attack, but I am not counting on it.] This is why Trump is being arrested, and likely Epsteined. Then the Republicans will dutifully pick Nimrata Randhawa (Nikki Haley’s real name) . Even if Nuland, the Ukraine show-runner in charge of yes/no US forces invading Crimea, does not think it, likely people in the Pentagon know and have advised we will take serious casualties, possibly 20K dead given the nature of the fighting now. Even fortification can’t solve that issue, so Trump has to be dealt with and the RESTRICT act outlawing anything the Regime does not like on the internet is being passed (by Romney, Graham, Collins, etc.). Hence all the extra efforts made to create the clampdown, gays/trannies against Christians and in particular, Catholics and the FBI sicced on Catholics. The Regime fears the Church could be the locus for an effort to stop war with Russia. I have many issues with the current Pope. But he sincerely does want peace. FWIW in my church, services have concluded with prayers for peace, I am sure that sets neocons with fury.
There is really only one person who decides for a hot war or not. That’s not Biden. That’s Nuland. WWIII may start out of the deranged aggression of a fat, ugly, and stupid (((woman))). Where does she get her power? Why her and not a man?
This is something I have not understood about this time in my own culture. Why is it fat, unattractive, nasty women over and over again organizations, wield so much power and are nearly impossible to get rid of: Merkel, Victoria Alonso and Kathleen Kennedy at Disney, Nuland, Albright, Yellen, etc. Is it a death wish?
There is so much about my country and my culture I no longer understand. I can’t even connect to what is around now, and I don’t think I’m alone. My country was a beautiful place, once. You should have seen it.
because those women are the cat’s paw of the families who own the central banks.
If the US-Pole forces somehow manage to make significant headway against the Russians I can see the Russians tac-nuking the GAE forces.
As far as the RESTRICT act, I think the draconian penalties regarding VPN use are a bit of a tell. I think those are in there because they can’t instantly break VPN encryption and map the traffic back to your location and identity.
Now, I know that people ascribe magical powers to the three-letter agencies, but think back to the wastes of space in the, “Humans of CIA,” video that dropped a few months ago.
You really think clowns like that have any sort of actual ability to analyze data and hack your Internet connection?
Really?
I think they have a huge budget and ability to pay competent private sector people to do the difficult work. That’s the GOPe’s whole schtick. “we won’t make government smaller but we’ll make it more efficient by using private contractors”
But even they can’t bring themselves to admit it. Since they cast a good looking blonde in Madam Secretary
You can be certain that any American casualties will be woefully underreported, and no one will give a SH because it’s not going to be the woke tranny brigade that does the dying.
Nuland? She’s spent her career spilling oceans of blood and treasure to no account. 90% of the US population would look at you like you’re crazy if you even mentioned her name.
She’s not going to change course now.
Reports of high US casualties will of course be Russian disinformation.
The United States lost its Grand Ol’ War against Russia when the sanctions backfired spectacularly–not that the attached parasites cared as long as they were paid and the blood of innocents flowed. There will be no Poland/United States grand crusade into the Ukraine. If anything, the United States will launch a grand adventure to pull Warsaw into line.
Ditch the 1985 bullshit.
The United States is about to launch an offensive on its own people, sort of like Russia circa 1917 except far more retarded. Don’t discount the Nashville tranny terrorist was an agent of the GAE. Her/His background likely was created within the last year.
Go, ‘Murica!
did you get all that from your magic 8-ball?
20k casualties is just a start, carrier battle groups will be destroyed, hypersonic attacks on US bases in Europe, the Middle East, and mainland US. Russia will play to win, they have to or it’s the end for them.
Looks like the Democrats have finally harpooned their orange whale. You can’t get better luck than this for Trump. And it also gets the entire country talking about what it likes to talk about the most. Penis and vagina.
Trust the plan, everyone!
The white hats behind the scenes are guiding events. Trump’s indictment is part of the trap that leads to locking up Hillary!
We’re winning! LET’S GOOOOO!!!!
It is about to get worse in the United States. Don’t discount how bad. Trump is the least of it. There’s no small chance we will no longer be commenting here if we can even access places like this in the near future. Our dollars today more or less became worthless in the weeks and months out. What vestiges of liberty we had left the building some time ago. The real pain is close.
This is it.
The Russians will just blow up all that armor with the Javelin’s they bought off the Ukrainians on the black market, or just picked up off the ground.
Matter of fact, if I were a Russia it would be a point of pride that I only destroyed Western armor with procured Western armaments.
Never fired, only dropped once!
Why the Euros signed onto to a twentieth century style war at uncle schlomo’s behest is beyond me. None of them have any serious military power and furthermore live right on Russia’s doorstep. Apparently two previous slaughter-fests taught them nothing. They’d better figure out a way to negotiate a Chinese supported settlement regardless of the F-ing optics.
Because they are occupied territories not sovereign states. Simple as
I will be astounded if this war is over in a year. Nobody in a position of authority has an interest in ending it. Russia is suffering minimal losses and, from a strategic position, both Russia and China get stronger every day this war continues. The US military-industrial complex is raking in the dough. One can only presume that US politicians are gathering their kickbacks from money flowing into Ukraine, and that the politicians in Ukraine are getting their rake. The feckless leaders of Western European countries are under the thumb of the US. The only way I see this war ending soon is if Trump wins in 2024.
One of the great ironies of this war is the observation that the Pogroms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are still paying Russia dividends centuries later. Putin must get a huge chuckle as he watches the neocon descendants of the Jews expelled in the Pogroms driving America’s suicidal foreign policy in this war.
This war is over when the Ukes run out of bodies, That is certainly this year.
The question is whether the Polacks are dumb enough to sign up for the sequel.
The way Russia has been fighting this war seems to imply that Act II is NATO.
The WSJ just ran a Russia-is-about-to-crash-their-economy article on the front page— I am not caricaturing it for barflies at the anti-NATO brewhouse here, I don’t have to. That’s what delusional Globohom’s are going with this week. I did not read much of the details in the article, but apparently, Russia is about to lose everything, you guys, and there is this satellite imaging tycoon in Moscow who’s really cheesed off at Elon. Also Russian economists have something called the Gaydar Institute and this was solid, the best line in the thing.
Bonus fresh-amusement follow-up to that Russia-Is-Over byline:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-security-service-detains-wall-street-journal-reporter-cbfbd505
While I’m not the foremost expert on economic crashes, there is one thing I have divined about them with certainty:
They don’t announce them ahead of time in the Wall Street Journal
We’re Aztecs now.
Too hated & murderous to let go.
Much thanks to Citizen for explaining the Eurodollar, which is traded as a Chicago COMEX commodity rather than a Forex currency; it was a backdoor way to trade the USSR ruble, which had been blocked from the BIS SWIFT settlement system. (Or so I believed.) aka “sheep-dipping”; I’d wondered how the USSR had continued, to the point of even conducting overseas Cold War fronts. And thanks to Zman for explaining the petrodollar.
The point is our pensions and currency.
Sudden collapse? Only if the rumor that 100 countries are planning a sudden jump away from pegging to the dollar is true. Most likely not. The BRICS only formalized in 2009.
Like the post-Covid China economic rebound, China-Russia’s economies simply aren’t strong enough yet.
Considering their population problems, it probably never will be.
Sure, you can put your savings in Yuan if you want. Or rubles? Since they have such a deep and liquid sovereign debt market lol.
What our future looks like is USSR Lysenkoism combined with 70s inflation. People were still buying houses in the US and Europe at 10-18% in the 70s/80s, so the lights didn’t go out.
A relevant lesson from the past, rhyming with the bankers’ war today:
(from my notes)
A French vision that the EMS eventually replace the IMF and World Bank as the center of world finance.
In 1978, France and West Germany led the European community, with the exception of Great Britain, in the formation of the European Monetary System (EMS).
The EMS was a response to the controlled disintegration that had been unleashed on the world economy after the fixed exchange rate became a floating exchange rate in 1971.
1977, France and West Germany had begun exploring the possibility of concretizing a deal with oil producing countries in which western Europe would supply high-technology exports, including nuclear technology, to the OPEC countries in exchange for long-term oil supply contracts at a stable price.
In turn, OPEC countries would deposit their enormous financial surpluses into western European banks which could be used for further loans for development projects… obviously to the detriment of the IMF and World Bank hegemony.
The Shah had started a closer partnership with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, in forming OPEC.
If an Iran-Saudi-Iraq axis established a permanent working relationship with the EMS it would have assembled an unstoppable combination against the London world financial center.
*****
So, in summary, we’re seeing a Woke repeat of the 70s oil shocks; the lights didn’t go out, the dollar didn’t crash, the USSR continued despite its Lysenkoist (Woke) heritage.
The neocons have brought their Stalinist style of governance; we’ll be stupid, black market, oppressed, poor, and crazy, but the Pan-European tribe of America, at least, still has a chance to survive.
No 1866 for us, so that Little House on the Prairie will likely be a broke-down RV on a Lost Angeles side street, with a FreedomPass smartphone, and gig shifts at the toxic salvage scrapyard.
It’s the Woke version of the Jetsons.
The dollar will still be the global reserve currency, but, now, foreign governments know that they can survive the use of the dollar as the geopolitical weapon: seizing of assets, expulsion of the SWIFT system, etc.
A different global reserve currency is a long shot, but nations can trade with local currencies and can decrease their supply of dollars so they are not stolen when USA goes full “Color Revolution” against them. Alternative exchange systems and practices are being created.
This has huge geopolitical consequences. The dollar is the weapon of the empire.
Agreed. A multipolar order, something none of us has ever experienced.
Either the Bretton Woods dollar-gold peg or the petro-dollar peg started out with “only” 44 countries signing on to the accord, (I can’t remember which it was); the WTO is of similar history, only forming in 1992.
Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, France, Great Britain, and the USA have been world reserve currencies. The average span of a reserve currency is 94 years,
US since 1921, after WW1.
“The dollar is the weapon of the empire.”
Many smart people saying this!
In “Forms of Modern Imperialism in International Law”, first published in 1933, Carl Schmitt investigates U.S. imperialism. In contrast to other forms of colonialism, American imperialism is, according to him, economic. The distinction between creditors and debtors has become the basis for an order of domination that politicizes the economy, considered to be a priori “peaceful” in the nineteenth century.
Only if the rumor that 100 countries are planning a sudden jump away from pegging to the dollar is true. Most likely not.
—
I thought that too, and, still do for the most part. But the thing about panics is, he who panics first panics best. I wouldn’t rule out waking up one day and finding that the Fed had to panic-hike their rate to 25% and even that wouldn’t be enough.
“But the thing about panics is, he who panics first panics best.”
Haha! Every day in the financial traders’ news, the Apocalypse is imminent!
That will never happen. They will just do yield curve control to force negative real rates with high inflation.
“The new tools of monetary policy”
“What is yield curve control?”
Brookings has the “solution” on deck
We keep hearing about China’s and Russia’s population problems, but those aren’t fundamentally different than ours. We’ve just papered over it by importing third world barbarians and that’s suppose to be better? Depending on the situation it might be much worse. What happens when we try to draft our new citizens into the military to fight China and Russia? They will say what that black guy who was living in Ukraine said. I’m black it’s not my fight, and fled.
The US’ white population is actually declining in number, and whites are a minority in the under 15 year old cohort.
Good point, downsizing or slower growth is not conquered helots.
Rather live in Japan with declining population than turd world country. Not even remotely a question.
“Material wealth is not the only thing that counts. Thus, even if real incomes rise due to immigration, it does not follow that immigration must be considered “good,” for one might prefer lower living standards and a greater distance to other people over higher living standards and a smaller distance to others.”
-Hoppe, On Free Immigration and Forced Integration
“French President Emmanuel Macron was sent to Beijing to beg for mercy. He came back and immediately signed a trade deal with China in which the French will buy LNG using yuan.”
Where is it coming from? He have not gone yet, so could not come back.
He is planning to go in April.
From ‘Le Monde’ on March 24th:
“…French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday, March 24, that European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen would accompany him on an upcoming visit to China. Macron is set to travel to China early next month for talks with President Xi Jinping, as Western leaders are urging Beijing to pressure Russia over the war in Ukraine…”
He hasn’t gone yet but it looks like some kind of deal has been made
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/china-completes-first-yuan-settled-lng-trade
He bought an LNG Contract from UAE that settled in Yuan.
It was a straightforward fyou to the US because the UAE will happily sell their gas in Euro’s or dollars.
Perhaps a side note for today’s topic but I’ve been thinking about those shiny new tanks. So the Ukies are supposed to get what, like 12 Leopard tanks? I think if I was a Ukrainian tanker I would probably just desert or shoot myself before I’d get in one. The Russians are going to be going all out to destroy these things assuming they even get deployed. It won’t be much of a battlefield victory since 12 tanks just don’t matter that much in a large scale ground war but imagine the propaganda victory they’ll score. You know videos of those things getting wasted are going to be all over YT or at least BitBucket.
I recall the ‘Highway of Death’ from Gulf War 1. 12 tanks aren’t going to do anything for the Ukraine except become ready-made coffins. More needless death.
My European country announced that it was going to give 20 Leopard tanks. The government officers went to the place where the tanks had been parked for years and saw that they were in an awful state.
There have been floods and some of them were full of frogs. They tried to hire a company to fix them (for millions of dollars), but it was impossible. So they ended up being 6 Leopard tanks. Putin must be devastated.
“Full of frogs”?
I thought the French main battle tank was called the Leclerc, not Leopard.
the only reason we sent them is that the chinese army wanted to reverse engineer western tanks , so they wanted some samples of each type. they ordered their puppet politicians to send them to ukraine, the reussians know the ukes will abandon them rather than die, . they will be captured and half will be sent to china and russia will get the other half . they can then develope ways of defeating them in the “unlikely ” event of future conflict .
You’re giving the Chinese too much credit here. They can sit back and do nothing and the elite clowns running the show will do just fine screwing up on their own. You underestimate just how stupid, crazy and short-sighted our elites are right now. As Z has said many times, these people have been protected from consequences their whole lives and their parents lives too. They’re too stupid to know what they don’t know.
read unrestricted warfare. written by 2 ccp oficers in 1998. turn off fox news.
there’s a funny movie in there, a kind of updated Kelly’s Heroes. all 12 tank crews surrender to the russians and claim a reward for bringing the tanks with them; i.e. the tanks are the gold!
That was my first thought. The Russians bribed the Ukrainians to get samples of every modern western tank (6 of each, half a dozen of the other) to reverse engineer.
The numbers of tanks being sent over are not even one day’s cannon fodder for the Russians.
I suspect that the Russians will take particular satisfaction in the destruction of a German tank. German tanks versus Russian tanks in Ukraine. How did that end the first time?
“The Russo-NATO war in Ukraine appears to be headed to some sort of final act or perhaps the penultimate act that sets the stage for the final act…”
————————–
I think you fellas are in for a disappointing let down. This thing is going to end with Biden, Milley, and the European faggotry looking around stupidly at each other, while their fart catchers scramble to find a new Current Thing to distract the lumpen proletariat with. They will frantically try to flush the evidence of this debacle down the toilet as they did with Afghanistan – by setting fires elsewhere with their political enemies. Look for more trannies shooting your kids and molesting them in public schools.
The global West is faced with a leadership crisis – and that crisis is caused mostly by the jewish presence at the helm of Globohomo. Putler is winning this because he embraces his people and his heritage, and he drove the jews out of his finances wholesale. The world beats a path to his door. Until we do the same… we are dead in the water, led to ruin by clowns, perverts, and grifters.
I see only one country making moves to head this off – which is Israel, of all the bloody coincidences. They are moving to curtail the power of their leftist craptivist judges and lunatics in the supreme court. We need to cleanse our own judiciaries and law enforcement the same way. Unfortunately, cleaning house is anti-semitic everywhere in the west outside of Israel.
If true this does create problems for where to send all the sociopathic Jews after cleaning house. I mean if Israel won’t take them…
Totally agree though that the clown cult will try to pivot from their defeat in Ukraine with some new nonsense here. Will they get away with it is the question. They clearly got away with making people forget Afghanistan. Even grillers have a limit but every time we’ve thought they were there, the TV goes back on and they go back to cheering for their favorite Negroball team.
The problem is that tranny killers are actually a threat to people here while no one *really* gave a shit about Ukraine. Even the grillers might notice that.
“If true this does create problems for where to send all the sociopathic Jews after cleaning house. I mean if Israel won’t take them…”
Ukraine. Currently being de-nazified and leveled. Has there ever been a better real estate opportunity?
Blackrock, Cargill, and Monsanto hear and approve. The contracts are already written and pending.
Plus! The DHS & USDA, in a joint deal, are about to open our very own Wuhan BSL4 biowarfare lab in Kansas.
This one for R&D on livestock. Undoubtedly to leak diseases which will then require many profitable vaccination programs.
A profit stream into the future Assuredly plant blights are next.
Big Ag for the win!
Doubleplusgood, is that the UN Smart Cities protocols “allow” relocation on poisoned land, such as the toxic chemical spills in Red battleground states, so we can relocate pesky Trump voters to ecological remediation Projects.
(Since it’s white people this time, they won’t suffer the same fate as the black Model Cities of LBJ’s Great Society. They’re giving us Oranias! Slightly toxic Oranias, but with plentiful cancer treatment clinics.)
This!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does Madagascar still have room? Ukraine is fine European real estate.
Madagascar 2 dot O!
Putin really hasn’t driven the rats out. Most of the Russian oligarchs are Jews, and Russia’s cloud people are just as pro-globohomo as our own.
Perhaps, perhaps not. If so… he has those SOBs on a very short leash, and they only do business with his forbearance and tolerance. Tied to a gold standard, held to accountability… the Jewry is kept in check and relatively honest whereas in the West they run rampant with no checks and balances whatsoever.
Putin’s big problem is he doesn’t have an heir apparent. Like the rest of the gerontocracy, he has not, to the best of my knowledge, groomed a successor. If he doesn’t prepare a successor, his reign will have been little more than a pause in the decline. Putin is 70 years old.
Dmitry Medvedev has been making all the right noises.
Makes Putin look a bit of a pansy.
Putin spanked a few of them, hard, early on and set the tone for the rest of them. I’m not aware if the effect has worn off or not. Considering the history of the chosen, it probably has.
Quite so. Note that while the Trots are cleaning up their own den of iniquity, as well as prepping a second one (Ukraine), Russia is fully on board with vax passes, suppressing white nationalism, social media monitoring, and CBDCs.
Zelenskyy’s Ukraine was/is to be the testbed for the full WEF system rollout.
Nigeria’s eNaira is the testbed of CBDC rollout.
Silicon Valley Bank was Yellen’s bailout of Israeli tech companies.
So, I’m not seeing any defeat just yet of the Tikkun Olam, the Perfected World, but Russia and China trying to stake their place in it.
That’s what I thought too until I saw them, yesterday, put some tentative effort into finding a way to back out of the Tranny Trap that they’ve put themselves in. Much as with inflation there are a few sane people in the regime who know that the The Narrative will only carry them so far.
We forget that homosexuals were the front line, the shock troops, the berserker suicide squads of many ancient armies.
They are to be Sardaukar.
Privileged and zealous.
The Army saying, “we break them down to nothing, then teach them they can do anything,” applies here.
Break their spirit with covert MK-Ultra programming by Mindspring porn and its unknown funding while covid-quarantined at home;
Give them a chance at bennies in the military and prison system;
Recruit for the military (including some of those prison-schooled convicts) and build them back up with PT, physical training, renewing some degree of masculine self-confidence and dependence on the military orders;
Place some in urban combat logistics and some as LEOs, militarized police, allies of Gladio, Antifa, BLM, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace;
And we have Islam, we have conquistadors, we have Praetorians, we have an army of Savonarolas eager to reform the world of its wickedness with burnings at the stake.
Azov Battalions!
We’ll have our own, groomed by the Kolomoiskys.
Not hard ethnic nationalists, either, but woke, fake, and gay.
I think the next big thing will be the bank failures. They’re fresh out of military adventures.
Here’s the French gas deal.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/france-buys-65000-tons-lng-china-first-ever-yuan-denominated-trade
What’s interesting is this
“The liquified natural gas was bought from the UAE, the payment is settled in the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, using Chinese yuan”
They could just as easily have bought this directly from the UAE instead of through the Shanghai Exchange and settled in Dollars or Euros. This looks like a big French FookYou to the US purely to gain the goodwill of China.
In other passing of an era news.
The Pentagram is packing it in on the recent hypersonic missile fail.
“The US Air Force has announced plans to end the Lockheed Martin hypersonic weapons program.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/usaf-admits-hypersonic-missile-test-failed
Bile-
The cancellation of the ARRW program is reportedly due to the missile’s inability to handle the friction-driven heating that is a fact of life at those extreme Mach numbers. Apparently the Russians have coatings and materials that have dealt with this problem.
Even more amusingly, this situation was predicted by the novel and film Firefox, which revolved around a Soviet stealth interceptor. In both media, there is a scene where Western military and intelligence types receive a briefing that states (to paraphrase), “….their airframes are stable to Mach 5, possibly 6….our best airframes begin melting at Mach 3….”
Here is the briefing scene from the film, Firefox:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw4BfD1cDf8
Lacking sources that can be believed, I don’t know any better than your average schlep what the situation on the ground in Ukraine is.
But, I feel like I have a decent read on the mindset of GAE leadership. These do not seem like people who are capable of backing down, compromising, taking half a loaf, accepting that their empire has reached its zenith. Or negotiating in good faith, which their adversary has also concluded.
And if that’s all true, and I’m pretty sure it is, then there’s only one direction this can go. May the strongest horse win, and the nukes hopefully not fly.
This is one of those times I’d rather be wrong
GAE is well past its zenith.
Zalensky has zero moral compass. However he gets to the negotiating table he’ll want some guarantee from the U.S. that he can somehow disappear and live on his billions in his Tuscan villa. He probably knows his life is in danger either way. From the Ukrainian people after he loses and from the U.S., at the very least, not protecting him. The U.S. has no interest in peace. Ideally, in the minds of D.C., Russia would pull out the tactical nukes, use them and show what monsters they are. A bigger body count not a smaller one. It’s up to Europe to give Zalensky cover, especially Macron, if Europe wants this to go away (There’s an apartment waiting for you on the Champs-Elysees, just sign it). Before you know it we’ll be sanctioning brie and pulling out the freedom fries one last time.
Mmmm. Hard to beat that brie melted over freedom fries…
But I just got done perfecting my “Democracy Borscht”…
My bet is a carefully stage managed “coup”. Zelensky magically “escapes” and finds refuge in the West and the new government signs the surrender documents while the West will claim the coup was orchestrated by the Russians the government is illegal, but the US “reluctantly” walks away in the interests of the peace that DC has always sought.
Some iteration of that.
So Macron is making backroom deals to buy Russian gas, in spite of the EU sanctions, and pay for it in Yuan. Yet he is supposedly going to train Ukraine pilots and is hinting he will send Rafale jet fighters to Ukraine.
We need some adults to take charge and to do so quickly.
This is, really, par for the course for the French. Profiting from both sides of conflict has a long tradition there, it’s almost quaint.
You Lie.
He bought the gas from the UAE.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/france-buys-65000-tons-lng-china-first-ever-yuan-denominated-trade
The only adult on the horizon just got indicted.
The West should have taken this seriously since at least Nov of 21. This is when Biden started making noises about the plans for the invasion of Ukraine. Had they taken the steps then, they would be bearing fruit by now. They could have started ordering massive amounts of ammunition on an expedited basis and gave the financing to build out the infrastructure. At least some of this infrastructure could have been operational in the 18 months since. AFAIK, they still have not done so and so there will be no glut of ammunition next year.
Though,I don’t know if any of them foresaw the war turning into a WW1 style trench warfare war burning through huge amounts of artillery. As far as I can tell, this has taken most “experts” by surprise.
The West always projects their views on others. The collective West did not envision the return of industrial wars.
They are knaves and fools.
They certainly should have envisioned it. Then again it may be that the “collective West” now mistakes what was really an artifact of the twilight years of the USSR for some sort of fixture of all modern warfare. If you look at Western, which is to say American, militarism in recent decades there are basically two periods. The first is the “Reaganaut” phase and the second is the “Bushwar” phase. In the 1980s the US under Reagan got involved in a set of now almost forgotten conflicts in Central America and then in the 1990s and into the 2000s we had various adventures in the Middle East.
What characterized the opponents in both phases is that they were essentially pay-to-play militaries or rent-an-armies if you will. None had any significant industrial capacity or a native armaments industry. Some had amassed quite significant stockpiles of weapons but it was clear that if the “coalition” could exhaust the regime’s supply of weapons they couldn’t make more themselves. On top of that most of the regimes the West was fighting had been propped up to some degree by the CIA, MI6 and other deep state vermin so in many cases the West knew what it needed to destroy because it still had the receipts.
If the geniuses in Tubman or London really didn’t envision this they must not even be aware of what their own deep state had been doing for the last 50 years, the fact that modern Russia is not the failed USSR or, well really anything at all about war planning. This would put them at the “couldn’t plan a birthday party for a 6 year old” level.
I know we talk about Clown World and how dumb our ruling class is and I certainly think that view holds for the “outer core” ruling class – the dumb asses doing loops around the Capitol beltway with Ukie flags on their Teslas. The inner core would simply have to have been in a coma though and I just don’t buy that they really are this dumb.
I’m sure there are people in the pentagon, and at langley, who know the facts about our military capability vs theirs and so on…. whether that information is known, or how much it is cared about, by the people at the top of the pentagon and cia, I couldn’t say.
But the neoclowns themselves, the people who got the GAE into this mess, do you really think they have devoted any serious attention to the minutiae of military capability, strategy, industry, etc.? I doubt it. I’m thinking their view of it is no deeper than Madeline Albright’s was in the 1990s when she said to Colin Powell, “What use is it having this big powerful military if we can’t use it?”
We are talking about a leadership class that believed either…
A. It’s a good idea to provoke Russia into invading Ukraine….. or
B. We can do all this meddling in Ukraine without provoking Russia
There is no C. It’s one of those two. The lack of ammo prep ahead of time suggests B, but the fact that it was exclusively either A or B betrays their hopeless stupidity, and leaves open the possibility that they believed they didn’t need to stockpile ammo to win the war. The failure of the sanctions shows they clearly underestimated Russia economically, so it’s not far fetched that they also did so militarily.
They believed their own BS. When they are fighting a 3rd world country, the technical edge is more than enough. We get air superiority and then bomb them into the stone age. The problem has always been “what happens when America starts a war with a country that can fight back?” Now we know.
I tend to believe they took their perceived military dominance for granted without analyzing it too deeply. After all, they kept throwing close to a trillion a year at it, it must be the best, right?
Why should they care about winning the war? The war is not about winning or losing. It’s about making lots of money. There hasn’t been a single war in my lifetime (69 years) that hasn’t been extremely profitable for the billionaires. The billionaires win regardless of the outcome. Why should this one be any different?
Consider:
Vietman. The soldiers lost, the billionaires won.
Grenada. The soldiers won, the billionaires won.
Gulf war. The soldiers won, the billionaires won.
Afghanistan, The soldiers lost, the billionaires won.
Iraq, The soldiers won/lost, who knows? Does anyone care? But, the billionaires won.
The billionaires always win.
That’s fine when you’re picking opponents who can’t reach out and touch you in a meaningful way. But once you pick one who can, and simultaneously everyone sees the trail of broken hearts you’ve left behind you and is getting wise to your game, forming new alliances and such, then it’s suddenly a very different ballgame.
Pingback: The End of the Beginning | American Freedom News
Gee, my Regime Media Source™ tells me that the Ukies are pulling a ‘300’ Leonidas move and see a victory in Bakhmut. (The Spartans won, right?) Seriously, who still puts any faith in these stories from MSM? As the world re-aligns with a new hegemony developing and the birth of a new order, this is not the important event the public should be concerned about. What is frightening is how our ruling class seems to be unconcerned by any other the developments, nor preparing for the changes coming.
Rough times up ahead indeed.
“Ukrainians Directing Soldiers From a Hidden Hub See Bakhmut Going Their Way”
Ukrainian commanders say they have exhausted Russia’s relentless assaults on the eastern city, though soldiers say the cost in lives has been steep.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-bakhmut-russia.html
That one NATO tweet will be in the history books after this is all over
https://twitter.com/NATO/status/1628687961477750790?s=20
From the article:
“If Wagner PMC rolls back, then the following situation will happen in history,” he said in early March. “It is clear that the front will crumble. The front will crumble to the Russian borders, or maybe further.”
Colonel Mezhevikin said there were still strong Russian divisions guarding the critical points of defense but that regular Russian army units lacked morale and were easier to break. “It’s easier to fight them. They are running away,” he said.
So in NYT speak this is around the 87th time they have announced the pending collapse of the Russian forces, and that the Ukies will be sipping vodka in Moscow in no time.
By the end of all of this the Wagner Group will be recognized as the best urban fighting force on the planet.
Perhaps after the war, some of the Wagner group will come over here and hold “training” sessions? 😉
It cannot be overstated ho much Xi and china have gained from this war. Americans can talk about taiwan intill the cows come home but the us militay is flat on it’s ass. Between the Woke gay sex stuff pushed by chinese bought politicians to the fact that we have no ammo left and no way to make more, it’s toast. the taiwanese know this , the CCP knows this .
Europe(NATO) is descending into economic destrution . their industrial base has been gutted . They are now the economic peasants of their CCP owners.
Russia is now wholely Dependant on china for manufactured goods, and will give them cut rate natural resources to keep their support .
“our” Neocons , servants of international banking intrest , got christian slavic men to kill about 300K and permanently maim another 500K of each other. the international finance community probably Hoovered up vast ammounts of the close to $ 1/2 trillion in ” aid ” from the US, canadian,austrailian, and european taxpayers.
all the middle east, Balkan, and turkey got to fill their sex slave bordellos with lots of cheap young blonde ukrainian women. trafficked from the war torn anarchy in ukraine.
Lots of groups got a lot of what they like and wanted from this war.
> Between the Woke gay sex stuff pushed by chinese bought politicians
Haha, those damn Chinese subversives!
Well it is true though. They might be “more bought” by someone else, but the political domestic reaction to Tik Tok shows how far in the sack they are for the CCP. The whole scheme seems to be “how to ban Tik Tok without actually banning it”. Just turn the routers off to China, not hard!
You might ask “but what about all the business communication to China?”. But it’s not like the government would care about that if they weren’t paid to.
Those mighty American tech companies can’t figure out how to platform simple short clips from a person’s smartphone?
I don’t know if that’s true, that the GAE lacks the ammo for a battle for Taiwan. Since a battle for Taiwan would be a naval/air battle. The GAE does lack ammo for a ground war, but once China has boots on Taiwan ground the battle is already decided anyway.
My guess is GAE has enough to repulse the Chinese once or twice, assuming they were able to fight well. But what if the Chinese refused to take no for an answer and kept coming.
I don’t think we can stop China once they begin to lay the groundwork for invasion. The US has a very good submarine force but the carrier battle groups are very vunerable. China major weakness is their unproven military so anything can happen once the war starts, but they surely have enough missiles, hypersonic and others, to do a lot of damage. If I were China I would be sucking up to Russia for their missile tech.
Anyway, it’s probably moot as Taiwan will eventually reunify with the mainland anyway. The KMT is on track to win their next election and they are pro-unification. All they have to do is be patient and wait for us to self destruct.
True in some respects, but an equally good case can be made that the KMT is merely pro-status quo. Remaining the pro-Beijing party in a politically balanced, independent Taiwan is probably most lucrative course.
China could easily take Taiwan with an all-out fast and hard airborne & amphibious strike aided by the sleeper agents they undoubtedly have throughout all levels of Taiwanese society.
If China prepositioned certain forces and gave the go code they could pull this off as long as the separate elements of their forces remained in reasonable sync.
In the war of the future, there are only two types of sea craft:
Submarines, and targets.
The CCP subs have a long, long way to go. If it’s a naval battle, the CCP is going to lose.
The Straights of Taiwan may glow for a thousand years from a sunk carrier or two though.
what makes you think we have that muck naval stuff? they can’t even scrape up the M1 tanks they promised. we need to face the fact that a lot of the Military hardware we paid for was never really delivered. and what was hasn’t been maintained . they have hypersonic missles from russia and Drone torpodes too. the us navy is at risk. we could pb playing the role of russia at Tsushima https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__jr5uqjnA
A couple of Carriers on the bottom of the South China Sea would spark a reaction back home that the DC Dipshits couldn’t withstand.
If I were China, I’d sink one in the Persian Gulf too, just for shits and giggles.
Only 30% of the new F-35 flight/bombers are considered “fully mission capable.”
I’d imagine the actual number is somewhat less. This, during peacetime, where logistics aren’t strained and trained personnel aren’t being blown to bits.
Something to think about if the NATO-Russian war expands and the NYT prints graphics showing the size of the awesome “arsenal of democracy” vs puny Russia.
Think about how awsome those 30% will be with their woke trans pilots! Xi is quaking with fear.
I try not to nitpick, but I think it is relevant to note that Marinka is southwest of Donetsk City and Avdivka is north and slightly west of the city. This is important because Russia controls Donetsk City and also controls the area east of the city.
Fixed! I was holding the map upside down.
so does Biden 😛
kvh kvh kvh kvh
Do you ever get the feeling you are watching a movie being made? This war is actually the biggest Hollywood production since “Gone With the Wind”. Legend has it that David Selznick nearly went mad trying to finish it. This is an apt metaphor for Ukraine and its Neocon “producers”.
In the opening scene, the audience is asked to believe that Ukraine – really a bunch of disparate peoples and regions thrown together by Stalin and the winds of cruel history – is a “sovereign nation” vital to US interests. Conveniently, the movie edits out the CIA-staged 2014 coup. In Scene 2, we are told the actor addressing Congress isn’t an actor but is a real President and is the Slavic Churchill.
In Scene 3, the Russians screw up early but end up pounding the place like Sherman pounded Atlanta. (We all recall that the South won many early battles too.) Of course the “southern belles” have all left – mail order brides gone to America or hookers moved to Berlin and Warsaw – as they are too savvy to wait for the final scene.
Before Tara-skyy is bombed with depleted uranium and rendered barren for eternity in Scene 4, some clever screenwriter had better make some edits to the script. The movie is over budget and the investors have seen the early prints. They are very nervous. Even with all the “extras” getting killed, it’s still too expensive.
The Chinese are threatening to call their loans and take over the production. The focus group doesn’t like either alternative ending.
Yes, Zelensky wearing only green T-shirts was revealing to me. It was so fake and gay. It made me realize that we are in a movie and Zelensky is one of the stars. As most modern movie stars, he is under the influence.
The script is not terribly original. It reuses old tropes that have been repeated since World War II. The empire who fights for liberty helping a small country to keep its independence from a foreign agressor. The Hitler character, which is an evil monster who wants to harm people only because he is a sadist. The evil and fascist nations with strange language and customs that want to conquer Europe and so on and so forth.
As in any new adaptation, you have to include LGBT topics so new laws allowing gay marriage are introduced in the Ukrainian congress.
But most of the Western population has believed the movie is real life. It is not the first time. It is the power of propaganda.
The war was effectively over when the sanctions didn’t cripple Russia and when the Russians switched to making the war an artillery dual. After that happened, it was simply a question time and how this would end.
But the US has (seemingly) lost a lot more than the Ukraine war. The war has massively accelerated the move to a multi-currency world. The dollar will remain the primary currency for a very long time, but being able to do enough trade in other currencies is enough to make US sanctions a far less dangerous weapon.
This war could down as the end of America as sole global superpower, a position it held since the end of the Cold War. Not sure anyone saw that when the war began.
The neocons are massively crazed evil warmongers however they are also incompetent. Everything they touch turns to excrement.
It’s stunning how poor a job the neocons have done. They took over US foreign policy in the 1990s. Since then, they’ve lost two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), burned through a couple of trillion dollars, pushed Russia and China together and are now in the process of dramatically accelerating the loss of the dollar as the most powerful weapon in our arsenal.
All that in 25 years. Pretty amazing.
…and their confidence in themselves hasn’t taken even the smallest hit. Their membership in the cult crushes any responsibility they should feel.
If they were Japanese they’d have committed seppuku years ago. Oriental culture is superior in some aspects.
I dunno, their whole “Russia will disregard their national security interests when they can’t use Google Pay anymore” strategy kind of set the stage for a play that can only end one way.
Being cut off from SWIFT and cutting out Western tech and expertise was a powerful hit. Not many countries could take it. But Russia did.
And every day that Russia survives and even starts to build new networks and systems does immense damage to US power.
“By making Macron do that deal, they are telling Washington that China is willing to compete with Washington on every continent, even Europe. It also signals that Europe is very worried about what is happening to them in this war.”
There is a strong likelihood that Western Europe starts to break from the United States after this madness ends. As you wrote some time back, blowing up Nordstream was a turning point. I would submit the assassination of Dariya Dugin was as well. Throw those outrages on top of the economic devastation Washington has unleashed, and old alliances suddenly no longer look as attractive.
Domestically, this should kill the Neocons once and for all, but they are as indestructible as cockroaches. They are not the types to be satisfied reigning just in the narrow Hell they have created, though, so maybe that is some justice.
“Decades of bribing American officials has taught the Chinese how important narrative and symbolism is to Washington”
It also taught Beijing there is a lot of truth to Lenin’s line about selling ropes. Europe also has plenty of McConnells and Bidens and Gates and Bezos types.
Used to think NATO was an “alliance”. Most Western Europeans probably did as well.
The elites in Germany knew better, which is why they tried to quietly build NG pipelines that would strengthen ties between Russia and Germany. It’s was a great deal for both nations.
When the US blew up a decades in the making major civilian infrastructure project (NordStream), it became obvious to all Europeans and many Americans that NATO is just a fig leaf for the US to occupy Europe and dominate it militarily.
Unless Western Europe gets serious about a European-only military, they can’t leave NATO nor can they resist the US. You can be certain the US will never allow that.
But it’s a dying entity anyway; a playground for US and Chinese tourists, and a dumping ground for the world’s poor. A shadow of its former self.
Europe is the Holy Land. Without Europe, there is nothing. America will slide into brown irrelevance.
We should all pray that Europe is reborn.
All it would take is a German leader who could make a peace deal with Russia and wished to do the right thing for Germany. It is not going to be Scholz.
The first thing would be to publicly condemn the U.S. destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. Make a formal agreement with Russia in which Germany removes itself completely from any aid to Ukraine. Make an agreement with Russia to repair the pipelines. Start deporting the “refugees”.
There is little to lose for Germany to embark on this path. Their economy is already destroyed. They would have no where to go but up in a break with the U.S./NATO.
Agreed. The replacement of European peoples means all of Western Civ is eventually dismantled. The new people will destroy it all without a care. There will be no genetic re-invigoration as in the fall of Rome when Goths, Visigoths and Lombardians restored the genetic stock of the Italian peninsula.
What is going on with the Pakistani usurper in Scotland is ominous and should have every single Scotsman and European alarmed and looking themselves in the mirror questioning if they are man enough.
All it would take is a German leader who could make a peace deal with Russia and wished to do the right thing for Germany.
Tried that in the 1930s-40s. In the end, it didn’t work out.
yes, yes, give up goyim. ‘rubs hands’…
Europe is dead. Take it from an European guy living abroad.
It is always hurtful to come back to my old town, where my family lives, where the landscapes of my childhood are still there.
When I was born, it was an Southern European, Catholic town. People were civil, kind and peaceful. Safety was incredible. The door of my father’s house was always open (Now it is reinforced and it is connected to a private safety company)
Now, it is full of Muslims (which will end up replacing us). In some neighborhoods and some days, you feel you are in Morocco. And the native have gone full woke retard. There are the wokest of the woke people in the world.
When I go to the Catholic Church during weekdays, I am the youngest person (I am 52). The second youngest person is near 80. A civilization is dying.
But the mosque is full of people. They had to move it recently because they didn’t fit. There were no Muslims in my town until 20 years ago. My sister is high school teacher and he told me that the last week Muslim students appear with djellaba on Friday. It seems that the local imam has told them to do it. With djellabas and veils, they reclaim our land as theirs.
Europe is dead. You complain about the Hispanic people and you have a point. But this is a whole different level.
“My sister is A high school teacher and SHE told me that, last Friday, Muslim students APPEARED with djellaba ”
Sorry to mess my English.
Americans frequently fail to recognize that the wokeness that is spreading here now became predominant in Europe decades ago
Not true. Homopropaganda, trannyism and worship of blacks came from America to Europe. Eastern parts of Europe are just in the initial phases of many of these phenomenons, but they are getting there too.
Europe in general is far less non-white than AINO. Europe can still be saved. America is already dead.
Europe’s native white demographics look terrible, they need to make babies and rebuild their cultures that have been sucked into the American borg and spit out as infertile hedonists.
The alternative is a future of middle easterners and Africans wandering in and around the great cathedral’s, praying to Mecca and littering.
G Lordon Giddy: They will desecrate and then smash the cathedrals, and then defecate amongst the ruins.
They already enter chapels and cathedrals and sing Islamic vespers and post the videos on line. Yesterday saw footage of a sub-saharan on a motorcycle doing wheelies and taunting a police car that just drove by and did nothing. I think it was England.
It looked like the motor cyclist had the balls of an elephant swollen up and inspired by that movie Athena that showed muslims rising up and defeating the French police in a real insurrection.
If Europe survives, every last multi-culturalist must be ceremoniously executed. The sickness of submission and that level of treason must not go unpunished.
3g4me is right. There won’t be any cathedrals, museums, statuary, libraries if Europe falls. The replacement and desecration has already started. It will be total if Europe falls.
You can’t kill the neocons. The news hour had fucking Wolfowitz of all people on last night and he was STILL doing the line (“Say the line, Bart!”) about how we needed to stop Saddam to prevent a million more 9/11s.
Also, that interviews led me to one inescapable conclusion: Pinocchio was wrong, Jews’ noses don’t get longer each time they lie, actually their earlobes become more dangly.
The best possible face-saving scenario for all sides is something like this:
Zelenskyyiy is overthrown, the new Ukrainian government declares neutrality and makes a deal with the Russians. Russian speaking parts of Ukraine will stay with Russia.
Zelenskyyiy will escape to the West and go on a tour giving talks to impressionable students and journowhores.
The West will claim that the new Ukrainian government is pro-Russian and mostly cut them off. This coup will be the explanation for failing to win the war against Russia. Russia will remain an enemy, but sanctions will be partially lifted for practical reasons.
In Russia, Putin will be celebrated as savior and the TV will be filled with images of restoration projects in the new provinces. Most of the émigrés will return.
China will keep doing business with everybody.
I think that is spot on. Also, there is no way the same relationship between Europe and the United States can continue. It likely will unwind slowly, but the European Clouds also took a hit this time, and their puppets like Macron already were under tremendous domestic pressure. This insanity will change things between Western power centers and has great potential to do so dramatically.
i don’t know; once the Russians breach the last defensive line (in the East) why would they stop before they push the ukes back to Poland? why let trouble making Ukes back in, after the war? ending the war in Ukraine still leaves the larger issue of the US to be dealt with. Biden and co opened a huge can of worms they have no control over.
There is no doubt in my mind that if this happens, then NATO (Poland and Hungary at least) will enter Ukraine and take over as much land as possible under the pretense of peace keeping.
The Hungarians would have genuine reasons, as the Ukrainian nazi types have been using the war as a cover for ethnic cleansing of Hungarian regions, impressing their men, and dispatching them into their meat grinder to the east. If the Hungarians went in, they will never leave; the trans-Carpathian Hungarian region would be reunited with the motherland in perpetuity.
If the Poles went in, what would they wind up with? A devastated region filled with malcontents. There is a bitter kernel of truth in all of those Polish jokes, and they seem unable to live this down.
For Europe, the restoration of true national identities, coupled with the expulsion of “refugees” from these nations would be a difficult, yet ultimately salutary outcome. Drag the EU and the euro around behind the barn and shoot them in the head; shake off the misrule of the transnational nomenklatura of Europe, and their legions of bugmen. Tall order. Also good advice for us here, including a restoration and unabashed enforcement of localized, culturally appropriate governance wherever the people are up to the task. It’s a nice dream, anyway.
The Hungarian part of Zakarpattia is tiny. vast majority of the area/population is Rusyn and Ukrainian.
People in the parts that Poland would take, may welcome their new masters, as the occupation would mean becoming part of the EU and the West. Most Ukrainians in that part of the country dream about it. The region isn’t that devastated either.
I’m curious about who will fill the void of the 10M Ukrainians that have already left the country (with plans of not ever returning, apparently)
monsanto , ADM , and Cargill will farm the whole place with very large automated equipment . they aren’t needed
One point I disagree with is that I see no way Zelensky survives the end. He is too involved and has too much dirt on his backers. Biden and the CIA, MI6 and the like cannot ever let the truth out about what they have done to the real Ukrainian people and Russia. They’ll be hunted down for revenge.
True. His wife would step in and do the university talks between photoshoots.
One thing should be mentioned about the reason for the delay in a Russian offensive. Macgregor stated several weeks ago that the winter in Europe has been unusually mild. As a result, the famous mud in Ukraine never did freeze to a depth that is necessary to support heavy armored vehicles and supply chains in support of a military offensive. Therefore, the Russians were content to maintain their positions and continue to batter the Ukrainians. When the dry season arrives, this war is going to be over quickly.
What is interesting is that the outcome that would benefit the most people, peace, is precisely the outcome that the ruling class fears. Continuous war enriches the American oligarchs, even as it impoverishes the American people. The process has been going on for most of our my lifetime (I’m 66). Instead of maintaining and building infrastructure in the USA, America builds overseas bases. Instead of investing in the education of its own people, America spends money on overseas wars while importing skilled labour (hello H1B visas).
A serious defeat followed by a refocus on America would benefit ordinary Americans, and end the oligarchs grift. It will be the most substantial political struggle the USA has ever engaged in since the Civil War.
they could call it “reconstruction”. 😛
kvh kvh kvh kvh
Per the kid, the Chinese have been “sheep dipping” Russian hydrocarbons for quite a while. But the move to yuan settlement is big. Absent a currency crisis in China (which has been a huge buyer in the gold markets) that is a fundamental and consequential change. Also see Brazil trade agreement with China today, also settled in yuan. Also per the kid, who is parked in Denmark for two months getting an LNG tanker refitted for service, everyone there knows the US blew up Nordstream and they are not happy. They freeze in the dark and the US makes profits shipping LNG much more expensively than piped gas.
Good piece. The Duran YouTube channel is the best source for accurate info on the going’s on over there. They even use phrases like “I don’t know” and “one must consider the source”. Can you imagine? Honesty and thoughtfulness.
That said, with all the posts and comments over the years that I have read on this site, there is one gnawing thought that I can’t get out of my head.
The powers that be, shot callers, cloud people, call them what you will, have a pretty good gig/life at this time in history. All they have to do is not throw sand in the gears and wet the beaks of the dirt people now and then.
And yet, for the life of me, they continue to commit unforced errors and make decisions that are fundamentally stupid/foolish/ bad for their position. I know that there is much comment regarding mental acuity and sociopathy, psychopathy and the like, but it just doesn’t seem to be that hard to keep things going. It’s like they WANT to wreck everything. I know it’s been said here before. But they have to know they go down with the ship.
Oh to be king.
The Clouds have become as reckless and impulsive as their drones and foot soldiers. An axiom of politics is never to believe your own propaganda. The Clouds now embrace the idiocy they once recognized as idiocy to be force-fed their loyalists. Dirts are not the only ones who will get hit when this shakes out.
This is what happens when one side actually wins the culture war. All the overheated rhetoric and political posturing only made sense in the context of the adversarial system, when there existed effective checks and balances against it. Now that the conservatives have been completely routed (or rather, given way), the Left is faced with horrifying prospect of actually following through on its demands. Doing so will crash the entire society.
Off hand, I can think of three good lessons to learn from this, at least one of which (number 2) will be very disagreeable to the proprietor of this blog and many of his commenters.
1. Never, ever, ever concede an argument to a Leftist. As long as opposition exists, even if it is small and marginal, it still serves as a sea anchor that keeps the society from pitching out of control.
2. Do not completely withdraw support from the opposing faction. The GOPe, reviled as it was for being “tax-cutting Republicans” was still effective at holding back the worst elements of the Left when we held their feet to the fire. The party apparatus and the franchise are not tools to be tossed away lightly.
3. If you’re going to fight a culture war (or any kind of war), make sure your end game includes a plan for cashiering your own crazies. You need them for the battle but they are nothing but disruptive thereafter. Yes, that’s Machiavellian and cruel, but them’s the breaks.
We’ve talked a lot about how it’s been decades since there have been any consequences for failure at the top levels of the GAE. It’s natural that this would lead to a loss of competence. Combine that with any number of billionaires who can’t resist the urge to use their money to try and shape the world to their own personal vision, and public officials eager to take that money.
I guess the clouds aren’t as smart as they think they are and/or believe themselves to be insulated from consequences. On the latter, so far no indication they are wrong.
Then what will have been the point of the war if the outcome was more or less known in advance? My conspiracy theory is that our rulers have been setting themselves up to be America’s “Bosnian Muslims” (no offense meant) which is to say resident managers of the pan-Asian hegemon of the near future. NATO’s run at Russia via Ukraine may have been a means of competing for “most favored nations” status with the new powers that will be as the century unfolds but, if that might be so, whither Europe?
But then, in our domestic Twilight Zone, how do we know anything for sure?
The lesson from the Bush wars was that the neocons believe their narratives. They created a model for the world and were unwilling to let facts in that undermined the model. The same thing seems to have happened with Russia. They created this model of Russia as weak politically and economically. Put enough pressure and it would break. Then they and their friends could finally defeat the ancient enemy.
Good piece. Figured once the Ukes went to the “fortress city” concept—which worked oh-so-well for Hitler, the ground endgame was approaching. Another bit of intel picked up from a likely knowledgeable source is virtually the entirety of the Ukrainian army that was trained from 2014 to the start of the war is….dead. At the ground level there is likely no junior officer/NCO corps that knows how to keep conscripts alive long enough to conduct any sort of offensive. As for the armor—MacGregor has been clear. Tossing 3-4 different MBT types with different logistical tails and only a few months of familiarization is just creating a shooting gallery. Per my kid, the Chinese have been “sheep dipping” Russian hydrocarbons for a while. Very profitable for them. However, were always settled in dollars. Switching to yuan settlement is…huge. The kid is currently parked in Denmark for two months overseeing a LNG tanker refit. One bit of feedback is there is no love lost for the Americans. Everyone believes the US blew up Nordstream and now the Euros are paying for it. China may pull off a Triple Crown here, Cement Russia as junior partner, crack Europe away from the US via energy, and force the US to shoot off all it’s offensive capability in Ukraine, leaving Taiwan for the taking.
Quibble warning: Macron is the President of the French Republic , not the Prime Minister who is his appointee.
Fixed! I always get these ceremonial positions in the provinces mixed up.
Well, after a revolution, a Terror, a few Emperor-ships, a couple Communes and five Republics. I always struggle with the structure of French government.
The French government has structure?
Interesting that a mercenary force of convicts are the primary fighters on Russia’s side so far. Either they die fighting or they return home heroes and can start their new life. The West could never pull off something like that (nor would most of our prisoners be very good candidates). That’s certainly one asymmetry in warfare.
The whole convict army stuff is mostly nonsense. The bulk of Wagner is made up of former professional military. Like the French Foreign Legion, they take men looking for a second chance. They do not go around emptying out the prisons. In the Donbas, many of the people in prison were there for political reasons.
I don’t know if they still do it, but at least through the 80s, when I was in the Army, a lot of guys who committed petty crimes were given a choice by the judge, “Jail or the Army.”
They don’t. The Army figured out it was causing itself more problems that weren’t worth the extra warm bodies to make up backfill recruitment as the problem recruit with legal problems often repeated the same behavior in ther service and often overseas.
I think we’re entering an era when that practice will have to be revived, if the GAE military wants to keep up its manpower levels.
Who knows? I think you might be right. Publicly the military continuously states its branches iare having trouble meeting recruitment goals. The stuff I’ve heard is there are shortages of MOS-q’d soldiers in technical positions and even support. Turns out diversity, women in 11b units, and trannies aren’t making up for shortfalls.
The bigger mercenary and armed contracting firms hiring convicts and run-aways from the law largely died off in the 1980s. The Foreign Legion and its activities in the French African holdings was a big reason for it, but also some notriously brutal Belgian and South African firms were another reason. From what I understand of that era, despite the modern setting, the Leo Dicaprio movie Blood Diamond wasn’t all that inaccurate except the mercs there were saints compared to their predecessors.
Excellent analysis as usual. Just one clarification: “There is also the fact that the war will end and Russia will have to do business with Western Europe again.” The war will end but, in fact, it is EUROPE who will have to do business with Russia again, not the other way around. We are still totally dependent on Russian natural resources. The Russians can (probably) survive and thrive on other markets.
I have to think that many people in the EU political class are worried about the black market they have created. There are hundreds of tankers in the Mediterranean off-loading Russian oil so Europe can pretend to not be buying Russian oil. They have created a new pirate class, getting rich from sanctions.
I do wonder if anyone in Washington realizes the enormity of the China deal. Right now, Washington is robbing Europe for LNG, after having blown up the pipelines. China is offering a way out of this jam. They can undercut US prices by reselling Russian LNG, which they get at a discount. The only catch is the Euros must buy it in yuan.
The Russians have agreed to accept yuan for payment. Soon, other countries can buy Russian products in yuan or rubles. If the Europeans are willing to trade in yuan, it adds credibility to the practice.
Has also been interesting to watch both Chinese and Russian additions to gold reserves. The Chinese only periodically disclose purchases and you can bet those numbers are understated. Not concluding that there is move afoot to implement a Sino-Russo gold standard, But if you wanted to boost confidence in your currency, that’s the old fashioned way.
I have thought for a long time that the end game for global currency is a commodity back currency. Maybe this where the Chinese are heading with this. Together, Russia and China can hold enormous natural resources in reserve, including gold.
Keyne’s Bancor.
The Chinese were writing about what a good idea it was back in the early 2010s. China doesn’t want the yuan to be a GRC. They saw what that did to the US.