Note: The following is green door content. I am posting here as a reminder that you can support my efforts with more than just your pithy comments on the site. You can sign up for a green door account here or here. I am just shy of 700 subs and it would be nice to push through that barrier by the end of summer.
One of the fascinating parts of the Great War is how the sides adjusted to the changes in military technology. At first, they did not adjust at all. They continued to use tactics that they used before the invention of machine guns and high explosives. This was despite seeing the power of these new weapons in the various Balkan wars in the years preceding the Great War and the Italo-Turkish War in 1912.
That changed quickly once both sides figured out that the new weapons had made the old tactics suicidal, but they did not have a good answer. After the German advance stopped, both sides had the same idea, which was to outflank the other side to the north, which became the famous race to the sea. Once both sides reached the sea, what came next was years of trench and attritional warfare.
The curious thing about the stalemate is that it took both sides so long to figure out how to solve the trench problem. The first use of tanks was two years into the war, and they were a long way from being determinative. It took another year for the Allies to figure out how to use them properly. Neither side ever developed tactics for breaching entrenched positions without suffering heavy casualties.
The armored vehicle and the airplane solved the trench problem. Airpower could suppress opposing artillery, allowing armored vehicles to enter the defensive zone, which allowed infantry to follow behind the armor. Mobility suddenly made fixed defenses a liability. The German sweep into France in the Second World War was proof that mobility trumps even the best fixed defenses.
The war in the Ukraine has now brought us full circle. The Russians crossed into the Ukraine and ran into a series of heavily fortified defensive lines. Those lines included artillery and surface-to-air missiles. In front of those defensive lines, they found obstacles and mine fields organized like a maze. The Ukrainians also had a fairly good air force, including a good supply of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 attack drones.
There was no way for the Russians to use their superior tanks and armored vehicles to break through the Ukrainian lines. By the time they got to the minefields the Ukrainians were attacking them with artillery. The minefields and obstacles slowed the assault, giving the Ukrainians time to bring up reinforcements to meet the attack. The choice was heavy losses or retreat, and the Russians chose retreat.
The Russians made an assault against a town in the south called Vuhledar, also known as Ugledar. They thought they could roll up on the Ukrainian positions by first taking the surrounding dachas and turning them into a staging area to assault the town. Instead, they found themselves in a maze of minefields. Then the Ukrainians unleashed their artillery on those stranded units.
Of course, this works both ways. After the Russians settled into the war, they started building their defenses. They brought in their artillery and surface-to-air missiles to solve the problem of the Ukrainian air force. They quickly figured out how to knock out the Bayraktar drones using electronic warfare. Their one innovation was the use of modern mines to create vast and complex minefields.
This is why the NATO-planned offensive has been a disaster. They still think mobile warfare beats even the best defenses. They sent armored columns at the Russian lines, only to be attacked with drones that destroyed the mine clearing tanks and forced the rest of the armor into the minefields. These highly mobile units were quickly made into immobile targets the Russians could easily destroy.
It is clear that the West has no answer for this problem. They could give Ukraine F-16’s with contract pilots, but they are not much use against Russian air defenses. The West could bring in their own air defenses to neutralize the Russian air advantage, but that still leaves the trench problem. There is no answer to crossing minefields and attacking fortified defenses without air superiority.
The Russians have the same problem. Once this Ukrainian offensive burns itself out, they will have to figure out how to break the Ukrainian defenses. They will have air superiority and a huge edge in artillery. They also have a growing selection of drones they can use to knock out Ukrainian artillery, but they still have to cross those minefields while Ukrainian defenses fire on them.
It is not an unsolvable problem. Like the Great War, the winning side will be the one able to maintain the fight. Biden said the quiet part aloud the other day when he said NATO is running out of weapons. The Russians figured this out last year which is why they have been waging a war of attrition. They know if they wait long enough, the other side will collapse just like the Germans did in the Great War.
That still leaves us with the same problem. Assuming the West could ramp up its industrial production and match the Russians, it simply means that we are back to the old trench warfare problem. As drones get better and militaries get better at using them, this problem will only get worse. The Russians are now experimenting with drone technology in old tanks to use them as decoys.
This problem could also apply to naval warfare. The Russians were able to use a hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile to take out a Patriot battery. That same weapon can be used to take out a ship. Those cheap drones that take off from Russia and hit targets all over Ukraine can do the same thing to surface ships. It is not hard to see how new technology could turn the ocean into a version of the trench.
War has always been about innovation. A new weapon or tactic results in a new counter measure, which forces the development of new weapons and tactics. You have to wonder if there is a limit and maybe we have reached it. Short of nuclear weapons, the West cannot hope to beat the Russians on the battlefield and the Russians cannot hope to beat the West. We may have reached the singularity of war.
This applies to China as well. There is no doubt that Russia is helping China build out its missile and drone technology to defend against the American navy. If the US navy cannot get carriers within striking distance of the mainland without suffering catastrophic losses and the Chinese cannot blockade Taiwan for the same reason, then the long planned war with China over Taiwan become mutual suicide.
What is the answer to a hypersonic missile striking a carrier? They can put air defenses on the carrier, but they are not able to defend against these missiles at this time and the missiles will keep getting better. Like the tank, the aircraft carrier is losing its value due to changes in technology. If opposing navies are afraid to get in range of one another, then we have a standoff on the seas.
Of course, we always have nukes. Maybe the answer that the empire lands on is the use of nuclear weapons to solve the problem. The regime talks about them incessantly with regards to Ukraine. Maybe the plan for China will be sub-launched nukes to disable her coastal defenses. That is the history of war. Every new defense is met with a new offense crafted by a bloodthirsty lunatic.
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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
Heard you on Pete Quinones’s show. Good analogy of Trump to Soviet bloc characters like Havel and Walesa. A couple of my friends back then were occasionally imprisoned “dissident” slav musicians. They didn’t think of Havel as their leader, but they considered him necessary in the same way a lot of us think of Trump. We *let* him be president/king/whatever just to jab them in the eye. Trump was a similar character in ’90s NYC. All the losers/”losers” there (rappers especially) loved that he was the richest man in town, because he was so offensive to the other richest men.… Read more »
The answer is to set off those mines.
If minefields are keeping you from advancing, deploy robo-walkers to “walk over the mines” and set them off, clearing a path.
It seems a simple enough solution. (Click on my name to read my blog.)
You lost me at “kill all the dogs in the future”.
WW1 “ Neither side ever developed tactics for breaching entrenched positions without suffering heavy casualties.” This isn’t quite correct, the trenches were breached many times, the problem was that reserves were moved in from the rear to stop the breakout into maneuver warfare. The Cavalry traditionally did this, the problem the tanks actually solved was they could keep pushing through and gutting the second echelons and support troops. Nothing in the Great War has the maniacal evil of the Ukraine side of this… not even the Italians charging up into mountains against the Austrians. The real can’t learn fools of… Read more »
Drones were the gamechanger in the Azeri war against the Armenians. The smart officers and planners were watching. The Armenians had been mopping the floor with the Azeris despite inferior equipment. Once a mix of expensive overwatch drones operated by Israel and cheaper kamikaze drone swarms were unleashed by the Azeris, and the Armenians were found to have no effective defenses and they were crushed, their troops hapless. The Israelis had practiced on the Arabs but Artsakh was their proving ground with both the Ukies and Russians adopting a mix of drone technologies and tactics. The next major world exchanges… Read more »
The Armenians are the mortal enemies of the Khazarians.
Early in the 20th Century, the USA received millions upon millions of Armenian & greater Assyrian refugees who were fleeing the genocide which the Khazarian intelligentsia of the Ottoman Empire had unleashed upon Armenia.
To this day, the Khazarians continue to rain despair & destruction & death upon greater Assyria.
The Azeri War shows in full the cynicism and duplicity of our greatest ally. Supporting their supposedly mortal enemies the Moslems against their greatest supporters in the world. That’s why we should dump them and leave them to their fate.
The following is the most interesting news item I have seen in forever; is the coalition of the Scofield Heresy beginning to crumble?!?!?
Israel to review visa policy for Evangelical Christian organizations amid concern over rising tensions between religious communities in the country.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/4178052/posts
The eradication & abolition of Scofield would be the moast important sociological victory of our era.
I should have said “autonomous” instead of “unmanned,” which is redundant. I have substantial training and industry experience with autonomous systems and “AI” (or most anything digital for that matter). I am a lousy thumb typist and hurried my post. Wups. I have individual Israeli’s and their families who are “friends” to the extent we co-exist well enough. They are mostly Mizrai “rockin’ Moroccans” and generally good people if not entirely trustworthy. I have never encountered an Ashkenaz, especially the American ones, that weren’t of the devil himself with exception of a former mentor. We should nuke them all from… Read more »
Who has the will and gets there first wins
The firstest with the mostest?
How do drones perform against emp devices?
Ike – the LAST American General Officer to win his war – understood all of this. It’s why his foreign / defense policy was called “Massive Retaliation:” You hit us or our allies, we nuke you. It ought to be the standard. If war is about changing the behavior of an adversary (it is) and if that change of behavior is deemed to be worth killing and dying for – go big or don’t go. The bigger you go, the fewer die, on both sides. In 1945, the Army and Navy both predicted 1M American KIA in an invasion of… Read more »
All the folks who say Japan would have surrendered anyway, all that has been written about that, have never convinced me. They have convinced me that there were some individuals in the Japanese hierarchy who wished to surrender, but they haven’t convinced me that those individuals had the power to make that surrender a reality.
From what sources I have read, surrender was not the issue, but rather unconditional surrender. We couldn’t just beat them and let them be; we had to remake them in our own image and likeness (we believe ourselves gods after all). There is no question in my mind that the nuke bombing was, and was stated to be, a terrorist attack – clear as day in Truman’s own words.
Plus, we wanted to show the Ruskies our new toy. In any event, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison to what we did to Dresden et al.
There is no question it was a terrorist act. Deliberately targeting civilians to achieve a political goal is the definition of terrorism. There is also little question that the GAE wanted to show the Russkies their new toy. But these are still separate from whether or not Japan was ready to surrender. The GAE had lots of good reasons, and precedents, to suggest that Japan wasn’t going to submit easily. The GAE’s cause may not have been as righteous as its propaganda would have us believe, and Japan’s cause may not have been as evil, but these factors are still… Read more »
What’s the point of invading an *island* that’s been so denuded of military hardware that their plans for homeland defence revolved almost entirely around arming civilians with bits of sharpened bamboo?
I absolutely abhor military minds who sit around “estimating” casualties. It’s not only vulgar, it’s a scare tactic — vicious propaganda. When you are at war you better be damned sure you are using the best strategy and employing the most effective people available. And for along time the U.S. has been, and remains, severely lacking.
“Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.”
General ‘Buck’ Turgidson
“Mr. President, if I may speak freely, the Russkie talks big, but frankly, we think he’s short of know how. I mean, you just can’t expect a bunch of ignorant peons to understand a machine like some of our boys. And that’s not meant as an insult, Mr. Ambassador, I mean, you take your average Russkie, we all know how much guts he’s got. Hell, lookit all them Nazis killed off and they still wouldn’t quit.”
General “Buck” Turgidson
Just more burnt-offering grist added into the mill to help reach the magic number.
We just went through a global dress rehearsal for biological warfare. The next bio-weapon will be faster and more lethal.
It’s funny how every adversary of the US gets characterized as suicidal lemmings that need to be slaughtered en masse and its ok if we do that because they like dying in the first place.
In August 1945, my father was 20 years old, and a Pacific Campaign combat veteran (Guadalcanal).
I have a photograph taken of him in the very first days of that month, in San Francisco; he’s in the company of a few other Marines, all of them (very) young men wearing (very) grim expressions.
A few weeks later, they were all no doubt “standing down” at Mare Island, and at other West Coast bases – “wrapping things up,” as it were.
They need to be able to attack behind enemy lines but at an altitude above air defenses. Low orbital aircraft? It’s something we have the ability to create, or at least we once did.
It is hard to Monday morning quarterback when we might not be anywhere near halftime. But… It seems that the Russians should have paid more attention to the way an outnumbered and vastly outgunned Hezbollah was able to bloody noses and run the Jews out of southern Lebanon in 2006. Or the way they were able to hit the Hanit out in the Med with a subsonic missile. For myself, I completely misunderstood the role drones woud play in this conflict. I failed to factor in what mass production and miniturization (if that’s the right word) would mean. My mind… Read more »
The aircraft carrier has been a de-facto clipper ship for years, even before hypersonic missiles. We lost 12 carriers in WW2, a time of primitive pre jet engine technology. Carriers are only good for parking near poor countries with no navy to do as we please, not for any enemy with any wherewithal. The definitive feature of the next major conflict will be seeing them at the bottom of the ocean.
Despite the fact that the battleship was growing obsolescent by WW2, the victors did not lose many battleships in that war, even though they possessed and employed quite a few. Outside of Pearl Harbor, the USA didn’t lose any. The UK lost 4. Not coincidentally, the US admiralty was more in tune with the new carrier age than was the UK admiralty. There was a time when I would have said that if people like you and me were aware of the obsolescence and vulnerability of the aircraft carrier, then the people in charge would be even more aware, and… Read more »
Yes. Even if there was a case for the carrier, mid-air refueling should have closed that chapter. But the military being a government agency, will charge into the next battle on today’s version of horseback. Everyone will be shocked and stunned when “our best” trannies are at the bottom of the South China Sea. Divers will one day go down there with camera crews a half century from now, and find bunk areas full of fabulous ladies foot ware.
I think the battleships come back once the rail guns come online. They are much more viable when they aren’t floating bombs, and they don’t give a good damn about air defenses.
The Russian Navy is predominantly selecting for smaller surface ships, but ships that are armed to the teeth with advanced missiles, and possessing sophisticated radars, and powerful ECM (electronic counter measures). Also a focus is on linked ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaisance. I am assuming also that they are quite capable in anti-submarine warfare, too. These ships are designed to be competent in both blue ocean and littoral combat situations, and the smaller ones can navigate the rivers and canals in Russia. This gives them the ability to launch powerful missile attacks from Russian territorial waters, and they have used… Read more »
Carriers were not as significant in the European theater because land was not at such a premium as it was in the Pacific theater. US ,Japan,UK did not appreciate role of carriers in war. The Us lost so many ships at Pearl that navy had to use the carriers much more aggressively than doctrine demanded. No military really appreciated how significant floating airbases would be in the Pacific until they had to.
I think that the Japanese did appreciate the game-changing effects of carrier-based aviation in blue water naval conflicts, witnes their success at not only destroying capital ships, but also their attacks on land-based aviation at Hickam Field. When they lost four carriers at Midway they took a hit from which they never recovered, particularly in the loss of a great number of their best naval pilots and crews. They lost their ability to engage the US from forward deployments of their navy. This was a boost to the island hopping strategy that the US embraced, particularly in tandem with the… Read more »
Frigates, light cruisers and destroyers have always been the last line of defense for carriers. It’s a mighty big ocean, but they can be found with some determination. Depends on the capabilities of the adversary. If the battleship were to be reinvented for the era in which we find ourselves … well then there might be a new navy.
Yes, and now our entire blue water Navy is obsolete, with 12$ billion carriers that can be sunk or totally disabled by a single hypersonic missile or a swarm of cheap drones costing .01% of the carrier’s cost…China has wisely avoided that, and has a large coastal navy at a much smaller cost…
this is all acedemic. ALL the wests vessels are crewed by trans seaman pufpus and comanded by captian pup ravage .
We have not achieved the singularity in warfare and never will. One can still profitably study Sun Tzu, Thucydides and Clausewitz and apply their insights to the 21st Century. Insofar as the present Russian/Ukraine-NATO war is concerned, I predict that the end will resemble the latter stages of World War I (I’m not certain why Z-man uses the British designation of “The Great War”). The best way to see World War I is that of a giant siege by the Allies against the Central Powers. For example, one of the reasons that the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917… Read more »
Diversity Heretic: “Eventually the Ukrainian will to fight will collapse…”
My guess is that the Ukraine has long since lost the will to fight.
Sadly, however, the Ukraine is not governed by Ukrainians, but rather is governed by Khazarians.
And the Khazarians are the single most bloodthirstily sadistic tribe of psychopaths which have ever set foot upon God’s Green Earth.
So long as Khazarians are allowed to continue breathing oxygen, there will be no peace.
Major difference- the military leadership in WW1 was comprised of Europeans of intelligence & character who knew the horrors of war and had skin in the game in the form of their own countrymen & sons. The Ukranians are being puppeted by sociopathic tribals with a century long blood libel who could absolutely care less if they are grinded down to the last man and have publicly said so. Any precedent from 100 years ago has no relevance when you are dealing with (((vendetta))).
I disagree…Russia is rapidly depleting the Ukraine’s, and NATO’s weapons stock, and also the Ukraine’s manpower, at relatively little cost to itself..The Ukraine will simply run out of both at some point, likely early next year, and the war will end….
I’m surprised no one has ever attempted an epic film depicting the Kaiserschlacht — the last ditch spring and summer German offensive in 1918 to win the First World War.
The second half of “The Blue Max” (1966) deals with this campaign. Good movie, by the way…
I agree on your assessment of Ukraine but, and I’ve said this before, The big event of 2022 wasn’t Putin finally having enough of the ziocon shit, it was Xi’s visit to S.A. Recall that just a few weeks before Biden, or what passes as Biden, had arrived in Riyadh to beg for more oil, got an Uber from the airport and was greeted by a fist bump. His two hour meeting was attended by several other characters, none of any note, before he was told to piss off home empty handed. Xi Jinping however, had his plane escorted by… Read more »
I think it was known prior to the war in Ukraine, by anyone who is capable of assessing such things, that neither NATO nor Russia could conventionally achieve a WW2 style victory against the other. The notion that either could is nearly as ludicrous as the idea of conquering mainland China. Although I think the west probably clung to the myth that its supposedly superior tech would allow it to win any particular battle it chose. The sanctions were supposed to work. The sanctions were supposed to bring Putler down. They failed. So here we are. Somewhere in DC, the… Read more »
Are you suggesting all these apparently random refinery, food, energy, and whatever plant burnings and explosions around the US may not be orchestrated by our own government? Why wouldn’t they blame Russia then to gin up support? Or are you saying it is only the US government doing to Russia?
According to Col Douglas MacGregor, USA, Ret., the Ukies have lost upwards of 400,000 men with Russian casualties about 50,000. This Intel comes from his sources inside Ukraine & Belarus & apparently because Ukie casualties get a lot of coverage on SM. If accurate, that level of casualties is unsustainable for Ukraine. Moreover their Officer & NCO cadre must be taking a hell of a beating. How much longer can they hold out? Add to this the reported use of Ukie Press Gangs forcing men between 16 & 60 into the military. Has a certain Volkstürm feel to it. The… Read more »
Every war is a war of attrition. Some just take longer than others. A year and a half is not so long, relatively speaking. If it takes another year and a half, then that’s not really that long. It just seems long relative to the Thunder Run to Baghdad. However, I cannot envision a point at which this war ends. And I don’t think Putin can either. Hence he is in no hurry. What I mean by that is, even if Kiev “falls,” even if Russia “conquers” Ukraine, what, is the GAE just going to say, “well, tough break, we’ll… Read more »
Jeffrey Zoar – It can’t go on forever especially if the Ukies are drafting those 16 to 60; that’s a pretty wide net that smacks of desperation. Again, the most debilitating aspect of these losses whatever the actual numbers are is the losses in experienced infantry officers & NCO’s. Those are very hard to replace & are the core of any armed force. @ one point during the Russo-German War 1941-45 the Germans were losing like 200 experienced infantry officers per week. And in the German Army they operated on the Fahnenjunker concept which officers served in the ranks first… Read more »
The fall of Ukraine, whatever that looks like, is not the end of the war.
This, in spades. Hence the Russian efforts to fully mobilize their military industrial capabilities, while simultaneously selectively, but comprehensively working to ready a large body of soldiers trained as well as possible, in anticipation of further trouble from the Khazarians and their golems.
No…Within a year, this war will be over, as the NATO allies realize it’s hopeless, and stop providing assistance..Also, Ukraine is running out of manpower rapidly and will have to go to purely defensive tactics soon, at which point it will be just a shooting gallery..
Maybe.
When can Russia comfortable enjoy the Donbas lands? Nato can layback, shoot some missiles into civilian areas. Repeat.
Poland is arming up big time. Back 1600s 1700s poles held the ukraine. It was tax farmed by the askezars. They’d like it back.
So someday, but, the ‘west’ has a ways to go before it bleeds out.
Well, yes, you are correct. But in that sense, at least since WW II (and probably WW I) the Khazarians have been waging war against the world, and these confrontations can be seen as conveniently grouped battles. Ukraine is just the latest battel in the never ending war for Khazarian world domination, a war fought on many fronts.
“According to Col Douglas MacGregor, USA, Ret., the Ukies have lost upwards of 400,000 men with Russian casualties about 50,000.”
How can someone believe such crap propaganda?
Both side hard-believers have faith in those absurds numbers.
It’s 1914 again.
Very hard to know pasaran
there was an article in the NY times a while back, that said there were now 50 or 60K Ukrainian with missing limbs, well thats from artillery, dead from artillery is probably an even bigger number. the Russians have a big artillery advantage, so they are killing far more Ukrainians
Note that the basis for such figures seldom is given.
Why is the Ukraine building more cemetaries and evicting old dead from current cemetaries? They’ve cleared minefields or tried to with bodies, they’ve reinforced losing battles until the Russians finally evict them from little villages by leveling everything. Russia has been very casualty averse and has avoided battle unless they had absolute superiority. Don’t let your cynicism get the best of you.
Mike: “Why is the Ukraine building more cemetaries and evicting old dead from current cemetaries… Don’t let your cynicism get the best of you.”
Bro.
Four simple words:
“Fiddler on the Roof”.
That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.
“Fiddler on the Roof”.
The lost limbs–prosthetics numbers indicate more like 500k KIA and over a million casualties…You don’t pay much attention to the daily reports, do you….
Russian figures seem extremely low…
It is difficult to tell, war is deception. But, from what I have read the Russian war psyche is to paint things rather gloomy – I don’t know if that is a “tactic” (look weak when you are strong”) or just the Russian character. The West tends to paint things overly optimistic. Again maybe as a tactic (look strong when you are weak) or just typical Murrican/Anglo “can do, stiff upper lip, etc.” hubristic character. Given those attitudes, it would not surprise me if the West underestimates Uke’s losses and overestimates Russia’s, and if Russia did the same. Thus, I… Read more »
No one knows the real numbers for either side. However, Mediazona, which is a pro-Ukrainian site affiliated with the BBC, does try to calculate Russia dead using public announcements, obituaries, social media posts, etc. Obviously, this is going to miss a fair amount of casualties but it’s a good starting point. Mediazona has “confirmed” Russian dead at ~30,500, it wouldn’t be surprising if the actual number was 40k to 50k. They’re own estimated in May put the number at 47,000, so 50k is probably in the ballpark. Wounded is probably double that at 100k. So, total casualties is ~150k for… Read more »
My wife has family in Ukraine. Three male cousins. Two already dead. The 400k may not be high.
😥😥😥
I’m sorry Eloi. That’s a real tragedy. How’s the family holding up?
It is sad for my wife. I do not know the people, so it is nothing to me. The one left a pregnant wife and 18 month old. Things have been bad there since 2014, of course. Now, the bodies pile up.
The graveyard counts have also been used to estimate casualties…they’re at least 400k and probably much more…The Ukrainians are now being ordered to incinerate their dead on the battlefield to prevent such counting…
Maybe they bought some of those mobile Russian crematoriums (supposedly put into service to hide the massive casualties that they were reportedly incurring, reliably of course) that our media bugmen were going on about in recent timesin order to comply with that directive.
Black humor at its finest…
Well it only takes a couple small ovens to dispose of the bodies and of millions in a very short time. So good tactical move there! The bones (which are not burned in cremation, despite common belief) will also never ever be discovered or documented.
Fiendishly clever plan!
then the long planned war with China over Taiwan become mutual suicide. One could argue that’s a feature, not a bug. The more I read up on WWI, and the turn of the 20th century in general, the more I’m forced to conclude that Sigmund Freud, that old cokehead, was right all along — the human race has a “death instinct” and will indulge it, especially when there seems to be no obvious civilizational path forward. In 1913, we’d gone as far down the road to Fabian Socialism as has ever been possible. And that was the all-but-universal opinion of… Read more »
*since the first year of the Clinton administration.
Todestrieb/destruktion was Freud’s post-libertarian moment. “The pleasure principle” had been his “follow the money,” a rational pursuit (however perverse its manifestations) that explains everything. Eventually he noticed it only explained a few things. He first conceived of the “death drive” as approximately what would be called “suicidality” now, a longing to return to non-life. A present political equivalent would be the idea that white anti-whiteness and billionaire socialism are guilt-motivated or “self-hate.” Eventually he understood that that wasn’t quite a thing, except in cases of literal self-destruction. His final refinement of destruktion (*half* of human motivation, remember) was non-reproductive violence… Read more »
Fellow whiteness explains far more “self” hate than “self hate” does.
It’s people who resemble a wish.com version of you if you squint… they hate YOU. They think they themselves are pretty grand and that you had better get on with serving them
I would argue though, that there *is* a real phenomenon of “white self-hatred” that cannot all be explained away by putting several layers of parenthesis around “White”. Understanding — and defeating — this is the key to White survival. I see it all around me here in the Pacific Northwest and far more than I ever did back East. Growing up in Baltimore (just like Z himself) I knew a lot of people who authentically hated me. I knew lots of blacks and quite a few Jews. Neither group made much of an attempt to pretend they liked me or… Read more »
If you watch how much these people get nervous and squirm when they have to discuss something political among themselves, you can tell they’re all walking on eggshells not to say anything that could get them denounced because they’re also all chomping at the bit to denounce one of their fellows. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve listened to some young people talking about how they had to ostracize someone from their group, speaking with such a serious tone that you first think the malefactor must have done something truly horrible. Then when finally pressed to explain… Read more »
I believe China can blockade Taiwan. Taiwan is right off the Chinese coast. Its outer islands were regularly shelled by Chinese artillery back in the day—until the U.S. threatened to nuke them if they didn’t stop. Missiles, whether launched from land or over the horizon by aircraft, can succeed in doing to Taiwan what German U-boats could not do to England during two world wars, starve them into submission. What Greek shipowner is going to send his cargo ship into Taiwanese waters only to risk their being sunk by missiles? Meanwhile, the U.S. through its rash sanctions on Russia has… Read more »
China was shelling Taiwanese islands that lie only a couple miles off the coast of the mainland. They could have hit the islands with bottle rockets. That’s not to say they can’t shell anywhere in Taiwan, but to affect a blockade of the island would be far more difficult than launching ordnance into Kinmen.
Recent military exercises around Taiwan suggest what
China’s strategy will be:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/asia/china-taiwan-military-exercises-what-we-learned-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
They succeeded in disrupting Taiwan’s sea lanes and air corridors. Closing the entire island and its territorial waters, which China claims sovereignty of and most other nations already de jura recognize, would take this to a whole new level.
I still think the Uke war has given China pause for thought. Russia has a long, long history of expeditionary warfare and yet are engaged in a slog whose end is still in question (though less so than a year ago); all but the most oblivious in China has to know that they wouldn’t have fared nearly as well.
China is treading water and biding their time over Taiwan, while the U.S. is circling the drain in Ukraine.
The main lesson that all observers should have learned from Ukraine, is that it’s not going to be what you think it’s going to be
If I would be leader of China and considering the facts than I know (which, of course, are ridiculously far lower than those of Xi), my strategy would be as follow 1-waiting time when my economy is larger than the US one, not only in PPP, but in usual (even if we all know GDP isn’t a very accurate indicator, it shows us at least a trend) 2-organize a blocade of the Island 3-use drones to kill some influente taixanese elites. Elites tend to be bellicist… When blood isn’t theirs. But if the risk for their lifes get critical, I… Read more »
But why take over Taiwan at all? What’s the benefit that offsets the costs? (Nobody is thinking of the costs when they assume that’s what China is up to.)
Exactly this. I have been astounded at how reserved Putin has been. There should have been a swift, personal response to the murder of Aleksander Dugin’s daughter, the murder of the Russian submariner, and to Prighozin.
The murder of Dugin’s daughter was particularly heinous, and should have set the precedent that the assassination of civilian targets is fair game in this war. Zelensky and his entire family are fair targets.
The above comment was intended to be a reply to Intelligent Daesin’s excellent comment. My apologies for any confusion.
Well you have to sort out which murders are actually Ukraine and which murders are the Kremlin saving their “our democracy” from their deplorables.
If Putin wanted Zelensky dead he’d be dead. He doesn’t think it’s in Russia’s interests… and unlike a western leader his interests overlap significantly with his country’s.
You really think Ben Stiller can find him but Putin can’t?
Agree Zelensky richly deserves the worst, but absolute best case he gets it after he stops killing Ukranians and crawls back to his own folks in Tel Aviv.
I didn’t say Putin should kill Zelensky. I said Zelensky and his entire family are fair targets after the murder of Dugin’s daughter. Zelensky has a wife, two kids, and parents.
I credit Putin for not sinking to Zelensky’s level of moral turpitude, but I agree with Intelligent Daesin that Putin is going to have to respond. The war thus far has been a yuge! win for Zelensky. God only knows how many billions of US aid dollars he has taken off the top. His tune might be different if he were made to feel some pain.
He could target Hunter B, but then everyone would just thank him.
We need to be very very careful with the smart-aleck talk.
That’s the kinda rhetoric that’ll get Z staring down the barrel of a Ruby Ridge situation in his very own kitchen.
Indeed. This has got to be a YUUUGE problem for Putin. He must constantly be asking himself how to strike at America but in a way that doesn’t actually make the US stronger and better. Since killing most of our political (and economic) “leadership” would be a win for just about everybody here…
Terrorist actions such as these are intended to make the Russians see red, and perhaps to fall into a trap, such as undermining the constraints of legality, or more insidiously, committing their nation to a military involvement that outruns their preparations for major combat, thereby giving the GAE time to get their shit into one sock, and giving away the Russian advantages in their military industrial capacity. Cool heads win prolonged multiphasic conflicts. The Russians will not be drawn by this stuff, but rthey sure will be taking notes about responsible parties for future retaliations, even if postponed for years.… Read more »
I’ve frequently thought that our supremely competent and accountable leaders are trying to bait Russia in a Muh Pearl Harbor or Muh Twin Towers event so as to stampede the Murrikan public into WW3.
Terrorist actions such as these are intended to make the Russians see red, and perhaps to fall into a trap, such as undermining the constraints of legality, or more insidiously, committing their nation to a military involvement that outruns their preparations for major combat, thereby giving the GAE time to get their shit into one sock, and giving away the Russian advantages in their military industrial capacity.
Cool heads win prolonged multiphasic conflicts.
If technology is limiting/eliminating war as a means of achieving political goals, that leaves economic warfare. If that’s the case, Ukraine has been an utter disaster for GAE and the neocons. I’m still very skeptical of the BRICS coming up with some trade currency, but there’s no doubt that the seizing of Russian assets lit the biggest fire under the asses of every world leader to find a way to get out from under then thump of the dollar and trade sanctions. The war sped up the process of countries creating alternatives trading mechanisms by at least a decade, even… Read more »
Watching Jeffrey Sachs right now talking about it. BRICS is a way to avoid the weaponization of the U.S. dollar. The EU and U.S. froze and are literally trying to steal Russian assets.
Whether using a BRICS currency or just agreeing to trade in Rubles and Yuan, the idea is for the money to never move through any western bank where it can be stolen.
Yeah, I don’t think that any of those countries wants to unseat the dollar. They just want to set up alternate routes for money to flow. Even the BRICS currency isn’t really meant to unseat the dollar. In a sense, it kind of is a dollar. Let’s call the “currency” the BRIC. If one BRIC is worth one ounce of gold and one ounce of gold is worth a certain amount of dollars, a BRIC is sort of a dollar. If A=B and B=C, then A=C. If a BRIC = 1 ounce of gold and 1 ounce of gold =… Read more »
The dollar is done. It’s in its zombie years now. The US deficit increases and fewer and fewer countries are buying the bonds.- have a look on the Treasury website. There are two alternatives:
The Treasury creates the money through the Fed and expands the money supply to buy the debt and guarantee hyperinflation.
World War to “reset” the debt.
Tell me, what is the alternative to the dollar? What other country has so much better rule of law than the US (and, yes, I realize that seizing Russia’s assets put a massive dent in our claim to have rule of law)? Do China have better rule of law? Russia? India? What other country has a debt market deep enough and safe enough to handle the huge amounts of money that would need to buy that debt to store away when needed? The dollar isn’t the world currency because we force people to use the dollar. It’s the world currency… Read more »
Warfare is human nature. Technology will never eliminate war. “Economic warfare” is redundant — meaningless. War IS economy but by an accelerated, violent means. It’s the breakdown of more polite, easygoing economy.
I agree. But what other country is better situated in terms of natural resources, natural defenses, friendly neighbors, a large and developed economy and deep financial markets than the United States.
That said, we no longer dominate like we used to. Our leaders are writing checks that our economy can’t cash.
Read you loud and clear … right on.
Battleships evolved to take infinite punishment in slug matches. They became obsolete when the carrier out ranged them. Airplanes could strike well before the guns could get in range over the horizon.
Carriers seem to top out at 100 aircraft. This has held since WW2. Carrier aircraft range seems ti have topped oit as well. In an ocean where missiles can out range aircraft. Maybe the battleship concept returns? That or submarines start duking it out with missiles.
Subs seems to be our last big advantage – the Russians and Chinese are cooperating on a new fleet of attack subs.
Actually, we’ve lost much of the advantage we once had in this area. Half our sub fleet is either docked or in need of upgrades and repair. Consider that our finest subs are a design dating back half a century. Russian subs are newer, and in many regards, better. They now have drone subs which can remain submerged indefinitely…and come to life when needed…armed with nuclear missiles. They can park these things right off our shores.
A decade ago the US Navy rented out a Swedish Gotland-class sub to study because the thing was so quiet:
https://jalopnik.com/sweden-has-a-sub-thats-so-deadly-the-us-navy-hired-it-t-1649695984
I believe it based on the Swedish engineers I’ve known. All had razor sharp minds and near-native English proficiency.
Good comment! I’ve read that the Swedish submarines are amazingly quiet; more so than a nuclear boat that must run pumps constantly to keep the reactor cooled. A diesel-electric boat in a coastal defense, as opposed to an open-ocean, role is a serious adversary for a nuclear-powered submarine.
Russia has a pretty good sized diesel-elctric boat fleet. They’re generally quieter and harder to detect than the nuke boats and would be very effective against just about anything. They have the range to get out to our carrier battle groups too and wreak havoc.
A few years back I watched a YouTube vid by one of these super excellent bigly elite operating operationally (hat tip Severian) ex special forces operators. This highly-evolved specimen of humanity was graciously permitted to film on a USN ballistic missile sub and got all misty-eyed and weak at the knees because their new secret weapon was… wait for it… female crew members. On.A.Fucking.Submarine. He was disappointed to learn that this was not yet the case on the attack submarines because they were still working out the logistics of how to jam extra heads and nuclear-powered tampon incinerators into these… Read more »
Women on a US Navy submarine? Terrible for morale!
Who will the male sailors have sex with now?!?
Yeah, aircraft carriers stopped being the key ship for pier-level naval combat shortly after the end of WW2. Great for projecting air power to parts of the world that lack their own navies, but otherwise obsolete. I want to know how our submarine fleets line up to theirs.
A few years ago a diversity CO, diversity XO, and diversity navigator drove one of ‘our’ submarines into an undersea mountain. There are NO hidden or undiscovered undersea mountains in our operating areas. If it comes to war, you can count on our historic nautical competence to reveal itself as no longer extant.
This is all for the best, because there is no ‘our’ anymore. We are a conquered people ruled over by enemy aliens and their domestic collaborators. Collapse is the cure, and planet-wide battlefield defeat will hasten it.
I wish there was a way the US could suffer the most humiliating military defeat in US history WITHOUT the deaths of the fine southern white Christian boys who have become the front line mamluk fighting force of the empire.
The jab thinned the ranks and younger ones are starting to wise up… but a lot of the fighting men are still of this type.
You’d think a carrier might start carrying a couple thousand drones instead of 100 planes, but this doesn’t solve its vulnerability problems. So the short term answer is a cheaper, more expendable, less manned ship to carry the couple thousand drones. Perhaps many such ships. A cheap old rusted out Liberian flagged freighter would suffice, truly. Although it wouldn’t keep the Raytheon shareholders as happy.
Eh, the most diplomatic thing that can be said about Western air defense and electronic warfare is that neither is very good.
The people running the West have had the meetings, budgetary line items, and the will to ramp up industrial production.
Unfortunately the West does not have the supply chains or human capital to actually realize their desired ramp up in industrial production.
Not with the traditional MIC grift system, but perhaps other heavy industry converted to military industrial use. The same CNC machine that completely automated precision machines a cylinder head can just as easily machine a missile and do so MUCH faster than traditional machining. Missiles need a ton of machine work. The real question in this is does the political will exist to pull an FDR and start ordering businesses to re-tool. A sunk carrier with thousands dead would do a lot to change the political will situation. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be a lot of challenges.… Read more »
I understand your point, but I don’t agree that the US has the sort of broad industrial base that can be repurposed similarly to the way it was during WW2.
You’re leaving out our vast number of Rosie the Riveters.
Thanks for the laugh. The US produced 14,000 155 mm shells last year, with herculean effort they’ll get that to 24,000 this year. The goal is 240,000 by end 2024
That’s a slow 10 day’s number fired by Russia during the Bakhmut operation alone. Brian Berletic and the Doran guys have gone over the numbers regularly over the past 18 months and their numbers are probably pretty accurate.
The West no longer has an industrial manufacturing capacity of any size. China’s is bigger than the US, Europe and Japan combined.
The Duran guys are complete and total shills.
You will notice my comment is contingent on the political will changing in the US.
When things change, things change. The US is still a world class power of building production machinery. It’s fairly still low volume, but the added value is very high.
These machines are amazing. They can take a basic casting and turn it into a precision head in few minutes.
I believe that the Russians have worn down the Ukrainian air defenses to the point where they could switch to mobile warfare if they wanted to at this point. For an American commander, the temptation to use air-mobile units to jump over the minefields and carve up the underbelly of Ukrainian supply lines and rear-echelon units would be irresistible. I think the Russians have held off for two or three reasons. 1. They don’t want a lot more Ukrainian territory (other than Odessa) 2. They don’t want NATO to jump in if the Ukraine suddenly collapses 4. They are casualty… Read more »
And Putin does NOT want to be seen as an aggressor. He’s going to carve out Russian-speaking areas and turn the rest over to a government friendly to Russia. The idea is to demonstrate to NATO members that Russia is no threat to Europe and to coax Germany out of their shitty alignment with NATO. Germany is the lynchpin in all of this. As Germany goes, so goes the world.
There may be no more cucked country in the world than Germany. They ain’t going anywhere.
They’ll ride the Woke train right over the cliff.
Yes to Putin’s desire to appear territorially no threat . Come on, Russia isn’t big enough already? They don’t want to be repeating the own goal of domination of unwilling populaces that we saw during the Cold War. If our ZOG would have not finked on every promise made during the final days of the USSR, none of this would be happening (but what are the chances that our ZOG would be honorable, eh?). All that Russia needed was a buffer to replace their occupied nations, but no-o-o, our ZOG wanted to pursue their traditional game, and destroy Russia in… Read more »
Germans are undergoing a selection event like Europeans worldwide. The current generation is more chaff than wheat and at some instinctual level this portion knows it shouldnt reproduce, just porn IV drip till euthanasia and hell.
The white people having children and making it through all this are a the coterie and built totally different. World isnt ready for the future theyll bring.
5. They are deliberately prolonging to war to bleed NATO of money and weapons in the same way the U.S. bled them out by siding with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s..
> They don’t want a lot more Ukrainian territory (other than Odessa)
From what I have read, they definitely want Kharkiv, and maybe everything else East of the Dnieper too.
And welcome to it. Russia has several times paid in blood to rescue that area from the domination of entirely incompatible rulers, and going all the way to the Dneiper seems correct.
If you read some of Putin’s speeches instead of the bullshit from the West’s corporate media whore’s you know that Putin wants no part of Western Ukraine.
We’d be better off if he the western hemisphere actually… but Russia seems content being Russian
We tend to think of drones as aerial toys/tools. But we’ve had remote controlled toy cars for far longer. We’ll eventually see ground based drones to trigger the mines. Or low flying drones that can hover just above the ground an generate a pressure wave or EM signal to trigger mines. Eventually, war becomes robot armies trying to counter other robot armies. I tend to agree with the singularity argument. Irregular warfare and attrition have made the economic and political costs of war too high. These Afghanistan type wars are unwinable. Is China better off invading Taiwan and killing tens… Read more »
and supply lines
This has all been modeled extensively. And yes, the serious wars of the future will be heavily biased toward smaller, cheaper, mass-produced robotic weapons that duke it out in the battlespace. But the NextGen wars of the future will be fought using bioweapons and cyber attacks on electronic networks. The ideal is to undermine the homeland population such that core capability to wage war is absent or degraded. The latter is key because resiliency is what ultimately wins long wars. But to your main point, as a nation, we have never been more poorly led than at present. The worst… Read more »
” They’re not a self contained economy like the US is”
You do realize you are f*cking insane, don’t you?
You mean BESIDES the fact that China can’t produce enough food to feed its own people?
We can.
We can also produce 100% of our own energy.
China can’t.
We have the raw materials to build our sun stuff.
China doesn’t.
It always comes down to attrition.
This war is already over, Z. It was over about 6 months ago. There was never any doubt who would win it or how. Mine clearing technology is nothing new; the Americans blew gaping holes through the minefields of Iraq and charged through them with aplomb. What we are seeing here is flat out incompetence. Western leaders misjudged Russian capabilities, badly. Likewise they misjudged their intent and resolve; and they are still doing it today. The field elements of the Ukrainian army are long gone, the guys in the field now are poorly trained, motivated and supplied. Back in America,… Read more »
From the looks of it, coordination of the various Ukranian military groups of atrocious in the last few offenses and keeps getting steadily worse. I take that a sign Russian special operations teams have been busy doing knock-knocks against the Ukranian command elements. Man, what a fun job that’d be to have. Because you know those guys wouldn’t be limited to just the main objective of trying to strike at command units, then exfiltrate back, but harassing “targets of opportunity” that come along. “Capt. Vlad, the intel nerds got word the 12th Motorized тарган Laundry Brigade is passing through, whuddya… Read more »
The stated aims of the war were to militarily weaken Russia and to isolate it economically. By those metrics, it has been a spectacular defeat and another in a long line of humiliations for the Global American Empire. The actual aims of the war were to strengthen the GAE’s grip on its European vassals and to allow Western oligarchs and their whores and help to plunder their treasuries and convert shaky fiat into hard assets. By the actual metrics those goals have been met. The fly in the ointment is what Z wrote there at the end. Does anyone think… Read more »
No podcast this week?
Vaca
filler filler
Damn damn. If you’re a green door dude, the free stuff is new stuff. lol.
In last week’s podcast Z said he’s taking the next two Fridays off.
He’s earned it. The man gives and gives. He’s entitled to kick back and chill. 😎🍹
Z-man has a life–he’s entitled to live it!
At least give us a mailbag show, Z! I like those.
No show this week or next week. Need to tidy up some things before the end of summer. Needed to make some room in the schedule. Thinking about it, I should have said the podcast is being held hostage until I break 700 subs.
Cool, got it. Dude needs a break here and again.
Ever war America has fought, and then lost (all of them) since 1945 has been blamed on “politicians handicapping” the military. Except they don’t, the Ukraine war is no exception. The US always has great initial success by directly attacking civilian infrastructure (they call this attacking command & control), which is to say the power grid, water distribution etc. The Kakovka Dam and the Russian/German pipeline destruction (and Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is under constant threat with at least one commando raid repulsed already) are signature moves of a nation that has only known victory through total war persecuted… Read more »
Washington often give near-free reign to special forces and infantry to conduct warfare in support of accelerating the military abandoning a war. The irony is they often start seeing tangible results. A common lamentation in the SoF community was along the lines of “why weren’t we allowed to do this ten years ago?” Rinse, wash, repeat for Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever else they’ll get into next.
War is like a project. You better have a really clear objective and business case going into it. What was the objective of any of our recent adventures (other than making money for the connected)? Why are we in Syria other than to steal oil and grain?
Because that’s what Israel wants, and what they want, they get.
You have to wonder if there is a limit and maybe we have reached it. Short of nuclear weapons, the West cannot hope to beat the Russians on the battlefield and the Russians cannot hope to beat the West. There is another tactic that does not require nuclear weapons, that has not been employed yet, that will redound to the victory of the first side to employ it, and that is already well within Russia’s technical capabilities and seems to be left unused due simply to a failure of imagination or a misplaced sense of decorum. That tactic is called… Read more »
> It is baffling to me, as it no doubt is to a great many Russian citizens, why Kiev is not being targeted.
Because the only thing Zelensky does is go on TV and beg for money. The entire Ukrainian government and military organization — right down to orders for individual units — is being coordinated remotely from U.S. bases in Germany, and the Russians know it.
I think Generic is spot on, but I would add one point. Kyiv is probably the toughest fortress in the world right now. Yes, satellites and drones are nice, but I have little doubt that Zelensky is never above ground but for a few minutes, and I have no doubt NATO has stocked, stacked, and fortified Kyiv in an unprecedented manner. Further, I would not be surprised if Russia is moderating its use of munitions. Missiles do not get replaced overnight. At any time, this fight could escalate dramatically, and I am sure there exists the desire to hold reserves… Read more »
I would also like to remind people of the propaganda we used to get during Operation Desert Ham Sandwich Part Deux where the newsbots at Fox would talk about how the US had once again killed “The number 2 guy in Al Qaida”. These #2’s were seemingly as numerous as what you would expect from a cow with irritable bowel syndrome. You would always find out their names 5 minutes after they had been vaporized in a missile strike and then never hear about them again. It was always a glorious victory for the US! Murrica! I suspect the Russians… Read more »
“This was obviously a Ukrainian intelligence operation, …” I don’t how accurate it is, but I have read that the flight originated in Africa where Wagner commands elements were presumably strategizing with clients. I have first hand experience with African airport ‘security’ or rather its lack. If they didn’t want a CIA-paid assassin to plant bombs in the wheel wells of their aircraft, then they should have brought their own guys to maintain 24 hour surveillance. Yes, it would cost more: cost of continued breathing while doing business. You’d think Wagner would get by now that they are at war,… Read more »
I also doubt approval by Biden is required, or is even possible. He’d think the request is for ice cream, and on this cue perhaps take a “scoop” out of his diaper. I don’t see his administration full of circus freak show specimens as really being any more capable either. Now, whether approval is required from Schwab, Soros, Kissinger, etc., et al. is an interesting question. It very well may be; this very well may be where actual power within the Globohomo Empire lies, already at present. This may already be entrenched and formalize, and they’re now only waiting for… Read more »
I’ve only seen this note in one spot, but it looks like Prigozhin also ran the notorious Russian bot farm that caused Hillary to lose in 2016.
Perhaps you forgot to end your comment with /s.
Shrillary’s loss was an own goal, and her admitting such a gross failure was always an impossibility. Hence “The Russians done it!” as seen in the Russia, Russia, Russia ploy and all the attendant mayhem arising from Her Nibs’ blame-shifting efforts. Vicious she is, competent she is not.
The whole thing was so ridiculous I didn’t think worth noting. If western democracy can be invalidated by a couple servers in a Russian basement then it doesn’t deserve to survive.
Well, the Uniparty would know, wouldn’t they? I rather suspect that they themselves, for their own reasons, did indeed build in back doors into the increasingly vulnerable electronic basis for voting. Blaming the Evil Russkies for the presence of such vulnerabilities was merely a way to get out in front of the story should any genuine investigation of their gamed electronic voting systems find and question these vulnerabilities and their origin by planting the seed that Russkie hackers had done this.
If you take out the leadership, with whom do you negotiate an end to the war?
You don’t negotiate an end to the war. You destroy the puppet regime in Kiev and replace it with something else.
The leadership is never in vacuum for long. But the point is well made, who follows? Better or worse? I’ve heard musings that Hitler could have been taken out, but the attempt was never made as his leadership of the German army was so bad as to be an asset to the Allies. On the other hand, such tactics were applied in the Pacific theatre with Yamamoto—mostly for revenge of the Perl Harbor attack, but no one I’ve read seems to argue it shortened the war. Likewise, I’ve heard folk saying that Putin gone would only bring in a more… Read more »
You and other Turbo Patriots, such as Strelkov, hold the same opinions. Putin and his most informed ministers operate with a now fully developed sense that the ZOG and its puppets are psychopaths, as evidenced by some of the very incidents that you have outlined (Dugina, etc.), and they are trying to avoid an uncontrolled escalation to a nuclear exchange through their own intemperate, and stupid actions. They have already wacked some command centers staffed with ZOG minions, and interdicted resupplies inside Ukraine’s territorial borders, lately escalating to a functional blockade of Ukrainian commerce and resupply via their Black Sea… Read more »
I’ve posted something similar previously, but I’ll reup it here. This is speculative but I think about right. Putin was a KGB agent stationed in East Berlin as the Cold War drew to a close. The West he experienced was the same one we did back then–confident and overly idealistic, loud and materialistic, vibrant to the point of vulgarity, but still relatively sane amongst its peoples and its ruling classes. The West changed dramatically after he left East Berlin and has since became utterly insane. At least at the outset of this war, and even aware the GAE had become… Read more »
There is no doubt some merit in this description. Putin seems unable to let go of the siren song of actually joining the West and he doesn’t seem to realize that Russia’s historical destiny is to destroy it. There are others who do realize this, and Putin’s authority will be transferred to them in due time. The clock is ticking on Putin’s reign and he’s almost out of chances to do the right thing.
As a consequence of his delusions about the West, I really believe there is a great possibility this is leading to nuclear war. Putin still doesn’t believe the contemporary West will go there, otherwise he would speed things along because every day that passes the odds of nukes flying go up.
The Regime’s fanatical pursuit of Trump and its obsession with Putin have to be seen as of a piece. They have torn apart the social compact domestically with the arrests, and they will not hesitate internationally to reduce much of humanity to rubble. It is literally destroying everything for…reasons.
Why do you say that Russia’s historical destiny is to destroy the West?
Bolshevism and the drive for world revolution was imposed on the Russian people, it was not of the Russian people.
Although I’m not an expert on Russia, I guess that if we would stop hassling them, they wouldn’t hassle us.
They may envy our greater ability to build prosperous civilizations, but I don’t see in them a desire to destroy us.
Seems Putin is in a similar conundrum as patriots. Should he retaliate as you suggest it would likely escalate to where he does not want to go. Much like J6ers and the like – getting baited so they can justify harsher measures against you. Only Russia appears to be meeting objectives if at a higher cost than desired. So why change it unless needs require?
I agree with you that I’m somewhat flabbergasted at how many people believe Putin did it without question. Not just western media outlets, but scroll down the comment sections of both “left” and “right” sites and there’s nary one disagreement. However, I disagree with you on many fronts. 1) I don’t agree that it’s “obviously” Ukrainian SBU. I’d place them at the top of a list of suspects, certainly. However, Larry Johnson has a great article out now, where he also makes strong cases for 1) Russian Air Force personnel getting revenge for the deaths of their friends during the… Read more »
The fact that Russia is engaged in an economic war against NATO has been clear since Day One; there’s no dispute about that. That’s what the BRICS group is all about and it’s one of the reasons why Russia has been so restrained in prosecuting the war. I get all that. However, it’s impossible for anyone to entirely predict or control these forces. That the West will collapse economically seems inevitable, but it doesn’t mean it will do so on anyone’s timetable. Nations have often gone on fighting wars for years after all economic considerations predicted they “should have” collapsed.… Read more »
“He has no real insight to offer.”
And neither do you.
Do you think trying to win a war of attrition and bankrupting the enemy is akin to 4d chess? Doesn’t seem all the complicated to me.
What if Putin’s war of attrition is aimed at bankrupting NATO?
This. A hundred times over. What Russia and China are doing is uniting the global south against the G7 with the eventual aim of bankrupting them and making their currencies worthless.
A conventional and nuclear war cannot be won by either side. But bankrupting the enemy is a possiblity. And the GAE started the economic warfare by confiscating Russia’s reserves and sanctions.
Nobody talks about who is winning that war.