One of the eternal truths of human society is that the people with real power are those with control of the economics of society. Whether the society is ruled by a king or a committee of girl bosses, the people who have the final say on all matters are those who control the wealth of society. The golden rule of human organization is “the man with the gold makes the rules.” Without much fanfare, we may have seen this rule work its magic in the big neocon funding bill.
The first thing to note about the money for Project Ukraine is most of the money will never turn up in Ukraine, at least not in the form of weapons. If you read the text of the bill most of the money is for slush funds the White House can use to replenish weapons taken off the shelf and sent to Ukraine over the last year. It appears the White House has been shipping weapons to Ukraine that were not paid for by Congress, so this created a debt to the Pentagon budget that is now repaid.
The number of actual weapons going to Ukraine as a result of this bill is a fraction of the sixty billion allocated. Ukraine needs advanced air defense systems, artillery tubes and artillery shells, but none of this is coming from Washington. The main reason for this is none of these things exist, at least not in surplus quantities. You cannot send what does not exist, even with billions to spend. Instead, Ukraine is getting what is available which is wheeled vehicles and surplus arms.
It is not all that clear that supplying Ukraine with what they need would make much of a difference, as Ukraine has another problem. The Ukraine army is running out of men and there is no money solution to this problem. It takes time to draft and train men to fight this sort of war. According to Ukraine sources, they need two hundred thousand men right now to be made whole. That deficit grows bigger by about a thousand men a day and there is no way to solve this problem.
The reality on the battlefield raises an important question. If there is no money solution to the problems facing Ukraine on the battlefield, then why spend sixty billion on this project when it must inevitably fail? That money could be used to other foreign policy adventures like the planned war with China over Taiwan. Of course, they could spend the money on Israel. There is always an appetite for that in Washington. Instead, they chose to shovel sixty billion into the Ukraine furnace.
The first clue is all the money allocated to the Pentagon for various undefined things supposedly related to Ukraine. It is clear the administration sent far more to Project Ukraine than Congress authorized. What most likely happened is something like the old arms-for-hostages game played in the Reagan years. Military contractors sent men and material to Ukraine on the promise they would be made whole with interest at some point in the future. The future arrived in that bill.
The other clue is the money being sent to Ukraine for economic support. It is so tangled up in the language of government that it would take years for an outsider to figure out what any of it means. This is how Washington launders trillions of dollars through and for friends of Washington. Billions will go into obscure programs administered by the administrative state and then those funds will end up in grants to NGO’s or contracts to vendors with obscure business models.
Of course, some will go to the Ukraine government, but with very specific instructions on how it is to be spent. There are many friends of Washington that have unpaid bills for services rendered to Ukraine. The vendors must be paid in dollars, not the worthless currency of Ukraine. Some of this money will be directed through Kiev to those friends of Washington. It would be a total coincidence if those vendors just happened to employ friends and family of important people in Congress.
Most likely this was the main reason for the sense of urgency. Over the last two years big players have been making deals with Ukraine for economic development, on the assurance that Ukraine would win the war. BlackRock, for example, made a number of deals with Kiev. BlackRock and JP Morgan have created a bank for rebuilding Ukraine, by which they mean looting Ukraine. Large global operators have been cutting deals with Ukraine since the start of the war.
What this means is heavy weight players have been given exclusive access to Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance now. Much like how the Pentagon “borrowed” from military contractors, the regime has been promising the usual suspects first rights to loot Ukraine after the war, in exchange for “investments” now. This is all done informally, but no one is hiding it. War has always been good for business, especially the banking business.
In other words, another purpose of this bill was to repay economic elites who had been talked into going along with the project. Keep in mind that players like BlackRock and JP Morgan have money in Russia as well. Now that it is clear that Ukraine will lose the war, they need to think about how the world looks after Project Ukraine. As you always see with a failing enterprise, the insiders are getting their money out before it becomes obvious to everyone that the enterprise is doomed.
This is all speculation based on the available data, but the facts on the ground are making it clear to everyone that Ukraine is finished. The text of this spending bill and the announced weapons transfers that are part of it all point to a rush for the exits rather than a new commitment to the project. The smart money just jumped out the window, carrying your tax dollars with them. That means the next phase is finding someone in Washington to blame for the failure of the enterprise.
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Our political class is like the mobsters in Goodfellas with the Bamboo Lounge.
” And, finally, when there’s nothing left, when you can’t borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out.”
Right now, our uniparty is getting ready to light the match.
The Ukraine is defintely in the Davey Scutino bust out phase. I’m surprised we didn’t give ukes 61 billion boxes of ziti.
I’ve been using that movie scene to describe those who run the U.S. for going on a decade now. This country has or had a great deal more to loot than the Bamboo Lounge.
There’s no doubt that the sales pitch to Wall Street was that after a successful war, they’d get to rape Ukraine like they raped Russia in the 1990s. And if this went really well and Putin was deposed and replaced with a Yeltsin-like leader, Wall Street would get to rape Russia again. The lunatic neocons really believed that this war was their best chance to bring Russia to its knees and make it a vassal state, maybe even break it up, which would ensure that it could never rise again and make it easier to exploit. They believed this insanity… Read more »
Speaking of exploitation, big agribusiness companies, hedge funds and oligarchs have purchased a lot of Ukraine’s fertile farmland–Some say as much as 28% of the country’s arable land. (“Some say” means “for what it’s worth”). Google Earth shows the heavily fought-over territory is pretty much all agricultural land, much of which is now full of bomb craters, shrapnel, unexploded ordnance and minefields.
So, some very rich people have incurred some serious losses and are intent on getting compensation and probably hot for revenge. We will probably never learn how this plays out.
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/war-and-theft-takeover-ukraines-agricultural-land
What I wouldn’t give to see AINO’s oligarchs jumping from the 50th floor like it’s 1934 because they took a massive haircut in the Ukraine.
The DC municipal code about no buildings taller than the Capitol is suddenly seen in a whole new light
When Black Friday comes I’ll stand down by the door And catch the gray men when they Dive from the fourteenth floor When Black Friday comes I’ll collect everything I’m owed And before my friends find out I’ll be on the road When Black Friday falls You know it’s got to be Don’t let it fall on me When Black Friday comes I’ll fly down to Muswellbrook Gonna strike all the big red words From my little black book Gonna do just what I please Gonna wear no socks and shoes With nothing to do but feed All the kangaroos… Read more »
Agreed that it seems like the desired end goal of this war, and why the GAE started it in 2014 and then doubled down on it in 2022, was to try to get Davos/Goldman Sachs-friendly regimes in both Ukraine and Russia. Local and Western Jews ran Russia in 1991-1999, and were of course able to completely economically rape its vast resources during those “happy times”. Local Jews also ran the Soviet Union in 1917-1930, and were able to do what they wanted, including genociding tens of millions and destroying the nation’s Christianity. Those two experiences were enough for Jews feel… Read more »
It really feels like the elites and members of the cloud community are trying to take everything off the shelves economically before they turn out the lights and catch the next G6 out of town.
The accelerated looting seems to signal a desire to get as much cash as possible and turn it into hard assets. It doesn’t bode well for American citizens and their wallets, but who the hell cares about them? They can and are being replaced with people who have different expectations about what a dollar can buy.
It literally makes the United States complicit in genocide and ethnic cleansing. Will the ICC have the balls to indict American officials along with Netanyahu’s cabal? Likely not, but here’s to hoping.
The penultimate act of the regime: the looting of the public treasury.
Wonderfully reminiscent of the fall of Vietnam where the last president emptied the State Treasury and drove across the border.
They took the last train to the coast, the day the music died.
Don McLean had it right.
The Godfather, sonofabitch and the Unholy Ghost.
Exactly..They’re taking “the last train for the coast”, and building their bunkers, before the roof caves in on the FUSA..and 60 billion is nice walking around money…
you’re way too optimistic if you think they’ll leave.
babylonian j*ws remained in irak millennia after it fell and they still claim it as their own.
Point I’m trying to make is js will try to rule over you even if you’re country became as shitty and as poor as Irak or South Africa.
I spent some years in DC years ago and this is how it really works. The lies are for the rubes to believe. The plan seems to be to get the war beyond the election, then blame it on Biden. If he loses the election, that’s easy. If he wins, they’re going to substitute someone for him anyway, and move beyond the whole mess as they did after the Afghan withdrawal.
War as air cover, another DC inversion in the upside-down world.
It angers the hell out of me, because we were fed a bunch of BS throughout our schooling about being some kind of beacon of freedom and liberty when we are in fact just as bad, if not worse, than everybody else.
The United States was not an evil empire. AINO is.
Hmmm. Where and when did all the good times go? In no particular order off the top: They murder Lincoln before he can repatriate slaves – then loot South The Maine Lusitania Lend Lease Wilson – runs on keeping us out of war Roosevelt – runs on keeping us out of war They murder Lindbergh’s baby They murder JFK to escalate wars Korea, undeclared war Lincoln Brigade, Spanish Civil War McNamara’s Morons Firebombing civilians in Japan and Germany Nuke civilians in Japan Bloated Colon Powell has little jar in hand as he lies at U.N. Demonic Madelaine Albright brags about… Read more »
How do you say “we didn’t start the fire!” in Yiddish?
Nah. Idiot Trump will walk right into it. He gets played every time by the Deep State
I don’t even think DC cares about finding someone to blame anymore. Nobody paid any price for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria – I can go on National Review or Bill Kristol’s X account and they say how great all these operations were. The warmonger walrus John Bolton is on MSNBC like he is some sort of foreign policy sage. The same people who engineered those disasters are setting policy as we speak. Nobody in DC has ever suffered for proposing or agitating for more war. They are totally insulated from failure. When the Ukraine operation finally comes to a close,… Read more »
As someone noted, the Palestinians are coming to The West. Fink and Kushner probably already have a lock on the seaside resorts in whatever new Hebrew name it will be given. The disputes over the offshore gas deposits will end and Israel will have a lock on those with Blackrock also probably holding title/rights to it. It goes on and on. Meanwhile, for the GAE this loss is not some minor thing where business will just go on as usual. This accelerates the GAE decline. Europe was told to endure the pipelines being blown up, and take on the economic… Read more »
For the GAE and its European vassals, nothing, repeat nothing, is more feared than economic dislocation. The loldollars are priority one, value #1. Everything will be sacrificed for them. Is already being sacrificed for them.
Option 1: The US gets all the Palestinians and the Israelis get all the land in the Middle East.
Option 2: The US gets all the Jews from Israel and the Palestinians get all the land in the Middle East.
Option 3: Let them fight it out without US assistance. Why is this our problem, exactly?
As I said to a normie the other day when they were bleating out the talking points about the Israel-Palestine conflict: “I don’t give a damn about the Israelis. Or Palestinians. Or Ukrainians. Or Russians. Or Syrians. Or Chinese. Or Koreans. Or Taiwanese. I want them to stay in their countries and I want our money to stay in ours. That’s it.” My wife and I watched Team America: World Police and that film is even more prescient now. “See, there are three kinds of people: dicks, pussies and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along and dicks just want… Read more »
On option #3: It’s our problem because our Federal government is run by foreigners while heritage Americans attempt to save “our democracy” by buying hats. No amount of the “Leave us alone” rants that I’ve seen for decades will change government by the UN set.
“This is all speculation based on the available data, but the facts on the ground are making it clear to everyone that Ukraine is finished. The text of this spending bill and the announced weapons transfers that are part of it all point to a rush for the exits rather than a new commitment to the project. The smart money just jumped out the window, carrying your tax dollars with them. That means the next phase is finding someone in Washington to blame for the failure of the enterprise.” It’s more than speculation. You’re mostly correct. The only minor quibble… Read more »
Agree completely. The Regime takes no blame, offers no explanation and operates with no feedback loop whatsoever
It seems to one of their, um… innovations. Previous administrations would dissemble and obfuscate and scapegoat. The Bidenbots’ genius lays in realizing that this isn’t necessary. They know that all they need to do is stop talking about something and the loyal regime media does likewise. Then the typical Murrikan with his 10 microsecond attention span goes back to his pr0n.
That’s the problem I see, since those retards in Congress made such a spectacular show of waving those Ukrainian flags like giddy children after passing the bill. That image might come back to haunt them when their little boy in Keeeeeeve gets the Mussolini or Diem Special, if he’s lucky. They certainly can’t very well blame the Bad Orange Man, as Tough Guy Joe and his merry band of clowns have responsibility.
Who was fired for 9/11? Who was fired for the iraq war? Who was fired for the afghanistan war? Who was fired for the 2008 financial crisis? Who was fired for the ambassador dying in libya? Who was fired in 2021 and after?
And it isn’t just government, those at the top of the “private” sector have the same immunity. Almost like they’re an entirely different class of people who abide different laws then those presented in public. What happened to that recent Boeing CEO?
Directive 4: never oppose an OCP officer
Again, they can sluff off these losses domestically, but internationally it’s turning into a cluster-f
I blame the deep state and military for the Afghanistan debacle. Trump ordered them out twice and twice they refused to do anything to make it happen. They figured they could run out the clock on Trump and that Biden would support them staying there. Then they did the same thing to Biden, but Biden put his foot down and said I don’t care if you’re not ready and ordered the withdrawal. They had a good 3 years notice that Afghanistan was over. How they managed to screw up so monumentally with no repercussions really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Failure never… Read more »
“Biden put his foot down”…. BWAHAHAHAHA. too funny for words. please. As if the meat puppets have any say in what is going on, in this talmudvision production for the zombies watching sportsball and donning another magahat.
OK…. Insert whoever you think actually has power. SOMEONE put their foot down and said “you are leaving.” Since, despite having a good 3 years of advance notice, they were not anywhere near prepared to leave. Chaos ensued. Chaos was likely both deliberate and a result of not being prepared.
I sometimes wonder if they were actually thinking of doing such a chaotic withdrawal deliberately so they can later sell the idea of re-invading (at huge and profitable cost of course) because of the “humanitarian crisis” that resulted. I think the neocons may actually be *that* cynical and evil.
I think the rulers just saw that their antagonism of Russia in The Pale was about to bear some concrete fruit and had to bail out of the Afghan boondoggle in a hurry. Obviously dementia joe’s only job was to struggle through a few teleprompter sessions trying to mouth the words he was assigned.
Yep, the regime simply banned reporters from asking about those 13 dead US Marines. The reporters were happy to obey.
It’s the same with COVID. Nobody’s allowed to ask about it now. Vaccine deaths are ignored. The destruction of American kids is also off limits.
The problem they have when they do this is they legitimize people ignoring the government. The next COVID will be interesting because the last COVID was a combination of fraud, graft, and overthrowing Trump.
Welcome to modern reality: nothing matters, nobody cares and there are no consequences.
As many will note, the bill funds the emigration of the Palestinians to America and points West; that may be what the pier is for. Investment and development money will flow to Israel as it has for depopulated Ukraine, so our “investor class” should come out okay.
One web commenter asked: is the bill also funding the next pandemic?
Instead of just a canal in Israel, those biolabs in Ukraine need a bit of capital too.
Boy, those biolabs were sure memory-holed fast, weren’t they?
An announcement has been made that the “Biden” Administration is preparing to start bringing Palestinians here soon–only those with the right papers, wink, wink. You know, so the Israelis don’t have to fight them over there, we have to suffer them over here or something. If there has ever been a more corrupt and despicable government in human history, there is no historic record of it. The transition from terrorists to model citizens happened in a matter of months, all in the name of the Benjamins, as Ilhan Omar rightly noted.
I do love how, completely expectedly, the Genocide Right as represented by Ben Shapiro had no issue with either Israel killing all the “Gaza Monsters” or with moving all those “Gaza Monsters” to America.
It makes the United States literally complicit in genocide and ethnic cleansing, if not an outright co-conspirator with the relocation. Will the ICC have the balls to indict American officials along with Netanyahu’s cabal? Likely not, but here’s to hoping.
complicit in genocide and ethnic cleansing. Will the ICC have the balls to indict American officials along with Netanyahu’s cabal? Likely not, but here’s to hoping.
America is run by Netanyahu’s cabal. I don’t get expecting anything different. We are decades away from any other sentiment than “Does he/she have a piece of paper? Clearly loyal American!” Bad people noticed that foreigners are not naturally loyal.
Check out the What’s Up With Shipping channel on YouTube. The rust-buckets we sent to support construction of the pier either broke down mid-Atlantic, or just made it across the ocean and limped into Cypress for repairs. I think it was 1 ship that made the crossing on schedule.
Off topic, but – University anti-war sit-ins and protests were one of the main tools that Jews used in the sixties to wrest command of and power in the US away from the old WASP elites. Fitting somehow that they now are using the power that they gained then to crush university anti-war sit-ins and protests in a way that WASPs were too genteel back then to do with them.
“When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
Hah, after I posted, I found myself wishing that I had included that quote in my post. Exactly, thanks.
Nice quote , didn’t originate with Herbert though
The Ohio National Guard 145th Infantry did nothing wrong.
Today must be hard truth Wednesday. Yes to everything. The Deep State and its backers were counting on raping Ukraine’s resources in order to keep the plating spinning here in the US. They still have not fully given up on that project, and the reason is that they do not have a feasible Plan B for what to do when Russia wins. They have been running up the credit card by printing fake money, hoping on-the-come that Ukraine would produce a revenue stream that could at least make the minimum payments on that debt. But the real disaster is in… Read more »
Nailed it. The only hope for Europe is to go back on our knees to Putin and beg for forgiveness and cheap LNG. However, that will first mean getting rid of EVERY current Euro “leader” except Orban and Fico.
Rinse, repeat.
I understand the Biden admin wants to fund Ukraine $80/billion a year for “reconstruction” for the next 10 years. The funds will be set up in such a way that future presidents can’t alter it. Almost a trillion allocated to the most corrupt country in Ukraine.
Whom the gods would destroy, first they would make mad.
One small bit of hope is that the 2020 election fraud will become exposed for all and sundry to grasp. That could lead to activating for the public the Trump executive orders that were put in place and ignored by the media. Some pretext or rationale for showing that the election was null and void, and so is Biden’s admin and any actions.
You forgot about the critical step of “welcome millions of ‘refugees’ from the now destroyed country into your own”. Of course, maybe this isn’t universal – for whatever reason, we did not seem to get an influx of tall and thin Ukrainian blonde women.
A friend in the whore business tells me that Ukraine’s unaccompanied women have been delivered to “the Turks,” a trade euphemism for a Middle Eastern (approximately) coalition—Turks, Pakistanis, Israelis, and miscellaneous Soviets—that administers much of European (and nearby) sex slavery. Typical case: girl flees to an EU capital, hops on Tinder, meets an irresistible local rich man who informs her that she is no longer allowed to date freelance. She agrees or…she doesn’t. The long-stewing plot to destroy the Ukrainians is finally succeeding. They’re a soon-to-be mythical people, like the Circassians, remembered for nothing but having supplied the world with… Read more »
Eh, there’s still the Ukrainian diaspora in western Canada.
Yeah, go figure. Stupid, primitive Somalis of the Levant, yes! Beautiful, reasonably intelligent and functional whites from Eastern Europe, not only no, but hell no! I just don’t understand their game. What could it be? What on earth could it be?
The left will learn something from last night, be assured, unlike conservatives. The Portland Oregon DA, who let antifa run the city for six months in 2020, is already preparing indictments.
For years, conservatives warned lefties, “what they do to us, they’ll do to you, too.” That day is now here.
We will see how they react. I have a feeling it will have a bit more vim and vigor than online rightists.
Not that an Orange victory in November will change a whole lot of anything for the better, but it’s not real hard to picture this growing internecine war on the left scuttling their election chances this year. Leaving the question of whether this development was intentional or accidental. I’m going with accidental.
The bigger question: Will anyone on the right or left notice who we are not allowed to criticize?
Exactly right, Bob. Leftists to their credit to not operate under delusions about the beneficence of their rulers. They get most things wrong but that they don’t. Their problem is impulsiveness, and it may get them gunned down, which could be win-win. The ZOG PROGs will kill the PALI PROGS with gusto, and the clapping seals of Con, Inc., will celebrate the Portland police who kill them.
“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”
Jay Gould
US financier & railroad businessman (1836 – 1892)
What do you mean the Ukraine is finished? Haven’t you heard? We’re sending F-16s and other mysterious super weapons to the battle front. I tell you what, those F-16s are a magic talisman that will turn the tide.
All is well, nothing to see here. Go about your business.
“All this calls to mind one of the writers whose work has been central to my blogging since its earliest days, English historian Arnold Toynbee. As my regular readers will doubtless remember, Toynbee lived in Britain in the twentieth century, and so he was understandably interested in the reasons why empires fall. He devoted most of his working life to a sprawling twelve-volume study of that question, which he titled simply A Study of History. His explanation for the decline and fall of civilizations was subtle but straightforward. He noted that most fallen empires could have recovered from the crises… Read more »
Yep. Empires are like the hairs on my head. Once they are gone, they never come back.
I’ve always thought that Trump should propose a series of Brexit style votes to put this stuff to bed once and for all. The first and most important would be about immigration, but I would also include other hot button issues like these stupid foreign wars. Of course, there is no constitutional mechanism for having a national vote of this type, but a non-binding vote would send a message.
A family member is also of the opinion that a lot of this money ends up in the pockets of legislators. We’ll never know, will we?
You know every time a person enters Congress worth less than $100,000 and a decade later they are worth $25,000,000 despite making less than $200,000 a year in salary.
You’ve got that all wrong. They are the most brilliant people of our society. That’s why we elect them to represent us in congress. They are super beings and have super insights on the economy. That’s how they get their investments right and make all their money. No monkey business at all. None whatsoever. /s
The blackrock investment confuses me, surely they know how this will end so I guess that means russia is just going to let them rebuild the country and, if their operations here in the US is anything to go by, effectively own the place? They’re only a few degrees removed from the people who started this mess in the first place.
I feel like I’m missing some context.
Someone else (my namesake I think) already touched on the elephant in the room. The threatened end of U.S. dollar hegemony. I believe this explains everything. It is existential for the monied interests, those so-called “citizens of the world” who may hold a U.S. passport but aren’t Americans. The American nation isn’t threatened — it’s already been destroyed — only the GAE is. I have to quibble over the notion that the dollar will plummet immediately however if Russia prevails. It will just be an important marker in its decline. It will take a while longer for all the derivative… Read more »
This is THE whole issue, to which Ukraine and Gaza are just painful side notes. The GAE is heading for the trashcan of history, like all previous empires. The question is whether it can be sent there peacefully or whether it will take us all down with it.
There were a couple of Russian oligarchs who agreed with your premise, and they’re all now dead or in prison. Power beats money when push comes to shove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIhmBnYmWQk.
Yeah, it’s always a tense relationship between “them with the gold” and “them with the guns.”
Putin know how to treat oligarchs. If only we in the West had done that with Soros, Blackrock, et al.
Our Vietnamese friends also have some solid ideas about what should be done with out of control financial types.
I wonder if any of the funding shenanigans involving Ukraine violate the Anti-Deficiency Act. That statute makes it a criminal offense for an executive branch official to obligate the government to pay money in the absence of an authorization or appropriation by Congress. If Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election (I’m skeptical) his Department of Justice could launch multiple criminal investigations into the arrangements that Department of Defense officials entered into with contractors to provide weapons and supplies to Ukraine.
Trump stood foursquare behind Johnson. He won’t do squat.
Observation: judging by the number of comments today relative to daily, I get the sense that people are both beyond outraged but also fatalistic about Ukraine.
The whole mess illustrates that our government has already collapsed. We’re just in the looting phase now.
The weird pro Hamas college protests are an indication that this war is also losing steam. We’re at max burn.
Not really resigned as such. For me November won’t change a thing because we are way beyond the point where it could do so. DC is done. The only real hope for the US is some kind of split. I don’t want this but I don’t see how it can be avoided. Only after then, and if the damage isn’t too bad, can we have a hope of rebuilding.
“Ukraine is getting what is available which is wheeled vehicles and surplus arms.”
You mean they’re giving people “assault weapons”? Without background checks? Oy, oy…
The only way this war ends soon is if Trump wins in November and withdraws US support, or if Putin dies. The US government is trying to foreclose that option by negotiating a ten-year support deal with Ukraine, on the theory that Trump will comply with the terms of the deal. It will be fascinating to see whether the Supreme Court will order President Trump to comply with the terms of a deal executed by the Biden regime. There’s too much opportunity for grift on the NATO side of the equation to stop the war. On the Russian side, a… Read more »
There is one very good reason for Putin to end it: the future is unknowable. Everything seems to be going along just great for Russia right now but a black swan that reverses Russia’s fortunes could be lurking just over yon horizon. It is hubris to think you’ve got everything, including the future, all figured out. And Fate tends to punish such hubris savagely.
The future was unknown when Putin launched the invasion, but he did it anyway. I see no reason why he wouldn’t continue under the same uncertainty.
But the longer he allows the war to drag out, the more likely some unforeseen conjuncture will foul Russia’s sparkplugs.
Maybe, but the opposite is likely more true: the longer it lasts, the more the West unravels.
But what is the end? Russia “winning” in Ukraine, whatever that means, is not the end of anything. It’s not as if the GAE is going to just stand down and give up because the Zelensky regime is forced into exile and Russia captures Kiev or even Lvov. This war will continue on beyond that, with that part of the future very much unknowable.
And that’s why Putin is in no hurry
The BFE will always prosecute an unholy cold war against Russia. That is inevitable and out of Putin’s hands. But he can end the hot war in the Ukraine if he so chooses.
Putin is considered a moderate among the Russian side.
If he passed it’s not hard to imagine Medvedev continuing the conflict.
The US tried that model with Vietnam. It failed. It failed because the US could not escalate to total war like WWII because Russia and China backed North Vietnam with nukes. Elites and would be elites like Bill Clinton at the time revolted at fighting. Russia has nukes. Thus there is a hard limit before nuclear war with how much the US can escalate. If the elites were not willing to fight and die in South Vietnam in 1967, how are ordinary White men going to be willing to fight and die on the Russian Front to defend Ukraine’s holy,… Read more »
US was first to propose a draft.
A couple of newpaper articles does not equal policy.
Calm down,Whiskey.
Yep. One last chance to print money and pay off friends in this war. Then it’s on the the next one while the Ukraine lays in ruins.
What will be fun is when Russia rolls up much of eastern Ukraine and the country collapses as a political entity. Who is going to invest in the rump that is left?
It will be interesting to see how the Russians approach this. Ukraine is not Moldova. It has a special place in the Slavic identity, especially the Russo-Slavic identity. Russians, including the leadership, look at this war a brother war. I suspect that in the end, the Russians install a sane government, demilitarize the place and make sure it is economically viable. That is in everyone’s interest.
And with luck, the Russians get the stupid West to help fund reconstruction of the Ukrainian rump State.
I’m wondering how the “billions to rebuild Ukraine” will vanish, given Russia already pledged to do that on its own nickel.
OT: I hate the “read more” function that has appeared below longish comments. Just display the whole durn thing…
Seems to me that the “post detention” function has become more sensitive under the new regime. Lots of posts being put in time out for a while.
I’m wondering which Americans would be willing to welcome Palestinians.
Game’s up, folks.
Funding to import Palestinians is already available There is $480,000,000 earmarked for refugee relocation in Mike Johnson’s “compromise” Ukraine bill. We’ll get Palestinians whether the rest of us welcome them or not. See Section III, page 18 of the bill. Zman provided a link to it.
Yeah, I’m always underestimating what people will put up with.
I guess Russia just needs to make sure one way or another the US shysters have no ability to make hay off the inevitable Ukraine defeat and chaos – more like sucking hind tit. I think they’ve already frozen a decent amount of JPM investments – good…
“It takes time to draft and train men to fight this sort of war. According to Ukraine sources, they need two hundred thousand men right now to be made whole.” . . Seems that *might* change. I saw a couple of bordering country’s leaders saying they would send Ukrainian refugees back to Ukraine. Zelenskyy has been asking for this for months now. Zelenskyy has been saying for that those refugees include military aged men suitable for mobilization. It has been rumored that Ukrainian impressment gangs have grabbed men off the street and had them at the front line in 3… Read more »
“No one gets away with anything.”
Fr. Chad Rippenger.
Ultimately not, no. Even Soros, who sees himself as God, will die one day and have to face either divine justice or nothingness. His plans and achievements will count as naught.
these old operators are usually well ahead of the curve. one of them , bracken was in Bereuit as a seal when the marines got bombed . he said the docks in gaza were to bring the gazan’s here , that they don’t have the lifts to deliver freight to gaza. that was a couple of months ago . these guys are a good source of info. https://rumble.com/v4pashw-roundtable-discussion-4-13-24.html
We’re in the looting phase of late stage empire.
Looting and perversion
No, Ukraine is just getting started. The phase where actual Ukrainians fight is coming to an end. But .. the US and France already have substantial troops in Odessa according to reports. Macron has called for a Europe Wide draft, and Ukraine is joining NATO. Which means US troops on a wide scale deployment are coming, very soon. With Trump about to be disposed of by Judge Meacham by late June, you can look forward to: A. Widespread deployment of US troops to fight Russia in Ukraine. B. A draft (straight White males only) to fight on the Russian front… Read more »
If the elites institute a draft (military or civilian) of only straight white male, they’ll quickly have millions of soldiers under arms alright. Only they won’t be marching on Moscow. They’ll be marching on London, Paris, Berlin, and Washington, D.C.
Likely, but they don’t figure that. They figure they still have legitimacy, enough boot-kickers, all those “migrant” military age young men under payroll, and CBDC as a virtual gulag to make things happen. Its why you have Hillary! blithely stating we need “re-education camps” for Trump supporters and Klaus Schwab’s motivating slogan: “you will own nothing, have no privacy, live in the pod, use the pronouns, eat the bugz.” Bug eating is the key. Sadism plays a BIG role in elites, look at RFK Jr.’s statements from the early 2000’s where he blasts Red State Americans as evil and requiring… Read more »
Also, don’t underestimate our elite’s fear of their own mortality. If they were willing to grant some concessions to the Dirt People and/or boiled the frog, their schemes might stand a better chance of being realized. The Cloud People certainly wouldn’t face as much resistance if they took the gradualist route and played the long game. However, Hillary Clinton, Klaus Schwab and George Soros are not long for this world. They don’t want their children or grandchildren to immanentize the eschaton. They want their totally controlled Brave New Woke World dystopia realized by 2030 at the latest and if they… Read more »
…those “migrant” military age young men under payroll….
“Hey man. I come here for the free chit, not to get keel by Russian. Tu Madre, cabron!
Even if they agree to sign up, how long will it take to train them, arm them and transport them to 404? A good infantryman takes at least a year to train – assuming he already speaks the language.
Or their stupidity.
TPTB can wish all they want, but between flying the wings off the existing aircraft fleet, DIE-flavored maintenance, and a lack of replacement production, they are going to find their rapid airlift capabilities are severely degraded.
Also, who are the Woke elites going to enlist to fight and die for Clown World? Who would fight for a corrupt regime that hates them and wants them dead and/or replaced?
Dream on. Yes, they won’t back down, but there are no US troops to send to the Ukraine. There are already massive shortfalls in recruitment and a draft will tear the US apart.
So this is Soviet collapse 2.0.
Soviet oligarchs “the few at the top with power / $$$” made a fortune on the collapse. Only this time it will be American Oligarchs making money on the Ukraine collapse.
Paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
Makes Bernie Madoff look like an amature.
[…] ZMan discusses some inconvenient truth. […]