Douglas Macgregor & James Patrick: The Russia's breakout offensive

You Tube ^ | 7/3/2023 | Douglas Macgregor

[AndyJackson]

This is a great analysis of the US's global security stategy. It is not that much about Ukraine and it is well worth understanding.

Watch

Summary:

1. We are not this invincible collasus bestriding the world.
2. The US is not investing at home where we need to: energy and high end manufacturing and agriculture.
3. It is absurd to be thinking about another war with China 6000 miles away when we are bogged down in Ukraine
4. Lengthy analysis of the history of Ukraine and how we and NATO got involved. Includes all the sins of Stahlin and so forth but then NATO built up a force in Ukraine aimed at suppressing breakaway Republics [which were Russian]. Minsk accords to resolve this were a ruse by the west to buy time to build up forces. West which backs multi-natioanlism and mulit-culturalism at home and elsewhere don't back the rights of Russians in Ukraine.
5. War is depleting western stocks of arms, and we never accounted for the overwhelming dominance in the number and sustainability of Russian artillery.
6. Macgregor then asks: what is the goal of the West in Ukraine - destroy Russia? That makes no sense because it isn't going to happen and it isn't happening.
7. Give me another objective: well we want to hurt the Russians> How? Well sanctions. Well they haven't worked and the Russian natural resources which others want.
8. So we have never actually done the analysis of what is the purpose of the war and how can we attain that with the means at our disposal.
9. What does victory look like: Well Putin gone and Russia destroyed. This is an unbalanced fiction because the west doesn't have the means to do that.
10. We have an enormous strategic advantage protected by two major oceans. We have squandered that. We have made enemies where we didn't need to be. Russia was not an unconditionally hostile enemy and gave us a lot of assistance and intelligence to attack Afghanistan. They are now.
11. All the things we don't like about the Chinese we can deal with here at home.
12. We don't even defend our own borders.
13. Then we need a trade policy to sustain our national interest.
14. Need to get control of the corrupt elite. THese are the folks who got wealthy shipping our manufacturing China.
15. The more neutral states we create the less power we need to defend the rest.
16. We are maritiem and aerospace power. We are not a contintal land power and cannot expect to defeat Russia which is.
17. We should limit our exposure to China.
18. Our government is suicidal, taking on enemies we don't need while not protecting our own interests.
19. The American people have too soft a life to do anything about that, but that is changing.

[Reno89519]

Didn’t this guy say all Ukrainian troops were dead yesterday?

[marktwain]

I might listen to McGregor, if he had not been so repeatedly wrong about Ukraine.

[AndyJackson]

He avoids hyperbole here and it is a pretty through and complete analysis of our strategic position in the world.

[buwaya]

MacGregor is half right.

He ignores or understates US military, tech and economic strengths. As in, for instance, the enormous US advantage in combat aircraft production, which has been increasing. More so, he ignores the capabilities of US allies.

He ignores, also, the interests of US allies.

He vastly overstates Russian economic capabilities. He also underplays the fact that the US and its allies have a near-complete chokehold on Russian exports. Russia ships oil, by far its principal export, at all, only on sufferance. This stuff almost all goes by sea.

And etc.

He has a definite agenda and does not engage analytically, which requires laying out all relevant facts.

He is correct about US government and leadership corruption. He also ignores US social conflicts, which are at the root of US problems.

[buwaya]

One huge hole in his argument is about maritime powers. Maritime powers have won wars against continental powers. That is the summary of British history.

He needs to re-read Mahan.

And, moreover, the US is also a continental power, and is able to project that globally at need.

[buwaya]

It is very far from complete.

It is, in effect, a case for the prosecution, not a fair analysis.

[ScottinVA]

I’m amazed anyone gives this clown any credibility.

[AndyJackson]

the US is also a continental power, and is able to project that globally at need.

And we have lost in virtually all of those places. Funny that the hero of the Pacific MacArthur was adamant about not getting involved in a ground war in Asia.

[ScottinVA]

“Didn’t this guy say all Ukrainian troops were dead yesterday?”

Numerous times over.

[AndyJackson]

I know. He should drawn and quartered and his remains sown under with salt so we don’t need to listen to him anymore and can just go on with our winning ways in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and Ukraine where we absolutely have Putin on the ropes this time.

[buwaya]

Wrong goals. The US has been perfectly capable of crushing any organised state it has invaded. The US problem has been, sometimes, trying to create or reform societies. Its succeeded in that too, often.

I suggest looking at the big picture and not doing a Howard Zinn. That is, they not only miss the forest for the trees, but assume that the forest is their map of bear droppings.

[dforest]

Exaggeration as usual.

[Reverend Wright]

US shipyard capacity is now a joke, just like every other part of USA industrial capacity.

NeoCon free trade outsourcing has its consequences.

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/1/11/lack-of-shipyard-capacity-putting-unsustainable-strain-on-navy

[Williams]

If anyone listens to MacGregor America is finished.
There is a very destructive sub message. America is weak and should give up defending allies. We cannot afford to be stronger.
It’s enemy sponsored defeatism.

[Phoenix8]

I like McGregor much. He would be a DAMN sight better than the woke clowns we have running the military now.

Most of his attackers seem to have a coincidental relish for war in the Ukraine. As well as only being able to point out his weakness in forecasting the duration of the conflict. Most I said…

[Widget Jr]

es, although I don't know how many times he has said this month and it's only July 3. https://twitter.com/DougAMacgregor/status/1675578381721649152< Below that now is a community edit rebutting this with a ten links challenging his claims.

MacGregor has said Ukraine has no chance since the war began. Ever since Kharkiv and Kherson, he has been saying Ukraine [is/was/about to be] + [annihilated/devastated/obliterated] weekly. It's like he took Ukraine winning personally.

[hardspunned]

The guy is lousy at predicting. But those 19 points, every one rings true.

[BJ1]

In reply to no.2 we are actually doing the opposite of NOT INVESTING IN ENERGY. We are investing in wind and solar. Which is stupid as hell because they are intermittent and for the purpose of the utility company should be treated as they are not even there as you’ll need a conventional power plant for backup when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind stops blowing. In that sense wind and solar are a complete waste of money. And all of our utility bills are going to skyrocket in the next 10-20 years as one utility company after another go green.

[ansel12]

We aren’t fighting in Ukraine, it is the Russian Army that is bogged down there, not us.