Posted on 05/28/2022 2:40:24 PM PDT by Vlad0
The war in Ukraine is a trompe l’oeil. Behind the appearances of the unity of NATO and its consolidation by new members, several big players run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In reality, all those who are not blinded by their own propaganda know that their side is going to lose and is already planning other enemies on other battlefields. Washington is making the best of a bad situation and using Russian pressure to close ranks.
On the front of the stage, Nato assures that it has been strengthened by “Putin’s madness”. Ukraine, powerfully armed by the West, is leading a counter-offensive and pushing back the “invader”. At the international level, the sanctions are bearing fruit. Finland and Sweden, feeling threatened, decided to join the Atlantic Alliance. Soon the Russians will overthrow the “dictator” in the Kremlin.
This magnificent narrative is contradicted by the facts: only about a third of Western weapons reach the front. But the Ukrainian army is exhausted. Almost everywhere it is retreating and a few exploits do not change the overall picture. Two-thirds of Western weapons, especially the heaviest ones, are already available on the black market in the Balkans, particularly in Kosovo and Albania, which have become the main places for trafficking in this area. Western sanctions pose a risk of famine, not in Russia, but in the rest of the world and particularly in Africa. Turkey and Croatia are opposed to the accession of new members to NATO. It is possible to convince them, but at the price of radical political changes which the West has always opposed.
Even if Russia is wise enough to not celebrate its victory too loudly, as it did in Syria, it will be seen as the failure of the greatest military force in history, NATO. A victory without appeal, since the Atlantic Alliance was physically involved in the fight, while it stood around the battlefields in Syria. Many of Washington’s vassal states will try to break free. It is likely that their civilian leaders will remain mentally oriented toward the West, while their military leaders will turn more quickly toward Moscow and Beijing. In the years to come, the cards will be reshuffled. It will not be a matter of shifting from alignment with Washington to alignment with the new victors, but of creating a multipolar world where everyone is responsible for themselves. What is at stake is not a redefinition of zones of influence, but the end of the mentality establishing a hierarchy between peoples.
From this prospective point of view, it is fascinating to observe Western rhetoric. Many experts from the old world explain that Russia wants to rebuild its empire. They claim that it has already reconquered Ossetia and Crimea and is now attacking the Donbass. They reconstruct history with falsified quotes from President Putin. Anyone who studies contemporary Russia and checks the data knows that this is not true. The accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation and the future accession of Ossetia, Donbass and Transnistria have nothing to do with an empire, but with the reconstitution of the Russian nation, which was dismembered during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In this context, a small part of the Western leadership is beginning to challenge the choices of their American overlord. The same phenomenon took place during the last trimester at the end of the mandate of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The latter, seeing the human disaster he had contributed to provoke in Libya and his failure in Syria, agreed to negotiate a separate peace with Damascus. However, Washington, furious with his independence, organized his electoral defeat in favor of François Hollande. In the days following his accession to the Élysée Palace, the latter re-launched the Western war machine for a decade. It is precisely at this time that Russia committed itself to intervene in Syria. For two years it finished developing new weapons, then came to fight the jihadists armed by the West and directed by NATO from its Allied Land Command in Turkey.
YOU ARE. Things are going exactly as my sources predicted.
The Ukrainians are losing up 500 troops a day in Donbass. Even Zelenksy admitted the number was 100 a day.
The Ukrainian army that remains is in a meat grinder.
Even the western media is beginning to concede that that Ukrainian army is being destroyed and calling for a negotiated end to the war.
Even in the media is realizing the Ukrainian army is being wiped out in Donbass.
You're wrong and you're bragging about it.
I think we should stop repeating the mantra that Putin is a thug and a bully. He’s the leader of his country and he wouldn’t be in that position if forces in Russia didn’t want him there. Countries have what they believe are legitimate interests and can react in extreme ways (war, etc) if they feel it’s their only option to stop what they believe is a threat to their security (Nato expansion). I’m not taking anyone’s side here. Just trying to understand how this thing got so out of hand.
https://sonar21.com/putting-the-war-in-ukraine-in-context/
The battle for Mariupol stands as the most consequential urban battle of the 21st century. At the same time, Russia and the militias of the Republics of Donetsk and Luhnask are nearing the complete defeat of Ukrainian forces based in the Donbas.
Besides Mariupol, Russia has taken control of major cities in the Donbas and adjacent regions, such as Vasilevka in the Zaporozhye region, Kherson, Lyman, Popasna. Russia now has surrounded Sievierodonetsk and trapped several thousand Ukrainian troops. My point? Russia has accomplished this against well armed, NATO trained forces fighting from defensive positions. The Ukrainians had artillery and some drones/missiles. Russia has achieved all of this in less than two months.
Hahaha show me a picture of 4 mile long line of Ukraine military tanks.
“If pajama clad Vietcong ran the mighty superpower USA out of Vietnam, with Americans escaping from roof tops in helicopters, why is this a surprise?...”
Your analysis is erroneous.
American military power was only spottily applied during the intervention in Southeast Asia. At that, it terminated the VC in response to the Tet offensive on 1968. North Vietnamese forces fought the remainder of the war.
US political leadership - mostly elected by the citizenry - was frightened into walking away by the radical Left, and by middle-class parents who couldn’t bear to see their kids’ college deferments revoked.
“You know this how ?”
Because they invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 and now it’s May 28 and they’re still getting their @sses kicked. How many tanks have they lost? They’re reduced to taking T-62s out of mothballs. Their only hope is the Ukrainians run out of Javelins and NLAWS.
Thanks very much for the link! It’s unfortunate that so few people will make the effort to watch the interview. It was very informative.
I guess “you can lead a horse to water; but you can’t make him drink.”
This misinformed country would be so much better off if more would drink from the reality well...:-)
Main point remains valid...in 100 years no military has been able to vanquish a guerilla army.
“General Giap was convinced (correctly) that the war could be won in the UnitedStates public arena.”
IIRC, this is the same General who, many years afterward, admitted Tet was their “last hurrah”; that if the court of public opinion hadn’t ended U.S. military involvement, if we had, instead, regrouped and launched a counter offensive, they’d have folded like a house of cards, because they had nearly nothing left after Tet.
But it never was 100% public opinion; it was Deep State Washington that ended ‘Nam LONG before we left. When your General asks for 400,000 men and only gets 40,000 because politics... yeah, everybody in theater figures out damned quick, their fekking toast.
It’s not much consolation, but Hannibal was shafted the same way by partisan “Deep State” pols in Carthage.
SS.DD.
What you do not get, is that Xi and the CCP are watching this with great glee, as Putin and Russia throw their failing weapons into Ukraine and prove what a rotten toothed tiger they really are. Not only is the Russian population shrinking, but now their armaments have shrunk, and they seem to have little capacity to produce new ones. They had to obtain Chinese tires which proved useless in the Kiev attack. How soon will it be before China moves into parts of Siberia with or without some kind of agreement with Russia, for what kind of payoff or threat? Look for interesting developements along those lines this coming decade.
Winning.....not won. They are taking towns.....Ukraine is retreating, sadly.
They have their sights set squarely upon us. For you go after the strongest opponent first. Once they are defeated, the remaining major opponent in your way for world dominance is by far the weaker one that can be dealt with later.
I'm sure Xi is thoroughly convinced that even the U.S. coupled with NATO may be easier than he has thought they were over the last couple of decades.
I do not know what weapons Russia actually has, but I'm willing to bet they are not what we have seen so far. He got rid of the garbage mainly because he thought it would be an easier hoe than it has been. He hasn't turned tail and ran either, which makes me think he has much more to offer up, if he needs to.
China is the much deadlier adversary, and we are wasting munitions and money against Russia who is not really a threat to the U.S.
But even a much weaker opponent can defeat you when the population turns against thee actions being taken. Vietnam was the perfect example of that, and later Afghanistan, Lybia, & Syria have not impressed our adversaries much either. It becomes even worse when you have a total idiot as the Commander in Chief, and Biden is a certifiable idiot. On top of that, the military itself is being hollowed out. They main focusing has been on indoctrinating the personnel with social justice garbage, and you want to know something. That does not win wars, in fact it destroys cohesiveness and moral.
Xi and the CCP have plenty, to have long continuous wet dreams at night.
Correction: Moral should be morale.
“So in your mind we should have a proxy war with anyone dangerous to change their attitude, right?
Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc...
One at a time or all at once works best for you?”
No, we are trying to avoid future wars proxy or otherwise. Russia must lose! This should not happen again.
You’re confusing the border skirmishes with a war for one and for two they’ve had two years to retrain their men since then.
“Main point remains valid...in 100 years no military has been able to vanquish a guerilla army.” [entropy12, post 89]
Repeating false information doesn’t render it true. Not even when it’s done more than twice.
Nor does it validate any argument. Unless it’s the assertion that irregular forces are always morally preferable to formally organized forces fielded by nation-states, therefore we dare not interfere against such.
The failure of US intervention in Southeast Asia remains a blot on the escutcheon of national honor. And it is impossible to be laid anywhere, save at the feet of the populace at large, whose attention span was exceeded. Clear case of immaturity.
And this is not some airy abstraction; practical consequences have come into play. Isolationists who snivel about the reluctance of NATO members - and other putative allies - to pay some presumably “fair share” of mutual defense costs ought to reflect on how (and why) our moods change as Americans, before opening their collective mouth on the subject of “unnecessary” wars.
Useful military assessments are made based on existing evidence, not on some fairy tale scenario advanced by fiction writers.
A military skirmish provides valuable strategic information.
However, if you have evidence that a retrained ChiComm combat unit has successfully fought and defeated an enemy on the battlefield within the last two years, I’m certainly interested is seeing that.
Thanks in advance.
Putin is a thug and a bully
True!
But sadly these other facts are also true:
(It's completely immoral to force people to fight in a war without training and adequate supplies. He's using his citizens as "cannon fodder" quite literally. And should be condemned for it, not supported by people)
Biden is a corrupt thug.
Biden family corruption is legion, and it intersects with Zelinsky-Ukrainian corruption. The failure to prosecute Burisma was a payoff to the Binden family.
After Trump was impeached for merely discussion the repulsive Biden corruption in Ukraine, he was impeached for a phone conversation, which another Ukrainian (mole, in the White House) claimed to have "overheard".
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