[Super-optimistic Baghdad-Bob-ism is admirable in some regards, but counterproductive and self-defeating in most ways. A cold hard look at reality serves mature adults better than idealistic fantasizing. IMHO.]
Posted on 07/03/2022 2:00:44 PM PDT by delta7
So, the G-7 leaders are in agreement, more war with Russia. Without actually saying exactly that, that was the main takeaway from he meeting of the most feckless leaders in the world.
They also pledged $600 billion they don’t have to fund global infrastructure projects to ‘combat China’s Belt and Road Initiative.’ One wonders where all this money and, in the case of Europe, energy is going to come from to fund all of this.
But the question I’ve had from the beginning of this obvious war of attrition the West wants to impose on Russia is the following: Do we have the stamina, in terms of real production capacity, to cash these checks our leaders are writing?
A major report from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), one of the oldest military think tanks in the UK emphatically said not in anyone’s wildest dreams. Alex Mercouris of The Duran did an amazing job of breaking down what RUSI thought about NATO’s ability to wage war vs. Russia’s current military tempo, days before this idea caught fire.
nd weekly consumption by the UAF is staggeringly vast.
I told you at the outset of this war that Russia was absolutely engaged in a war of attrition against the West, hoping NATO would take the bait of a ground war in Ukraine. I didn’t have numbers to back this up, only the inference because of what I understood about Putin and his previous maneuvers against the West.
What’s obvious to me is the neocons and neoliberals controlling the West think they can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for Putin, but what if Putin thinks he can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for them?
Russia is not capable of conquering Europe. But he doesn’t need to to defeat them. He just needs to create a version of this map:
knew that Putin wouldn’t commit Russia to this conflict if it couldn’t sustain fighting it. I also knew that the West would LIE OUTRAGEOUSLY about the level of corruption within the Russian society to play on the biases of marginally-informed American armchair generals.
Is the Russian system perfect? No. Is there corruption? Yes. But it’s complete nonsense to think it wouldn’t be uncovered and stripped out of all branches of the Russian military/industrial complex during the initial military gambit. The shifts made by Russia strategically and in terms of personnel have set it up for the long haul, fighting a type of war they are very good at and which the US and NATO left the UAF mostly defenseless against.
Now, with sanctions further hollowing out the US’s and Europe’s economies and the “leadership” of the buffoons that just met in Germany, Russia is in the driver’s seat to grind out a victory in Ukraine and leave the West depleted of weapons if the current situation goes on without a course correction.
The point made by RUSI is that it may not be possible to course correct in time (or ever) in the time frame needed to affect the outcome in Ukraine, absent an unthinkable escalation.
The exhaustion we thought we would put to Russia, is the ultimate form of ‘sanctions boomerang’ on the West. To listen to RUSI tell the tale, we’re the ones without the capacity to fight if the conflict widens.
And yet, to listen to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken or National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, you would think Russia is still on the verge of collapse.
Now the G-7 think they have the power to set a global price cap on crude oil. I’ve told you time and again that Davos really does believe they have some kind of monopsony power over Russia’s exports. They still believe that their thirst for energy, food, industrial metals, fertilizer, etc. gives them power over Putin.
And Putin is the moderate within Russian power circles. There are a hundred Banes waiting in the wings happy to snap the necks of the John Daggetts he no longer needs to sell oil and gas to.
I’ve watched Putin for years. I’ve seen him put pressure on his central bank and the bankers to reform the financial sector. I’ve seen him publicly dress down and reform major industrial oligarchs in metals production. Six plus years of military operations in Syria have given him a lot of data on how to execute a long-term strategy and find the break points of his logistics and operations.
And I’m sure that this war in Ukraine is as much another data gathering exercise for the capabilities of the West as much as it is a stress test on his own internal production systems.
Russia is now 4 months into this review. Lots of people have been fired, jailed, etc. The non-hackers are being weeded out. Operations are leaning out.
Now let’s look at the West.
The US under Biden is now amping up military spending, presumably to increase ammunition production levels. But it may not be. As Alex rightly points out, echoing points that Dexter White has discussed in the Gold Goats ‘n Guns newsletter, keiretsu or just-in-time manufacturing is how we operate here in the West. That system is under massive stress thanks to the supply chain breakdown created by Davos over COVID-19.
While sanctions may have limited Russia’s ability to procure or maintain a large arsenal of its highest technology tanks and/or airplanes, again as Dexter has pointed out, it may not be relevant here because this isn’t a war of bleeding edge technology.
It’s a WWI style artillery war, which we are not prepared to fight. Scott Ritter pointed out to me when we met at the recent Ron Paul Institute conference that NATO no longer trains in maneuver warfare. While Russia’s combined forces training is limited, as evidenced in its attack on Kiev in February, the US’s major advantage has been severely curtailed by lack of training and readiness over the past couple of decades.
So, what we have, overall, is a military picture with weak supply chains, limited ability to ramp production, and a military that hasn’t trained for sustained warfare on a mass scale.
This means that Biden’s expansion of the DoD’s budget to $813 billion this year may not even be what we think it means. Instead of being a buildup to fight a wider war, this may seriously be just the last dip at the trough before the whole system comes crashing down.
Remember, that Davos wants the US destroyed. It has assiduously hollowed out vital US manufacturing capability while simultaneously putting it in a fragile fiscal position with a divided and angry population.
The stage is set for internal conflict of a type and kind that we haven’t seen in over 150 years. And we’re supposed to fight a war with Russia, a nuclear and conventional military powerhouse?
This is leaving aside the reality that if NATO declares open war on Russia that Blinkered Blinken and the anti-Diplomats have pushed China into being paranoid about our intentions over Taiwan.
The real stress test is happening now. Ukraine is getting crushed under the weight of Russia’s ability to sustain an inhuman level of artillery bombardment. The RUSI article only touches on the potential for Russia to continue its production of the needed munitions, but one gets the idea that these things are cheap and fully domestically sourced.
This has forced into the open the massive shortfall of industrial capacity in the West as well as fracturing the political leadership as to what they should ultimately do here.
Half of them want to continue the war in perpetuity. The other half want a ceasefire. None of them would admit this at the G-7 meeting out of a need to not look weak or admit that the Russians have exposed them.
It takes a staggering amount of energy to fight a sustained war. The West is at the mercy of Russia to get that energy.
The next phase of this war is now the complete divorce of Europe from the Russian energy complex at prices that can’t keep Europe from sinking into depression if not outright depravity.
To achieve this, these out-of-touch narcissists think they can set a limit on what they will pay for a barrel of oil? I thought I’d heard it all in this life, but this is almost as delusional as the average Libs of TikTok video post Roe v. Wade’s demise.
The financial war of attrition against the West I’ve discussed at length for months is the reality of the day. Ultimately without energy or the money to procure or produce it, there is no real conventional war. Industrial warfare having returned, as is the premise of the RUSI article, has already determined the outcome in Ukraine.
This is just part of the reason why Henry Kissinger urged at this year’s Davos meeting to open up talks and begin the negotiations. It seems at this point his admonishments have fallen on deaf ears. Given the average age of the idiots making these decisions, this is, of course, not surprising.
Davos has set the US up for complete humiliation in Ukraine, sacrificed thousands of Ukrainians, bankrupted millions of Europeans and corrupted hundred of millions sustaining a vast bureaucracy incapable of responding to the growing needs of a failing system.
The sad part is this: They think they are #winning, because so much of this is going according to plan. They are missing the big parts about destroying the US too quickly in the process, if you want it to fight your war to cover your bankruptcy.
Russia and China will cut Europe off from global trade if Europe defaults on its debt, which ECB President Christine Lagarde just told the world she is ready to do. The Fed’s hawkishness is already destroying the Eurodollar markets, the source of Davos’ power.
So, in conclusion this is what I see next:
Russia will not stop with their victory in Donbass They will take Nikolaev, Kharkov and Odessa (Note Russian spelling, screw the BBC!). Russia will not take the bait over Kaliningrad, but will cut off all gas to Germany. The German government will fall, but it won’t matter b/c the Greens, who set policy, control the Bundesrat. Russia will continue to not give Davos the excuse to start WWIII, even with Finland and Sweden entering the alliance. They will keep upping the stakes while further exposing the emptiness of their threats. The Biden Admin. will keep trying to start a war over Taiwan Eventually China will oblige them, even though they don’t want to. Bulgaria’s collapse is just the start of the end of the EU in Eastern Europe. NATO will either collapse or nukes will fly…. I’m still betting on the former. Erdogan caving over NATO expansion means Putin will oppose him in Syria. The Fed will continue raising rates while the ECB hangs on for dear life. In desperation I expect a false flag provocation to force the Russians into a move or simply justify the Davos pulling us into their next war, i.e. another virus or chemical weapons attack this time blamed on Putin.
The goal of this project is an independent Europe, a broken US and vassalage for Asia.
They will achieve, at best, one of those three things. An independent, but broken Europe under the vassalage of Russia and China, the the US retreats and licks its wounds. That’s the future I see now, if the nukes don’t fly.
…and Vlad says checkmate, again, prepare for a world with a castrated US.
Soviet Russia must be destroyed.
Maybe they’ll have better luck with the next President. 🤣
Soviet Russia must be destroyed.
——-
They were, back in the early 90’s. Now is their time to reorganize the world powers, the US and the West will be castrated by all their debt….it is unfolding before our eyes.
This proxy war with Russia is going to be one of the worst geo-political mistakes we’ve ever made. Seeing as to how the neocons will never admit to mistakes, they will try and ramp up the escalation of this into WW3, since that is the only option left for them at this point. I’m just hopeful Europe balks and puts an end to this war.
Luongo keeps going back to how this is an artillery war. It’s an artillery war only because Biden is pulling the West’s punches thanks to the promise of future payments from Putin to the Big Guy. In reality, US aircraft, if provided to Ukraine, could demolish Russia’s air defenses and turn Ukraine’s battlefields into a shooting gallery for strike aircraft and artillery alike.
Biden is carefully setting up an aid package that only seems adequate, while ensuring that 90+% consists of civilian aid that is mostly pointless because much more is being destroyed by Russian artillery attacks. His paymaster in Moscow won’t pony up if he loses in Ukraine. Hence Biden’s consistent throttling of military equipment. He’d like to be remunerated along the way. Presidential salaries don’t pay enough for him to finance Hunter’s coke and meth habit.
It appears they do not have the rail system they need to do that, much beyond where they already are.
US aircraft, if provided to Ukraine,
——-
Not buying it, having an aviation background, military and civilian, aircraft without competent experienced maintenance and supply sit on the ground for a long time…and Ukie pilots without extensive training, ( years) will be fodder, and they know it.
Says the Soros/Great Reset stooge.
Biden & his other progressive western cohorts placed kinda very strict, half assed sanctions on Russia, excluding natural gas, petroleum and petroleum by products because the west can no longer produce enough to cool & heat our houses or run our vehicles, due to “Climate Change”. since Climate Change will not effect Russia or China or India and others, they prefer to get these products from our ‘enemies’.
While high import cost of fuel is bringing the west to it’s collective knees, the same high export cost is propping up the exporting countries. That includes Russia, OPEC and a few others.
So what are their options? String it out and have the CIA clowns release a nuke or large scale chem / bio attack, blame it on Russia so it will escalate to full blown WWIII.
Congratulations! Soviet Union Kaput 1991.
[Super-optimistic Baghdad-Bob-ism is admirable in some regards, but counterproductive and self-defeating in most ways. A cold hard look at reality serves mature adults better than idealistic fantasizing. IMHO.]
It was in 1991.
“It appears they do not have the rail system they need to do that, much beyond where they already are.”
MT, love you bro, but you are seriously not keeping up. Among other things, did you know what Lysychansk is? Another rail hub. So while the last trained soldiers of the UAF are being captured or killed, Russia is able to cycle fresh troops and weapons in and out. Now, on multiple parallel RR lines, closer to the FEBA.
Recommended:
“The Ukrainian’s disorganized retreat from the city has played havoc with their ability to set up a coherent fallback defensive line.” (Explains significance of Lysychansk RR hub)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rletgA5I4I4&t=01s
Defense Politics Asia:
Ukraine SITREP ] Day 129 (2/7) Summary - Lysychansk encircled; Only Bilohorivka left in Luhansk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivRQBqLSjCI&ab_channel=DefensePoliticsAsia
[ Luhansk Front ] RF captured Bilohorivka, Verkhnokamyanske and Maloryazantseve; Encirclement closed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-xYPNeJYY&ab_channel=DefensePoliticsAsia
It is what it is because Russia has nukes.
There aren't any good ones.
(will try and ramp up the escalation of this into WW3)
Yeah I wonder 🤔
Also wondering if this will eventually lead to Ezekiel 38
We sure do live in interesting times
✝️🙏🛐
[Not buying it, having an aviation background, military and civilian, aircraft without competent experienced maintenance and supply sit on the ground for a long time…and Ukie pilots without extensive training, ( years) will be fodder, and they know it.]
“..Soviet Russia must be destroyed...”
But instead we are destroying ourselves.
I think we should think seriously about the Trump strategy. That is to develop win-win scenarios using common areas of interest, trade policies and friendships.
It is a challenge but enemies don’t have to remain enemies. Change is possible.
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