Has NATO’s Strategy To Bleed Russia Backfired?

My short answer to the question — Yes! I received an interesting response to my request for opinions on what constitutes the “Endgame” in Ukraine from a man named Matt. Here is his analysis:

The end game is to diminish/weaken Russia. The US has determined they cannot fight and win a war against both China and Russia. The US and it’s allies have sought to pick off the weaker of the two. The longer the US bleeds out Russia, via Ukraine, the better. Not all NATO (think Germany) were onboard with the plan. Hence, NATO starts talks with Ukraine about joining. Such talk provoked a response from Russia. Blowing up Nordstream forced Germany fully on board. The US/NATO will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. NATO weakens Russia; US clears the decks to more capably deal with China; arms manufacturers make money, and politicians skim money here and there. The way the conflict is currently postured, this can go on for some time, all of which benefits US/NATO. Last thought, the EU will need to take laboring oar on rebuild. Current projections are $1 trillion and rising. EU will need to issue bonds. Interest rates currently too high. Plus, you get into problems between the rich northern countries, and poorer southern countries ((PIGS)). The US won’t publicly announce they win by weakening Russia, by taking away a Chinese ally, and saddling Europe with a generation of debt, but that seems to be happening. What do you think?

My response — “Matt, Thank you for taking the time to write something thoughtful. I think the facts on the ground contradict you. For example, the US economy is in recession with the added whammy of inflation. Russia’s economy is growing not shrinking. It is the United States that cannot supply Ukraine with an adequate supply of artillery rounds and HIMMARs. Russia by contrast is not running out of weapons/missiles. It continues to fire and hit targets in Ukraine. It is the US that is bleeding out.

Why do you believe that the US is so strong militarily? We no longer meet recruiting goals and the military leadership is more worried about proper pronouns rather than a competent military.”

I think Matt is correct observed that the original plan of the United States and NATO was to “bleed out” Russia. The phrase, “bleed out,” refers to an arterial wound that cannot be staunched. A person with such a wound will die within four minutes if the bleeding is not stopped. Only one little problem — Russia ain’t bleeding; it is NATO and the United States that are hemorrhaging.

The Wall Street Journal published a news item this week making this very point, Europe Is Rushing Arms to Ukraine but Running Out of Ammo:

Europe, home to some of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, is struggling to produce enough ammunition for Ukraine and for itself, jeopardizing NATO’s defense capacity and its support for Kyiv, officials and industry leaders say.

A lack of production capacity, a dearth of specialized workers, supply-chain bottlenecks, high costs of financing and even environmental regulations are putting a brake on efforts to increase output, presenting the West and Ukraine with a fresh challenge for next year.

The United States and its European allies have been deceived by their use of military force over the last 30 years. They have never had to fight a peer nation with the capability to produce all of its own military equipment that is on par with what the West relies on. They have deployed their military forces against ill-equipped, poorly trained armies that lacked air power and effective artillery and tank forces. The United States and NATO were lulled into a state of complacency.

Compounding the problem was the decision of the West to shift much of its manufacturing capability to foreign countries. American can no longer do what it did in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when the United States switched its massive industrial base into manufacturing tanks, planes, ammunition, battleships and air craft carriers. Modern day America specializes in producing grotesquely expensive, unreliable weapons that take months and years to appear on a battlefield.

This also is an intelligence failure. It appears the CIA bought into the nonsense that Russia had a small, weak economy and would crumbled in the face of Western sanctions. A real analyst would have raised the fact that sanctions, historically, have been ineffective in forcing regime change. Cuba and Iran are primary examples. It looks like the CIA donned its cheerleading uniform, complete with Blue and Yellow pom poms, and parroted the lie that Russia could not produce the rockets, artillery shells and precision missiles to support a long war. We are ten months into Russia’s “Special Military Operation” and they continue to shred Ukraine’s troops and infrastructure like a lethal Energizer Bunny — those pesky Rooskies keep going and going.

We enter the New Year under a dark and dangerous cloud. The failure of the United States and NATO to stop Russia may lead the Western alliance to act with more desperation and recklessness. Russia, for its part, admitted as much this week and is taking steps to bulk up its forces in the event this escalates into a World War. I continue to pray for peace, but there are no Western leaders embracing that approach. They are pinning their hopes on getting rid of Vladimir Putin without taking a moment to consider that Putin’s replacement would likely be more nationalistic and less inclined to negotiate. We are living in an historic, epochal moment that likely signifies the beginning of the end of American dominance in world affairs.

Unfortunately, FR has a lot of delusional posters. There is overwhelming evidence that our Deep State government has been engaged in plans to “weaken, destabilize and create regime change in Russia” for many years now. Not because Putin’s Russia has done anything to harm us. But, because this is our foreign policy for dealing with powerful competitors. The Deep State insists on trying to maintain worldwide hegemony.

Every move our government has made in this disaster from deliberately provoking the bear to nonstop escalation has failed miserably. Now we are upping the ante even further and Russia is responding by beginning a massive remilitarizing program. Really, we just couldn’t get any dumber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=021JkYHJy1Y

Russian military prepares for conflict with neocons and NATO

Alexander: Putin says again, and he has said this several times, the West’s goal is to destroy Russia; to dismember it. That Russia therefore is in a state of confrontation with the West. This is going to be an enduring and long lasting one and the Russians have, therefore, been pushed into a position where they have no choice but to remilitarize.

And this is going to be a military build up on an enormous scale. Another half a million men joining the Russian army. Ten motorized rifle divisions being created, Three of them are completely new. Seven will be developed out of brigades. There is going to be more emphasis on strategic weapons. More emphasis on the air force; but the priority is now going to be the ground forces. As I’ve said 10 motorized infantry divisions. Two new military districts in Moscow and in the Leningrad region that is the area that surrounds St. Petersburg. A new army corp opposite Finland in Kraelia. Beefing up of Russian tank divisions and tank forces. This wasn’t fully spelled out. A massive expansion of the Russian army. Two more air assault divisions. Now the Soviet Union had 7 paratroop divisions. Russia is now going to have six; but supplementing those six paratroop divisions there’s going to be all kinds of independent air mobile brigades and all that sort of thing so ultimately Russia’s air borne divisions will probably outnumber what the Soviet Union deployed. And five naval infantry divisions replacing naval infantry brigades.

And another thing was an enormous increase in Russian military production and Putin is talking about the fact that military production increased very significantly in 2022; but that it is going to increase by orders of magnitude in 2023 and beyond. He said we have the financial resources to do it...our economy is in good shape. We are fully capable of doing this. We don’t need to do what the Soviet Union did which is militarize our entire society and militarize our entire economy because we have the resources, we have the factories, we have the scientists, we have the engineers, we have the laboratories. We have all these things and we have the production facilities going as well.

So the West is now in an arms race in Europe. It is going to face a Russian military juggernaut which is heading in it’s direction because let’s be absolutely clear what’s coming and it’s going to squash Ukraine in it’s path.

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