Free Republic

Part 2

21,706 views Dec 9, 2022 Michael Vlahos and Douglas Magcregor meet in the library of the Army-Navy Club, Washington, D.C., to reflect on the war in Ukraine: Past, Present, and Future. Part 1 There will be two more parts to this presentation in follow on posts. Col. Douglas Macgregor, bio: https://douglasmacgregor.com/biosketch.htm Douglas Macgregor is a decorated combat veteran, the author of five books, a PhD, and a defense and foreign policy consultant. He was commissioned in the Regular Army in 1976 after 1 year at VMI and 4 years at West Point. In 2004, Macgregor retired with the rank of...

Raymond McGovern is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer turned political activist. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief.

A lot of interesting info about the Ukrainian attacks on Russian air bases.

Update

Russian President Vladimir Putin waited only six months before switching from a special military operation to full scale war against Ukraine. Putin's initial assault was limited to barely 150,000 troops. He expected a quick victory followed by negotiations on his principal concerns: Russian control of Crimea, Ukrainian neutrality, and autonomy for the Russian population in the Donbas, but he was wrong. Putin had not counted on Ukraine's stiff resistance or the West's massive military and economic intervention. Faced with a new situation, Putin changed his strategy. Now he is about to unleash his own General Sherman and make Ukraine howl....

Javelin, Stinger stockpiles running low: Raytheon CEO By Al Mayadeen English Source: Agencies 5 Dec 19:14 Raytheon's CEO stresses that the company's arsenals of Javelins and Stingers are running low due to the massive aid being sent to Ukraine/ Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are depleting at an alarming rate, with the arsenals being voided of weapons that took years to produce within months, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said Monday, citing the United States flow of aid into Ukraine as the reason being. The United States has been sending Javelins and Stingers into Kiev in the thousands, and...

Ritter: There are no more Ukrainian breakthroughs, just dead Ukrainians, dead poles, dead mercenaries. Judge: Let me stop you, are there Polish troops on the ground in Ukraine fighting with the Ukrainians against the Russians? Ritter: Tens of thousands and thousands have died. The Poles aren't there as Polish troops. They are there...in the United States we call it "sheep dipped." They basically take off their Polish uniform....they get "dipped" into Ukrainian uniforms and then they go forward. But, they fight as Polish units. I interviewed a senior Russian commander, actually a Chechen and he said, "Look...(he's in the Lugansk...

MacGregor: Up until this time at night we have had freezing but during the day it has gone back up to 40 even 50 degrees. It has to drop below freezing and stay that way for at least two weeks. So if it is now below freezing and stays that way you can do the math. Your looking for something happening no earlier than the 10th; probably no later than the 19th of December. And you're talking about concentrations of Russian troops all the way around the country. We've accounted now formally, these are people who sit in front of...

How it all happened.

A look at how the majority of the rest of the world sees things through the lens of Pepe Escobar. Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst. His column "The Roving Eye" for Asia Times regularly discusses the multi-national "competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia." Very useful, eye opening discussion for the very intelligent freepers. I do not recommend it for the others.

Col MacGregor: The military establishment that Putin and his government built in the last 15 to 20 years was designed preeminently to simply defend Russia. It was not designed for any offensive warfare against any neighbors. And I think that we failed to see that the reduction in the size of the force and the change in its orientation meant something very different from what it meant in Soviet times or even in the Tsars period. Mr. Putin went in to Eastern Ukraine with a set of assumptions that were not valid, but at the time he thought they were....

Great interview by an excellent military historian.

Answer to one question Scott Ritter: Well now we have people who say we want to do this with Ukraine. Well right off the bat I want to tell you any time we deal with Russia, let's put it this way, you can't solve a problem unless you have properly defined the problem. Any time we are dealing with Russia we need to understand that the United States and our NATO allies don't understand Russia. We don't have an accurate assessment of Russia. We've under estimated them in some areas and over estimated them in other areas. I'll give you...

Col. MacGregor: Zelensky's made a terrible mistake by trying to pin the missiles on Russia. Everyone knows; and what he's done is sacrifice what little credibility he has left. Increasingly he is viewed especially in Europe where more and more truth is getting through to the populations. He's seen as the mayor of the the capital of disinformation and fiction. The truth is the situation that Ukraine finds itself in right now is really quite desperate. The Russians have systematically dismantled most of the energy system. People are lacking in terms of lack of heat, but lack of heat is...

Excellent MacGregor interview about what prompted Gen. Milley to leak private briefing of Biden. Interview discusses negotiation possibilities...not likely. Huge Russian offensive being prepared for. Milley is concerned that this conflict will end in defeat for the collective West.

Resident ⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside Office of the President is disappointed by the Western reaction to the rocket attack on Poland and attributes this to the fact that Britain is gradually starting to exit the Ukrainian case, leaving the main place of the United States. This is due, first of all, to a set of internal problems that allow London to have limited participation and support for Kyiv, which is clearly not enough for Ukraine. Resident ⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside Our source in the OP said that all public gifts to Ukraine from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were just a veil that hid the real...

Another excellent interview. Scott Ritter differs from Col. MacGregor who thinks the errant Ukrainian missile crashing into Poland was "probably" a mistake. Ritter thinks it was a deliberate strike on Poland to force NATO into the conflict (Article4/5) But, he thinks it was done by a rogue "nationalist" (read neo-nazi) who control the missile batteries in the Western part of Ukraine which is where the missile strike originated from without Zelensky's knowledge. He also feels there is no possibility of a negotiated settlement at this time because Zelensky will not accept reality. "Ritter: How do we end this conflict? And...

Tension increasing. Col. MacGregor provides an inside look at the Ukraine current situation and what is likely to happen. He maintains the United States is in no position to get into this war with Russia and that the Pentagon is strongly opposed. He expects a major offensive by Russia within weeks.

Intel Slava Z, [11/14/2022 9:48 PM] 🇺🇲🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡The State Department is preparing the basis for the start of possible negotiations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine - Politico sources According to the publication, officials in the United States disagree on whether Kiev should resume dialogue with Moscow. Intel Slava Z, [11/14/2022 9:37 PM] 🤡 Zelensky, in his video message at the G20 summit, said that there would be no “Minsk-3” between Russia and Ukraine, once again demanded that Russia confirm the territorial integrity of Ukraine, withdraw troops and pay reparations Intel Slava Z, [11/15/2022 3:04 AM] 🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️Peskov: Ukraine cannot and does...