Dr. Putin wants NATO to return to its 1979 borders. I suspect that NATO will comply because that was its original promise, and because it needs fuel and food to avoid economic collapse.
80,000 Belgians demonstrated against NATO in Brussels this week.
Someone once commented that Russian and US weapons are both very well made for their purposes. The purpose of Russian weapons is to kill the enemies of Russia. The purpose of US weapons is to enrich the shareholders of Raytheon, GE, Boeing and Lockheed. You could add that the purpose of European weapons is to keep businesses ticking over in various vital constituencies in Germany, France and Britain.
Its become very obvious that the nature of warfare has changed - or in many ways regressed - and western ways of war are entirely unsuited to the challenge. In some ways Nato is now like 1941 Japan, especially the Imperial Japanese Navy. A superbly equipped and trained military designed for one purpose only - swiftly and rapidly overcoming a perceived enemy at great distances. The problem is that if the enemy decides not to play ball and goes for a long war of attrition, its not just the military, but the entire political economy that is incapable of dealing with the challenge. With Japan it was a conscious choice driven by its own limitations, although I think with the US and Nato its a consequence of technological change, an obsession with high tech over mundane but effective options, and the industrial and political limitations facing those governments. Oddly enough, China in my opinion seems to be falling into exactly the same trap.
I keep waiting for someone in Europe to state what is entirely obvious. Ukraine is an economic and political basket case with no real strategic value to anyone but Ukrainians. Its only Washington armchair bound strategists who somehow think it was worth a possible nuclear war to arm it to its teeth. It seems to me that most European leaders have entirely lost the capacity to think clearly about strategic objectives. Everything is short term tactics and PR. Nato is now the dog that caught the car and has no idea what to do. Well, there are lots of three legged dogs walking around rural areas in my parts that could confirm its not a good idea.
The obvious ideal 'end point' is to acknowledge that most of Eastern Europe is economically, culturally and politically distinct from Western Europe, and its in everyones interest that a belt of countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea go their own way independently and sort things out between each other while Russia does whatever Russia wants to do. But how to get to there from here.... well, thats another story.
1- US/NATO today has been defeated in the form of their privately installed proxy, Zelensky regime, installed by US/NATO -- specifically to attack Russia and cause regime change there -- to be the largest and best-equipped military in NATO/EU. Russians have taken them to pieces.
2- The Eastern European end-state you envision is called, historically, Intermarium, meaning, the states between the Baltic and the Black. Today those states use the name Three Seas, adding the Adriatic, but it is the same concept.
3- Russia would be perfectly happy with a neutral and prosperous Intermarium on her western frontier. She has said as much for centuries and means it. This is coming about, slowly but ineluctably. Patience is a virtue.
Chirac said something like that when France resisted the call from the likes of Poland to invade Iraq. That provoked the likes of Condi Rice to talk about new and old Europe and the old Europe being the road kill of history.
Some years later, at a meeting of banksters and EU officials, the French contingent, banksters and bureaucrats, called for the newcomers to go on their own way. I can’t remember what caused the exasperation, but it was very real. I was a bit surprised at how open the outburst was, but understood.
FWIW, I experienced an outburst of that description in 1969 at the National Council of Churches in NYC. It came from an assistant or deputy US Surgeon General. The meeting was to provide a theological peg for NCC's participation in the then-forming environment movement and to introduce NCC officials to government officials and environment big shots. I provided the theological peg but not the one NCC wanted (Genesis 1:26-28) because, as I pointed out, the one they wanted does not say what would please the environment or government people. The one I provided -- from prophetic literature, mainly Amos, the concept of universal divine order -- was not wanted by NCC and occasioned the Surgeon General to outburst in a manner and rudeness which stunned the other 12 or so people at the table. That ended the meeting and he, a huge man, stormed out cursing the NCC. NCC tried to regroup, enlisted a lame-brain from Earlham to use Genesis 1:26-28 and of course that went nowhere. Ever heard of NCC as factor of the environment movement? Neither have I. They had a chance and could have helped keep it from going crazy, which it quickly did.
It may not surprise you that many older military veterans, not the corporate shills and chicken hawks one sees on the box, agree with you, which is one reason they are rarely on the air waves.
Although you rightly focus on NATO, your post applies equally to the EU27 and their former fellow member state. They have neglected for decades their industrial bases and infrastructure, so are unable to mount a challenge to rising economic powers, let alone Russia and its military, and rise to the occasion for the benefit of their citizenry.
Further to your recent essay on events not developing to the west’s advantage, you rightly highlighted the lack of planning. I would just add that there has been a decline in the quality of leadership for some decades. The passing of the generation of politicians who had experience of war had a bigger impact than forecast or, at the time, felt.
The "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade zone that was proposed in 2010 by Putin (in response to the trans-Atlantic free trade treaty then being discussed) will, I believe, eventually come, but it will require a new generation of political leadership in Europe which has a more clear understanding of what is in the true, long-term interest of the continent as a whole. In other words, politicians who look East, not West.
I agree with you. Ultimately, reality will win. But we seem to be in for a lot of dislocation in the process.
The big complexity is the relative decline of the Atlantic centric world and the inability of mainly the US (but also the UK) to accept that.
For Continental European powers, being cut off from the Eurasian hinterland amidst total subservience to US Neo Con and military industrial complex objectives is just a pure and unmitigated disaster. The European “elites” should be hanging their heads in shame. De Gaulle is somewhere wishing he could return and sort this out!
We must in no way let the feckless, foolish European elites off the hook, but it is also clear that NATO and the EU project were just two of the various mechanisms that the Anglo-American elites manipulated the Europeans to the place where they wanted them. Ukraine is just the most recent episode in this sorry history.
I agree with that and, having worked the City since the mid 1990s and with EU and Bretton Woods institutions from 2007 - 16, I think the situation will get worse before it gets better. Something terrible has to happen to discredit the current and next generation of European leaders before they break with the US and put the interests of their countries first.
The favourite to be the next CEO of Deutsche Bank has long wanted to scale back the firm’s activities in the US and concentrate on Europe and Asia, citing Germany and the bank getting caught in the political cross fire between the US and Eurasian powers / economies, but the rest of the management, as with the German political establishment, but not so much the business* one, is Atlanticist.
* The business establishment has eased off since Bucha. It fears being named and shamed like Sarkozy and Merkel, Auchan, Le Roy Merlin and Renault by Zelensky and boycotted by consumers.
It won’t surprise you that three firms which expressed interest in this free trade initiative, HSBC, Standard Chartered and DB, were targeted by US regulators, not without justification, but all the same, it was good business and served as a warning.
For US thinkers and politicians, it would be "who look West, not East." Americans face across the Pacific. They are products of a west-moving migration vector. Across the Atlantic, for Americans, is "The Old World."
Currently, Americans are in the grip of a religio-ethnic combination who face the wrath of The Almighty for their implacable enmity towards simple kindness. Their grip is of such tightness that God only can illuminate how to relax and throw it off. I see evidence of "the how" in the Lysychansk area of Novorossiya and am reminded of illumination rounds (Agni Astras) Rama launched to let his Army of Bears, Monkeys, and Humans see their enemy -- Ravana's ogres, Rakshasas -- and attack to defeat them.
President Putin and The Armed Forces of The Russian Federation shine a very bright light on Americans' actual enemies. GA MacArthur said his most potent enemies, during the war against The Red Army in Korea, were in his rear, not in his front. So it is with us today.
" Individually, NATO air-superiority aircraft and pilots are almost certainly superior to their Russian equivalents"
This is very probably not true.
Russian Su-35's in Syria were able to detect US F-22's, while not being detactable themselves. Furthermore, F-22's in Syria were able to fly only one flight per plane per week, giving much less flight experience to pilots. As for UK and French planes, they are far surpassed by Russian ones.
Nice article but dismissing the use of nuclear weapons by either side seems a bit unimaginative. Others have pointed out that this is a life and death struggle for the elites involved, whither the conclusion is warranted that nuclear weapons use is not only on the table but unavoidable. Just guessing but Norway is trying to ethnically cleanse the Russian settlement on Svalbard. Russia might mount a naval expedition to open access to the settlement. NATO thinking that it's relatively safe to use nuclear weapons in the vast empty expanses of the Arctic might do so. Things then escalate from there.
I didn't want to make an already lengthy article longer by going into detail on this point, but I continue to think that, whereas the threat of nuclear escalation might indeed be used by some lunatic at some point, it will stop at the rhetorical level. In the Cold War, it was assumed that the very survival, not just of elites but of entire civilisations, was at stake, and therefore nuclear threats were consistent with the stakes involved. Even then, I don't think anybody actually saw the actual use of nuclear weapons as serving any rational objective at all. By contrast, there certainly were elaborate plans for using nuclear weapons, and these were practiced, and probably still are. But the states involved saw the practice of such techniques as essential for their deterrent posture, and it didn't mean that they regarded nuclear war as probable or even likely.
But there was also a lot of talk about limited nuclear war at least from the 80's onward. Ever smaller nukes had been developed basically since nukes had been invented, down to yields in the single-digit kilotons. The development picked up speed by what the West has been doing, not only what has been talking about, ever since the cold war ended. Anti-missile systems have been deployed, many of them near Russia's borders, the IMF treaty has been abandoned etc., and indications are that Ukraine was developing nuclear weapons right under the West's eyes, and without the West raising any objections, until Russia put a stop to it in the wake of its invasion. It's a critical mass of nuclear tendencies that is emerging in the West. (Sorry for the bad pun.) The Polish prime minister has even been reported as saying that Ukraine should get nukes to be able to defend its sovereignty. Such a proposition is clearly insane; it would show how little rationality is left in these people overall and with regard to nuclear weapons in particular.
One of the reasons given for the collapse of the USSR was that they were forced to spend heavily on defence in response to Western defence spending.
Don't know how significant that factor was in reality but some US politicians were saying recently "We brought them down last time by outspending them. We'll do the same again this time round".
On the face of it that looks possible. The richest countries in the world, with a population of around a billion combined, should be able to spend enough on defence to stretch the resources of a poorer country with a population less than a sixth of that.
The advantages of an outspending policy are obvious. NATO forces are not as technologically advanced in some important fields. They are not well co-ordinated. The level of training, the level of operational readiness of many European countries, is markedly inferior to that of the Russian or American armies. European NATO is in no sense up to a full scale combined operations war.
Doesn't matter. NATO is for threatening, not for fighting. Put a man with only a rusty rifle on the Russian border and the Russians have to put a man in readiness on their side. Inferior troops might not be able to defeat better forces but they can certainly ensure that the other side has to spend on them.
There were no adequate units stationed on the Western Russia border in the '90's. No need, it was felt. By 2012 there were some (*). Now Shoigu is talking of deploying many more.
Presumably competition will escalate on R & D and production facilities for advanced weapons also, and for production and stockpiling of ammunition and equipment for more conventional armaments.
All demanding resources to be diverted from the consumer economy.
So on the face of it the West, with more money and more people, could be in a good position to adopt the old Cold War strategy. "Outspend the bastards!" and bring Russia down that way again.
But I think the US Senators thinking that way have got it wrong. It could now be the other way round.
1. I'm not sure that the reasons for the collapse of the USSR was excessive defence spending. It was more societal rot than spending more on tanks than fridges.
2. To threaten Russia to the extent that Russia had to greatly increase manpower levels it would be necessary to bring NATO closer to the old Cold War levels. As the article indicates, these were far higher than today. Where does that manpower come from and how can it be afforded? The Americans no longer have the manpower to garrison Europe as they did and they will not.
3. The Inspector General's report on German military preparedness showed a deficiency that would take ten to twenty years to remedy. My own country talks big on defence but looks unprepared to spend big. Many of the Eastern European countries are militarily negligible and in no position to spend on improvement.
4. The Ukrainian war has revealed an astonishing disparity between Western ammunition and equipment stocks and Russian. We no longer have the industrial base to alter this fast whereas the Russians are already up and running.
In the MOA article I came over from, "b" tears to shreds Stoltenberg's assertion that 300,000 more NATO troops will be available. In reality we do not have what it takes to threaten Russia sufficiently to force it to bankruptcy. But if the war mood among the general public in Europe, which is running at full tide in the UK and Northern Europe right now, forces the politicians even to attempt that, Russia will bankrupt <i>us</i>.
............................
* ( in 2012, the Russian ground force presence in the western parts of the country was scant. Land
forces fielded the 6th and 20th Combined Arms Armies, with the latter one deployed in Mulino,
350 km (217 miles) east of Moscow. These two operational-level units generated field four
motor rifle brigades (MRBs) and two tank brigades.1 Even though two additional MRBs under
MD’s command provided supplementary firepower, maneuverability, and flexibility, it is fair
Thank you. One reason why the Soviet economy didn't do better was that it was run after 1945 as a wartime economy, with absolute priority given to the armed forces. Indeed, we later discovered that there wasn't a "defence budget" as such: the military just took what they wanted. I don't think this played a role in the fall of the SU as such, because, had Gorbachev and the CPSU stayed in power, and not totally lost control of the political reform process, there the defence budget would have to come under some kind of question. Indeed, Gorbachev, who didn't have the same WW2 experiences as his predecessors, was prepared to try other means than the traditional one of just having armed forces so huge no-one would dare attack you. But I agree that, even if such a policy had worked then, it still wouldn't be feasible now.
One reason, as the post suggests, is that there's no obvious place to confront Russia, unless we decide to militarise Poland, and swamp it with military forces, at some unbelievable cost. And even if we do, all the Russians have to do is sit there, with Belarus in the way, and say "come on then" from behind what looks like an impenetrable missile screen.
Yes, it's handy to have a battleground if one wishes to threaten battle. I don't believe what has now become an article of faith in Europe, that Russia has revanchist ambitions in Eastern Europe. So not only is "We must fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" a thin excuse for our support of Kiev, it's an even less convincing excuse for building up NATO forces on the Eastern frontier of Europe.
But there are still opportunities for annoyance. For provoking a Russian reaction that can be portrayed as aggressive. Harassment of the Russians in the Baltic states. Threatening communications with Kaliningrad.
In addition the wider Russian security demands have not been met. Apart from exercises along the Russian border the positioning of missiles close to Russian cities is still an outstanding issue. The Russians will resolve the Ukrainian problem in any way they please but those other problems remain outstanding. I have felt from February 21st that Russia has closed the door on Europe but until those wider security demands are met that door is still ajar.
Question. Will the Russians finally turn of the gas if those issues are not resolved?
Q: "Will the Russians finally turn of [=off] the gas"?
A: If something can happen, it eventually will. ZUSA + NATO + EU seem to have 'lost the plot,' most especially D. Unless they all 'make nice' with R, R will continue to grind through the Ukro troops until those troops are all dead/disabled or run away. In that case [not if but when] R will create new statelets on R's Western border, b/MoA thinks up to and including Transnistria. R will then well-equip the new statelets with nukular-capable S-500s etc. then R, the 'liberated' Ukros, and enlightened observers, can all have a relax. Without R's gas, D's people will freeze and its industry will collapse.
Meanwhile again 'yes,' without a proper 'rescue' operation, the gas will be turned off. Scholz&Co better 'get a wriggle on.'
I don't disagree. I think the US is about to lose dollar hegemony (accelerated by their terrible tactics of stealing other countries foreign reserves, over using economic sanctions as an economic weapon, putting developing countries in debt peonage, etc.) and that will be a huge blow to their wealth and influence. Their society, already badly divided, is in for some serious turmoil, and they're in for some very grim years (like Russia post Soviet Union). It's even odds on whether their democracy will survive.
What I'm saying is they have the resources (natural resources, population, technology, education etc.) to successfully restructure themselves as a regional (North American) power (rather than global hegemon). I'm just not sure that, as a nation, they have the collective fortitude to accept and do this. I fear the more arrogant and psychopathic among them may go nuclear instead of accepting the reality of their situation.
I think you're overlooking/underestimating the significance of the economic war that the West, in particular the US, has unleashed against Russia (and Iran, and to a lesser extent China) and is losing. (And which is not closely tied to the war on the ground in Ukraine.) Europe cannot sustain the economic losses and will be forced to sue for peace (probably in less than a year), i.e end embargoes and sanctions against Russia, and resume trade (especially for energy).
How will the US respond to the loss of its major ally? Military escalation? Completely infeasible as you correctly observe. For the US, that leaves only economic retreat and retrenchment (feasible, given its size and resource base, especially including its ally Canada, and to a lesser extent Mexico, but unpalatable) or the nuclear option (psychopathic, existential threat to life on the whole planet).
I'm less sanguine than you about the chance for the US to play nuclear roulette.
I think you're underestimating the effect of the sanctions blowback on the US, notably through higher oil prices, but also the existential crisis that is about to engulf the US political system. It will be hard enough for the Europeans to accept reality: but at least we live here. I'm not sure the US system is actually capable of doing so.
When the dust settles in this earth-born workshop, from it will emerge an order of refreshed sovereign nation states revering three brothers as leadership models for human civilization: India (wise), USA (pure), and Russia (strong).
Different family, non-Indo-European. Including to Russians, who have strong Mongol mix to their Slavic, which is Indo-European. There is a saying to the effect that Russia stands with China, but back-to-back, not shoulder-to-shoulder.
The authority India, USA, and Russia share as brother model nations is that all are multi-religious and multi-racial, value those qualities, and remain internally stable over time even counting upheavals.
Chinese do not value peace along with multi-religious and multi-racial diversity.
When the Chinese implemented their misguided one-child policy in the 70s under the supervision of the Club of Rome population-control ideologues, they maintained an exception for the fifty or sixty ethnic groups living in China; they could have as many children as they liked. That this was the case, and that they did have lots of children, can be seen today in demographics of regions like Xinjiang. The idea that the Chinese do not value ethnic diversity is risible.
Do the Hans or Mandarins intermarry with the Xinjiang-ers? Russians intermarried with Mongols. Kandinsky's mother or grandmother belonged to a Mongol royal line. The Mongol is apparent in ways Melania Trump likes to makeup her lovely face. Do Hans in China intermarry with Jews in China? They do in USA. If what I wrote is risible, then I'll have to join in the laughter. I love a good laugh.
Perhaps you conflate the gang presently controlling two branches of the USG with Americans. Our "American DNA," so to speak, is very pure. Nuland and crew left us, we did not leave them. I do not give her and her crew credit for being Americans because they do not behave as Americans. They behave as fascists, and that ain't us.
On the contrary, I'm afraid it is you. From the point that Europeans first landed on the American continent, they were the instigators of a campaign of genocide against the original population. The USA then forcibly annexed Puerto Rico and Hawaii, parts of Mexico, the Philippines and various odd Pacific islands. The USA in the 19th century participated in the forcible exploitation of the resources of Japan and China. The 20th and 21st centuries have been more of the same. This is just a small sampling. Throughout the history of the USA the governments which carried out these atrocities have been legally elected by the US people. The USA has been in a state of war against someone, somewhere, during 95% of its history.
Dr. Putin wants NATO to return to its 1979 borders. I suspect that NATO will comply because that was its original promise, and because it needs fuel and food to avoid economic collapse.
80,000 Belgians demonstrated against NATO in Brussels this week.
Thank you.
There have been demonstrations in Italy, too, and action taken by workers to prevent supplies to the war zone.
One can imagine Italy being one of the first major countries to bail out.
Someone once commented that Russian and US weapons are both very well made for their purposes. The purpose of Russian weapons is to kill the enemies of Russia. The purpose of US weapons is to enrich the shareholders of Raytheon, GE, Boeing and Lockheed. You could add that the purpose of European weapons is to keep businesses ticking over in various vital constituencies in Germany, France and Britain.
Its become very obvious that the nature of warfare has changed - or in many ways regressed - and western ways of war are entirely unsuited to the challenge. In some ways Nato is now like 1941 Japan, especially the Imperial Japanese Navy. A superbly equipped and trained military designed for one purpose only - swiftly and rapidly overcoming a perceived enemy at great distances. The problem is that if the enemy decides not to play ball and goes for a long war of attrition, its not just the military, but the entire political economy that is incapable of dealing with the challenge. With Japan it was a conscious choice driven by its own limitations, although I think with the US and Nato its a consequence of technological change, an obsession with high tech over mundane but effective options, and the industrial and political limitations facing those governments. Oddly enough, China in my opinion seems to be falling into exactly the same trap.
I keep waiting for someone in Europe to state what is entirely obvious. Ukraine is an economic and political basket case with no real strategic value to anyone but Ukrainians. Its only Washington armchair bound strategists who somehow think it was worth a possible nuclear war to arm it to its teeth. It seems to me that most European leaders have entirely lost the capacity to think clearly about strategic objectives. Everything is short term tactics and PR. Nato is now the dog that caught the car and has no idea what to do. Well, there are lots of three legged dogs walking around rural areas in my parts that could confirm its not a good idea.
The obvious ideal 'end point' is to acknowledge that most of Eastern Europe is economically, culturally and politically distinct from Western Europe, and its in everyones interest that a belt of countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea go their own way independently and sort things out between each other while Russia does whatever Russia wants to do. But how to get to there from here.... well, thats another story.
1- US/NATO today has been defeated in the form of their privately installed proxy, Zelensky regime, installed by US/NATO -- specifically to attack Russia and cause regime change there -- to be the largest and best-equipped military in NATO/EU. Russians have taken them to pieces.
2- The Eastern European end-state you envision is called, historically, Intermarium, meaning, the states between the Baltic and the Black. Today those states use the name Three Seas, adding the Adriatic, but it is the same concept.
3- Russia would be perfectly happy with a neutral and prosperous Intermarium on her western frontier. She has said as much for centuries and means it. This is coming about, slowly but ineluctably. Patience is a virtue.
Thank you and well said, Philip.
Chirac said something like that when France resisted the call from the likes of Poland to invade Iraq. That provoked the likes of Condi Rice to talk about new and old Europe and the old Europe being the road kill of history.
Some years later, at a meeting of banksters and EU officials, the French contingent, banksters and bureaucrats, called for the newcomers to go on their own way. I can’t remember what caused the exasperation, but it was very real. I was a bit surprised at how open the outburst was, but understood.
FWIW, I experienced an outburst of that description in 1969 at the National Council of Churches in NYC. It came from an assistant or deputy US Surgeon General. The meeting was to provide a theological peg for NCC's participation in the then-forming environment movement and to introduce NCC officials to government officials and environment big shots. I provided the theological peg but not the one NCC wanted (Genesis 1:26-28) because, as I pointed out, the one they wanted does not say what would please the environment or government people. The one I provided -- from prophetic literature, mainly Amos, the concept of universal divine order -- was not wanted by NCC and occasioned the Surgeon General to outburst in a manner and rudeness which stunned the other 12 or so people at the table. That ended the meeting and he, a huge man, stormed out cursing the NCC. NCC tried to regroup, enlisted a lame-brain from Earlham to use Genesis 1:26-28 and of course that went nowhere. Ever heard of NCC as factor of the environment movement? Neither have I. They had a chance and could have helped keep it from going crazy, which it quickly did.
Thank you, Aurelien.
It may not surprise you that many older military veterans, not the corporate shills and chicken hawks one sees on the box, agree with you, which is one reason they are rarely on the air waves.
Although you rightly focus on NATO, your post applies equally to the EU27 and their former fellow member state. They have neglected for decades their industrial bases and infrastructure, so are unable to mount a challenge to rising economic powers, let alone Russia and its military, and rise to the occasion for the benefit of their citizenry.
Further to your recent essay on events not developing to the west’s advantage, you rightly highlighted the lack of planning. I would just add that there has been a decline in the quality of leadership for some decades. The passing of the generation of politicians who had experience of war had a bigger impact than forecast or, at the time, felt.
The "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade zone that was proposed in 2010 by Putin (in response to the trans-Atlantic free trade treaty then being discussed) will, I believe, eventually come, but it will require a new generation of political leadership in Europe which has a more clear understanding of what is in the true, long-term interest of the continent as a whole. In other words, politicians who look East, not West.
I agree with you. Ultimately, reality will win. But we seem to be in for a lot of dislocation in the process.
The big complexity is the relative decline of the Atlantic centric world and the inability of mainly the US (but also the UK) to accept that.
For Continental European powers, being cut off from the Eurasian hinterland amidst total subservience to US Neo Con and military industrial complex objectives is just a pure and unmitigated disaster. The European “elites” should be hanging their heads in shame. De Gaulle is somewhere wishing he could return and sort this out!
We must in no way let the feckless, foolish European elites off the hook, but it is also clear that NATO and the EU project were just two of the various mechanisms that the Anglo-American elites manipulated the Europeans to the place where they wanted them. Ukraine is just the most recent episode in this sorry history.
Yeah, I've thought of De Gaulle often during these recent months.
Thank you.
I agree with that and, having worked the City since the mid 1990s and with EU and Bretton Woods institutions from 2007 - 16, I think the situation will get worse before it gets better. Something terrible has to happen to discredit the current and next generation of European leaders before they break with the US and put the interests of their countries first.
The favourite to be the next CEO of Deutsche Bank has long wanted to scale back the firm’s activities in the US and concentrate on Europe and Asia, citing Germany and the bank getting caught in the political cross fire between the US and Eurasian powers / economies, but the rest of the management, as with the German political establishment, but not so much the business* one, is Atlanticist.
* The business establishment has eased off since Bucha. It fears being named and shamed like Sarkozy and Merkel, Auchan, Le Roy Merlin and Renault by Zelensky and boycotted by consumers.
It won’t surprise you that three firms which expressed interest in this free trade initiative, HSBC, Standard Chartered and DB, were targeted by US regulators, not without justification, but all the same, it was good business and served as a warning.
For US thinkers and politicians, it would be "who look West, not East." Americans face across the Pacific. They are products of a west-moving migration vector. Across the Atlantic, for Americans, is "The Old World."
Currently, Americans are in the grip of a religio-ethnic combination who face the wrath of The Almighty for their implacable enmity towards simple kindness. Their grip is of such tightness that God only can illuminate how to relax and throw it off. I see evidence of "the how" in the Lysychansk area of Novorossiya and am reminded of illumination rounds (Agni Astras) Rama launched to let his Army of Bears, Monkeys, and Humans see their enemy -- Ravana's ogres, Rakshasas -- and attack to defeat them.
President Putin and The Armed Forces of The Russian Federation shine a very bright light on Americans' actual enemies. GA MacArthur said his most potent enemies, during the war against The Red Army in Korea, were in his rear, not in his front. So it is with us today.
" Individually, NATO air-superiority aircraft and pilots are almost certainly superior to their Russian equivalents"
This is very probably not true.
Russian Su-35's in Syria were able to detect US F-22's, while not being detactable themselves. Furthermore, F-22's in Syria were able to fly only one flight per plane per week, giving much less flight experience to pilots. As for UK and French planes, they are far surpassed by Russian ones.
Nice article but dismissing the use of nuclear weapons by either side seems a bit unimaginative. Others have pointed out that this is a life and death struggle for the elites involved, whither the conclusion is warranted that nuclear weapons use is not only on the table but unavoidable. Just guessing but Norway is trying to ethnically cleanse the Russian settlement on Svalbard. Russia might mount a naval expedition to open access to the settlement. NATO thinking that it's relatively safe to use nuclear weapons in the vast empty expanses of the Arctic might do so. Things then escalate from there.
I didn't want to make an already lengthy article longer by going into detail on this point, but I continue to think that, whereas the threat of nuclear escalation might indeed be used by some lunatic at some point, it will stop at the rhetorical level. In the Cold War, it was assumed that the very survival, not just of elites but of entire civilisations, was at stake, and therefore nuclear threats were consistent with the stakes involved. Even then, I don't think anybody actually saw the actual use of nuclear weapons as serving any rational objective at all. By contrast, there certainly were elaborate plans for using nuclear weapons, and these were practiced, and probably still are. But the states involved saw the practice of such techniques as essential for their deterrent posture, and it didn't mean that they regarded nuclear war as probable or even likely.
But there was also a lot of talk about limited nuclear war at least from the 80's onward. Ever smaller nukes had been developed basically since nukes had been invented, down to yields in the single-digit kilotons. The development picked up speed by what the West has been doing, not only what has been talking about, ever since the cold war ended. Anti-missile systems have been deployed, many of them near Russia's borders, the IMF treaty has been abandoned etc., and indications are that Ukraine was developing nuclear weapons right under the West's eyes, and without the West raising any objections, until Russia put a stop to it in the wake of its invasion. It's a critical mass of nuclear tendencies that is emerging in the West. (Sorry for the bad pun.) The Polish prime minister has even been reported as saying that Ukraine should get nukes to be able to defend its sovereignty. Such a proposition is clearly insane; it would show how little rationality is left in these people overall and with regard to nuclear weapons in particular.
Directed here from MOA.
One of the reasons given for the collapse of the USSR was that they were forced to spend heavily on defence in response to Western defence spending.
Don't know how significant that factor was in reality but some US politicians were saying recently "We brought them down last time by outspending them. We'll do the same again this time round".
On the face of it that looks possible. The richest countries in the world, with a population of around a billion combined, should be able to spend enough on defence to stretch the resources of a poorer country with a population less than a sixth of that.
The advantages of an outspending policy are obvious. NATO forces are not as technologically advanced in some important fields. They are not well co-ordinated. The level of training, the level of operational readiness of many European countries, is markedly inferior to that of the Russian or American armies. European NATO is in no sense up to a full scale combined operations war.
Doesn't matter. NATO is for threatening, not for fighting. Put a man with only a rusty rifle on the Russian border and the Russians have to put a man in readiness on their side. Inferior troops might not be able to defeat better forces but they can certainly ensure that the other side has to spend on them.
There were no adequate units stationed on the Western Russia border in the '90's. No need, it was felt. By 2012 there were some (*). Now Shoigu is talking of deploying many more.
Presumably competition will escalate on R & D and production facilities for advanced weapons also, and for production and stockpiling of ammunition and equipment for more conventional armaments.
All demanding resources to be diverted from the consumer economy.
So on the face of it the West, with more money and more people, could be in a good position to adopt the old Cold War strategy. "Outspend the bastards!" and bring Russia down that way again.
But I think the US Senators thinking that way have got it wrong. It could now be the other way round.
1. I'm not sure that the reasons for the collapse of the USSR was excessive defence spending. It was more societal rot than spending more on tanks than fridges.
2. To threaten Russia to the extent that Russia had to greatly increase manpower levels it would be necessary to bring NATO closer to the old Cold War levels. As the article indicates, these were far higher than today. Where does that manpower come from and how can it be afforded? The Americans no longer have the manpower to garrison Europe as they did and they will not.
3. The Inspector General's report on German military preparedness showed a deficiency that would take ten to twenty years to remedy. My own country talks big on defence but looks unprepared to spend big. Many of the Eastern European countries are militarily negligible and in no position to spend on improvement.
4. The Ukrainian war has revealed an astonishing disparity between Western ammunition and equipment stocks and Russian. We no longer have the industrial base to alter this fast whereas the Russians are already up and running.
In the MOA article I came over from, "b" tears to shreds Stoltenberg's assertion that 300,000 more NATO troops will be available. In reality we do not have what it takes to threaten Russia sufficiently to force it to bankruptcy. But if the war mood among the general public in Europe, which is running at full tide in the UK and Northern Europe right now, forces the politicians even to attempt that, Russia will bankrupt <i>us</i>.
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* ( in 2012, the Russian ground force presence in the western parts of the country was scant. Land
forces fielded the 6th and 20th Combined Arms Armies, with the latter one deployed in Mulino,
350 km (217 miles) east of Moscow. These two operational-level units generated field four
motor rifle brigades (MRBs) and two tank brigades.1 Even though two additional MRBs under
MD’s command provided supplementary firepower, maneuverability, and flexibility, it is fair
to say that this part of Russia was insufficiently protected. " https://www.cna.org/archive/CNA_Files/pdf/russian-forces-in-the-western-military-district.pdf)
Thank you. One reason why the Soviet economy didn't do better was that it was run after 1945 as a wartime economy, with absolute priority given to the armed forces. Indeed, we later discovered that there wasn't a "defence budget" as such: the military just took what they wanted. I don't think this played a role in the fall of the SU as such, because, had Gorbachev and the CPSU stayed in power, and not totally lost control of the political reform process, there the defence budget would have to come under some kind of question. Indeed, Gorbachev, who didn't have the same WW2 experiences as his predecessors, was prepared to try other means than the traditional one of just having armed forces so huge no-one would dare attack you. But I agree that, even if such a policy had worked then, it still wouldn't be feasible now.
One reason, as the post suggests, is that there's no obvious place to confront Russia, unless we decide to militarise Poland, and swamp it with military forces, at some unbelievable cost. And even if we do, all the Russians have to do is sit there, with Belarus in the way, and say "come on then" from behind what looks like an impenetrable missile screen.
Yes, it's handy to have a battleground if one wishes to threaten battle. I don't believe what has now become an article of faith in Europe, that Russia has revanchist ambitions in Eastern Europe. So not only is "We must fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" a thin excuse for our support of Kiev, it's an even less convincing excuse for building up NATO forces on the Eastern frontier of Europe.
But there are still opportunities for annoyance. For provoking a Russian reaction that can be portrayed as aggressive. Harassment of the Russians in the Baltic states. Threatening communications with Kaliningrad.
In addition the wider Russian security demands have not been met. Apart from exercises along the Russian border the positioning of missiles close to Russian cities is still an outstanding issue. The Russians will resolve the Ukrainian problem in any way they please but those other problems remain outstanding. I have felt from February 21st that Russia has closed the door on Europe but until those wider security demands are met that door is still ajar.
Question. Will the Russians finally turn of the gas if those issues are not resolved?
Q: "Will the Russians finally turn of [=off] the gas"?
A: If something can happen, it eventually will. ZUSA + NATO + EU seem to have 'lost the plot,' most especially D. Unless they all 'make nice' with R, R will continue to grind through the Ukro troops until those troops are all dead/disabled or run away. In that case [not if but when] R will create new statelets on R's Western border, b/MoA thinks up to and including Transnistria. R will then well-equip the new statelets with nukular-capable S-500s etc. then R, the 'liberated' Ukros, and enlightened observers, can all have a relax. Without R's gas, D's people will freeze and its industry will collapse.
Meanwhile again 'yes,' without a proper 'rescue' operation, the gas will be turned off. Scholz&Co better 'get a wriggle on.'
I don't disagree. I think the US is about to lose dollar hegemony (accelerated by their terrible tactics of stealing other countries foreign reserves, over using economic sanctions as an economic weapon, putting developing countries in debt peonage, etc.) and that will be a huge blow to their wealth and influence. Their society, already badly divided, is in for some serious turmoil, and they're in for some very grim years (like Russia post Soviet Union). It's even odds on whether their democracy will survive.
What I'm saying is they have the resources (natural resources, population, technology, education etc.) to successfully restructure themselves as a regional (North American) power (rather than global hegemon). I'm just not sure that, as a nation, they have the collective fortitude to accept and do this. I fear the more arrogant and psychopathic among them may go nuclear instead of accepting the reality of their situation.
I think you're overlooking/underestimating the significance of the economic war that the West, in particular the US, has unleashed against Russia (and Iran, and to a lesser extent China) and is losing. (And which is not closely tied to the war on the ground in Ukraine.) Europe cannot sustain the economic losses and will be forced to sue for peace (probably in less than a year), i.e end embargoes and sanctions against Russia, and resume trade (especially for energy).
How will the US respond to the loss of its major ally? Military escalation? Completely infeasible as you correctly observe. For the US, that leaves only economic retreat and retrenchment (feasible, given its size and resource base, especially including its ally Canada, and to a lesser extent Mexico, but unpalatable) or the nuclear option (psychopathic, existential threat to life on the whole planet).
I'm less sanguine than you about the chance for the US to play nuclear roulette.
I think you're underestimating the effect of the sanctions blowback on the US, notably through higher oil prices, but also the existential crisis that is about to engulf the US political system. It will be hard enough for the Europeans to accept reality: but at least we live here. I'm not sure the US system is actually capable of doing so.
Re Finland, Sweden: possibly the Arctic zone is where most mischief will take place.
When the dust settles in this earth-born workshop, from it will emerge an order of refreshed sovereign nation states revering three brothers as leadership models for human civilization: India (wise), USA (pure), and Russia (strong).
The fourth brother, China, where does it fit into the scheme of things?
Different family, non-Indo-European. Including to Russians, who have strong Mongol mix to their Slavic, which is Indo-European. There is a saying to the effect that Russia stands with China, but back-to-back, not shoulder-to-shoulder.
The authority India, USA, and Russia share as brother model nations is that all are multi-religious and multi-racial, value those qualities, and remain internally stable over time even counting upheavals.
Chinese do not value peace along with multi-religious and multi-racial diversity.
When the Chinese implemented their misguided one-child policy in the 70s under the supervision of the Club of Rome population-control ideologues, they maintained an exception for the fifty or sixty ethnic groups living in China; they could have as many children as they liked. That this was the case, and that they did have lots of children, can be seen today in demographics of regions like Xinjiang. The idea that the Chinese do not value ethnic diversity is risible.
Do the Hans or Mandarins intermarry with the Xinjiang-ers? Russians intermarried with Mongols. Kandinsky's mother or grandmother belonged to a Mongol royal line. The Mongol is apparent in ways Melania Trump likes to makeup her lovely face. Do Hans in China intermarry with Jews in China? They do in USA. If what I wrote is risible, then I'll have to join in the laughter. I love a good laugh.
USA = Pure! Only in your dreams.
Perhaps you conflate the gang presently controlling two branches of the USG with Americans. Our "American DNA," so to speak, is very pure. Nuland and crew left us, we did not leave them. I do not give her and her crew credit for being Americans because they do not behave as Americans. They behave as fascists, and that ain't us.
On the contrary, I'm afraid it is you. From the point that Europeans first landed on the American continent, they were the instigators of a campaign of genocide against the original population. The USA then forcibly annexed Puerto Rico and Hawaii, parts of Mexico, the Philippines and various odd Pacific islands. The USA in the 19th century participated in the forcible exploitation of the resources of Japan and China. The 20th and 21st centuries have been more of the same. This is just a small sampling. Throughout the history of the USA the governments which carried out these atrocities have been legally elected by the US people. The USA has been in a state of war against someone, somewhere, during 95% of its history.
:-) Perhaps you are in a state of war against the USA. You are literate in "woke" talking points, I'll give you that.
Perhaps you'd like to give factual evidence that I am wrong. PS - anyone using the word 'woke' as part of an argument has already lost. :-)