That Which Did Not Kill Them

Col Douglas Macgregor observes the way in which the neoclowns’ foolish Ukraine puppetry has accomplished the opposite of their primary goal, which was to weaken Russia and render it incapable of resistance to Clown World:

The opening phase of the SMO was a limited operation with a narrow purpose and restricted goals. The critical point is that Moscow never intended to do more than persuade Kiev and Washington that Moscow would fight to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, as well as the further mistreatment of Russians in Ukraine. The SMO was, however, based on invalid assumptions and was terminated. As it turned out, the limited nature of the SMO achieved the opposite of the outcome that Moscow desired, conveying the impression of weakness, rather than strength.

After concluding that the underpinning assumptions regarding Washington’s readiness to negotiate and compromise were invalid, Putin directed the STAVKA to develop new operational plans with new goals: first, to crush the Ukrainian enemy; second, to remove any doubt in Washington and European capitols that Russia will establish victory on its own terms; and, third, to create a new territorial status quo commensurate with Russia’s national security needs.

Once the new plan was submitted and approved, President Putin agreed to an economy of force operation to defend Russian territorial gains with minimal forces until the required resources, capabilities, and manpower were assembled for decisive operations. Putin also appointed a new theater commander, General Sergei Surovikin, a senior officer who understands the mission and possesses the mindset to deliver success.

The coming offensive phase of the conflict will provide a glimpse of the new Russian force that is emerging and its future capabilities. At this writing, 540,000 Russian combat forces are assembled in Southern Ukraine, Western Russia, and Belarus. The numbers continue to grow, but the numbers already include 1,000 rocket artillery systems, thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, plus 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, including at least 1,500 tanks, hundreds of manned fixed-wing attack aircraft, helicopters, and bombers. This new force has little in common with the Russian army that intervened 9 months ago on February 24, 2022.

It is now possible to project that the new Russian armed forces that will evolve from the crucible of war in Ukraine will be designed to execute strategically decisive operations. The resulting Russian force will likely take its inspiration from the force design and operational framework recommended in Colonel General Makhmut Gareev’s work, If War Comes Tomorrow? The Contours of Future Armed Conflict. The new military establishment will consist of much larger forces-in-being that can conduct decisive operations on relatively short notice with minimal reinforcement and preparation.

Put differently, by the time the conflict ends, it appears Washington will have prompted the Russian State to build up its military power, the very opposite of the fatal weakening that Washington intended when it embarked on its course of military confrontation with Moscow.

Washington’s Carthaginian Peace Collides With Reality, Col Douglas Macgregor, 29 November 2022

With more than three times the number of troops that were utilized in the initial Special Military Operation already mobilized, it is apparent that Russia feels it is ready to finish off the NATO forces that have been opposing it for at least the last six months in the coming winter offensive. And this is a reminder to never again pay any attention to all of the military analysts and experts who told you that Russia had utilized all of its forces, was running out of ammunition in a matter of weeks, and that Ukraine was winning the war.

Think about how few people told you what was actually happening. The less attention you pay to the mainstream news – and I literally NEVER watch CNN, Fox News, Sky, or the BBC – the more accurate your perceptions and observations are likely to be. Because you simply can’t expect to account for either the quantity or the extent of their lies and misrepresentations, as evidenced when an authority inadvertently reveals the truth.

I do not believe that von der Leyen misspoke nor did she fabricate the number… If the 100,000 dead number is true, then that means Ukraine’s total casualties — i.e., killed and wounded — is approximately 400,000. In other words, Ukraine has suffered almost 40% casualties since the start of the fighting. During the 20th Century, this type of modern warfare normally saw 3 wounded soldiers for every man killed. Using that ratio we get the 400,000 number for total casualties. When the war kicked off in February, Ukraine’s total manpower for ground forces was 1,125,000.

HAS UKRAINE’S ARMY BEEN REDUCED BY ALMOST 50%? 30 November 2022

And remember, in addition to quad-decimating the Ukrainian military and forcing NATO to replace it with its own forces disguised as mercenaries, Russia hasn’t even begun to call on its allies. Imagine if North Korea and China began supplying the Russian military with manpower. The result would make the historical Mongol hordes look like a small raiding party.

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The Irrelevance of Optics

Nora Hoppe makes some astute observations concerning the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine and the very poor level of analyses on both sides of the conflict, especially in light of the Russian withdrawal from Kherson:

When people speak of the “optics not looking good“… a film set immediately comes to my mind (I have worked in the film world for many years). And that immediately tells me how some people view this operation – as spectators: it has to have a good catchy script, suspense, uninterrupted action and – heaven forbid – no lulls! It has to ultimately supply a dopamine release. It has to have a “Dirty Harry Catharsis”.

This reminds me of similar reactions to the prisoner exchange in mid-September, where some saw it as a sign of weakness to even think of releasing Azov prisoners… or when the Chinese government did not deliver a dramatic retort when Pelosi went to do her skit in Taiwan.

What is at the base of these kinds of reactions? Why such impatience? Why such concern with “appearances”? Why such a need to satiate one’s own personal sense of justice and retribution? Does it have something to do with consuming? Especially in the western world one has become an addicted consumer of not only things but “experiences” that can be lived indirectly… We have become spectators… and our world has become a spectacle.

In his powerful masterpiece, “War and Peace”, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy depicts the Battle of Borodino as the greatest example of Russian patriotism… The collective engagement of all those involved in the Battle of Borodino is what ultimately attained the end result: despite all their losses and the sacrificial need to evacuate Moscow and burn its resources – in order to save the army and Russia, the Russians, achieved a moral victory in this battle… which ultimately led to the comprehensive victory of the Russian army and the entire campaign.

“Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davýdov family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for hundreds of years the peasants of Borodinó, Górki, Shevárdino, and Semënovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozháysk from the one army and back to Valúevo from the other. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held their ground and continued to fire.” [“War and Peace” – book 10; chapter 39]

General-in-chief Mikhail I. Kutuzov’s motto of “patience and time” allowed the Russian army to be victorious when he was able to embrace, as opposed to trying to know, the contingencies of war and prepare his soldiers as best he could for such battle. He knew that, by fighting the pitched battle and adopting the strategy of attrition warfare, he could now retreat with the Russian army still intact, lead its recovery, and force the weakened French forces to move even further from their bases of supply.

Retreat is not defeat. It can be the result of a defeat, or, as in the case of Kherson, where no significant combat even took place, it can be strategic maneuver. Or, as in the case of Borodino, it can be both.

Optics are an illusion. They are transient, easily manipulated, and are not reflective of the underlying reality. Those who concern themselves first and foremost and solely with optics are inevitably media creatures whose opinions are reliably wrong and assuredly irrelevant.

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They Never Said He Was Wrong

Isaiah Jackson: Look up the religious affiliation of everyone involved in the FTX collapse. Kanye was right.

CoinDesk: In response to a tweet from Isaiah Jackson that made an anti-Semitic, hurtful statement, CoinDesk is immediately terminating his contract for his weekly Community Crypto show on CoinDesk TV. Isaiah Jackson’s profoundly inflammatory comments are unacceptable and violate our values of mutual respect, diversity and inclusion. CoinDesk does not tolerate antisemitism and any other form of hate speech.

The Great Noticing continues apace. And as with the collapsing Second West’s economic war on the BRICSIA nations, the ADL and its corporate servitors are in the early stages of discovering that all of their sanctions and denunciations and terminations are going to leave them trying to survive alone, left to their own resources, outside of civilized society.

I mean, “since you hurt our feelings, we won’t let you use our fraudulent, worthless electric currency anymore” isn’t exactly an effective threat these days. Go ahead, take your punctured, deflated ball and go home.

It will be incredibly amusing when Kanye comes back strong with a Chinese or Qatari record deal.

UPDATE: As I said, the ADL is beginning to discover that in the post-Boomer era, no one they don’t actively control even pretends to believe anything they say anymore. The tweet is particularly ironic in light of the fact that the ADL was founded in 1913 to frame a black man for a Jewish man’s crimes.

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Can Confirm

Max Blumenthal points out something I’d told everyone about 17 years ago, to little avail.

Neocon child actor Ben Shapiro has had his career astroturfed by corporate GOP powerbrokers, granting him notoriety and affluence while he trades on bogus antisemitism victimhood narratives.

He perfectly embodies the phenomenon I described and runs the same hustle as the ADL.

Max Blumenthal, 5 November 2022

Shapiro has never done anything more than read someone else’s talking points, and he’s been doing it since he was in junior high. He’s even more of a fraud than Jordan Peterson.

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That Pretty Much Sums It Up

We covered this on the Darkstream last night. There was never any reason whatsoever to believe that Elon Musk – a ticket-taker par excellence – had any intention of standing up against the Prometheans and their determination to control the mainstream media Narrative, which now includes Twitter, Google and Facebook as well as the older organizations like ABCNNBCBS, the NYT, and the wire services.

But the speed with which Musk bowed down before those he serves was a little startling, even for those of us who had zero faith in his intentions. Considering how bad his public behavior is, one hesitates to even try to imagine what the information harvesters must have on him concerning his private conduct.

That being said, it’s still nice to see there are some positive consequences of his takeover of Twitter.

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk plans to lay off about half of the social media company’s employees in an effort to cut costs, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources. According to the report, the cuts will affect about 3,700 of Twitter’s 7,500 staff. Employees being let go will reportedly be informed of the decision this Friday.

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