Tag: Russia

Ethnic Cleansing in the EU

If you ever wonder why I expect that the tens of millions of Arab and African migrants who have invaded Europe will not be permitted to stay there permanently, note that an EU state has already begun the process of deporting large numbers of unwanted foreign residents.

Latvia is attempting to deport thousands of Russian-speaking people – and apparently, these ‘purges’ affect not only newcomers who have recently applied for a residency permit, but people who have lived in the country their entire lives.

The New York Times recently told the story of Russian-speaking widow Nina Marcinkevica, who was born in Latvia 63 years ago, when the Baltic republic was still part of the Soviet Union. She married and raised a family there, and has never lived anywhere else. Nina resides in the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Daugavpils in the eastern part of the country. In the fall, she received an official notice stating that she had lost her rights to residency, her state pension, and medical care. “You must leave the territory of the Republic of Latvia by November 30, 2023,” the letter stated.

The Latvian authorities have the opportunity to expel Marcinkevica due to her Russian citizenship. Over 3,200 Russian nationals living in Latvia received notifications about potential deportation in early October, according to the news portal Rus.lsm.lv.

This isn’t the outrage it is portrayed to be. The Latvian people absolutely have the right to their own country, and no Russian or any other non-Latvian has the right to invade their borders or reside among them if the Latvian people don’t want them there. Particularly in a democracy, even a limited representative democracy, mass immigration and the free movement of people cannot be permitted by any nation which wishes to survive as a nation.

But it is incredibly hypocritical, given the way in which the EU authorities have, despite the clear opposition of the majority of its peoples, encouraged the mass invasion of the European nations. Which means that even in the unlikely event that the EU doesn’t collapse in the next ten years, a clear legal precedent has been set for the mass repatriation of migrant populations that have proven to be incompatible with the languages, laws, and cultural traditions of the host nation.

Finland appears to be following Latvia’s lead, as it plans to pass a law banning Russians from acquiring property in Finland. No doubt repatriations will soon follow.

Finland is preparing to completely prohibit Russian citizens from purchasing real estate in the country, Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said in a statement published on Finland’s official government website on Friday.

In truth, given current economic and cultural trajectories, the children of those Russians expelled from Latvia or Finland will probably be deeply grateful that their parents returned to Mother Russia, however involuntarily the return.

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NATO’s Sicilian Expedition

Russian generals and military analysts increasingly betray open disdain for the incompetence of their Western counterparts. Even the ever-wary Putin, despite his habitual caution and openness to negotiation, radiates a distinct contempt for the enemies of Russia, perhaps in part due to his anticipation of them reliably choosing suboptimal courses.

And lest one think that the Russians are simply striking poses in order to put themselves in a better negotiating position, consider the insane new British plan to do just that as reported yesterday by RIA Novosti. Autotranslated from the Russian:

MOSCOW, Feb 2 — RIA Novosti. Great Britain invited NATO allies to consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told RIA Novosti.

“In connection with the unfavorable development of events for Kiev at the Ukrainian theater of operations (TVD), Britain invited NATO allies to consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, as well as establishing a no-fly zone over the territory controlled by the Kiev authorities and increasing the supply of weapons and equipment VSU”, — said the agency interlocutor.

Nevertheless, the British side expects that with a significant weakening of the Armed Forces and the successful advancement of the Russian army deep into the territory of the former Soviet republic, the Allies will approve the initiative, the source noted. He specified that the kingdom offers to secretly transfer to Ukraine large highly maneuverable NATO forces from the border regions of Romania and Poland for the occupation of defensive lines on the right bank of the Dnieper.

In addition, the British plan involves the deployment in Norway and Finland of a contingent of the alliance and armies of individual members of the organization to “spray” the forces and means of the Russian troops, he said. “At the same time, attacks can be made on strategic infrastructure facilities in the northern regions of Russia,” — the source emphasized.

Then, according to him, the NATO military will create a buffer zone within the occupied positions, including the border with Belarus and the territory around Kiev, and the released reserves of the Armed Forces will be sent to the special operation zone. Thus, according to London, NATO will supposedly be able to undermine Russia’s offensive capabilities and Russia will have to negotiate, he said.

Britain intends to complete the preparation of such a scenario by May of this year, the source of the agency summarized.

London proposed to send NATO expeditionary force to Ukraine, RIA NOVOSTI, 2 February 2024

The last time Britain organized an expeditionary force against Russia, it did not go well. Very few in the West now recall the North Russian Intervention, which involved 32,000 British, French, and US troops being sent to Archangel for a year-and-a-half. But the Russians assuredly have not forgotten it. From Infogalactic:

The North Russia intervention, also known as the Northern Russian expedition, the Archangel campaign, and the Murman deployment, was part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of foreign troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The movement was ultimately defeated, while the British-led Allied forces withdrew from Northern Russia after fighting a number of defensive actions against the Bolsheviks, such as the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki. The campaign lasted from March 1918, during the final months of World War I, to October 1919.

Presumably, the USA is behind this latest British brainstorm, just as it was behind the decision of the Kiev regime to fight a proxy war for NATO instead of surrendering in April 2022 at the behest of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But perhaps the neoclowns should focus on winning their latest war in Yemen and defeating that formidable military power before setting up to lose on yet another front in Ukraine.

Although it would be historically fitting if NATO were to end with its own Sicilian Expedition.

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The Russian Art of War

A new book by a French colonel explains the difference between Western and Russian military thought, and how the superiority of the latter is why the former loses its wars:

Throughout the Cold War period, the Soviet Union saw itself as the spearhead of a historical struggle that would lead to a confrontation between the “capitalist” system and “progressive forces.” This perception of a permanent and inescapable war led the Soviets to study war in a quasi-scientific way, and to structure this thinking into an architecture of military thought that has no equal in the Western world.

The problem with the vast majority of our so-called military experts is their inability to understand the Russian approach to war. It is the result of an approach we have already seen in waves of terrorist attacks—the adversary is so stupidly demonized that we refrain from understanding his way of thinking. As a result, we are unable to develop strategies, articulate our forces, or even equip them for the realities of war. The corollary of this approach is that our frustrations are translated by unscrupulous media into a narrative that feeds hatred and increases our vulnerability. We are thus unable to find rational, effective solutions to the problem.

The way Russians understand conflict is holistic. In other words, they see the processes that develop and lead to the situation at any given moment. This explains why Vladimir Putin’s speeches invariably include a return to history. In the West, we tend to focus on X moment and try to see how it might evolve. We want an immediate response to the situation we see today. The idea that “from the understanding of how the crisis arose comes the way to resolve it” is totally foreign to the West. In September 2023, an English-speaking journalist even pulled out the “duck test” for me: “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” In other words, all the West needs to assess a situation is an image that fits their prejudices. Reality is much more subtle than the duck model….

The reason the Russians are better than the West in Ukraine is that they see the conflict as a process; whereas we see it as a series of separate actions. The Russians see events as a film. We see them as photographs. They see the forest, while we focus on the trees. That is why we place the start of the conflict on February 24, 2022, or the start of the Palestinian conflict on October 7, 2023. We ignore the contexts that bother us and wage conflicts we do not understand. That is why we lose our wars…

In Russia, unsurprisingly, the principles of the military art of the Soviet forces inspired those currently in use:

  • readiness to carry out assigned missions;
  • concentration of efforts on solving a specific mission;
  • surprise (unconventionality) of military action vis-à-vis the enemy;
  • finality determines a set of tasks and the level of resolution of each one;
  • totality of available means determines the way to resolve the mission and achieve the objective (correlation of forces);
  • coherence of leadership (unity of command);
  • economy of forces, resources, time and space;
  • support and restoration of combat capability;
  • freedom of maneuver.
  • It should be noted that these principles apply not only to the implementation of military action as such. They are also applicable as a system of thought to other non-operational activities.

An honest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine would have identified these various principles and drawn useful conclusions for Ukraine. But none of the self-proclaimed experts on TV were intellectually able to do so.

Thus, Westerners are systematically surprised by the Russians in the fields of technology (e.g., hypersonic weapons), doctrine (e.g., operative art) and economics (e.g., resilience to sanctions). In a way, the Russians are taking advantage of our prejudices to exploit the principle of surprise. We can see this in the Ukrainian conflict, where the Western narrative led Ukraine to totally underestimate Russian capabilities, which was a major factor in its defeat. That is why Russia did not really try to counter this narrative and let it play out—the belief that we are superior makes us vulnerable….

This is very, very similar to what Martyanov describes in the current Castalia Library book, Losing Military Supremacy. Which should come as no surprise, as both men are familiar with Russian military thought and how different it is than what Victor Davis Hanson once described as the Western way of war. The short term thinking of the Western military strategists can most easily be seen in their historical obsession with “the decisive battle” and strange focus on the idea that losing a battle or two, or even denying him a sufficiently impressive victory, will somehow weaken the enemy leader and magically cause him to be replaced by a more amenable successor.

Which is why the Russians are patiently winning a brutal attrition war in Ukraine while the US bleeds itself out everywhere from Afghanistan to Yemen.

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Trump’s Trade War 2.0

Contra economists from both the Democratic and Republican parties, a trade war in 2025 would be a very, very good thing for the US economy:

Former US President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants to impose a 60% tariff on all imports from China if he wins this year’s election, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing three unnamed people familiar with the plan. The measure would trigger major disruptions to the US and to economies around the world, which would far exceed the impact of the trade wars initiated by Trump during his first presidential term, economists from both the Democratic and Republican parties told the newspaper.

During his current presidential campaign, Trump has pledged to revoke China’s status as a “most favored nation” for trade. The designation is applied to almost all nations that do business with the US, and the White House can introduce any tariffs on imported goods from countries that do not have it. According to the GOP front-runner, tariffs on foreign goods raise vital revenue for the US budget, and current import levies are among the world’s lowest.

China ranks third in the list of US trading partners, behind Mexico and Canada. In November, Beijing accounted for 11.7% of total US foreign trade.

As I pointed out six years ago on Chinese state television, a trade war is very much to the advantage of the United States economy. The net effect of the Western sanctions regime on the Russian economy only serves to underline my original point: a trade war is, by definition, always beneficial to the trading party that has a negative trade balance. And the USA has a massive trade deficit vis-a-vis China. Unlike a naval war in the Pacific, an air war in the Middle East, or worse, a ground war in Europe, this is one war that the USA literally cannot lose.

The reason the Russian economy didn’t suffer from the trade war the West imposed upon it despite having a trade surplus is because the West is now actually the smaller of the two global markets by a significant margin, both in terms of population and purchasing power parity. What Russia lost in Western trade, it more than gained in trade with the BRICSIA countries. And from the defense manufacturers to fast food chains, Russia’s industries benefited massively from the protection from Western imports that was inadvertently provided by the sanctions regime.

As recent history has demonstrated, the Clown World economists are totally wrong, even by their own Samuelsonian metrics.

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Ukraine Fires Head of Armed Forces

ITEM: Rumors are making the rounds in Kiev that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will fire the head of his armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhny.

ITEM: /pol/ reports that General Zaluzhny was fired by Zelensky.

Apparently there was just too much winning and Zelensky feared Zaluzhny’s popularity that resulted from all of the victories over Russia would allow the general to win the elections that he cancelled. Or something equally retarded.

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The Draft Comes Back

Sweden has apparently announced the reactivation of “civilian conscription” while British military leaders are calling for the “mobilization” of whatever is left of its adulterated nation:

Today, current Army chief General Sir Patrick Sanders raised the spectre of conscription once again, when he called on the Government to ‘mobilise the nation’ in the event of a wider conflict against Russia amid its war with Ukraine.

I wonder if all those Swedes who were gung ho about Sweden joining NATO realize that their forced military service is a direct consequence of their foolish decision to join the military wing of Clown World. I also wonder how they’re going to square the logical circle about forcing young men to fight in defense of individual freedom and democracy.

Regardless, it appears the young men of the West are going to face a choice. Fight the clowns ruling your country or fight the combined military forces of China and Russia. Based on recent events in Ukraine, the former would appear to be a much better bet.

Because I doubt the generals in Moscow are quaking over the prospect of sending their battle-hardened veterans into a war against a collection of scared and unwilling European soyboys who weren’t even capable of resisting the vaxx.

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The Art of Never Learning

Belgium completely fails to learn from the Ukrainian example of what happens when one crosses a Russian red line:

Belgium will transfer €611 million (58.3 billion rubles) to Ukraine from income received from interest on frozen Russian assets. The information was confirmed by the head of the Belgian Ministry of Defense, Ludivine Dedonder (pictured), Belga News Agency reports. The total amount of frozen Russian assets in the EU is about €180 billion (17 trillion rubles), most of them are located in Belgium, the agency clarified.

No doubt the EU will try to hide behind the fact that they aren’t seizing the frozen capital, only the interest on the capital. This will not fool the Russians, and it’s safe to anticipate some sort of tit-for-tat will soon take place, if not escalation.

The Russians have to find this childish tomfoolery more than a little tedious by now.

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No French Mercenaries in Ukraine

Not anymore, anyhow:

The son of a brigadier general of the French army was killed by a strike by the Russian Armed Forces at a point of temporary deployment of foreign mercenaries in Kharkov. His partner (also killed) came from a hereditary military dynasty in France.

According to Mash, the name of the Frenchman eliminated by a high-precision strike is Sabastien Claude Remy Benard. He served in the RICM (formerly the Moroccan Colonial Infantry Regiment) in the Marine Light Armor unit. For reference: it was these groups that equipped the famous AMX-10RC wheeled tanks, which Paris proudly sent to Kiev as military aid. During the process, this scrap metal was deemed unsuitable for mechanized combat.

Benard first arrived in Ukraine in 2022, but did not receive the desired position in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and returned to his homeland. A year later he tried his luck again and joined the 5th Assault Brigade. On July 3, in the Bakhmut area, he participated in the medical evacuation of his wounded fellow countryman Maxim Leconte (a rifleman from the International Legion of Terrestrial Defense), who publicly admitted that the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive turned out to be a bloody failure. On January 16, he was killed by a Russian missile strike.

His partner is Alexis Drion. He is the son of Frédéric Drion, who became a brigadier general in the French army in 2001. Alex joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces no later than last year. He served in the 2nd Battalion of the International Legion. Also was killed on January 16th.

The remaining 60 killed and about 20 wounded mercenaries are recognized activists of Nazi groups in France and other EU countries. Each of them served in the army and even belonged to a battalion of alpine hunters. Many were fired for inappropriate behavior, after which they left for Ukraine. In total, more than a hundred mercenaries from France died during the fighting in the SVO zone. – FRWL reports

The Kharkov strike is far from the only one of its kind. Many of the fatal “accidents” that have been reported occurring to US troops around the world are actually combat fatalities taking place in combat zones where US and other NATO troops are not supposed to be; you may recall the US Army Rangers who were killed in another Russian missile strike on a restaurant they frequented a few months ago. This sort of thing isn’t new, as we know, from the early days of the World Wide Web when the US military didn’t bother to block open access to its sites, that many soldiers had confirmed kills in places that US troops were not supposed to be.

The active engagement by NATO troops disguised as “mercenaries” is one reason is why I’ve been describing the situation in Ukraine as a NATO-Russian war rather than a Ukro-Russian one for more than the last year. While Ukraine has suffered the bulk of the casualties, the number of US, French, German, and other military casualties will probably shock the various publics when it is finally revealed to them.

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Neoclowns Seek Round 3

Apparently two proxy defeats for NATO at the hands of Russia, in Georgia and in Ukraine, haven’t been enough, as leaked plans published in Bild indicate that the neoclowns won’t be content until NATO is directly defeated in Europe.

As the West continues to wage a hybrid proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, supplying the Kiev regime with modern weapons systems, it has been hyping up allegations of a broader “Russian threat” for all of Western Europe and NATO – claims that have been dismissed as false and ridiculed by the Kremlin.
“Germany is gearing up for “war between NATO’s forces and Russia,” which could begin in the summer of 2025, Bild has written, citing a “secret” Bundeswehr document.

According to the alleged “training scenario” of the German Ministry of Defense, “on ‘Day X,’ NATO’s commander-in-chief will give the order to move 300,000 troops to the eastern flank, including 30,000 Bundeswehr soldiers,” the tabloid states. The escalation could reportedly begin as early as February 2024 with the start of Russia’s active offensive against the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. By June of the same year, according to Bild, Russia will have forced Kiev’s military to retreat.

Without offering any specific details, the publication noted that the most likely location for a “clash” will purportedly be the so-called “Suwalki Gap” or “Suwalki Corridor” (Przesmyk suwalski). This is a section about 100 km long near the city of Suwalki in the northeast of Poland, located between Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad region.

In July, according to the “secret document,” Russia might allegedly launch “cyber attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare” against the Baltic countries. Furthermore, “clashes” would occur which Moscow ostensibly could use as a pretext to begin large-scale exercises on its territory and in Belarus, as per the authors. By October Russia could allegedly transfer troops and medium-range missiles to its Kaliningrad region, and December might see a border conflict erupt in the Suwalki Corridor.

According to Bild, the “secret document” also indicates that when Washington is temporarily left without a leader as a result of the presidential elections in the United States in 2014, “Russia, with the support of Belarus, will repeat the 2014 invasion of Ukraine on NATO territory.” No further clarification is offered to these wild scenarios and off-mark references. One can guess what the mention of 2014 events refers to the Euromaidan (lit. “Euro Square”) coup fomented and sponsored by the West that culminated in the ouster of Ukraine’s government, and its replacement with a pro-US, and pro-NATO regime hostile to Russia. Furthermore, Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and its chances of gaining the coveted status in the alliance remain uncertain.

“Actions of Russia and the West, culminating in the dispatch of hundreds of thousands of NATO soldiers and the inevitable outbreak of war in the summer of 2025 are described down to the exact month and location,” the publication stated in reference to the ‘secret’ Bundeswehr plan.

One wonders with what army NATO is supposedly going to be fighting this war. The vaunted Polish army? The Texas National Guard? And, more importantly, with what ammunition, artillery, and air support? And while I have no doubt that this “leak” is actually pure wishful thinking on the part of Donald Kagan’s neoclown crew, and has been released with the intention of baiting Russia into some sort of precipitate action, it’s pretty clear that Russia isn’t falling for it, as Russia Today has reported:

Moscow has ridiculed the claims, calling them a “hoax.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that he refused to “even comment on this report.” Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also brushed the claims off as a “last year’s powerful zodiac forecast.”

Russia has no need to go to war with NATO in the next year. Both the German and the US economies are rapidly collapsing, not because of Russia or China, but due to the greening of the former and the parasitical financialization of the latter. The Yemeni stranglehold on the Red Sea isn’t exactly helping either the Clown World economies either.

What Russia will likely be doing in 2025 instead of fighting a third round with NATO is supporting the rising nationalist parties across Europe by offering logistical support to the third-world remigration programs that will a) be massively popular and b) put the final nail in the coffin of the neoliberal globalization that is the foundation of the Clown World Order. The AfD isn’t looking to bankrupt Germany or fight Russia on the USA’s behalf, and pushing the German people toward another defeat at the hands of Russia will likely be enough to break the CDU/CSU and SPD/Green alliance that has been methodically destroying Germany.

Germany on edge as far-right’s bold mass deportation plan shakes nation

This isn’t to say it isn’t possible for NATO to force Russia into taking the Baltic States in the same way Ukraine forced Russia into taking the Donbass. But outside of the Baltics, there aren’t many ethnic Russians, and if we learned one thing from the failed Ukraine offensive, it is that Russia is perfectly content to defend itself and let the NATO forces dash itself to pieces against its fortifications.

Furthermore, I don’t see how the USA can possibly send 200,000 troops to Europe so long as Israel is engaged in hostilities in the Middle East. The US military isn’t strong enough to fight on two major fronts anymore, and if the US were to commit to go to war in Eastern Europe, it would be effectively hanging Israel out to dry by making it clear to everyone that the US cavalry would not be coming to its rescue.

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There is No Catching Up

Andrei Martyanov explains why it’s not just the loss of US industrial capacity that has hamstrung its once-superlative military infrastructure and rendered the US military incapable of defeating Russia, China, or quite possibly, even Yemen.

In theory the US may build, in the next 10+ years, some facilities to increase production of 155-mm shells or drones. But it will not be able to match industrial capacity of Russia in this respect, even with theoretical addition of future, if any, European capacity. The issue here is not just quantity–the target impossible to reach due to utter destruction of US manufacturing base and an extremely complex supply chains for military production. This all is just the tip of the iceberg. The main body of the iceberg is a complete catastrophe that the US military doctrine, and, as a result, procurement development is.
I spoke about it for years–some gaps, such as in air defense or missilery the US will not be able to close, because as I type this, this gap continues to grow. It is measured not in years but in generations. This is, as an example, the result of misguided and illiterate approach to air defense based on… air power. You have to literally undo the whole thing, and this requires not just building some facilities, but a complete rethinking of America’s defense or, rather, “offense” philosophy which doesn’t work. It never did. This is impossible in the present state of the American geopolitical thought without rethinking the United States as it perceived itself in the last hundred years. The US has no courage, intellect and will to do so because it leads to a destruction of America’s mythology.

So, the US is stuck. So, it is good that John Mearsheimer understands parts of it, but he doesn’t understand the heart of the matter. After the US strategically and operationally “planned” VSU’s “counteroffensive”, the question of the competence of the US military establishment arose and was answered–it is incompetent! It will take a generation or two to even teach those who are currently in the plebe years in US service academies to think properly and within the framework of America’s REAL military and industrial capability. This REAL capability has nothing in common with the US halcyon years of WW II and after and it is not coming back. Russia will not allow the US to unleash the war in Europe while thinking that the US can sit this one out again behind the ocean. Doesn’t work like this anymore, especially with the construction tempo of Russia Navy’s subs such as 3M22 Zircon carriers Yasen-class subs and frigates which already have Zircons deployed. These are technologies the US simply doesn’t have and are nowhere near of getting them. China can rely on them, and much more from Russia in case of the US deciding to commit suicide, the US cannot.

It is grim picture of corruption, financial and, most importantly, intellectual within the US military and foreign policy establishment, and what John Mearsheimer fails to understand–these are not just some pieces of hardware whose utility the US suddenly recognized. Nope, the REAL experience of SMO is way more than technological, it is above all operational and strategic, which made Russia’s General Staff a well-oiled machine which merely uses 404 as a trap and a junkyard for NATO’s military capacity, because Russia fights not Ukraine, she fights NATO.

Having read two of Martyanov’s excellent books on US military and imperial decline, both of which were written and published well before the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, it’s clear that he’s identified something that goes well beyond the common level of military analysis in the Western think tanks.

What he’s talking about here is neither the loss of US industry nor the inability of the US to design, build, and procure hypersonic missiles, inexpensive missile platforms, and squad-level drone swarms. It’s not even the demographic changes, and the fact that the USA is now an empire with a foreign elite ruling over a melange of peoples who have no connection to the heritage Americans or even first-wave immigrants who fought its previous wars. What’s he’s talking about is the fundamental failure of the US military strategists to understand the realities of military power and the way that a sea-based naval power accustomed to relatively small expeditionary conflicts well away from home simply doesn’t possess the operational and strategic capability to defeat a massive land-based power that is on a reasonably similar technological level.

Britain couldn’t defeat France. The USA couldn’t defeat Germany. And Athens lost to Sparta in the end.

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