Tag: Russia

Finland Joins NATO

But for how long?

ITEM: Finland overcame the last significant hurdle in its bid to join NATO after Turkey’s parliament today approved a bill to allow the Nordic country to join the Western defence alliance in helping Ukraine. Turkey was the last among the 30 NATO members to ratify Finland’s membership after Hungary’s legislature approved a similar bill earlier this week.

ITEM: Finnish politics could dramatically shift to the far-Right on Sunday as an anti-immigration party aims to replace Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats Party. The ‘rock star’ prime minister, who took office in 2019 as the world’s youngest PM at 34, is Finland’s most popular leader this century, polls show. However, latest figures put the mother-of-one’s centre-Left SDP in third place behind the anti-immigration and nationalist Finns Party and the centre-Right National Coalition Party, which held on to a thin lead.

Translation: The Finnish electorate may like Sanna Marin, but they have little appetite for joining NATO’s losing war against the BRICSIA alliance. The situation looks very different now than it did one year ago, as it is obvious that NATO can’t defend any European country against Russia, let alone against Russia and its allies.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the next Finnish government removes the country from NATO, or as is more likely the case, attempts to do so but is rebuffed by the United States. Remember, NATO is the military wing of the US empire; you can check out, but you will not be permitted to leave.

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Barbarossa

Big Serge has a detailed article on Operation Barbarossa which is well-researched, insightful, and very long. Anyone interested in WWII history, and anyone who hopes to make any sense of what is happening in Ukraine, would do well to read the entire thing.

Soviet preparation for war had focused on material factors – the sheer size of tank, artillery, and aircraft inventories – while neglecting the professional aspects of command, communications, and coordination. Consequentially, despite adequate equipment and weaponry, the Red Army was, very simply, outmatched by the nimbler and more responsive Wehrmacht.

In the first place, the performance of the Red Army cannot be separated from the fact that Stalin had conducted a widespread purge of his own officer corps only a few years prior to the outbreak of war. This appalling churn in the command hierarchy had occurred at the same time that the Red Army was expanding; as a result, Soviet officers tended to be rapidly promoted and were for the most part in over their heads early in the war, fighting a highly trained, experienced, coolly competent German officer corps, which had by now successfully undertaken two large campaigns in France and Poland, along with a variety of other specialized operations from Norway to Greece. The basic factors of experience and training were thus hilariously disposed in Germany’s favor.

At the same time, the Red Army lacked a dedicated communications system and relied on civilian telephone and telegraph lines, many of which were quickly cut by the Germans. It was not uncommon during the early phases of the war for Soviet officers to have to inquire with local communist party officials (the party did have access to wireless communications) as to where the Germans were and how far they had advanced.

The Red Army fought bravely but was unprepared for war at Germany’s pace
These two factors – an overwhelmed officer corps and a broken communications system – had a particularly deadly synergy. Different levels of the command hierarchy were cut off from each other and blind, while at the unit level, commanders were simply unable or unwilling to take initiative. Furthermore, the… shall we say peculiarities of the Stalinist system left the officer corps with instincts that were oriented towards political survival, rather than military exigency, and this meant not making drastic unilateral decisions.

This was an absolutely central aspect of war making that Stalin and the communists simply did not grasp; they had focused on churning out tanks, guns, and shells, while neglecting the command and control functions of the army. The Germans, quite simply, were prepared to fight war at a different pace than the Soviets: German commanders were more experienced, more decisive, more precise, more willing to act independently, and more level headed. The Red Army consequentially resembled an enormous, muscle bound fighter, but with a diseased nervous system and bad eyesight.

These vulnerabilities made the Red Army particularly susceptible to the Wehrmacht’s approach to warfighting, which brought overwhelming firepower and violence at the point of attack to allow rapid penetration and movement, creating an encircled pocket, or what the Germans called a kessel, for cauldron – which could then be liquidated. By fighting multiple kesselschlachts, or encirclement battles, the Wehrmacht planned to annihilate the Red Army and destroy the Soviet Union’s capacity to resist by the autumn of 1941. The objective was very clear: destroy Soviet fighting power. Annihilating the Red Army took absolute priority over capturing any specific geographic markers. Hitler himself had remarked that even Moscow was “of no great importance.” Rather, the objective of Barbarossa was to destroy Soviet manpower: “The mass of the army”, read the Barbarossa directive, “is to be destroyed in bold operations involving deep penetrations by armored spearheads, and the withdrawal of elements capable of combat into the extensive Russian land spaces is to be prevented.”

This last portion is the key to the concept of Barbarossa, but we shall return to this later.

The first shots fired in the cataclysmic Nazi-Soviet war came in the form of an aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, which attacked over 60 frontline Soviet air bases early on June 22. The Red Air Force lost over 1200 aircraft on the first morning of the war, ensuring German control of the air all along the line of contact. On June 24, literally two days into the war, Soviet western front headquarters informed Moscow that “Enemy aviation has complete air dominance.” The wholesale destruction of the Red Air Force’s frontline units was one of the most remarkable events in the history of warfare, yet it occurred so quickly that it receives scant mention in much of the war’s historiography; it is as if the Soviet air force simply vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, German advance teams managed to cut many civilian telephone and telegraph lines, throwing the Red Army’s command and control system into disarray and forcing the NKVD (which operated a wireless radio communication system) to act as middlemen to relay orders to the army. With the Red Army severely disoriented and bereft of air support, on came the fearsome German mechanized package.

The Soviet response was woefully inadequate. 1941 would be a year of terrible mistakes, but above all, what high level Soviet leadership – including and especially Stalin – did not understand was just how much could be won or loss in the opening moments of the war. By neglecting to put the Red Army on full combat alert, the regime allowed the Wehrmacht to achieve tactical, but not strategic surprise. Years later, one Soviet Marshal, Andrei Grechko, would make the tongue in cheek remark that the government and senior commanders were fully prepared for the outbreak of war, and the only people surprised by the German attack were the Red Army soldiers on the front line. What Stalin’s team did not comprehend was that tactical surprise, mixed with Germany’s particularly aggressive and mobile approach to war and the Soviet Union’s sclerotic command system, could produce a total catastrophe.

It is interesting to note that Big Serge tends to support Suvorov’s Icebreaker hypothesis, which is that Stalin was preparing to invade Central and Western Europe, but was taken by surprise by the timing and effectiveness of the German offensive. And indeed, the most convincing aspect of the hypothesis is the extreme forward placement of the 60 Soviet air bases, which led to the incredible destruction of the Soviet air forces.

it occurred so quickly that it receives scant mention in much of the war’s historiography

I would argue that it receives scant mention because it destroys the narrative that the German attack on the Soviet Union was unprovoked and took place solely as a consequence of Hitler’s vast imperial ambitions.

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Russia Backs Chinese Reunification

It’s clear that Taiwan is the next major front in the global declownization program. I still anticipate it will be peaceful, despite the best efforts of the neoclowns to start another war there.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s International Relations Committee, said on Monday’s episode of Rossiya-24 television that Russia hopes Taiwan will peacefully rejoin China, according to Russian news agency TASS.

“This is a single territory. We are not talking about Taiwan’s sovereignty: It’s the territory of the People’s Republic of China. We hope that Taiwan’s reunification with China will take place peacefully sooner or later,” Dzhabarov said.

The lawmaker asserted that Russia will always support mainland China and agrees with every position Beijing takes toward Taipei.

Clown World is crumbling fast.

Checkmate, Putin

The ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin.

The Pre-trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants on Friday for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights. The ICC alleged that Putin and Lvova-Belova engaged in the “unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

This is a perfect example of how Clown World’s inability to understand the difference between influence and power is leading directly to its destruction. Unless, of course, we’re entirely wrong about this. In which case, it’s terrible to think of how many lives could have been spared if only a judge had issued a warrant for the arrest of Adolf Hitler.

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The Crisis of Empire

The first line of Col Douglas Macgregor’s excellent article is a bit of a misnomer. America’s national power has already been leashed and broken. What we’re witnessing now is the limits of the imperial USA’s power, which have been constricted by the incompetence and shortsighted mismanagement of the mostly foreign imperial elite.

The crisis of American national power has begun. America’s economy is tipping over, and Western financial markets are quietly panicking. Imperiled by rising interest rates, mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries are losing their value. The market’s proverbial “vibes”—feelings, emotions, beliefs, and psychological penchants—suggest a dark turn is underway inside the American economy.

American national power is measured as much by American military capability as by economic potential and performance. The growing realization that American and European military-industrial capacity cannot keep up with Ukrainian demands for ammunition and equipment is an ominous signal to send during a proxy war that Washington insists its Ukrainian surrogate is winning.

Russian economy-of-force operations in southern Ukraine appear to have successfully ground down attacking Ukrainian forces with the minimal expenditure of Russian lives and resources. While Russia’s implementation of attrition warfare worked brilliantly, Russia mobilized its reserves of men and equipment to field a force that is several magnitudes larger and significantly more lethal than it was a year ago.

Russia’s massive arsenal of artillery systems including rockets, missiles, and drones linked to overhead surveillance platforms converted Ukrainian soldiers fighting to retain the northern edge of the Donbas into pop-up targets. How many Ukrainian soldiers have died is unknown, but one recent estimate wagers between 150,000-200,000 Ukrainians have been killed in action since the war began, while another estimates about 250,000.

Given the glaring weakness of NATO members’ ground, air, and air defense forces, an unwanted war with Russia could easily bring hundreds of thousands of Russian Troops to the Polish border, NATO’s Eastern Frontier. This is not an outcome Washington promised its European allies, but it’s now a real possibility.

In contrast to the Soviet Union’s hamfisted and ideologically driven foreign policymaking and execution, contemporary Russia has skillfully cultivated support for its cause in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The fact that the West’s economic sanctions damaged the U.S. and European economies while turning the Russian ruble into one of the international system’s strongest currencies has hardly enhanced Washington’s global standing.

Biden’s policy of forcibly pushing NATO to Russia’s borders forged a strong commonality of security and trade interests between Moscow and Beijing that is attracting strategic partners in South Asia like India, and partners like Brazil in Latin America. The global economic implications for the emerging Russo-Chinese axis and their planned industrial revolution for some 3.9 billion people in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are profound.

In sum, Washington’s military strategy to weaken, isolate, or even destroy Russia is a colossal failure and the failure puts Washington’s proxy war with Russia on a truly dangerous path. To press on, undeterred in the face of Ukraine’s descent into oblivion, ignores three metastasizing threats: 1. Persistently high inflation and rising interest rates that signal economic weakness. (The first American bank failure since 2020 is a reminder of U.S. financial fragility.) 2. The threat to stability and prosperity inside European societies already reeling from several waves of unwanted refugees/migrants. 3. The threat of a wider European war.

America was finally defeated once and for all in 1965. Everything that has happened since was literally a new imperial order, and it is the new imperial order that is jeopardized, not the conquered nation that will likely benefit from the collapse of the empire.

They also know that since 1965 Washington led them into a series of failed military interventions that severely weakened American political, economic, and military power.

Washington. The seat of empire.

Far too many Americans believe they have had no real national leadership since January 21, 2021.

They haven’t had it for a lot longer than that. Since at least 1965, in fact.

This confusion of America with its imperial elite notwithstanding, Macgregor’s piece is an astute one that accurately chronicles the challenges presently overwhelming the empire. And the empire is neither willing nor able to meet those challenges, because the weapons of influence, namely, money and media, are unable to effectively defeat the weapons of power, which are industrial capacity and military might.

Influence can only defeat power if morale is sufficiently lacking. But both the Russians and the Chinese collectively possess a formidable will to survive, which is why they will likely succeed where a complacent and degenerate America failed.

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The Beginning of the End

Asia Times concludes that Ukraine – and therefore the USA and NATO – is going to lose the war with Russia:

There’s a notion floating around the Internet that the current conflict in Ukraine is going to remain a static war of attrition that will bleed the Russian army dry. So what if it decimates Ukraine’s society and eradicates most of its population? At least the dreaded Russian war machine will have been ground to a halt in the killing fields of Ukraine.

Those believing this narrative are living in a fantasy.

Fact is, the Ukrainian military is drained, the Western supply chains are strained, and the NATO stockpiles of critical weapons and ammunition are depleted. The war is transitioning, therefore, into a conflict in which the Russian side will enjoy several critical advantages.

For those under the impression that the attritional warfare will lead to a negotiated settlement: Fat chance!

Moscow is now totally all-in on this conflict. The window of opportunity to have gotten a settlement is closed. Unless Russia loses significantly soon (which it does not appear to be in danger of, if the Battle of Bakhmut is any indication), the Russians’ numerical superiority over Ukraine’s force structure alone will ensure that they achieve the victory they’ve been waiting for.

The outcome of this war, a defeat for Ukraine and its NATO backers, was totally avoidable. Sensing the weakness of the West – and the fact that they’re woefully overextended – the Russians are going to use all means to break Ukraine and subdue it. The beginning of the end is likely happening right now…

I don’t think the NATO-Russian war is going to end anytime soon. Its continuance not only suits most of the parties involved, it suits the most important global player, which is to say, China. Everyone, on all sides, is hoping to buy time before the next stage in the conflict, ergo, there is no need to rush things.

Until, of course, NATO runs out of Ukrainian men to feed into the slaughter.

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What Winning Looks Like

The victorious Ukrainian Army is blowing up bridges as it advances away from the defeated Russian Army, which is also demoralized, out of ammunition, and contemplating revolution against Vladimir Putin, the thuggish dictator who is crazy, Communist, cancer-stricken, and also dead.

Engineer units of the 24th and 93rd mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces began February 27 to blow up bridges in Artemovsk (Bakhmut). By destroying railway and road bridges, the Ukrainian army wants to slow the advance of Russian forces deep into the city.

First, the enemy blew up the bridge over the Bakhmutka River in the northeastern part of Artemovsk. In addition, the automobile bridge over the canal northwest of the city, which served as a communication route with the surrounding area – Chasovy Yar, Bogdanovka and Kalinovka, no longer works.

Another reason for the destruction of the bridges could be the fear of the Ukrainian side that the weapon arsenals of several large Ukrainian Armed Forces formations defending Artemovsk might fall into the hands of Russian Armed Forces units. They store thousands of anti-tank missiles, shells for mortars and grenade launchers, reconnaissance and satellite communication equipment. It is known that at the beginning of the Russian special operation, ammunition was placed in the industrial zone of the electrical plant and the Tsvetmet factory, as well as in the trolleybus depot.

Earlier, the famous Ukrainian activist blogger with call sign Madyar said that his unit left Artemivsk. He said part of the Ukrainian troops had received the long-awaited order to leave the city. According to military correspondents from the scene, Wagner PMC fighters approached the last road to the encircled town.

I wonder if the Ukrainian people are as tired of winning as Donald Trump’s supporters yet?

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The Decline of Europe

One very small example of how the decision to ostracize Russia is going to diminish Europe on the world stage:

The Russian chess body, which started the application process for the transfer in April 2022, joined the Asian Chess Federation (ACF) in a general-assembly vote which saw 29 delegates vote for the move, one delegate vote against, and six delegates abstain. The final transition is scheduled to take place officially on May 1.

This is the first time in history that a chess superpower has switched to another continent. Currently, Russia has 190 grandmasters listed by the FIDE, the most of any country in the world. Geographically, around 77 percent of Russia’s landmass is in Asia.

The influx of those highly rated Russian grandmasters to the Asian region may affect the chances of Asian players, such as those from China and India, to qualify for the World Championship cycle. However, this influx will also increase the quality of Asian chess competitions, which will benefit Asian players in the long run.

Such a change also means the 2023 World Chess Championship has become an intra-continental event rather than inter-continental one. China’s world No.3 Ding Liren will face Russian chess grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, who is now sitting at second place in the world ratings by the FIDE, in the 2023 World Chess Championship after incumbent champion and world No.1 Magnus Carlsen decided not to defend his title.

Sure, it’s just chess, for now. But how long will it be before other sports follow suit? Quantity has a quality of its own. How long will it be before the big money begins to flow to Asia rather than to Europe? My expectation is that within 10 years, it will be the next Haaland, rather than the next Ronaldo, who will be signing for an Asian football club.

And based on the fact that this article is from Global Times, it is clear that the Chinese are very well aware of the long-term implications of this change of chess federations on the part of the Russian authority.

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Address to the Assembly

The President of Russia addresses the Federal Assembly. It does not appear to be a direct declaration of war or even an announcement of the launch of the anticipated military offensive. It’s wise to read the whole thing directly, as the Clown World media coverage of it is literally worse than useless, quoting the responses to the speech before the speech was even given or the transcript released.

So far, only the very first part of the official English transcript has been released, but the whole thing will eventually be posted here by the Kremlin’s press agency.

This Presidential Address comes, as we all know, at a difficult, watershed period for our country. This is a time of radical, irreversible change in the entire world, of crucial historical events that will determine the future of our country and our people, a time when every one of us bears a colossal responsibility.

One year ago, to protect the people in our historical lands, to ensure the security of our country and to eliminate the threat coming from the neo-Nazi regime that had taken hold in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to begin the special military operation. Step by step, carefully and consistently we will deal with the tasks we have at hand.

Since 2014, Donbass has been fighting for the right to live in their land and to speak their native tongue. It fought and never gave up amid the blockade, constant shelling and the Kiev regime’s overt hatred. It hoped and waited that Russia would come to help.

In the meantime, as you know well, we were doing everything in our power to solve this problem by peaceful means, and patiently conducted talks on a peaceful solution to this devastating conflict.

This appalling method of deception has been tried and tested many times before. They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honour, trust, and decency are not for them.

Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. After all, they cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. Indeed, the Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.

We firmly defend our interests as well as our belief that in today’s world there should be no division into so-called civilised countries and all the rest and that there is a need for an honest partnership that rejects any exclusivity, especially an aggressive one.

We were open and sincerely ready for a constructive dialogue with the West; we said and insisted that both Europe and the whole world needed an indivisible security system equal for all countries, and for many years we suggested that our partners discuss this idea together and work on its implementation. But in response, we received either an indistinct or hypocritical reaction, as far as words were concerned. But there were also actions: NATO’s expansion to our borders, the creation of new deployment areas for missile defence in Europe and Asia – they decided to take cover from us under an ‘umbrella’ – deployment of military contingents, and not just near Russia’s borders.

I would like to stress –in fact, this is well-known – that no other country has so many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them – I want to emphasise this – hundreds of bases all over the world; the planet is covered with them, and one look at the map is enough to see this.

The whole world witnessed how they withdrew from fundamental agreements on weapons, including the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, unilaterally tearing up the fundamental agreements that maintain world peace. For some reason, they did it. They do not do anything without a reason, as we know.

Finally, in December 2021, we officially submitted draft agreements on security guarantees to the USA and NATO. In essence, all key, fundamental points were rejected. After that it finally became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggressive plans had been given and they were not going to stop.

Read the rest there.

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Red Lines

The USA consistently refused to respect Russia’s red lines. Why on Earth would China pay any attention whatsoever to whatever the USA claims its red lines to be?

Any nation providing lethal support to Moscow in its ongoing conflict with Kiev would cross Washington’s “red line,” the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN on Sunday. Earlier the same day, US State Secretary Antony Blinken directly warned a top Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, against considering such an option.

“We … have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that that is unacceptable,” Thomas-Greenfield told CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ adding that it “would be a red line.”

Her words came as Blinken was meeting Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany. There, the US diplomat told his Chinese counterpart that the US was “very concerned that China is considering providing lethal support to Russia,” Blinken told NBC’s Chuck Todd in the wake of the meeting.

This is what happens when you have a bunch of very special boys in charge of things. The neocons genuinely believe that they have the right to do whatever they see as in their own interest, but no one else has the same right.

Of course China is going to provide “lethal support to Russia”. It’s in their interest, because the same special boys who are threatening them if they do have already announced their intention to go to war with China just as soon as they’re done defeating Russia.

All I can conclude is that because the neocons hate literally everyone, including themselves, they’re playing a suicidal game of Samson burning down the temple using the US military as a match. I mean, it’s impossible to believe that they’re literally this stupid and totally unable to see the obvious consequences of their actions.

On the other hand, the possibility of stupidity should not be entirely dismissed. China is already allied with Russia, and World War III started with the Special Military Operation in February 2022.

“If China allies itself with Russia, there will be a world war.”

—Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 20 February 2023

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