Tag: war

A vote for Hillary

Is a vote for World War III. Literally.

On Syria’s civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the United States into a world war with a more aggressive posture toward resolving the conflict.

Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” on the ground to protect non-combatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the United States into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets.

“What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton.

“You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” he said.

It’s good to see Donald Trump pointing out that Hillary will, indubitably, order the US armed forces into war with Russia. However, the real issue isn’t the proxy war in Syria, but rather, the provocative encroachments in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

The reason Hillary will start WWIII is because she will try to expand NATO to cover Ukraine, which Russia simply will not permit.

“He has opened the doors to the demons of Hell”

Why anyone would still pay any attention to an Obama-voting moron like Walter Russell Mead is well beyond me:

President Obama’s faltering foreign policy has taken another serious hit. It is hard to think of another American president whose foreign policy initiatives failed as badly or as widely as Obama’s. The reconciliation with the Sunni world? The reset with Russia? Stabilizing the Middle East by tilting toward Iran? The Libya invasion? The Syria abstention? The ‘pivot to Asia’ was supposed to be the centerpiece of Obama’s global strategy; instead the waning months of the Obama administration have seen an important U.S. ally pivot toward China in the most public and humiliating way possible.
Duterte clearly thinks that humiliating Obama in this way is a solid career move. He certainly believes that China will support him against the critics at home and abroad who will wring their hands over his shift. He presumably has had some assurances from his Chinese hosts that if he commits his cause to them, they will back him to the hilt.

This points to a broader problem: Obama’s tortuous efforts to balance a commitment to human rights and the niceties of American liberal ideology with a strong policy in defense of basic American security interests have made the world less safe for both human rights and for American security. As the revisionist powers (Russia, China, and Iran) gain ground, foreign leaders feel less and less need to pay attention to American sermons about human rights and the rule of law. Death squads and extra-judicial executions on a large scale: the Americans will lecture you but China will still be your friend. Barrel bombing hospitals in Aleppo? The Russians won’t just back you; they will help you to do it. Obama’s foreign policy is making the world safer for people who despise and trample on the very values that Obama hoped his presidency would advance. His lack of strategic insight and his inability to grasp the dynamics of world power politics have opened the door to a new generation of authoritarian figures in alliance with hostile great powers.

Unintentionally, and with the best of intentions, he has opened the doors to the demons of Hell, and the darkest forces in the human spirit have much greater scope and much more power today than they did when he took the oath of office back in 2009.

Unintentionally? With the best of intentions? Is Mead talking about Obama or himself? Remember, as Mead excoriates Obama’s foreign policy, that he not only voted for Obama, but voted to re-elect him. But it’s not as if Obama’s foreign policy was any better from 2008 to 2012 than it has been from 2012 to 2016.

Moreover, the man quite obviously has learned nothing from his past mistakes. Juxtapose these two phrases from the same article.

  • “Secretary Clinton is well aware of just how damaging the Filipino defection is in Asia; she helped develop the Obama administration’s Asia strategy.”
  • “Should Secretary Clinton make it to the White House, her first and biggest job will be to stop and then reverse the deterioration in America’s global position that her predecessor permitted.”

So, Mead not only voted – twice – for the man who permitted the deterioration in America’s global position, but now advocates voting for the woman who helped develop that failed strategy.

Either Mead is incredibly stupid, or, as with Obama, we need to question whether he serves those very demons to whom the doors of Hell have been opened.

If there is not a Trumpslide on November 8th, there is a very good chance that the USA will find itself at war with a Russo-Chinese alliance. And that is a war that a USA saddled with the incompetent and unwell Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief will almost certainly lose.

White flight in Germany

As the migrants urge them on:

“We refugees… are fed up with the angry citizens (Wutbürger). They insult and agitate like crazy…. There are always these incitements by unemployed racists (Wutbürgern), who spend all their time on the Internet and wait until an article about refugees appears on the Internet. Then it starts with shameless comments….

“Hello, you unemployed angry citizens (Wutbürger) on the Internet. How educated are you? How long will you continue to distort the truth? Do you not know that you are spreading lies every day? What would you have done if you were in their shoes? Well, you would have run away!

“We refugees… do not want to live in the same country with you. You can, and I think you should, leave Germany. And please take Saxony and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) with you.

“Germany does not fit you, why do you live here? Why do you not go to another country? If this is your country, dear angry citizens (Wutbürger), then behave normal. Otherwise you can simply flee from Germany and look for a new home. Go to America to Donald Trump, he will love you very much. We are sick of you!”

Soon there will be nowhere for people of European descent to flee. Then the fighting will begin. One interesting thing about all this, from my perspective, is to note that my tribe historically put up considerably more of a fight than Americans or Germans have to date. And by “considerably”, I mean, wiped out all of the settlers. They ultimately lost, but at least they went down fighting.

Thus far, whites in both the USA and Europe have demonstrated that they would much rather flee their homes or die than fight for their own survival or fight for the survival of their nation. That is why they have lost the opening round of World War III, which is very different in nature than anyone was suspecting. In fairness, virtually none of them realized that a war had begun. Most still don’t realize it.

To quote Martin van Creveld, one of the planet’s greatest military minds, from his essay “War and Migration”, which appeared in There Will Be War Vol. X:

War and migration have always been closely related. The relationship was recorded as early as 1300 BC, when we are informed the Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt to embark upon the enterprise that ultimately led them to the Promised Land of Canaan. As you will no doubt recall, they promptly conquered it. And since that time, for over 3,315 years, the link between war and the large-scale movement of people from one place to another has never been broken….

At some times, war and migration were essentially the same, as in the great migration of peoples during the first few centuries after Christ, the Arab expansion after 632 AD, the Magyar invasion of Europe, the Mongol invasions of China, and the movements of many African tribes from one part of the continent to another. At other times, the relationships between the two phenomena were more complicated, such as ethnic cleansings that rendered war unnecessary or took place after war’s end, mass avoidance of conscription, or soldiers bringing home concubines and war brides. All these various forms have often intermingled, all appear regularly in the annals of human history, and all will doubtless continue to do so in the future. The only thing that changes is their relative importance at any given point in time.

The “proposition nation” devotees have much for which to answer. They served as the intellectual beachhead that permitted this mass invasion to proceed without resistance. It should be obvious, now that the lie that being a “German” or an “Englishman” is also a proposition has been broadly broadcast to the masses, that the claim of the “American” nation being intrinsically propositional was always entirely false.

But don’t despair. Things always look grim for the defenders in the early days. The Europeans, on both continents, have, quite literally, not yet begun to fight.

4GW in Syria

It’s not hard to see why the “Syrian rebels” are losing so badly to the Syrian government forces. Guess who has more support from the Syrian people. Applying the principles of 4GW, it should be obvious that Assad is going to win, because despite being an Alawite, he is still Syrian. The so-called rebels no more represent the Syrian people than the US military for whom they are a proxy do, which is why the usual rules about 4GW insurgencies don’t apply to them. They’re invaders, not insurgents.

USA contemplates WWIII

It may not sound that way. At least, not yet. But keep in mind the Pentagon’s doctrine concerning cyberwarfare announced in 2011.

The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official.

Now consider yesterday’s announcement concerning the Obama administration’s desire to launch a cyberattack on Russia:

The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership.

The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation.

So, by the USA’s own logic:

  1. Cyberwarfare is an act of war.
  2. Acts of war can legitimately be responded to by traditional military force.
  3. The Obama administration is considering cyberattacks on Russia.
  4. If Russia responds to those cyberattacks with traditional military force, its response will be legitimate.
Translation: the neocons are trying to launch a war with Russia in revenge for Putin bringing the oligarchs to heel and threatening the increasing instability of the US Imperium. They won a Pyrrhic victory in Ukraine, they’re losing badly in Syria, and now they’re desperate to reverse a trend that has the potential to build into an avalanche.

Fortunately, as the article reveals, more sober and experienced CIA hands are dubious about the idea. Personally, I doubt the Obama administration will do anything at all before January, because Obama doesn’t want to do anything but play out the string before hitting the links and the lucrative speech circuit.

And in his position, isn’t that exactly what you would do?

Game Theory and Putin’s Gamble

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you are Vladimir Putin. Consider the following facts and assumptions:

  • Hillary Clinton appears increasingly likely to win the presidential election.
  • Hillary Clinton is a member of the globalist elite and is heavily influenced by Wall Street, the Saudis, and the neocons.
  • Hillary Clinton has a little girl’s conception of military action. “We came, we saw, he died.”
  • Hillary Clinton has always shown a tendency to overcompensate to prove how tough and ruthless she is.
  • Hillary Clinton doesn’t negotiate, she dictates.
  • Donald Trump is not a member of the globalist elite.
  • Donald Trump has openly expressed his desire to avoid war with Russia.
  • Donald Trump prides himself on negotiation, not confrontation.
  • The USA is already engaged in a war-by-proxy with Russia in Syria.
  • The globalist elite is already waging economic war on Russia.
  • Ukraine is not a member of NATO

You don’t want Ukraine. You don’t want war with the USA. You prefer to have an opponent like Donald Trump with whom you know you can negotiate to an enemy like Hillary Clinton with whom you cannot. Now consider the following possibilities:

  • The neocons are actively pushing for war with Russia in order to force Assad out of Syria
  • Ukraine will join NATO under a Hillary administration.
  • Wall Street needs some sort of major global event to pop the current asset bubble.

Also, Russia has made it very clear that they will never accept Ukraine in NATO, but the US has blatantly ignored every Russian warning and instead engaged in a series of provocative steps in Ukraine, in the Baltics, and in Poland.

If you were Vladimir Putin and you expect that a Hillary Clinton administration will make war with the USA inevitable, would it not logically make sense to start the conflict while there is still a chance to totally transform the shape of the US election? Right now, Trump is in trouble because the media is relentlessly away pounding on a few remarks about women from more than a decade ago and the public awareness of the war-by-proxy between Russia and the USA is totally nonexistent.

But if Russia invades Ukraine, takes Kiev, and scares the pants off the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe alike, that will completely transform the election picture. For all her bellicosity, no one can take Hillary Clinton seriously as a war president, particularly anyone in the military after Benghazi.

So, are there any signs that Putin might be in a position to invade Ukraine on short notice?

  • “As many as 40,000 Russian troops are massing on the country’s border with Ukraine – prompting fears of a new military invasion. Among the units deployed to the area are armoured vehicles, tanks and fighter jets.” (August 2016)
  • “Russia has amassed some 100,000 soldiers in occupied Crimea and Donbas as well as along the eastern border with Ukraine.” (October 2016)
  • “Russian state officials and government workers were told to bring back their children studying abroad immediately, even if means cutting their education short and not waiting until the end of the school year.”
  • “Amid escalating U.S.-Russia tensions, the Russian military said Tuesday it will co-operate with China on efforts to fend off a threat posed by the U.S. missile defence program.”
  • “At the end of last week, Latvia identified several Russian planes near its borders: Su-24 tactical bombers, Su-27 multipurpose fighters and an An-26 military transport plane. Russia also conducts military drills near Latvian land border. Two airborne divisions – 76th and 98th – take part in joint exercises with elements of full-fledged combat activities.”

Now, I’m not predicting Russia is going to invade Ukraine. I’m not in any contact with anyone on the ground or in Russian circles.. I am merely observing that logic suggests Putin should invade Ukraine before the US election if it seems likely to him that Hillary is going to win it. The third debate is October 20th. Barring Donald Trump turning things between now and then, which looks increasingly unlikely given the 24-7 media assault, logic would dictate that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will begin the weekend after next, most likely on the morning of October 23rd.

I don’t know whether Putin will dare to roll the dice on such a potentially dangerous gamble, particularly because it is clear that Russia doesn’t want Ukraine. But with the neocons relentlessly pressing for war with Russia, the Russian president would be better off starting a regional war now in the hopes of avoiding a global one than holding off and having it forced upon him in one or two years time. And aside from Duerte, Vladimir Putin is the one world leader who might have the steel to think through the logic and grasp the adder.

The Russian stance

The Saker considers Russia’s options in Syria:

The key thing to understand in the Russian stance in this, and other, recent conflicts with the USA is that Russia is still much weaker than the USA and that she therefore does not want war. That does not, however, mean that she is not actively preparing for war. In fact, she very much and actively does. All this means is that should a conflict occur, Russia you try, as best can be, to keep it as limited as possible.

In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation:

1) A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way.

2) A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate.

3) A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan.

4) A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands)

5) A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia

6) A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia

During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).

The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said:

“As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. 

Translation: shoot down our planes and bomb our troops and we and our allies go after your “military advisors”.

There isn’t any doubt that the USA can beat Russia in Syria. The question is if they are willing to pay the price both there, and potentially, in Ukraine and the Baltics.

That this is all absolutely stupid and utterly unnecessary doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In the meantime, we should really all focus on what is truly important: did you know that Donald Trump was once ungallant in speaking about women?

Anyhow, I had been extremely skeptical about the reports that Russian missiles had taken out a command center of US and Israeli advisers, but the sudden increase in US bellicosity makes me wonder if there might have actually been some substance to it.

Russia warns USAF

No more “oops-sorry-we-bombed-your-allies” little “mistakes” will be permitted in Syria:

Russia’s Defense Ministry has cautioned the US-led coalition of carrying out airstrikes on Syrian army positions, adding in Syria there are numerous S-300 and S-400 air defense systems up and running.

Russia currently has S-400 and S-300 air-defense systems deployed to protect its troops stationed at the Tartus naval supply base and the Khmeimim airbase. The radius of the weapons reach may be “a surprise” to all unidentified flying objects, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson General Igor Konashenkov said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, any airstrike or missile hitting targets in territory controlled by the Syrian government would put Russian personnel in danger. The defense official said that members of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria are working “on the ground” delivering aid and communicating with a large number of communities in Syria.

“Therefore, any missile or air strikes on the territory controlled by the Syrian government will create a clear threat to Russian servicemen. Russian air defense system crews are unlikely to have time to determine in a ‘straight line’ the exact flight paths of missiles and then who the warheads belong to. And all the illusions of amateurs about the existence of ‘invisible’ jets will face a disappointing reality,”  Konashenkov added.

Translation: if the US pretends to mistakenly bomb Syrian ground troops, Russia will pretend to mistakenly shoot down US planes.

Interesting that all the drums beating about how the evil Rooskies bombed an aid convoy have fallen completely silent. Sometimes, the probable truth of a narrative can be discerned by how quickly it is abandoned.

Clinton calls for drone strikes in London

Then can’t remember having done so:

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday denied reports that she once suggested taking out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with a drone strike.

“I don’t know anything about what [WikiLeaks] is talking about, and I don’t recall any joke,” the Democratic nominee told reporters Tuesday. “It would have been a joke if it had been said, but I don’t recall that.”

WikiLeaks tweeted a screen grab Sunday evening from a report alleging that Clinton once asked in 2010 during a State Department briefing, “Can’t we just drone this guy?” She supposedly asked this when she served as secretary of state.

I would think that a presidential candidate threatening lethal drone strikes in London, and against a foreign embassy, no less, would be concerning. But arguably even more concerning is the possibility that said presidential candidate genuinely can’t remember having done so because she has brain damage.

Massive Russian civil defense drill

Russia is apparently taking the banging of the war drums seriously:

As relations between Russia and the US disintegrate as a result of the escalating proxy war in Syria, which today culminated with Putin halting a Plutonium cleanup effort with the US, shortly before the US State Department announced it would end negotiations with Russia over Syria, tomorrow an unprecedented 40 million Russian citizens, as well as 200,000 specialists from “emergency rescue divisions” and 50,000 units of equipment are set to take part in a four day-long civil defense, emergency evacuation and disaster preparedness drill, the Russian Ministry for Civil Defense reported on its website.

According to the ministry, an all-Russian civil defense drill involving federal and regional executive authorities and local governments dubbed “Organization of civil defense during large natural and man-caused disasters in the Russian Federation” will start tomorrow morning in all constituent territories of Russia and last until October 7. While the ministry does not specify what kind of “man-caused disaster” it envisions, it would have to be a substantial one for 40 million Russians to take part in the emergency preparedness drill. Furthermore, be reading the guidelines of the drill, we can get a rather good idea of just what it is that Russia is “preparing” for.

The website adds that “the main goal of the drill is to practice organization of management during civil defense events and emergency and fire management, to check preparedness of management bodies and forces of civil defense on all levels to respond to natural and man-made disasters and to take civil defense measures.” Oleg Manuilov, director of the Civil Defence Ministry explained that the exercise will be a test of how the population would respond to a “disaster” under an “emergency” situation.

Americans, meanwhile, are fretting over whether or not Kim Kardashian is going to need therapy or not after her recent trip to Paris.

This should go well.