#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
The “new” foreign policy of the newly elected Republican Speaker of the House
The longer Clown World rules, the more observably retarded it becomes.
And for everyone else who just wants to be left alone. Sometimes, being left alone isn’t an option. Sooner or later, you may be forced to make a choice regarding for whom you will fight, like the people of Ukraine who now fight themselves conscripted and forced to fight for Clown World, NATO, and the Kiev regime. Simplicius quotes a letter from an award-winning Russian writer who volunteered for the Russian Army and is now fighting on the front lines at Avdeevka:
Do I feel sorry for them? No. They killed and injured my friends, they want to kill me every day. I don’t feel sorry for them. Although, for the most part, the people who stand against us are not rabid Nazis, but ordinary Hataskrayniks who were forcibly driven to slaughter.
But if you look at everything in its entirety, it was they who brought Ukraine to its current state. That same silent majority who don’t care about Bandera, or the Russians, or the USA – as long as their farm, kindergarten, pigs are not touched, as long as they don’t run out of vodka and lard.
They didn’t care about the Maidan, about the shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk, about the genocide of the Russian population, about the murders of children, women and the elderly, about Azov’s torture, about language bans, about the split in faith… And then it turned out that they couldn’t sit it out, that you have to take a machine gun and die for the interests and goals of NATO.
And then they hated us, with a fierce, terrible hatred. Because their little farmstead world collapsed. Because this war reminds them every day of their cowardice, weakness and silence. And in their anger they blame us for everything, because they are afraid to look in the mirror and ask themselves uncomfortable questions.
These reluctant Ukrainian soldiers would have been wiser, and they would have had a much better chance of surviving, if they had stood against the Kiev regime instead of doing nothing until they found themselves forced to fight for it. Because, as enemies from Japan to France and Germany have learned over the centuries, Russia very seldom loses its wars.
It all sounds a little too familiar, doesn’t it, as the USA goes to undeclared war again in defense of Israel and the collapsing Clown World Order.
The IDF appears to have launched its ground invasion of Gaza:
Israel’s war cabinet overcame a bitter rift to launch troops and tanks into Gaza yesterday – while Palestinians were left in a terrifying blackout as communications were shut off and Israeli warplanes unleased airstrikes on the strip.
Benjamin Netanyahu only agreed to press into the war-torn enclave after hostage talks with Hamas terrorists had collapsed and he had unanimous approval from senior ministers. He had previously refused to authorize an invasion as he rallied political support – angering military chiefs as their western allies began to call for a ceasefire, the Telegraph reported.
Now, the Jewish nation already have troops and tanks on the ground in Gaza as they ‘expand’ their military operation, with aerial bombardment overhead unleashing strikes of ‘unprecedented’ intensity into the burning region.
And those living in the besieged strip have been left in the dark as their electricity and communications were cut off – including that of struggling NGOs and emergency services.
‘Our troops and tanks are inside the Gaza Strip. They’re shooting and they’re operating,’ Major Nir Dinar confirmed to the New York Times.
Well, now we’ll find out if Hezbollah and Iran are all talk or not. As a general rule, IDF officers are trained to err on the side of aggression, and they assume that Arabs will usually run rather than fight. Their current training was shaped by the experience of their elders, who were described as follows by Col. Macgregor in his book Margin of Victory.
All of these men were tough task masters who trained their officers in unconventional ways. To compensate for the IDF’s small size, they emphasized individual responsibility, inventive tactics, and daring leadership. Their preference for demonstrated talent and guts over education and social standing infused the IDF with a degree of energy and imagination seldom seen in Western military organizations, which tend to reward longevity of service rather than performance. Only the youthful and dynamic leaders that rose to command inside the revolutionary armies of France in 1789 come close in comparison. Extensive combat experience against a known opponent—the Muslim Arab—translated into a strong preference for offensive action designed to surprise and unhinge the Arab enemy, a preference inextricably intertwined with the elasticity of mind that youth and imagination bring to warfare.
Margin of Victory, Col Douglas Macgregor
Israel’s political leadership is somewhat of a gerontocracy now, but one that possesses the advantage of actual military experience that is largely missing in the USA’s political leadership. But despite the tendency toward caution that tends to come with the years, any mistakes made by the IDF can be expected to fall on the side of taking excessive risks.
Only time will tell if this decision to engage in urban warfare is the correct call, and, as usual in the case of war, the decisions made by those parties that are not presently engaged in the conflict.
UPDATE: Some are saying it’s just a recon-in-force, but regardless, there isn’t any question that the infantry and armor are both in on the ground now.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military is “advancing through the stages of the war” in Gaza, with ground forces carrying out operations in the Strip.
“Infantry, armored, engineering and artillery forces participating in the activity, accompanied by heavy [air] fire,” he says, noting that “the forces are still on the ground and continue the fighting.”
He says no soldiers have been hurt in the expanded ground operation in Gaza so far.
There will be no Third Front in Africa, at least, not for the time being:
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which had threatened to use force against Niger in response to a recent coup, is now quietly demobilizing the standby forces that had been positioned for a proposed military intervention, according to French news outlet RFI.
A meeting of ECOWAS military commanders was scheduled to be held in Nigeria’s Sokoto State this week. However, this was reportedly canceled due to organizational issues. The military officers arrived in Abuja, the capital of Africa’s most populous nation and the headquarters of the regional bloc, but did not proceed to Sokoto, RFI reported on Friday.
The demobilization order was expected to be issued during the meeting but, following its cancellation, ECOWAS will now be “very discreet” in withdrawing the standby troops, a source told the French broadcaster. ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) has two options, the source added: “Say nothing and let it be seen,” or “turn around.” The decision was made because “no one is opting for military intervention anymore,” RFI quoted a diplomat from one of the 15 ECOWAS member states as saying.
West African bloc ‘quietly’ withdraws forces deployed against Niger, 27 October 2023
It’s extremely informative to observe the way in which Clown World is reducing its support for Ukraine and refraining from attempting to claw back Niger, despite the African country’s importance to France, in light of what threatens to become the second major front in WWIII. This indicates that either a) Clown World has some sane and sober strategists involved in the decision-making process or b) Israel uber alles.
Either way, the more the US military gets itself enmeshed in the tar pit of the Middle East, the more likely it is that China will quietly go about its business of reunification with Taiwan and the faster the Kiev regime will fall.
The reports are, as yet, unconfirmed, but Col Douglas Macgregor was confident enough in his sources to openly discuss a joint US-IDF recon force taking heavy losses in Gaza recently.
TUCKER CARLSON: How is the U.S. military, do you think, having spent your life in it leading troops in combat and at the Pentagon, positioned to respond to a war with Iran right now? Are we in a strong position or not, in your view?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: No I think we are not in a strong position, we are probably at the weakest point in our recent history. I think you’ve got to look at the realities of new weapons systems and new capabilities.
The United States Navy, if it is going to preserve its capability, is probably going to be compelled to operate somewhere North and West of Sicily. If it comes within closer range, it falls into this envelope where the Iranians can strike it. And as I said before, you have to assume the Russians will come into this. Once you move into the Eastern Mediterranean, you are vulnerable to the [Russian] Kinzhal [ballistic missiles] and other cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles that the Russians have.
This makes it very difficult to fly strikes in support of the Israeli Defense Force against Hezbollah because now you are flying a very long distance, you deliver your ordinance, and you have to land in Israel in order to refuel. Israel is going to be operating under a hail, if not a rainstorm, of missiles and rockets, making it very dangerous to do so. So our Naval power, while substantial, may not have the desired impact on the ground that we would like.
And finally, we have no real Army anymore, the Army is down to perhaps 450,000, and how much of that is ready to fight is open to debate. Much of it is sitting in Eastern Europe right now. We don’t have the means to rapidly ship a large force of 80-100,000 troops on the ground into the region, which means were are reliant on Special Forces. And right now 2,000 Marines and perhaps 2,000 Special Forces and special operations forces.
That’s not going to make much of a dent, and as we’ve seen quite recently in the last 24 hours or so, some of our Special Ops forces and Israeli Special Ops forces went into Gaza to reconnoiter, to plan for where they might want to go to free hostages and make an impact, and they were shot to pieces and took heavy losses, as I understand it. I think that is where we are headed and I don’t see that as a win for Israel in any way, shape, or form. And I certainly think it is very dangerous for us.
As I’ve tried to point out to a number of people, until Britain entered World War One, it was just another European war. Once Britain entered it, it became a global war.
When one considers that it took 14 months for 50,000 Russian shock troops supported by 330 tanks to take Bakhmut, a city of 16 square miles with a population of 72,000, the idea that it will only take three months for Israel to clear out Gaza, an urban zone of 141 square miles and a population of 2.3 million in addition to a similar number of active combatants (est. 30,000), is simply not credible, even without the threat of Hezbollah to the north.
It is also highly improbable that the Israeli public will accept the tens of thousands of dead Israeli soldiers such an invasion would likely require, particularly when the wartime Prime Minister’s son is too busy living it up in Miami to share the risks with the common people.
Whether Macgregor’s sources are correct or not, and there is no reason to believe they are not since it was previously announced that US forces were actively training the inexperienced IDF to engage in urban combat against entrenched opposition, he’s correct in observing that neither the US military nor the IDF appears to be capable of successfully fighting a full-scale ground war in the Middle East.
It’s neither 1967 nor 1991 anymore. And frankly, the current parallels between the US military and the pre-WWI British military should seriously concern any perceptive student of military history.
Haldane resolved to transform a British army optimized for irregular warfare—the suppression of rebellious tribes and peoples throughout Britain’s far-flung empire—into a far more lethal professional military establishment… After 1815, the British army’s leadership focused almost exclusively on battles with technologically backward, even primitive, non-European opponents. British colonial warfare was not a complex affair. In battles with tribal opponents at Ulundi, Kandahar, and Omdurman, the application of overwhelming firepower substituted for tactics and strategy.
MARGIN OF VICTORY, Col Douglas Macgregor, 2016
At this point, US strategists need to seriously ask themselves whether there is a risk that support for a Gaza invasion could become the USA’s Sicilian Expedition. The end of the US empire is rapidly approaching, so it’s only a matter of time before someone tests the assumption of US military supremacy.
So why should anyone else? Neither Ben Shapiro nor Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Prime Minister, have any interest in defending their fellow Israelis against Hamas, Hezbollah, or any other enemies who might harm them.
The son of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been blasted for staying in Miami while reservists returned home to fight against Hamas. Yair Netanyahu, 32, has been in Florida since at least April, after his father told him to stop making inflammatory posts on social media, which saw him sued for defamation multiple times.
Meanwhile an unprecedented 360,000 reservists have been called up – many of them dropping everything to fly back to Israel, even abandoning honeymoons. But Yair has remained in Miami, to the irritation of some of the troops. ‘Yair is enjoying his life at Miami Beach while I’m on the front lines,’ one soldier, a volunteer serving on Israel’s northern front, told The Times.
‘It’s us who are leaving our work, our families, our kids, to protect our families back home and the country, not the people who are responsible for this situation. Our brothers, our fathers, sons, are all going to the front line, but Yair is still not here. It does not help build trust in the leadership of the country.’
Israeli soldiers blast Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, 32, for ‘abandoning’ them by staying in Miami while 360,000 reservists are called up to fight against Hamas, 24 October 2023
There should not be any discussion of one single American soldier being sent to the Middle East until every single Jew resident in the USA between the ages of 18 and 40 has been sent there first. There is absolutely no reason to defend a nation that literally refuses to defend itself.
And the fact that Netanyahu’s own son is living the high life in Miami while his father screeches about Hamas and Hezbollah should be sufficient cause to ignore all of the non-stop propaganda. If it’s not their problem, it certainly isn’t ours.
An Israeli government minister threatens to “wipe Iran off the face of the Earth”:
Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat warned on Sunday that the military is ready to “eliminate” the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and strike Iran if they open up a “northern front” in the current conflict.
“The plan of Iran is to attack Israel on all fronts. If we find they intend to target Israel, we will not just retaliate to those fronts, but we will go to the head of the snake, which is Iran,” Barkat told The Mail on Sunday. He added “the ayatollahs in Iran are not going to sleep good at night” if they move against Israel.
Barkat warned that Lebanon and Hezbollah, which is backed by Tehran, “are going to pay a heavy price, similar to what Hamas is going to pay.”
Israel would go “after the heads of Iran” if necessary, the minister said. “Israel has a very clear message to our enemies. We are saying to them, look what’s happening in Gaza – you are going to get the same treatment if you attack us. We are going to wipe you off the face of the Earth.”
Imagine if Putin was using this sort of rhetoric. We’d be hearing 24-7 non-stop about Russian atrocities and war crimes, which we’ve already been hearing a lot of for the last 19 months even though Russia refuses to so much as declare war against Ukraine.
Now, it is also true that the Iranian and the Palestinian leaders direct precisely the same sort of eliminationist rhetoric at Israel. The primary difference is that neither Iran nor the Palestinians make any serious pretense at being human rights-respecting democrats whose priority is protecting civilians on both sides and are only going to war reluctantly and in defense of their citizenry.
Americans and Europeans cannot support Israel under this rationale for the very pertinent reason that doing so would absolutely justify Russian attacks on London, Berlin, Paris, and Washington DC. Iran is no more guilty of waging war by proxy on Israel than the USA, the UK, and the rest of NATO are guilty of waging war by proxy on Russia.
And the more extreme the rhetoric coming out of both sides, the more apocalyptic the objectives, the more the rest of the world is correctly inclined to simply leave them alone and let them all fight it out amongst themselves.
Russia responds to the US Navy’s provocative move into the Mediterranean:
As the Israel-Gaza conflict escalates, with the expected involvement of various regional powers, the inclusion of global ones after the United States sent a massive naval force to the Eastern Mediterranean was guaranteed. And indeed, this now includes Russia which decided to send its superfast, high-flying MiG-31 jets to patrol the Black Sea. Namely, on October 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly announced that Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) will deploy MiG-31K/I (interceptors modified into strike fighters) armed with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles (usually given the unconfirmed Kh-47M2 designation) in response to large-scale US naval deployments. Although this doesn’t immediately indicate that the jets are on combat duty to tackle the possible involvement of US forces, the “Kinzhal’s” range and speed are more than enough to jeopardize American assets.
With the USS “Dwight D. Eisenhower” Nimitz-class supercarrier (CVN-69) joining the USS “Gerald R. Ford” (CVN-78), the US Navy now operates two carrier strike groups (CSGs) in the Eastern Mediterranean. Combined, both vessels can carry up to 180 aircraft, in addition to other ships escorting them as part of the CSGs. This massive force is a threat to Russian allies in the region, particularly Syria, and by extension, Moscow’s forces deployed in the Middle Eastern country.
The MiG-31s armed with “Kinzhals” and flying over the Black Sea cover the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean without going anywhere near American CSGs. Namely, although estimates vary significantly, the “Kinzhal’s” range is up to 2000 km, meaning that the MiG-31K/I strike fighters are capable of launching the hypersonic missiles well beyond the range of any US ship-based air defenses, interceptors or similar assets.
It should be noted that the US Navy also sent the USS “Bataan” (LHD-5) Wasp-class amphibious assault ship with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC – Special Operations Capable) and additional naval forces.
The USS “Bataan” can also carry up to 20 aircraft, further reinforcing the already massive US presence in the area. In addition, the 26th MEU has at least 1600 marines, although its full combat strength is up to 2400. Apart from these, the Pentagon deployed other assets such as the A-10 “Thunderbolt II” attack jets, F-15E “Strike Eagle” strike fighters, as well as the B-1B “Lancer” long-range bombers. The latter were sent from their home base in Texas on October 12 and forward deployed to RAF (Royal Air Force) Fairford airbase in the United Kingdom. From there, “Lancers” could launch strikes against targets across the Middle East and elsewhere, jeopardizing at least half a dozen countries in the region.
As previously mentioned, all of the aforementioned assets are a threat to Russian forces deployed in the area, as well as to Moscow’s allies, particularly Syria. It should be noted that the forces Washington DC sent so far are absolutely unnecessary against Hamas.
This underlines expectations that the Middle East will be the second front in WWIII. Most of the US forces arriving in nominal support of the incipient Israeli offensive in Gaza – and quite possibly Syria and Southern Lebanon as well – are not only useless against Hamas, but against Hezbollah as well.
Since Russians have resolutely refused to directly engage the NATO in Ukraine, it appears that the neoclowns are determined to find a way to provoke them into open war in a manner that they can’t resist.
When military leaders make their final, fatal mistake, it is usually the sort of action that has hitherto been very successful for them. The cautious leader fails to act when he must, the aggressive leaders bites off more than he can chew. Israeli officers are indoctrinated in the romance of the bold and daring stroke that wins the war, and revere aggressive generals like Dayan, Sharon, and Patton. This is why I am beginning to suspect that instead of simply beginning the ground offensive in Gaza, we’re going to see a bigger, more comprehensive attack on two or more fronts that is intended to catch Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah by surprise.
The presence of the US military would be to ensure that the IDF holds its gains by keeping Iran and Russia from defending their allies. I tend to doubt, however, that the US forces still command the respect that used to render them such a compelling deterrent.
It’s very informative that the German and US militaries appear almost eager to fight paramilitaries in Gaza, while for the last 18 months they have wanted absolutely no part in fighting the Russian Army.
The German government has decided to deploy some of the nation’s top Special Forces units to Cyprus as it prepares for potential crisis situations in Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East, the tabloid Bild reported on Wednesday, citing security sources.
The German Army’s Special Forces Command (KSK) has been deployed to the island nation in the Eastern Mediterranean, Bild said, adding that the Navy Special Forces (KSM) unit, also known as combat swimmers, was deployed to the area as well. The federal police Special Forces unit specializing in rescuing hostages (GSG 9) was sent there as well, the tabloid reported.
According to Bild, Berlin is preparing for “all scenarios” amid a continued escalation between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian Hamas militant group.
As the great Israeli general Moshe Dayan once said, the secret to the IDF’s stunning military success revolved around one very important concept: fighting Arabs. So it will be interesting to see if the German troop commitment survives in the event that Hezbollah and Iran elect to get involved.
Israel has drafted hundreds of military reservists to produce PR content claiming that Palestinian militants were responsible for the strike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
If hundreds of reservists are being drafted for the purpose of writing press releases, one might be inclined to not unreasonably conclude that the ground offensive has been called off despite social media rumors that Joe Biden has “privately” given the Netanyahu government the green light for it. On the other hand, staffing up the propaganda arm could mean that they know they’re going to need a lot more PR in the near future. A LOT.
But regardless, I absolutely think it’s entirely possible that Israel is, in fact, innocent of dropping a JDAM on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
It might have been the US Navy instead.
The challenge to the “Hamas did it” crowd is to address the obvious and inescapable question: if Hamas possesses weapons capable of that level of destruction, why isn’t it using them against Israel?
UPDATE: US President Joe Biden on Wednesday argued that the Hamas attack on Israel was worse than the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and vowed that America would “forever” stand with the Jewish state.