Tag: war

In Which a New Strategy is Required

Russia claims it wiped out Ukraine’s General Staff:

RIA Novosti. Russian Kalibr missiles struck a command post of Ukrainian troops near the village of Shirokaya Dacha in Dnipropetrovsk Region, killing dozens of generals and officers, Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said. A working meeting of the command staff of the operational-strategic grouping of troops “Alexandria” was held there at the time, he explained.

“As a result of the strike more than 50 generals and officers of the AFU, including the General Staff, the command of the grouping of troops “Kakhovka”, airborne assault troops and formations operating in the Nikolaevsk and Zaporozhye directions were destroyed,” the general said.

If it really was the General Staff, then one would expect that more than a few US military advisers were also affected by the strike. The loss of his strategists might explain why Zelensky is crazy enough to publicly advocate preemptive war against China too.

While appealing to Asian nations for support to fend off Russia’s invasion on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the international community should help Taiwan resist China’s aggression now, before Beijing attacks the island democracy it claims as its own province.

The comments risk upsetting Ukraine’s delicate balancing act with China; nevertheless, Zelensky insisted that aggressors must be confronted wherever they emerge. Asian countries must not wait for the crisis to act on Taiwan’s behalf, which would be repeating the mistake Europe made before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are sending signs that they will respond to sanctions against China by forcing reuinification with Taiwan.

“If the United States and the West impose destructive sanctions on China as they treat Russia, we must recover Taiwan,” said China’s economist Chen Wenling on May 30 at a forum hosted by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, according to state outlets. “Especially in the reconstruction of industry and supply chains, we must seize TSMC, a firm that inherently belongs to China.”

Chen is the chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a state think tank overseen by China’s top economic planning agency National Development and Reform Commission. Her comments came as TSMC, a global leader in semiconductor production, becomes increasingly important amid the global chip crunch.

As I’ve previously mentioned, WWIII has already started. Both President Trump and Fake Pope Francis have acknowledged as much. It presently appears to be somewhere between the Sudentenland and Poland phases. Plan accordingly, but don’t panic and keep in mind that it doesn’t mean the end of the world.

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Running on Empty

The Tree of Woe contemplates the global economic order and the reinvention of the Third World in a four-part series.

Part I of this series explained that the US dollar is the world’s first reserve currency that is not backed by precious metals. Instead it is backed by other people’s oil. Because of a secret treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia, petroleum can only be purchased with dollars. Every country needs oil, so everyone country needs dollars and sells imports to the US to get them. Demand for dollars has made the USD the primary American export, allowing the US to deindustrialize and financialize its economy.

Part II explained how the petrodollar has grossly enriched American asset holders (stocks, bonds, and real estate) and painfully impoverished American wage earners. Under the petrodollar system, dollars are created by private banks for profit. These dollars are recycled into the economy by OPEC nations, causing stocks, bonds, and real estate to rise. This profitable exchange is enforced by American military might, which punishes any country that seeks to exit the petrodollar system.

Part III explained that for the petrodollar system to function, America needs to be able to project power worldwide to secure international trade and enforce the system. America secures global commerce and projects military power by commanding the World Ocean, by which 90% of all goods are trafficked. To overcome America’s naval supremacy, both Russia and China have sought to establish control of the World Island, the Eurasian supercontinent that houses most of the world’s population and resources. The Russo-Ukraine War is a proxy war between the uncontested master of the World Ocean (America) and the would-be masters of the World Island (China and Russa).

In Part IV, we’ll discuss how faulty expectations by both sides in the Russo-Ukraine War have led to sanctions of such severity might cause the petrodollar system to break down.

It’s an excellent series, and you’d expect, although my perspective on the military situation is a little bit different. I don’t think Russia expected to quickly knock Ukraine out of the war. I think they hoped to do so with their opening gambit that included the lightning light infantry assault on Kiev, but that Operation Z never depended upon it.

The relatively small number of troops utilized, the way in which Russia has not heavily utilized its air and sea superiority, the second-rate units utilized, and the way Russia has methodically focused on attrition warfare in the Donbass all demonstrate that Russia has been holding its forces in ready to take on NATO directly. Just as the Germans were surprised by Russian manufacturing capabilities, Russian shell production has resulted in NATO complaining about Russia’s overwhelming artillery advantage, with the Russian forces able to fire up to 60,000 shells and rockets per day several months after we were informed that Russia was going to run out of ammunition within two weeks.

However, this doesn’t undermine Tree of Woe’s case so much as it underlines it. Russia has clearly been planning for a long and unrestricted confrontation with NATO and the USA from the start, one which includes both the military and the economic conflicts. Which is precisely why I think it is highly unlikely that the special military operation is going to end with a Ukrainian surrender and a negotiated settlement that brings Russia back into the neoliberal economic order.

While the World Ocean would cheerfully settle for that now, both Russia and China are obviously aware that it would merely mean putting off the larger conflict for a few years and giving their adversaries time to better prepare for it.

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The Battle of Ukraine is Over

“The battle of Helm’s Deep is over; the battle for Middle Earth is about to begin.”

Ukrainian troops are suffering massive losses as they are outgunned 20 to one in artillery and 40 to one in ammunition by Russian forces, according to new intelligence painting a bleak picture of the conflict on the frontline.

A report by Ukrainian and Western intelligence officials also reveals that the Ukrainians are facing huge difficulties responding to Russians shelling with their artillery restricted to a range of 25 kilometres, while the enemy can strike from 12 times that distance.

For the first time since the war began, there is now concern over desertion. The report, seen by The Independent, says the worsening situation in the Donbas, with up to a hundred soldiers being killed a day, is having “a seriously demoralising effect on Ukrainian forces as well as a very real material effect; cases of desertion are growing every week”.

At the same time, as the Russians capture territories in the east, and consolidate their control over the seized cities of Mariupol and Kherson, the bargaining position of the Ukrainian government is being weakened by acute disparity in the numbers of prisoners being held by each side.

The total number of Russian soldiers being held by Ukraine has fallen to 550 from 900 in April after a series of exchanges. Moscow meanwhile has more than 5,600 Ukrainian troops in captivity, the figure enlarged by the surrender of 2,500, including members of the Azov Battalion, in Mariupol.

Business Insider, 11 June 2022

The battle of Ukraine is over. The outcome – always predictable from the start – is certain, which is why the media is now filled with accounts of various globalist figures very cleverly suggesting that giving Russia what it already has might buy more time for the failing neoliberal world order. It won’t, because there was never any real war between Russia and Ukraine, which was why the Russians very carefully described their actions as a “special military operation”.

It was just a battle, and not a particularly big battle in historic terms at that. It was the first phase of a much larger military conflict.

The Russians know very well that the war isn’t over. Ukraine isn’t their primary enemy anymore than Austria or Poland were the primary enemies of Germany in the 20th Century. 2022 is more akin to 1939 than 1940, much less 1941.

The battle of Ukraine is over; the battle for world order is about to begin.

A battle which some observers, such as Karl Denninger, suspect is already lost:

The so-called Russian Sanctions have blown up spectacularly in the western world’s face. Russia now has a stronger currency than it did before the war we instigated began. Oil and Natural Gas, never mind things like fertilizer, are nice and expensive which suits Putin just fine. He has negotiated long term interchange with China for both and is building out the capacity to wildly increase same. Europe is fucked down the road as a result and in the meantime they got nothing for all these “sanctions.”

For that matter so are we. We’ve sequestered our inflationary deficit spending overseas via the China/US (and other nations, including India) trade deficit for the last two decades. That’s over and will never come back because none of the nations that we were doing it with have any reason to allow it ever again and they don’t need to. Not a single member of the Fed or other “economic punditry” has said one word about this although I sure as Hell have.

At the same time Russia is shipping oil to these nations who then cross-ship it back, some refined first, and there’s absolutely no way to do anything about that since we’re incapable of sanctioning either without instantly detonating our supply chains, offshored labor or both. As a result we can no longer spend in deficit without it reflecting back into inflation which means the “free ride” gave has been terminated and while this was always eventually going to end we did this to ourselves and thus the inflation you’re seeing and will continue to see was and is caused directly by our policies and our government.

The outcome isn’t absolutely settled. But the smart money is betting on the eventual victory of the Silk Road Alliance. There is a reason they call it Clown World and not Rocket Scientist World or Smart, Sensible, and Sustainable World, after all.

Quote of the Day: “You cannot appease Russia with some territory that they already have, or will take. Its not yours to give. Russia will decide exactly what happens to the Ukraine, how, and when.”

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Knock Off the Retardery

The war in Ukraine is not a “distraction”. China is not going to use the “distraction” to invade either a) Australia or b) the USA. The very idea is so prodigiously stupid that anyone suggesting the idea with a straight face should never be taken seriously again.

China is even less likely to invade the West Coast than Japan was, and the historical records show that neither the Japanese Navy nor the Japanese Army ever even contemplated the notion beyond briefly looking at the possibility of invading Hawaii before concluding that they lacked a) the transport capability, b) the logistical capability, and c) the airpower to even bother putting together an actual warplan.

For crying out loud, the military strategists who pay attention to this sort of thing aren’t even sure China has the capability to successfully invade Taiwan island. They do, but the point is the mere fact the issue is even potentially in doubt renders the other hypothetical invasions very highly improbable.

To have any chance of conquering Taiwan, China might need to transport as many as two million troops across the rough 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait and land them under fire at the island’s 14 potential invasion beaches or 10 major ports.

That’s a lot of people—far, far more than the People’s Liberation Army Navy can haul in its 11 new amphibious ships. To transport the bulk of the invasion force, Beijing almost certainly would take up into naval service thousands of civilian ships.

To that end, the Chinese Communist Party has created a legal and bureaucratic framework for taking over control of commercial shipping. Meanwhile, naval engineers have begun modifying key vessels to make them better assault ships.

All that is to say, the vast flotilla that would be both the vehicle for China’s assault on Taiwan—and the biggest target of Taiwanese forces and their allies—is taking shape.

“If the PLA invasion force was a million or more men, then we might expect an armada of thousands or even tens of thousands of ships to deliver them, augmented by thousands of planes and helicopters,” Ian Easton, an analyst with the Project 2049 Institute in Virginia, wrote in a recent report.

The PLAN’s eight modern Type 071 landing docks and three Type 075 big-deck assault ships together can haul around 25,000 troops. A drop in the bucket. To transport the balance of the invasion force, the Chinese navy can take up around 2,000 large commercial vessels crewed by around 650,000 mariners.

The legal framework is a new one. On Jan. 1, 2017, China’s National Defense Transportation Law went into effect. “Among other things, the law mandated that all of China’s basic infrastructure and related transportation platforms would henceforth be treated as military-civil fusion assets,” Easton explained.

“At the CCP’s discretion, they were now legally required to be designed, built and managed to support future military operations. In the event of conflict, they would be pressed into wartime service. Now they had to prepare accordingly in peacetime.”

According to Easton, the roughly 1,000 large vessels belonging to China COSCO Shipping Corporation could comprise the backbone of this improvised fleet.

For what it’s worth, the USA doesn’t have the ability to invade China either, despite its air and naval superiority. Hence the loss of its sole superpower status even if nuclear weapons are left out of the equation.

This really isn’t that hard and requires nothing more than a modicum of military history and basic math. So please, just stop already.

If you want to worry about something that is a genuine threat to the USA and its European satrapies, worry about China one-upping Russia by exiting the neoliberal economic order voluntarily without waiting for sanctions.

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Sabres Rattling in the South China Sea

The Chinese are making it very clear that the USA will not be permitted to interfere the way it has with Ukraine in the event the Taiwanese irredentists declare independence from China.

Beijing will “not hesitate to start a war” if Taiwan declares independence, China’s defence minister warned his US counterpart on Friday (Jun 10), the latest salvo between the superpowers over the island. The warning came as Wei Fenghe held his first face-to-face meeting with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore.

US-China tensions have been soaring over democratic, self-ruled Taiwan, which lives under constant threat of invasion by China. Beijing views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.

Wei warned Austin that “if anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost”, defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian quoted the minister as saying during the meeting.

The Chinese minister vowed that Beijing would “smash to smithereens any ‘Taiwan independence’ plot and resolutely uphold the unification of the motherland”, according to the Chinese defence ministry. He “stressed that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan … Using Taiwan to contain China will never prevail”, the ministry said.

At this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise if some sort of peaceful settlement were arranged before the end of the year, because the US and Europe are increasingly desperate to convince China to continue operating within the neoliberal economic order. And in the light of the complete failure of the Russian sanctions, the only card they have to play is offering to accept reunification as a fait accompli.

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So That’s Settled

ITEM: Ukraine’s president says the outcome of the battle for Sievierodonetsk will “decide the fate” of the entire Donbas region.

ITEM: Ukrainian troops may soon have to retreat from a key eastern city, the region’s governor and Western military analysts have said, as Russian advances force them back.

ITEM: Ukraine’s fortunes in defending Sievierodonetsk took a turn for the worse Wednesday, with its troops forced to retreat to the outskirts of the eastern industrial city in the face of a fierce Russian attack.

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Starve Harder

It will be informative to see the extent to which Russia cares about “international opinion” in light of the death sentences announced for three mercenaries employed by Ukraine:

International fury as two Brits Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28, are sentenced to death by Russian separatists after they joined the Ukrainian army and were captured during the siege of Mariupol.

Brits Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28, were captured in Ukraine in April during the siege of Mariupol. The so-called supreme court of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) issued the death sentences on Thursday. Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim has also been sentenced, reports said. Video showed the trio in a cage.

The trio were accused of being ‘mercenaries’ after fighting for Ukraine’s armed forces in the battle for the city. Russian media reported that they would appeal. The court is not internationally recognised, the BBC reported. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the death sentences as a ‘sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy’. No10 said it was ‘deeply concerned’.

I’m just curious what sort of leverage the “international community” thinks it has at this point. What are they going to do, pile on a few more sanctions, further inflate the currency, raise fuel prices, and starve harder?

I assume Russia will swoop in and make a useless gesture of magnanimity by trading the three mercs for three Russian prisoners-of-war, but it will be telling if it simply washes its hands of the affair and permits the DPR to fulfill the sentence.

And it’s certainly interesting to read the comments from British readers who genuinely want war with Russia over this. They really don’t grasp the fact that it’s not the 19th Century anymore and Britain no longer rules the waves.

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Has World War Clown Gone Global?

If this reported statement by the Chinese ambassador is true, then China has confirmed its intention to enter the war on the side of Russia and the Sovereign World.

“We must put an end once and for all to the hegemony of the United States, with its eternal desire to interfere in the affairs of sovereign states.”

Zhang Hanhui, Chinese Ambassador to Russia

I’m dubious about the legitimacy of this purported statement by the ambassador, as I have been unable to confirm it from any reliable Chinese sources. But it isn’t too terribly different from a genuine, and confirmed, statement from the Foreign Ministry.

Coercive diplomacy starts with the US. It is nobody else but the US that invented, patented and owns the intellectual property right of “coercive diplomacy”. In 1971, US scholar Alexander George coined the concept of “coercive diplomacy” to describe the US policy on Laos, Cuba and Vietnam. For years, from military threats to political isolation, from economic sanctions to technological blockade, the US has shown the world what “coercive diplomacy” is through what it has done. Some Chinese netizens have put it this way — to know what “coercive diplomacy” entails, just check what the US has done.

The US keeps talking about dealing with other countries from a position of strength. This, in effect, means whoever has a bigger fist calls the shots. Isn’t this “coercive diplomacy”? The US spared no effort to crack down on China’s Huawei, France’s Alstom and Japan’s Toshiba and coerced the TSMC, Samsung and other companies to provide to the US chip supply chain data. Isn’t this “coercive diplomacy”? The US forced countries to take sides in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and wantonly threatened to impose unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. Isn’t this “coercive diplomacy”? After China and Solomon Islands signed the security cooperation agreement on the basis on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, the US immediately sent officials to South Pacific island countries in an attempt to exert pressure on them and intimidate them to stop them from having normal cooperation with China. Isn’t this “coercive diplomacy”?

Secretary Blinken said that “all countries will be free to chart their own paths without coercion”. For that to happen, the US must first and foremost change its old habit of pursuing “coercive diplomacy”, stop interfering in the internal affairs of others, stop forcing countries to pick sides, stop abusing unilateral sanctions and stop hobbling hi-tech companies of other countries. China is ready to work with all countries upholding justice to stand against various coercive behaviors in the world. 

Zhao Lijian, Foreign Ministry, 6 June 2022

The expansion of the conflict from Ukraine to the USA appears to be locked in now. One hopes that the Lords of Clown World will have the wisdom to surrender instead of waging a brutal war that can only end in defeat and suicides in their New Zealand bunkers.

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Tactical Attrition Warfare

One of the reasons the media finds it so difficult to make heads or tails of which military is winning in Ukraine is the fact that the Russians are not attempting to hold any territory that is not strategic. Instead, they’re engaged in something that could be described as artillery maneuver warfare that is focused on eliminating the enemy’s infantry while minimizing the risks to their own infantry.

The main difficulty in carrying out offensive operations in Ukraine is that in fact our troops have to go on the attack when the enemy’s artillery is not suppressed. The reasons why we were not able to suppress the artillery:

1. the absence, or a critically small number, of artillery radars.

2. lack of effective reconnaissance of enemy artillery positions.

3. the absence or scanty number of strike UAVs or kamikaze drones to destroy enemy artillery, immediately after detection.

4. lack of organization of counter-battery combat.

5. after the discovery of an enemy mortar or artillery position, a lot of time passed when our artillery could begin to suppress it. Two factors influenced this: communication and, in fact, the qualifications of the servants of the guns.

6. the lack of a sufficient number of reconnaissance UAVs for round-the-clock hunting for enemy artillery.

Enough infantry can be thrown into battle, even with AK-12s, even with “mosquitoes”, but neither one nor the other will simply be able to reach the enemy’s positions if enemy artillery is not suppressed. Practically all the fighters of the assault groups, from different sectors of the front, note that the enemy, in 90% of cases, cannot withstand close combat, especially the newly formed units, and retreats. But due to the fact that the enemy artillery is not suppressed, it is not possible to hold the already occupied positions.

You can assemble as much infantry and equipment as you like, but the lack of an effective counter-battery fight will simply turn any, the bravest army, into “cannon fodder” and interfere with the solution of GEOPOLITICAL OBJECTIVES.

It is not a Masonic conspiracy that will stop our troops, but specific shortcomings in the combat work of each commander.

TatarZky says that Russian troops in fixed positions are also suffering from Ukrainian artillery. Maybe this is why Russians do not defend positions, but instead constantly move around. I have seen multiple cases, where some village is reported liberated by Russian forces, but next day on the maps it is again side to be under Ukrainian control. Unfortunately the Russian aim at this point seem not to be liberating territory, but to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. This is a direct result of the Ukrainian policy of holding on to every last inch of Donbass.

It’s interesting to learn that despite the Russian air superiority, they have not been able to suppress the enemy artillery. There are several possible reasons for this; perhaps the Ukrainian ground-to-air defenses make it too expensive to provide air cover, perhaps it is too easy to hide and move the artillery (see: Serbia), or perhaps the Russians are unwilling to reveal the full extent of their air capabilities to NATO forces given the probability that they will be fighting them soon.

However, there is no need for the Russians to rush the inevitable end or risk unnecessary casualties, as time is clearly on their side. The Western economies are crumbling, the Ukrainians are running out of infantry, weapons, and supplies, China, India, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Arab nations have all made it clear they are aligned with Russia against NATO, and even the neocons are starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of war with the planet’s largest nuclear power.

Indeed, it appears that the globalists are now hoping that an early settlement in Russia’s favor will be enough to preserve their disintegrating Clown World empire.

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Yes, The Russians Will Win

Even the official broadcasters of The Narrative are beginning to recognize that Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable, however unpalatable it might be.

At one point in the novel “Sign of the Four,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective Sherlock Holmes explains and demonstrates to Dr. Watson his method of observation and deduction. Confronted with an apparently inexplicable circumstance, Dr. Watson is utterly perplexed. He simply cannot understand how the event in question came to pass, given the facts as he understands them and the laws of nature. Slightly irritated at his plodding companion’s bafflement, Holmes once again shares with him the methodological key to solving all such mysteries: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

And the truth is, once we have eliminated all the impossible scenarios, the least improbable outcome of the war in Ukraine is a Russian victory.

Note that I did not say such an outcome would be desirable. Russia’s inevitable victory is anything but. Nor did I say it would be total. The outcome of this war is going to fall far short of the Kremlin’s initial hopes and expectations. Nor, finally, did I say it would be without significant cost. Any conceivable Russian victory now will entail such a loss of blood and treasure that it will have to be judged Pyrrhic at best.

But it will be a victory nonetheless — and we in the West had better come to grips with that hard truth.

The fact that Russia will defeat Ukraine militarily is hardly news. That was always inevitable, with or without Clown World sanctions and weapons shipments, as I and many others have pointed out from the onset. But what is informative here is the fact that the Narrative has now shifted to accommodate this reality, which suggests that Phase One of the larger conflict between the Sino-Russian Alliance and Clown World is coming to a close.

My interpretation – and it is only that, an educated guess – is that the Clown World powers are desperately trying to convince Russia and China to return to the economic fold, and they are dangling the possibility of their acceptance of Russia’s gains as bait in order to prevent the systemic failure of their neo-liberal rules-based order that will take place when Russia and China actively reject the system.

Brussels is seeking to strike the right balance between hurting Russia’s economy as much as possible and minimizing the secondary effects on European economies.

Remember, all of the damage that has been done to the ex-West so far is self-inflicted. Neither Russia nor China are seeking to inflict economic harm, although they are both in excellent positions to do so at any time. So, will they take the bait, focus on internal development, and allow Clown World to survive until the inevitable next crisis? I would tend to doubt it, but we will have to simply wait and see.

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