Tag: war

The Last of the Summer Offensive

The long-awaited Ukrainian summer offensive appears to have petered out even faster than the historical Ardennes Offensive that preceded the ultimate German collapse in WWII.

Ukraine’s much-heralded “counter-offensive” in Kherson has “failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry insisted on Monday, listing estimated losses suffered by Kiev during the operation. Ukrainian forces had attempted to attack in three directions on orders of President Vladimir Zelensky but made no gains, Moscow explained.

Russian troops caused “great losses” to the Ukrainian attackers during the day’s battles, a statement read. Kiev saw 26 tanks, 23 armored fighting vehicles, nine more armored vehicles, and two SU-25 ground-attack jets destroyed, while more than 560 troops were lost, according to the summary.

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne quoted Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk as saying that “offensive actions in various directions” had begun, “including in the Kherson region.” She offered no details, however, saying only that “any military operation needs silence.”

By Monday evening, however, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned only a Russian attack near the village of Potemkino.

Kiev has been talking about a “Kherson counteroffensive” all summer, while soliciting more weapons and ammunition from its Western backers. In a video address to the people on Sunday, Zelensky vowed that “Ukraine will return” to Donbass – as well as Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson and “definitely to Crimea.”

If WWII history is a reasonable guide, a new Russian offensive should be gearing up right about now. It’s not even autumn yet and already the European nations are observably beginning to panic.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Death of Davos Man

The postmodernist econo-cultural vision of Europe has failed abysmally, as the ambitions of its architects were always based on false foundations and vastly exceeded their capabilities. More than four-fifths of the world has rejected their evil vision; the active resistance to it has barely even begun to take form. But it is already clear that there will be no Great Reset, and the global imperialists who believed they were destined to rule the world and own everything in it will be lucky to survive the series of regime changes over the next decade that are among the probable consequences of the Euro-Russian War.

The leadership in Moscow is making it very clear, to internal and international audiences, the new deal consists in slow cooking the Kiev racket inside a massive cauldron while polishing its status of financial black hole for the collective West. Until we reach boiling point – which will be a revolution or a putsch.

In parallel, The Lords of (Proxy) War will continue with their own strategy, which is to pillage an enfeebled, fearful, Europe, then dressing it up as a perfumed colony to be ruthlessly exploited ad nauseam by the imperial oligarchy.

Europe is now a runaway TGV – minus the requisite Hollywood production values. Assuming it does not veer off track – a dicey proposition – it may eventually arrive at a railway station called Agenda 2030, The Great Narrative, or some other NATO/Davos denomination du jour.

As it stands, what’s remarkable is how the “marginal” Russian economy hardly broke a sweat to “end the abundance” of the wealthiest region on the planet.

Moscow does not even entertain the notion of negotiating with Brussels because there’s nothing to negotiate – considering puny Eurocrats will only be hurled away from their zombified state when the dire socio-economic consequences of “the end of abundance” will finally translate into peasants with pitchforks roaming the continent.

It may be eons away, but inevitably the average Italian, German or Frenchman will connect the dots and realize it is their own “leaders” – national nullities and mostly unelected Eurocrats – who are paving their road to poverty.

You will be poor. And you will like it. Because we are all supporting freedom for Ukrainian neo-nazis. That brings the concept of “multicultural Europe” to a whole new level.

It’s clear that the Russians have already concluded that they will have to separate the eastern half of Ukraine from the NATO-WEF regime in order to keep the Russian-speakers living there safe from the terrorist attacks of the desperate, and defeated, government in Kiev. The question is whether they will do so quickly, or if they will continue to proceed with the highly effective attrition warfare that is depleting US military resources while simultaneously putting economic pressure on the European governments.

My bet is on the latter. I suspect the Russians are less interested in regime change in Kiev than they are in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Warsaw, and Bern. They know perfectly well that the people of Europe are no more enthusiastic about “standing with Ukraine” than they are about “welcoming refugees”; the media narratives were always fake and wholly manufactured.

  • The EU will encounter “major challenges” due to the sanctions it imposed on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said.
  • Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus has rejected the notion that the Ukrainian conflict has been the sole reason for the economic problems now experienced around the globe. “This is self-inflicted, this is self-inflicted by the West. The Russian invasion just added to that.”
  • Budapest refuses to negotiate any further EU restrictions targeting Russian energy because there is no current alternative to supplies from Moscow, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Saturday.
  • With food prices up 15 percent, COVID-19 job losses and surging energy costs, more and more people are seeking support from different social services. Germany’s 962 food banks are supporting more than two million customers.
  • Beyond firewood and natural gas, energy prices in Croatia have skyrocketed in the past few months. It’s not just consumers feeling the squeeze – across the country, it essentially forces many small fuel stations out of business. The entire nation is preparing for the incoming winter with unease.
  • A group of Left-SPD lawmakers have had enough of the unprecedented Ukraine arms shipments following on the heels of Berlin boosting its military budget by €100 billion. They’ve sent a letter to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with the title, “The weapons must be silent!” Instead of pumping weapons into a hot conflict with a nuclear-armed superpower, the group within Scholz’s own party are demanding the pursuit of a diplomatic negotiations, pushing the Ukrainians to the peace talks table.

Davos Man is dead. And winter is coming.

DISCUSS ON SG

Proxy War 2.0

Ukraine is a proxy war between the USA and Russia and everyone knows it, including, most importantly, the Chinese. They also know that Taiwan is anticipated to be the next proxy war, which is why I expect Chairman Xi, who according to Lee Kwan Yew is the most intelligent senior actor on the international scene, to work out a peaceful alternative to shedding large quantities of Chinese blood on behalf of US neocons.

GLOBAL TIMES: Some argue that the US wants to use Taiwan as a “porcupine” and is ready to fight to the last drop of Taiwan people’s blood to weaken China just as what it did with Ukrainians. How do you view such an opinion? Does the US have such intent?

Berletic: This is actually the most likely scenario – using Taiwan as a proxy against the rest of China to exhaust it politically, economically, and militarily. The US is indeed conducting a similar proxy conflict against Russia through Ukraine. Many aspects of US interference in regards to Taiwan including political and military support, mirror what preceded the conflict now raging in Ukraine. The US deliberately picked a red line to Russia in regards to Ukraine and is now doing the same to China in regards to Taiwan. The US demonstrably doesn’t care about Taiwan’s future in any sense and has already begun preparing itself in terms of semiconductor production for a disruption in Taiwan Washington itself is attempting to create. The US will do everything in its power to realize this provocation by crossing red lines for China it knows cannot be ignored.

GLOBAL TIMES: Is there a trend that Washington is shifting from strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan to strategic clarity? Is this an adventurous move?

Berletic: The shift in Washington is one born out of desperation rather than adventurism. The US is out of time. China’s economic and military rise means that as each year goes by the US is less and less able to hold any sort of advantage over China should it provoke a conflict either directly or by proxy.

Empires are increasingly prone to fighting proxy wars in their final stages, because they simply do not possess the military might that was required to establish the empire in the first place. And they avoid direct confrontation for fear that they will be defeated; it’s much easier to spin and create separation from a proxy defeat than from a direct one. This foreign policy on the part of the empire’s foreign rulers is absolutely pro forma; history suggests that one should expect a domestic crackdown on regime critics to accompany the proxy wars that will almost certainly end in defeat.

DISCUSS ON SG

WW3 Mobilization Math

The Tree of Woe contemplates WW3 from a historical and statistical perspective, and reaches precisely the same conclusions I have.

Today, Russia spends 4.1% of its GDP on its military; America spends 3.5%; and China spends 2.1%. (Saudi Arabia, at 10.4%, and Israel at 5.2% are the two biggest spenders by ratio.) They are essentially on pre-war footing, demobilized.

To what extent could today’s superpowers match the mobilization of the WWII-era US and USSR?

According to the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), about one-third of military spending is on personnel. The remainder is on equipment and operations, both of which are highly demanding on the economy’s manufacturing and energy sectors. At the outbreak of World War II, manufacturing and energy accounted for approximately 30% of the American GDP. From that basis, America spent 40% of its GDP on war. As a first approximation, therefore, the maximum extent to which an economy can be mobilized for defense spending might be 133% of its manufacturing and energy GDP.

At present, manufacturing and energy make up 41% of China’s GDP, 30% of Russia’s GDP, and 20% of America’s GDP. Therefore, the maximum mobilization we would expect their economy to achieve would be 54% for China, 40% for Russia, and 27% for America.

Wait, you ask — Why can’t we just “build more factories?” Because it’s very difficult to rapidly grow manufacturing. The fastest large-scale improvement I have found in looking at data is a 3% increase in the share of manufacturing per year for a major economy. Achieving this during wartime, when manpower is diverted into uniform and infrastructure is under attack seems unlikely. A nation can rapidly convert its peacetime manufacturing to wartime manufacturing, but it cannot rapidly build manufacturing capability where none existed. I assume that maximum mobilization might increase by at most 1% per year from their present level.

Even when taking advantage of pre-existing industrial infrastructure, mobilization is never instantaneous. In its best year, the US was able to mobilize from 10% to 35% (1941 to 1942), and the USSR was able to mobilize from 20% to 55% (1942 to 1943). That suggests the absolute best possible mobilization is a 3.5 increase annually. It’s not clear to me that any of today’s great powers could match those, due to the vastly increased complexity and fragility of our supply chains. Therefore I assume that actual mobilization can at most double yearly, until the maximum mobilization is reached. Therefore I estimate the following:

In one year, America could achieve 7% mobilization; in two years, 15% mobilization; in three years, 30% mobilization; in four years 31%; in five years 32%.

In one year, China could achieve 5% mobilization; in two years, 10%; in three years 20%; in four years 40%; in five years 60%.

In one year, Russia could achieve 8% mobilization; in two years, 16%; in three years, 33%; in four years 44%; in five years 45%.

Now, in considering what mobilization as a percentage of GDP means, we need to be sure we are comparing apples to apples. A comparison of nominal GDP won’t do. At a minimum we need to use Purchasing Parity Power (PPP) adjusted GDP. But even that might understate the relative capabilities.

In a July 2017 white paper by the Heritage Foundation called “Putting Defense Spending in Context: Simple Comparisons are Inadequate,” the authors found:

For the equivalent investment in terms of U.S. dollars, China and Russia respectively have 1.7 times and 2.5 times the purchasing power within their domestic markets… Due to differences in purchasing power across economies, then, two countries could hypothetically field the same size and quality force at dramatically different spending levels.

For example, the Chinese Yuzhao-class landing platform dock (LPD) costs approximately $300 million to build and is most similar in terms of displacement and capability to the U.S. San Antonio-class LPD. However, the purchase price of the San Antonio-class LP exceeds $1.6 billion per unit…

In the March 2015 article “China’s Military and Growing Political Power,” the CEPR notes:

Using exchange rates comparisons significantly understates the Chinese military spending. A much more realistic assessment is obtained using PPP terms… China’s military budget was 18% of that of the US using market exchange rate comparisons, but 33% of the one of the US using PPP exchange rates…

The correct exchange rate with which to compare military spending would be a price or unit cost ratio of military services in each country… We use market exchange rates as a measure of relative military equipment costs facing each country… For relative operations costs, however, we use PPP exchange rates as a reasonable proxy… Finally, relative personnel costs are obtained using manufacturing wages, either gross or net of on-costs, since this represents the social opportunity cost of military employment.

This low relative military costs exchange rate implies a real value of China’s military spending of 40% of the US in real terms – larger than the level implied by using PPP rates of 33%, and much larger than the market exchange rate based figure of 18%.

Thus the best estimates are that in relative terms, we have to scale up China’s GDP by (40%/18%) = 220% in order to get an accurate picture of its potential mobilization. Unfortunately CEPR did not provide a similar ratio for Russia, but we can approximate it by multiplying Russia’s PPP multiplier (250% of nominal GDP) by (40%/33%) = 120%, for a total multiplier of 300%.

This is not a pretty picture if you like the Star-Spangled Banner. China’s military-effective GDP is already almost 200% the size of America’s military-effective GDP, and its effective military spending is 130% of our own! Meanwhile, Russia — currently mocked in the mainstream press as an economic weakling — is maintaining an effective military budget of 30% of America’s. Given that the US tries to maintain military power across the entire globe, while Russia only needs regional dominance, this should make us very uneasy about our relative capabilities.

It gets worse when we consider mobilization over time. Much, much worse. US deindustrialization has virtually crippled our large-scale mobilization, while China has become an Arsenal of Authoritarianism. Below I have tabulated each nation’s expected Mobilization Ratio and used that to calculate its Effective Military Spending (EMS) per year of World War Next.

The longer the war goes on, the worse it looks for America. In year one, America is able to spend 64% of China and Russia’s defense budget. By year five, America can only spend 26% of its rivals’ defense budgets.

The Tree of Woe’s detailed research backs up the previously observed historical analogy, which is to say that the USA and its European allies today are in much the same position that Germany and its allies were during WW2. Neither the superior quality of German and Japanese manufacturing nor the superior quality of German troops were sufficient to even begin to make up for the massive advantage in manpower and manufacturing enjoyed by the USA-USSR-UK alliance.

The Sino-Russian alliance alone dwarfs the manpower and manufacturing capacities of the NATO alliance, even if NATO’s prospective allies in South Korea, Japan, and Israel are included. And if the rest of the BRICSIA nations – who are already aligned with Russia in this global conflict – are included in the equation, the conclusion is even more heavily stacked against the Were-West.

The key is this: manufacturing capacity can be repurposed during wartime, but it cannot be constructed from scratch.

This mobilization math explains why the neocons and their pets presently presiding over the European nations have been so desperate to “win the war in Ukraine”. The Empire That Never Ended’s chances in the proxy war between Kiev and the Donbass republics were considerably better than its odds in either a regional war or a global war, although as we’ve seen, the proxy war has already been won by the two former Ukrainian republics.

DISCUSS ON SG

Doubling Down on Ukraine

The US military is now reportedly disarming its own forces in order to continue arming its proxy forces in Ukraine:

  • I’m getting word from team guys that they’re being forced to turn in their Carl Gs to send to Ukraine. This removes a very important item out of an operator’s kit.
  • Have your bravos prep your Carl Gs for turn in. I’ve fought back on it as long as I can. Grp CDR said tough shit. SECDEF is sending them to Ukraine.
  • Not just SF you didn’t hear it from me, but HIMARs systems slated for my regiment were sent there along with most of the ammo allotted to the regiment for training this year for both Tubes and Rockets. Apparently it’s also happened to the other Marine Corps Artillery Regiments.

On the down side, this is an abjectly stupid policy that cannot possibly end well. It will accomplish nothing but render the US military unable to perform its responsibilities. On the plus side, it looks like Russia will soon be in a position to force reasonable terms that the rest of the world can live with without ever having to invade Europe or engage directly with any NATO forces. This is an unusual form of attrition warfare that appears to be remarkably effective.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Judeo-Christian War

Emmet Sweeney observes that the root cause of the NATO-Russian war indicates that it is actually one of history’s rare religion-inspired wars:

During the Communist era, Christianity was suppressed in Russia and throughout the Soviet block. At its worst, under Lenin and Stalin, the Communist regime massacred millions of Christians. Victims were mainly Orthodox, but Christians of every denomination suffered. Even after the death of Stalin and into the 1980s religion continued to be persecuted. All children were required to attend lessons in atheism, during which Christianity and religious faith in general was mocked. By the end of Communism, the Orthodox Church was a small remnant of its former self under the Tsars, but that soon began to change. Hardship birthed a spiritual revival; by the mid-1990s the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other branches of Christianity, began to experience noticeable growth. It was not however until the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the presidency of Vladimir Putin, that this movement became really significant.

Putin had occupied a senior position in the Yeltsin administration, and he was no doubt viewed by the oligarchs, at that time the real rulers of Russia, as a safe pair of hands who could be relied upon to continue the policies which had allowed them to plunder the country for almost a decade. He was appointed Prime Minister on 9th August 1999 and, just four months later, in December, acting President of Russia, following the unexpected resignation of Boris Yeltsin. A presidential election on 20th March 2000 was easily won by Putin with 53% of the votes. One reason for Putin’s popularity was that he was seen as a strong leader during the Second Chechen War, which commenced on 7th August 1999, just two days before his appointment as Prime Minister. The war ended in April 2000, with Chechnya again part of the Russian Federation, a victory which enhanced Putin’s reputation as a strongman, willing and able to restore stability and enforce the law.

Over the next five years, Putin showed that the ruling plutocrats were very much deceived had they imagined him to be under their control and part of their team. On the contrary, the new president set about breaking their power. The next decade witenessed a series of legal cases and trials which left some of the oligarchs in prison and others forced to pay substantial compensation. Others, arguably the most criminal, fled the country and their assets were confiscated. The breaking of the oligarchs’ power, together with that of the “Russian mafia” which enforced their corrupt rule, began to restore some form of normality.

In parellel with his economic reforms, Putin oversaw a revival of the Russian Orthodox faith. In an act heavy with symbolic import, he made a visit to the great Orthodox monastic settlement of Mount Athos in Greece in 2001, just one year into his presidency. Although this attempt had to be aborted owing to a storm which grounded his helicopter, and a second attempt in 2004 similarly shelved when he had to return to Russia to deal with the Beslan School siege, he finally made it to the Holy Mountain in 2005. There he established a bond with the monks that transformed their community and impacted the lives of ordinary Russians. A major program of church-construction commenced, and the numbers attending church began to grow. Putin made it clear that he regarded Orthodoxy as Russia’s national religion and the Church was accorded a favored legal position. And such symbolic gestures were backed by new legislation which began to transform Russian society: the country’s abortion laws, hitherto some of the most liberal in the world, were tightened. In October 2011, the Russian Parliament passed a law restricting abortion to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with an exception up to 22 weeks if the pregnancy was the result of rape. The new law also made mandatory a waiting period of two to seven days before an abortion could be performed, to allow the woman to “reconsider her decision.”

During this period, the portrayal of Russia in the Western media moved from one of condescension to outright hostility. As early as 2005, scholars Ira Straus and Edward Lozansky remarked upon a pronounced negative coverage of Russia in the US media, contrasting negative media sentiment with largely positive sentiment of the American public and US government. As Russia displayed increasing signs of a Christian revival, so the media reporting in the West became increasingly hostile. Only rarely however did journalists openly attack Russia for its “Christianization”; normally, columnists, conscious of the fact that large numbers of people in the West continued to describe themselves as Christian, portrayed their anti-Russian commentary as a result of Russia’s “aggression,” “corruption,” or “lack of democracy.” All that however changed with the new abortion law of 2011. Now the attacks against Russia became explicitly ideological. The Russians, we were told, were oppressing women and turning their backs on “progress.”

It was not until 2013 however that the anti-Russian rhetoric went hyperbolic. In that year, the Russian parliament passed its so-called “Gay Propaganada” law. The bill, described as “Protecting Children from Information harmful to their Health and Development,” explicitly banned Gay Pride parades, as well as other forms of LGBT material, such as books and pamphlets, which attempted to normalize homosexuality and to influence children in their attitudes to homosexuality. In actual fact, since around 2006 many districts in Russia had been imposing their own local bans on such material, though these rules had no power outside their own jurisdiction. The bill, which was signed into law by Putin on June 30 2013, was extremely popular, and passed through the Russian Parliament unanimously, with just one abstention. But the impact upon the Western nomenklatura who form the gatekeepers of acceptable opinion, was immediate. Almost unanimously, Western media outlets now began to compare Putin with Adolf Hitler; he was a “thug,” a “fascist,” a “murderer.” Between bouts of seething rage, he became the butt of scathing satire. He was cast in the role of a caricature James Bond villain, routinely murdering and torturing those he held a grudge against. There is even evidence, admittedly somewhat circumstantial, that Western Intelligence bodies, such as the CIA and MI5, became actively involved in anti-Russian propaganda.

It is intriguing, although in hindsight comprehensible, that the real reason for the break between the ex-Soviet neocons and post-Soviet Russia was directly related to abortion and homosexuality instead of economics or, as I had always assumed, ex-Trotskyite bitterness over the loss of the Soviet Empire.

Now that we recognize the deeply satanic nature of what is called “judeochristianity” in the United States, a dark religion in which abortion, homosexuality, child-trafficking, and transgenderism are sacred rites, we can better understand why it is Putin’s embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church that has made him Global Enemy Number One of the US ruling elite.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Cost of Broken Neutrality

An influential Swiss businessman points out to the Swiss that their government’s abandonment of their historica neutrality means that they are responsible, in part, for the enemies on the other side that are killed in the war to which Switzerland is now a party.

In the Tages-Anzeiger I read about the tragic fate of bloody young Russian soldiers who died in the Ukraine war.

The title reads: “These teenagers died for Putin on the battlefield”. We suffer through words and pictures as hopeful eighteen- to twenty-year-old boys perished in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Or, as a data analysis shows, “who gives his life for the Kremlin ruler”.

Their names are Eduard, Maxim, Boris or Chan-Tsaj and they often come from poor areas. And they leave behind grieving parents, siblings, and sometimes even wives and children. We see how a deceased person is honored, for example, at a school memorial service – namely by a “lectern of the hero”. Or a funeral service with relatives and friends walking behind the coffin, military personnel in goose step and a band playing a funeral march.

It goes to the heart and hurts. That many young soldiers die is the truth. On both sides.

But only part of the truth – only half the truth. Because in view of the fallen Russian teenage soldiers, one should also ask the question: Why are they dead? Someone must have killed them.

And that brings us to the other side of the coin: As in any war, two parties are fighting. The young Russian soldiers were killed by Ukrainian soldiers. They, in turn, are armed by the West, mainly by the US, but also by the EU. Even with the support of neutral Switzerland, which broke Swiss neutrality and is thus a party to the war. It helps that bloody young Russian soldiers have to die. For example Eduard, Maxim, Boris or Chan-Tsaj. Why did Switzerland get involved here?

Needless to say, various pro-war media and government figures just about lost their little minds at Blocher’s observation of the undeniable.

Blocher’s piece was met with an angry response by Swiss media and politicians, who blasted him for not saying “who started the war.” “He doesn’t say a word about the fact that Ukraine was attacked by Russia and is defending itself, that Putin started the war,” the Switzerland Times wrote.

Swiss Watson news outlet called Blocher’s column “bizarre” and accused the former minister of “ignoring Russian war crimes.” According to the outlet, Blocher is currently working on an initiative that would compel Bern to not only refrain from participating in conflicts outside of its territory, but avoid imposing economic sanctions in such cases as well.

MP Philipp Matthias Bregy, the head of the Center party’s parliamentary group, accused Blocher of distorting history, and said the former minister himself told a “half-truth” by “ignoring the aggressor.”

Andrea Caroni, the vice president of the Swiss Liberals, claimed Blocher is playing into the hands of the Kremlin. “Putin does not need a propaganda minister anymore,” he told Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung. “Blocher does it for free.”

All of this is just meaningless rhetorical posturing thrown out to obfuscate the correct, and vital, point that Blocher has made. It doesn’t matter who started the war. It doesn’t matter who is winning or who is losing. It doesn’t matter who has, or has not, committed war crimes. It doesn’t matter who was the aggressor. Rightly or wrongly, it cannot be denied that Switzerland chose to take a side, that it is now a party to the war, and therefore, it is responsible – and it will be held responsible by its enemies – for what happens to the people and the military forces of those enemies.

There are no shortage of various aspects of the current situation that can be reasonably argued. Did the war start in 2014 or in 2022? Should the people of Crimea and Donbass be permitted democratic self-determination? Was the Crimean referendum legitimate and fair? Are the Ukranians actually winning the war or are they losing it? Are the Russians justified in launching attacks on what President Putin describes as the “decision centers” of the nations waging war against them? Should the Swiss government prioritize the well-being of the Swiss people or its promises to the EU member-states? All of these things can be debated by reasonable observers.

But what cannot be argued – although I expect it will be, to very little avail, in the future – is that the Swiss government broke its historic neutrality and made the uncharacteristic choice to side with the Ukro-NATO alliance in its war against Russia and its allies.

In doing so, Switzerland has foolishly risked far more than one cold and dark winter without Russian natural gas. It also risks its relationships with the vast majority of nations around the world who have clearly taken the side of Russia despite – or in some cases, because of – US pressure to join the NATO sanctions regime.

This is a world war. It will expand to Asia soon. It may expand to the Middle East and South America as well. Does Switzerland really wish to find itself at war with Brazil, China, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Russia? Do the Swiss people really wish to discover what will happen to their economy when it is sanctioned by all of those nations? Because that is exactly what will happen if they does not hasten to extricate themselves from the foolish foreign policy of their existing government.

At this point, the only intelligent move for the Swiss people is for them to pass a referendum restoring their historic neutrality and absolutely forbidding any future Swiss government from similarly putting the nation at risk of both military assault and economic isolation from the majority of the nations of the world by taking one side against another.

DISCUSS ON SG

Unrest in Europe

If even the wealthy and highly-prepared Swiss are anticipating shortage-related social unrest despite their world-class self-sufficiency, the social order across Europe and in the UK is unlikely to remain intact this winter.

Swiss people may revolt and resort to looting if the Alpine nation is hit by a severe energy crunch this winter, the police chief of one of its cantons told local media on Saturday.

Fredy Fassler, the head of the Security and Justice Department in the canton of St. Gallen, told German-language daily Blick that a blackout would have “far-reaching consequences.”

“Imagine, you can no longer withdraw money at the ATM, you can no longer pay with the card in the store or refuel your tank at the gas station. Heating stops working. It’s cold. Streets go dark. It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting,” he said, adding that the country’s authorities should take measures to prepare for such extreme scenarios…

Fassler’s comments come after Swiss authorities said last week that they may place restrictions on energy consumption this coming winter, signaling that “power shortages [are] among the most serious risks” for the landlocked country.

What the police chief doesn’t mention is that the main reason the Swiss would likely be rebelling against their government is that the country produces what should be sufficient electricity for its own winter needs, but it has promised to provide a fair amount of that electricity to the rest of Europe. And the Swiss people are very unlikely to accept the idea that they have to freeze in darkness so that their electricity can be sent to France or Germany due to the outdated ideals of a few globalist Europhiles.

Still, the fact that the Swiss authorities are already talking openly about the situation and at least beginning to try to address the problem is a positive sign. The silence of the EU countries on the subject does not bode quite so well. Of course, the solution for the Europeans is perfectly straightforward: stop participating in the neocon’s proxy war on Russia, end the idiotic sanctions regime, return everything that was seized, and apologize profusely to the Russian government.

Like it or not, no one can deny that it’s a better alternative than famine, freezing, and facing a popular revolt. If they don’t choose wisely, the over/under on EU regime change before this time next year is probably around five and could be considerably higher. And Italy and Hungary will not be the only nations to exit the EU.

Nationalism is inevitable. Nationalism is inevitable because globalist imperialism is constructed on false foundations that we now know to be both evil and impossible.

UPDATE: Notice that the Swiss are on the verge of panic on the basis of an expected 10-percent shortfall. I anticipate the shortfalls in other European nations will be at least 3x that.

The energy shortage is “imminent”, Roger Nordmann from the left-wing Social Democratic party told the SonntagsBlick. “The war in Ukraine is causing acute gas shortages. Half of the nuclear power plants in France are at a standstill. And the drought is putting a strain on hydropower. This combination of drastic factors means that Switzerland could be short of around 15% gas and up to 10% electricity in the coming winter,” he said.

So end your war on Russia, guys. You took sides and you lost. It’s over. This really isn’t that hard.

UPDATE: Now the NHS in the UK is also starting to foresee trouble. Perhaps if the British authorities would stop welcoming “refugees” and start repatriating them to their homelands, they’d possess sufficient resources to prevent a humanitarian crisis among their own people.

The UK could face a “humanitarian crisis” involving ill health, excess deaths and rising inequality if the government does not take urgent action on rising energy bills, the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation warned on Friday. The organization wrote to the chancellor of the exchequer, claiming that failing to act would add more pressure on health services that were already strained.

DISCUSS ON SG

Assassination in Moscow

The daughter of influential Russian intellectual Alexander Dugin, Darya Dugina, was killed tonight in what appears to have been a car bombing targeting her father.

Russian media are reporting that a car exploded in Moscow oblast; allegedly, Darya Dugina, Alexander Dugin’s daughter, was driving and that she died on the spot. No official confirmation at this point, also no information on the cause of the explosion.

Unofficial sources who knew her personally are confirming her death – still nothing from the family or official sources. According to sources close to the family, both Darya and her father were returning from the “Tradition” festival at the Pushkin museum in Bolshiye Vyazyomy & Alexander Dugin was supposed to be in the car, but went home in another one.

Some Russian media are reporting, citing local law enforcement sources, that the driver of the car has preliminarily been identified as a woman and that the current theory for the cause of the explosion is an IED.

This is bad. This is potentially VERY bad. It practically reeks of the CIA, and if the history of Soviet/Russian intelligence is any guide, it will serve as a prelude to a ruthless series of reprisals aimed at influential figures supporting the war against Russia.

UPDATE: The mainstream media is now reporting it as a car bombing, while also trying to portray the assassination attempt as somehow justified because the 30-year-old victim’s father, who is not even a government figure, was somehow responsible for the war in Ukraine.

Daughter of Ukraine war mastermind ‘is blown to pieces in Moscow car bomb’: Darya Dugin ‘assassinated in attack meant for her father Alexander’

UPDATE: Both the identification and the fact that it was not an accident have been officially confirmed.

A criminal case has been launched over the death of the daughter of prominent Russian philosopher and political commentator Aleksandr Dugin, the Investigative Committee announced on Sunday morning, adding that a car bomb is suspected as the cause. Darya Platonova Dugina, 30, has been officially confirmed as the victim of the explosion outside the Russian capital, the agency said in a statement.

Moscow car bombing victim officially identified, Russia Today, 21 August 2022

UPDATE: The Russian FSB intelligence service has identified the responsible parties.

The FSB reported on the identification of the customers and perpetrators of the murder of Daria Dugina. The murder was planned by the Ukrainian special services. The direct perpetrator of the murder was a citizen of Ukraine, Natalia Vovk, born in 1979, who left Russia for Estonia on August 21. She arrived in Russia on July 23. According to Russian sources, Natalia Vovk is now hiding in Estonia, an EU and NATO member state.

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Ammo Diet

You won’t lose weight, but you will lose territory:

Ukraine’s European backers may be about to put the country on an “ammunition diet”, an American military analyst has claimed in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel. Michael Kofman said these nations may already have reached their limit in terms of weapons supplies to Kiev.

In an article published on Tuesday, Kofman was quoted as saying it is not in the Ukrainian military’s best interests to bide its time, as the weather will soon begin to worsen, making any counteroffensive more difficult to pull off. On top of that, according to the US expert, Russian troops could use a hiatus to regroup and “solve some of their personnel problems.”

He noted that time would be on Kiev’s side if Western support was unlimited. However, that is likely not the case, and the Ukrainian leadership is well aware of this, Kofman suggested. He added that the “Ukrainians are apparently quite concerned about for how long they can expect further support, especially from the Europeans.”

The analyst went on to suggest that Kiev’s European backers may already have “given Ukraine most of the weapons they are ready to give.”

“The Ukrainians will likely go on a kind of ammunition diet,” Kofman predicted.

The analyst told journalists that, with this in mind, the leadership in Kiev may be concerned that Ukraine “could come under pressure to accept the stalemate” in the absence of any major success by the start of next year. Such a scenario “would be a defeat for Ukraine,” he noted.

Kofman concluded that Kiev’s ability to reclaim territories seized by Russia ultimately hinges on the extent of its Western support.

He also acknowledged “some small Russian successes in the southern part of Donbass, like in Peski,” adding, however, that the offensive is largely being carried out by the militaries of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), as well as by “Wagner mercenaries.”

When asked about the possibility of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim the southern city of Kherson, which is currently held by Russian forces, Kofman pointed out that while Kiev has a lot of personnel on paper, only a limited number of units are “really trained and equipped for that.” The American expert also argued that, simply because Ukrainian officials say they will launch the counteroffensive, it does not necessarily mean that it will actually materialize.

Translation: the neocons may be willing to fight to the last European, but even the European globalists are rapidly beginning to lose their enthusiasm for giving up their food, electricity, and fuel in return for absolutely nothing but more military defeat-by-proxy. It’s anecdotal, but I haven’t seen or heard a single person say anything positive about “helping Ukraine” in weeks now. The general consensus is that it’s over, so let’s all move on already.

Note that the Russians aren’t even using their own troops, for the most part. The whole special military operation has been a proxy war in which the Russian-supported Donbass militias have roundly defeated the NATO-supported Ukrainian military despite the latter being well-entrenched and lavishly funded. If Russia wants to go all the way to Dunkirk – they absolutely don’t, they don’t even want all of Ukraine – there is very little that NATO or the European nations or the USA could do to slow them down.

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