Tag: war

Remember Who Told You the Truth

The Saker has a reasonable request for his readers:

Please remember who told you the truth and who lied to you over the past months. There were many, many such liars, ranging from the official propaganda machine (aka the “free press”) to the “Putin has lost it all” emo-Marxists and assorted 6th columnists who, whether they understood it or not, served the purpose of the Empire’s PSYOPs. Also please remember that Andrei Martynov, Bernard and Gonzalo Lira not only spoke truthfully, but they were right and their detractors totally wrong. We all owe them an immense debt of gratitude!

Frankly, before my forced break, I was getting really frustrated trying to prove to misinformed or even fully brainwashed commentators that the official narrative (produced by the biggest strategic PSYOP in history) was a load of bull, based on lies and/or on a total “misunderstanding” (and I am being kind here!) of the real world outside the “mental Zone A”. Now most of that narrative has collapsed.

I am also confident that a month from today, things will be even more obvious than they are today.

I think it’s time to rehash that old bit of triumphalist doggerel.

Of all the words of screen and pen,

The saddest are these:

Vox was right again!

The current war was never about Ukraine, or Putin’s ego, or reconstructing the Soviet Union, or the tsardom of Peter the Great or Ivan the Terrible. It’s always been about the incessant encroachments of Clown World forcing Russia to choose between submission and war. And thanks to the genius and leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia found itself in a position to not only go to war, but do so with a very reasonable prospect of winning.

It will probably take at least six years to resolve World War III, and quite possibly an entire decade given the way in which it is more truly global than either of its two predecessors. But we can be optimistic that the world that has been remade by the conflict will turn out to be a better one than the one ruled by the wicked Empire of Lies.

Also, a piece of advice: stop paying attention to those who a) have lied to you and/or b) have been reliably wrong. Just stop!

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They Chose the Hard Way

The mentally- and historically-challenged “leaders” of the skinsuit “West” simply refuse to accept the reality that Russia is not surrounded by them, they are surrounded by the rest of the World. Which means the USA and its European satrapies have less of a chance of winning WWIII than Austria-Hungary had in WWI and Germany had in WWII.

Say, whose side are Austria and Germany on this time? Are you starting to notice a pattern here?

ITEM: IEA warns Europe to prepare for total shutdown of Russian gas exports.

ITEM: Lithuania expands Kaliningrad blockade.

ITEM: Putin announces deployment of S-500 air defense systems.

It’s the third item that is the most significant, because it indicates that Russia is now preparing to contest European air superiority with NATO. There is no need for S-500s, or even S-400s, for that matter, to defeat the air forces of Kiev. Now wven the Washington Post has finally figured out that the USA is already at war with Russia; one wonders how long it will take the intrepid reporters there to notice that China has been actively engaged in unrestricted warfare against the USA for the last 23 years.

Last month, leaks by U.S. officials revealed that the United States helped Ukraine to kill Russian generals and strike a Russian warship, and Mr. Biden signed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, a lot of which is for military assistance like weaponry and intelligence sharing. The bill, which Ms. Jayapal and Mr. DeFazio voted for, comes on top of billions of prior military support. The Biden administration also announced, this month, that it will send rocket systems to Ukraine that could theoretically strike inside Russian territory, and it reportedly has plans to sell the Ukrainian government four drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles.

Are we at war in Ukraine? If we swapped places — if Russian apparatchiks admitted helping to kill American generals or sink a U.S. Navy vessel — I doubt we’d find much ambiguity there. At the very least, what the United States is doing in Ukraine is not not war. If we have so far avoided calling it war and can continue to do so, maybe that’s only because we’ve become so uncertain of the meaning of the word.

The neocons and their servants can play all the legalistic word games they like, but the fun is going to end when a major US or UK city takes a direct hit from a Sarmat. It’s actions, not words, that define reality.

So, buckle up and enjoy the fireworks.

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Build Your Own Global Economic Order

China is embracing the ultimate build-your-own-platform challenge:

At present, Western sanctions against Russia have sparked multiple crises faced by the global economy, dealing a heavy blow to the international economic and financial order that emerging markets and developing countries rely on for survival. To a certain extent, these sanctions have made BRICS countries aware of the urgency of strengthening their cooperation and solidarity. As major emerging market economies with global influence, BRICS countries now share the common will of pushing forward with major reforms addressing the global payment system.

None of the BRICS countries has joined the Western economic sanctions against Russia. The reason why the BRICS countries apart from Russia all refused to join such sanctions is because they share the same antipathy to unilateral sanctions imposed by the West.

It is now crystal clear that Western powers safeguard their own hegemonic self-interests through sanctions, with no regard for the interests of emerging and developing economies at all and for bringing new uncertainties and risks to the world. Behind the sanctions is the dollar hegemony.

For decades, the dollar has been the most important reserve currency in the world and the most widely used currency for global economic and trade settlement. The outsized role of the dollar in the global payment system has not only offered the US a huge financial advantage in the world economic order but also enabled it to effectively use it as a weapon to punish its adversaries. Consequently, BRICS’ interactions in terms of financial, trade, investment and other areas have often been affected to varying degrees.

It should be pointed out that the purpose of establishing the BRICS was never aimed at forming a small clique targeting other parties. The reason why BRICS countries came together is because of a common need to address the injustice and unfairness in the existing international economic, financial and trade systems and to seek reform and adjustment in the global economic order to address the legitimate concerns of developing countries.

The New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank, is an important trial by the BRICS member countries to promote not only intra-bloc cooperation but also fairness in the international financial governance, even though, the NDB has had its share of challenges, like its payment mechanism being subject to the US’ dollar hegemony.

Indeed, the financial implications of US sanctions have increased the urgency of de-dollarization around the world. It is not just the BRICS, but also many other developing economies that realize the needs to reduce the role of the dollar in global payments. In bilateral settings, discussions about exploring new currencies for trade settlement are becoming increasingly popular and common, an indication that the US’ abuse of its financial power has fueled the trend for de-dollarization.

Therefore, one of the main questions facing the BRICS is how to further integrate these needs among various countries by increasing new currency settlement and building new, safer payment systems, among others.

It is urgent for BRICS to push for fairer, safer global financial system, Global Times, 20 June 2022

This is the real basis for World War III. Neither the military might of the USA nor the financial might of the US dollar hegemony will suffice to maintain the current corrupt global economic order. No one trusts either the banks or the political leaders of the skinsuit “West” any longer; Russia correctly describes them as “agreement-incapable”, just to give one example.

The so-called “Great Reset” is an attempt to replace the existing structure without changing the leadership, and it has been rejected by all of the BRICS countries as well as approximately one-third of those who are its nominal slaves. Like Hitler in the bunker, the global imperialists will fight as long as they can convince or coerce others to die in their defense, but their fate is already sealed.

The BRICS nations are not the bad guys. To the contrary, it is all of the organizations that you have been taught to regard as sacrosanct, from the United States government to NATO, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the World Health Organization, that are the bad guys. This will become increasingly obvious to everyone over time.

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NATO Wants World War

That’s the only possible conclusion, which makes it obvious that the neocons – who have been banging the drums for war with Russia for years – are in full control of US, EU, and UK foreign policy

Vladimir Putin’s allies have threatened Lithuania after the NATO country blocked EU-sanctioned goods from reaching the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Moscow warned of ‘very tough actions’ against the country after deliveries of coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology were stopped from entering the Russian territory, fuelling fears of an escalation of the Ukraine war.

The Lithuanian chargé d’affaires in Moscow was told that unless cargo transit was resumed in the near future, Russia reserves the right to act to protect its national interests.

The Russian foreign ministry said: ‘We consider provocative measures of the Lithuanian side which violate Lithuania’s international legal obligations, primarily the 2002 Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the European Union on transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the Russian Federation, to be openly hostile.’

Loyalist senator Andrey Klimov warned it was ‘direct aggression against Russia, literally forcing us to immediately resort to proper self-defence’. The head of the parliamentary sovereignty protection commission, he vowed that Russia would solve the blockade ‘in ANY way we choose’.

Any direct Russian attack on alliance member state Lithuania would be seen as an act of war against NATO and could spark a world war.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the Lithuanian blockade: ‘This decision is really unprecedented. It’s a violation of everything.’ He warned: ‘We consider this illegal. The situation is more than serious… we need a serious in-depth analysis in order to work out our response.’

It appears the neocons are finally going to get the world war for which they have been agitating. However, I very much doubt it is going to go the way they planned for it to go, since they thought China was going to be on their side rather than the most powerful force against them.

Meanwhile, fresh from their defeat in Afghanistan, the British are gearing up for war in the other famous graveyard of empires:

Britain’s armed forces must be ready and willing to fight Russia in Europe, a former head of UK Special Forces warned today. General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, former director of Special Forces, said the UK must help Nato allies prevent giving Vladimir Putin ‘an opening’ to widen the war in Ukraine into a battle against the West.

The former senior officer’s intervention follows an extraordinary announcement by the new head of the British Army.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, who assumed overall command last week, warned soldiers at the weekend ‘we are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again’ as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rocks global stability.

Perhaps Sir Adrian Bradshaw should have a conversation with the Lithuanian allies about that.

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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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