Tag: perpetual war

There Are Only Downsides To Prolonging The War In Ukraine

Last week, President Joe Biden and a number of top American and European officials met in Normandy to attend a ceremony marking the eightieth anniversary of the D-day invasion. In a pair of speeches, Biden recounted the operation that he said marked the beginning of the “great crusade to liberate Europe from tyranny” before drawing a direct connection to where things stand with the war in Ukraine.

Biden called Russian president Vladamir Putin a tyrant who invaded Ukraine simply because he is “bent on domination.” Biden then renewed one of his favorite tropes, asserting that if Ukraine falls, its people will be subjugated, its neighbors will be in immediate danger, and all of Europe will be threatened by Putin’s aggressive ambitions.

But the West’s chosen depiction of Putin as a tyrant bent on conquering the entire European continent suffered its latest setback last month when it came out that the Russian president is interested in halting the fighting and negotiating a deal that recognizes the current battlefield lines.

Putin is showing this interest even though the Russian military is in a strong position that seems likely to get even stronger. Last year’s long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive was meant to drive Russian forces out of Ukraine. But since its launch last summer, Ukraine has lost more territory than it has gained. Recently, the Russians even launched a brand new incursion into territory around the northeastern city of Kharkiv—territory that had already been recaptured by the Ukrainians in late 2022.

Russia’s minefields, artillery, and punishing glide bombs have not only kept Ukrainian forces from advancing but left them struggling to hold their positions along the current front line. Meanwhile, Russia has significantly boosted war-related production far beyond anything we’re seeing from the West, which, while bad for the Russian economy in the long run, ensures the intensity of Russia’s bombing and shelling will not cease anytime soon.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government is facing a serious shortage of soldiers that no amount of foreign aid or equipment transfers can do anything to alleviate. Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that sought to boost conscription rates by making it easier for the government to find and identify draft-eligible men. But the problem persists, leading Ukrainian officials to tap into the country’s prison population, cut consular services to military-aged Ukrainian men living abroad, and forbid men who are dual citizens from leaving Ukraine. As the country’s supply of young men runs low, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has climbed to forty-three years old.

What makes Ukraine’s situation even more tragic is how easily it could have been avoided. One month after Russia invaded in early 2022, both sides reached an agreement where Russia would pull back to preinvasion boundaries and, in return, Ukraine would agree to not seek NATO membership.

The deal could have put an end to the fighting and handed Kyiv control of all the land Russia had just seized. But, according to senior negotiators on both sides and high-level mediators from the various countries facilitating the talks, officials from the United Kingdom and the United States convinced the Ukrainians to walk away from the deal and fight.

Keep reading

US-NATO Threats Ignore ‘Red Lines’ in Ukraine

Front lines are collapsing for the Ukrainian army, whole units surrendering. Top commanders are fired. Faced with complete disarray of the U.S.-NATO instigated war in Ukraine, U.S. militarists are doubling down.

According to the Ukrainian constitution, President Volodymir Zelensky’s term in office is over. But he remains in power by martial law. This has led Ukrainian workers to hold strikes and work stoppages. But this news is ignored in the Western media.

A national truckers’ work slowdown inside Ukraine moved traffic to a 5-mile-an hour crawl and halted grain exports based on national anger at the expanded draft mobilization made by Zelensky, now an unelected president. (yahoonews.com, May 18)

Ukraine’s combat units are so severely understaffed that the government would have to triple its mobilization in order to continue the current level of fighting, according to Eric Ciaramella, former U.S. National Intelligence Council official. The draft can’t fill the current gap, nor can even kidnapping men off the streets.Lockhart, PaulBest Price: $17.49Buy New $24.31(as of 05:02 UTC – Details)

U.S. Failure on Two Fronts

U.S. efforts to dismember Russia appear to have utterly failed. Economic sanctions, price caps, the protracted war on Russia’s border and tens of billions of dollars, along with hundreds of U.S. and other NATO member troops sent as trainers, plus mercenary contractors can’t hold the corrupt Ukrainian military machine together.

At the same time, on the world stage the one strategic ally of the U.S. in Western Asia, Israel, has utterly failed in its genocidal war on Gaza. Both setbacks mean that U.S. political dominance is being challenged in fundamental ways.

U.S. strategy toward Russia aimed to partition and dismember the country, destabilize the border and block China’s Belt and Road development plans in Central Asia.

U.S. strategists considered all these steps crucial in preventing People’s China from surpassing the U.S. economically. The opposite has happened. What imperialist strategists have warned about for decades and sought to prevent is now the reality.

China and Russia’s relations of intense cooperation and a merge of common interests is unfolding steadily. This was further cemented during the very warm state meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on May 16.

That means U.S.-NATO plans are in total disarray. Rather than reconsider their strategy, which has brought setbacks and defeats in Ukraine and for Israel in Gaza, this has led to an ominous escalation in U.S. military threats.

The threat to dangerously escalate the war in Ukraine arises from the plans to give Ukraine high-speed missiles and allow the Kyiv regime to use the weapons to strike inside Russia. This threat is not just from a single statement or one delivery of weapons.

The statements promoting strikes with the U.S.-supplied weapons to targets inside Russia are being made directly by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is a former prime minister of Norway, but acts as if he were a U.S. official.

Keep reading

Joe Biden’s Time Interview Should Set Off Alarms

On May 28, U.S. President Joe Biden gave an interview to Time. His delivery and content were concerning for a number of reasons. Biden, at times, seemed misinformed and detached from reality. Sometimes, he seemed off message; other times, he seemed convinced by his own talking points. But four answers he gave were especially alarming and deserve to be highlighted.

The first was Biden’s assertion that America is “the world power.” The truth of that claim can be debated, but making that claim is deaf to the changes taking place in the world. Much of the world is angry at the United States for substituting leadership in the global community of international law with the imposition of an inconsistent and hypocritical rules-based order.

If the United States is still the world power, then a multipolar world that includes a rapidly growing BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is closer and closer on its heels. Biden seems not to have noticed what his CIA director has: that the world is in one of “those times of transition that come along a couple of times a century. Today the United States still has a better hand to play than any of our rivals, but it is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical bloc. And our position at the head of the table isn’t guaranteed.”

In a disturbing defense of his claim, Biden said that “the reason why I cleared the intelligence so we can release the information we knew that [Putin] was going to attack, was to let the world know we were still in charge. We still know what’s going on.”

It is disturbing that Biden says that he released the intelligence, not to alert and protect Ukraine or to prevent war, but “to let the world know we were still in charge.” It is also disturbing that the United States had that intelligence, and knew Ukraine was about to be attacked, but did nothing to prevent it. Hawkishly, they could have massively armed Ukraine prior to the invasion. More rationally and responsibly, they could have seriously engaged Vladimir Putin on Russia’s December 2021 proposal on security guarantees and discussed a promise that Ukraine would not be invited into NATO. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko of Freie University in Berlin remarks that the United States failing to act on that intelligence in either of those ways “looks sort of strange, and of course very tragic for Ukraine.” It is disturbing that the U.S. impotently released the intelligence, not to prevent war and protect Ukraine, but to show the world that they are still “the world power.”

The second is Biden’s insistence that Putin has clearly stated his intention not to stop at Ukraine but to “reestablish the Soviet Union.” He pulled out a copy of Putin’s February 21, 2022 speech, repeatedly mocking his interviewers, “You probably haven’t read it.” But as Biden explains it to them, and summarizes it as saying “Ukraine is not a neighboring country” but “an inalienable part” of Russia, it begins to sound like Biden has not read the speech, which is highly critical of the Soviet Union.

Discussing the “critical” stage “the situation in Donbas has reached,” Putin references the closeness of the people of Donbas not to justify integrating or conquering them but to justify protecting them. If Biden has read the speech, it must have been a heavily redacted version. As Nicolai Petro, author of The Tragedy of Ukraine, pointed out to me, Biden selectively quotes from the speech while leaving much of contextual importance out.

Keep reading

Are There Saboteurs Operating In The United States?

“Preventing War is Much Better than Protesting War. Protesting war is too late.”

– Nhat Hanh

Is the United States sleepwalking its way into a hot war with Russia? Over the last three years the United States has provided over $175 billion in military assistance to the Ukraine1. This military assistance prolongs a war on Russia’s border which has killed over 50,000 Russian Soldiers2. Has Russia passively accepted this military assistance to its enemy on the battlefield or are they doing anything about this? Over the last three years there have been many explosions, train derailments, bridge collapses and other incidents within American infrastructure which point to an organized effort to disrupt American production and the export of important material overseas.

A Motive for Sabotage and Some Recent Examples

There is a rich history of the use of saboteurs to disrupt a nations ability to produce materials which support war. Prior to the U.S. entry into World War II the Germans inserted saboteurs in the United States to disrupt American transportation, manufacturing and electrical distribution systems3 in a clandestine operation code named Pastorious. Please don’t be fooled into believing that the dastardly Nazi’s are the only nation to employ these techniques. As another example, in Iran over the last two decades numerous nuclear scientists have been assassinated4 and the digital malware Stuxnet was utilized to retard the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons. The clandestine techniques of sabotage are widespread and often occur as a precursor to open warfare. It is only logical to believe that if a nation wants to prevent another nation from having a military advantage it would strike at those technological or logistic sites which provide this advantage. This technique has been used throughout history, and I suspect is occurring in our homeland today.

Over the last three years there have been numerous train derailments, fires and explosions at food production sites and factories which produce ammunition and other materials. Within the last month there have also been well publicized incidents on our riverways and ports that have disrupted transportation networks. Of interest these incidents are occurring in both the United States and in other NATO countries. Specifically, these incidents include a fire at the Scranton Pennsylvania ammunition plant on the 15th of April and a fire at another ammunition factory on the 17th of April in Monmouth England5. What is interesting is both these ammunition plants produce 155-millimeter howitzer rounds which are in great demand in the Ukraine. In mid-April 26 barges became unmoored and created havoc to shipping on the Ohio river6. Most recently another barge struck a bridge and caused a collapse of the bridge connecting Galveston and Pelican Island7.

Keep reading

Lindsey Graham on the Real Reason Behind Ukraine

What happened to the story that “Putin attacked Ukraine unprovoked, and Ukraine was just defending itself, etc”? Now, suddenly, the problem is the natural resources in Donbas, not Ukraine itself. The first victim in war is always the truth. These people have NEVER told the truth about any war EVER!!!!!!

I have stated before that there is a huge natural gas reserve under Crimea. All the Neocons are doing is constantly trying to conquer Russia and bankrupt it so they can invade, and it has been the same scenario constantly. Obama wanted to invade Syria, and Putin came to their aid. This was all about a pipeline they wanted to put through Syria to cut off Russian energy sales to Europe. The Neocons orchestrated the blowing up of Nord Stream. That undermined Germany and Europe – but as Victoria Nuland famously said, “Fuck the EU.”

The question of Palestinian reserves was confirmed back in 2019. I covered the gas reserves in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights in 2017 involving Genie Oil. Obama wanted to invade Syria all for pipelines. What the press reports never connects the dots. Obama was pushing for a pipeline through Syria to stop Russia from supplying energy to Europe. This has been a war against Russia for decades.

The Neocons after blowing up Nord Stream, promised to pay for a pipeline from Nigeria to Europe. When the Niger coup took place, that is why Victoria Nuland was on a plane to Niger. US taxpayers fund the Neocon dreams of war. We blow up Nord Stream and then pay for a pipeline from Nigeria.  The deal with Nigeria was that they had to be the first Digital Currency guinea pig, and the US taxpayer would fund a pipeline from them to Europe to cut off energy sales from Russia.

Now, Lindsey Graham has come out and admitted that the “resources” under Crimea are worth $10 to $12 trillion, and this is again to stop Russia from gaining that natural gas.

Keep reading

Nuclear War: Why we should be thinking about it now

Almost all of us living today have become conditioned to believe that nuclear war will not occur due to the concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD.

MAD, put simply, is the guarantee that one country will not use nuclear weapons against another country due to immediate nuclear retaliation and the destruction of both. Not to mention the nuclear winter that would occur and the annihilation of the human population. But what if MAD is obsolete and is no longer protecting us from nuclear war? I believe that to be true, but what does that mean to you and me?

Reconsideration of the reliability of MAD is particularly important at this moment in time. With the current geopolitical circumstances, we’re at a threat level equal to or greater than the Cuban missile crisis. The two most obvious threats emanate from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s intention to invade Taiwan. The situation is exacerbated by the provocation of the United States and its imperialistic and, frankly, arrogant foreign policy.

How have the factors changed that have made MAD obsolete? First, Russia and China have surpassed the Western world’s nuclear capabilities to such a degree that the United States and its NATO allies are no longer considered equals. With hypersonic missile capabilities that our enemies possess and we do not, we’re no longer able to “mutually assure” their destruction. A missile that can travel at speeds faster than 10,000 miles per hour is unstoppable. Our missile defense system is useless against hypersonic nuclear attack, and we’ve allowed our enemies to advance their missile defense system capabilities to well exceed what we possess.

Second, under the Clinton administration, the “fire on warning” protocol was changed. Prior to 1998, the U.S. nuclear response protocol was to fire on warning. The powers that be realized that it was no longer practical to fire on warning. The response took too long, and it put the world at risk over the likelihood that World War III might begin accidentally due to a false warning, which was occurring with some frequency. With the threat of hypersonic missiles, the fire on warning protocol is simply irrelevant. The time from launch to impact of a hypersonic missile launched from a Russian submarine targeting Washington is less than 30 seconds.

Third, the incompetence of our leadership and ineptitude of our military procurement program have created our extreme vulnerability. Generals who decide which weapon systems are funded leave the military and take high-paying positions with federal defense contractors. They essentially accept bribes from companies in exchange for purchasing their inferior products. The F-35 aircraft is a great example. Add to the broken procurement system the woke culture that’s being propagated and destroying our war-fighting capabilities.

With the Ukrainian debacle, Russia has been provoked to the point that Vladimir Putin has recently placed his nuclear forces on high alert. Putin has stated: “If someone decides to intervene in current events from the outside and creates unacceptable strategic threats for Russia, then they must know that our response, our retaliatory strikes, will be lightning fast, quick. We have the tools for this.”

The United States has been sending ever more threatening weaponry to Ukraine such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, a precision rocket weapon. The Ukrainians have not only begun to fire these weapons at Russian targets, but also have been accused of firing artillery at the largest nuclear energy power plant in all of Europe, located in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. At what point does Russia act on Putin’s threat and go nuclear?

Russia has now completely allied with China. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan resulted in China instigating war games in the Taiwan Strait, and the political change within China, where power has been taken from the State Council and given to the Central Military Commission, is a clear move to a war footing.

Keep reading

Houthis claim missile attack on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in Red Sea; DoD says attack never happened

There is conflicting information out there about what happened or did not happen in the Red Sea pertaining to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, also known as “Ike.”

The Houthis in Yemen say they successfully conducted a missile attack on the nuclear-powered carrier while the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) says no such attack happened.

After the Houthis claimed credit for the attack, an unnamed DoD official reportedly told Politico‘s Lara Seligman that this is “false information,” adding that “there was no hit on the Ike or any attacks in its vicinity.”

The Houthis, meanwhile, say that the attack with both cruise and ballistic missiles did, in fact, happen in response to the American-British bombardment of Sanaa and Hodeidah, calling the hit “accurate and direct.”

Both Reuters and Al Jazeera reported that the attack happened, citing Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree who issued a televised statement about the alleged attack.

An English translation of a tweet from Saree’s X account explains how the alleged attack was a response to “American-British aggression in support of the Zionist enemy, which caused 58 martyrs and wounded, to dissuade our dear people and the Armed Forces from their position of support for the oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

Keep reading

America’s Space Infrastructure: So Vulnerable It Destabilizes Geopolitics

No one would die directly from an attack on satellites, and no one cries over melted plastic and copper. Yet as American and Chinese reliance on their space-based satellite constellations increases, so will the incentive for either side to target and strike the other sides early in a conflict. This incentive to strike first—a “Pearl Harbor” in space—could be so destabilizing as to precipitate a war that neither state wants but cannot avoid. 

The United States needs a space infrastructure that is both resilient and redundant enough to survive a Chinese first strike. That is, the satellite constellation infrastructure that the United States uses for its military and commercial needs must still be functional even if the Chinese were to attack the system and attempt to destroy it. Currently, the brittleness of our satellite constellation is such that any concerted effort by an adversary would render the American satellite constellation useless for military purposes. The satellite infrastructure must be resilient to non-kinetic counterspace weapons like electronic jamming and laser blinding, but also to kinetic anti-satellite missiles or even the deployment of a nuclear weapon. 

The modern U.S. military is dependent on satellites for global positioning system (GPS); communications; sensing and targeting of enemy assets; and even the movement of American ships and planes across the planet. .  Put another way, the U.S. military would be hard pressed to conduct successful operations without access to it. Modern aircraft and navy vessels rely on GPS to traverse the world’s oceans and skies; the military relies on satellites for open and secure communications; and intelligence and surveillance satellites enable America’s precision-guided munitions to hit targets with accuracy. Increasingly, China and Russia are similarly reliant on satellite constellations for military purposes. 

Given the reliance of the United States, China, and Russia on their respective satellite infrastructure, there are first-mover advantages to an adversary who strikes first in space. That is, the more an actor is reliant upon satellite constellations in prosecuting a war, the more incentives their adversaries have to preemptively destroy or degrade said constellations. Indeed, the benefits of striking first are so great—and the consequences of being the target of such a strike are so grave—that brittleness in space incentivizes first strikes and is therefore destabilizing.

Strategic stability generally refers to a condition in which neither actor is incentivized to strike first—and both would pay significant costs for doing so. In the Cold War, neither side carried out a decapitation strike on the other, due in part because of the knowledge that such a strike would not provide meaningful benefit and would trigger a retaliation (a devastating nuclear second strike) the consequences of which would far outstrip any marginal benefit incurred in even a “successful” first strike.

Keep reading

Europe preparing for war as Ukraine conflict looms large, report finds

More than three-fourths of European countries spent more on their militaries in 2023, a report has found, as the world’s most peaceful region fears a possible expansion of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The 18th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), warned on Tuesday the world was at a crossroads, with the global number of conflicts reaching 56, the most since World War II.

Ninety-seven countries deteriorated in peacefulness in 2024, more than any year since the inception of the report in 2008.

Wars have also become more international, with 92 countries involved in conflicts outside their borders, the most since the GPI began recording peacefulness.

“Over the past decade, peacefulness has declined in nine out of the 10 years. We are witnessing a record number of conflicts, a rise in militarisation, and heightened international strategic competition,” said Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of IEP.

“It is imperative for governments and businesses worldwide to intensify their efforts to resolve the many minor conflicts before they escalate into larger crises,” Killelea said.

While Europe is home to seven of the 10 most peaceful countries, 23 out of 36 countries in the region have become less peaceful.

Keep reading

German government approves new plans for war, including food rationing and compulsory conscription

Germany is preparing for an all-out war in Europe with Russia, finalizing a new 67-page defense plan full of strict wartime measures that make it clear they are expecting the worst.

The new measures come in the form of updates to Germany’s Framework Directive for Overall Defense of 1989, which outlines the measures the country will take should a war break out. The new defense framework was approved by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet this week and replaces the previous guidelines.

Not surprisingly, a return to compulsory conscription features prominently in their plans, which means that citizens could be drafted at any time during the war. This compulsory military service was abandoned by the country in 2011, but Germany is now one of several nations that is talking about bringing it back.

In addition to the military draft, the guidelines state that skilled citizens over the age of 18 could be forced to work in some types of civilian jobs that would be deemed useful in wartime, such as nursing or baking bread. Meanwhile, hospitals must prepare to take on a significant influx of patients.

In a statement about the new guidelines, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: “As a result of Russian aggression, we have a completely changed security situation in Europe.”

Parts of Germany could be fully evacuated, and the country will advise its citizens to shelter in “solid-construction” basements, subway stations and underground garages for protection during air raids; they note that attacks could take place with “sometimes extremely short warning times.”

Keep reading