Tag: perpetual war

Ukraine, The War That Went Wrong

NATO support for the war in Ukraine, designed to degrade the Russian military and drive Vladimir Putin from power, is not going according to plan. The new sophisticated military hardware won’t help…

Empires in terminal decline leap from one military fiasco to the next. The war in Ukraine, another bungled attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony, fits this pattern. The danger is that the more dire things look, the more the U.S. will escalate the conflict, potentially provoking open confrontation with Russia. If Russia carries out retaliatory attacks on supply and training bases in neighboring NATO countries, or uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will almost certainly respond by attacking Russian forces. We will have ignited World War III, which could result in a nuclear holocaust.

U.S. military support for Ukraine began with the basics — ammunition and assault weapons. The Biden administration, however, soon crossed several self-imposed red lines to provide a tidal wave of lethal war machinery: Stinger anti-aircraft systems; Javelin anti-armor systems; M777 towed Howitzers; 122mm GRAD rockets; M142 multiple rocket launchers, or HIMARS; Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; Patriot air defense batteries; National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); M113 Armored Personnel Carriers; and now 31 M1 Abrams, as part of a new $400 million package. These tanks will be supplemented by 14 German Leopard 2A6 tanks, 14 British Challenger 2 tanks, as well as tanks from other NATO members, including Poland. Next on the list are armor-piercing depleted uranium (DU) ammunition and F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.

Since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, Congress has approved more than $113 billion in aid to Ukraine and allied nations supporting the war in Ukraine. Three-fifths of this aid, $67 billion, has been allocated for military expenditures. There are 28 countries transferring weapons to Ukraine. All of them, with the exception of Australia, Canada and the U.S., are in Europe. 

The rapid upgrade of sophisticated military hardware and aid provided to Ukraine is not a good sign for the NATO alliance. It takes many months, if not years, of training to operate and coordinate these weapons systems. Tank battles — I was in the last major tank battle outside Kuwait City during the first Gulf war as a reporter — are highly choreographed and complex operations. Armor must work in close concert with air power, warships, infantry and artillery batteries. It will be many, many months, if not years, before Ukrainian forces receive adequate training to operate this equipment and coordinate the diverse components of a modern battlefield. Indeed, the U.S. never succeeded in training the Iraqi and Afghan armies in combined arms maneuver warfare, despite two decades of occupation.

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Top US Official Hails Nord Stream 2 Sabotage In Senate Testimony

Does this constitute a fresh official US confession of sorts?

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland during a Thursday Senate hearing positively celebrated the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines, due to a sabotage attack on September 26 of last year. Below she’s seen in live Senate testimony video  praising the act which turned NS2 into a “hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” – in her words…

In the hearing, Nuland was questioned by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) over the issue of past sanctions against Nord Stream 2 and how effective she thinks they would have been. Nuland and Cruz were having an exchange based on hypotheticals in hindsight. 

That’s when she made the surprise comments, offering the following perspective… “Like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea,” Nuland said with a partial grin on her face.

“Gratified” is not a word we’ve heard too often coming out of Western officials to describe their perspective on the sabotage event – certainly not in Europe at least.

Nuland went on to claim, however, that she had previously been pressing hard to “prevent this war” in negotiations with Russia.

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Why Is The Mainstream Media Being So Quiet About The Military Strikes That Are Causing Massive Explosions In Iran?

Are you ready for a catastrophic war in the Middle East?  When I heard that there had been multiple military strikes inside Iran on Saturday night, I went to several prominent mainstream news websites looking for confirmation.  But I didn’t see any stories about these strikes on any of their front pages.  That puzzled me, because social media is filled with videos of these attacks, and there are lots of stories about them in Middle-Eastern news sources.  So why is the mainstream media here in the United States choosing to be so quiet about what is happening inside Iran?

I did find a Fox News story about the drone strike that happened in Isfahan, but that story appears to promote the Iranian view that it really wasn’t a big deal at all…

A loud blast has been reported at an Iranian military facility and officials in the country say it was the result of an “unsuccessful” drone attack.

“One of (the drones) was hit by the … air defense and the other two were caught in defense traps and blew up. Fortunately, this unsuccessful attack did not cause any loss of life and caused minor damage to the workshop’s roof,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.

If you just read that story, you would be tempted to believe that this attack was a complete nothingburger.

Of course this is what the Iranians often do when they are attacked.  They act tough and deny that any serious damage has been done.

But the Jerusalem Post is reporting that the strike on Isfahan was actually “a tremendous success”…

Despite Iranian claims, the drone attack on Iran at Isfahan was a tremendous success, according to a mix of Western intelligence sources and foreign sources, The Jerusalem Post initially reported on Sunday morning.

According to the Post, the facility that was hit is involved in “developing advanced weapons”, and “four large explosions” were recorded…

There were four large explosions at the military industry factory, documented on social media, against a facility developing advanced weapons. The damage goes far beyond the “minor roof damage” that the Islamic Republic claimed earlier Sunday and has falsely claimed in past incidents.

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Untold Reality of Russia’s Wagner Group In Bakhmut Ukraine, First Hand Account, What the Media Won’t Tell You

If you have a spare hour I want to encourage you to watch the following video. It is a conversation between two former members of the Australian Army. Willy OAM, the guy with the red beard, is interviewing a former mate who is on the ground fighting for Ukraine. The unnamed Aussie is a bit schizophrenic in his assessment of the situation. Based on his analysis, I believe he was a senior NCO in the Australian Army because he is very focused on the tactical level but clearly has no clue about the broader geo-strategic picture (that is not an insult to enlisted guys).

He concedes, albeit reluctantly, that Ukraine is losing and is suffering massive casualties. He reports that one Ukrainian brigade (a unit of 5000 men) suffered 80% casualties in recent weeks. He admits that the Wagner Group is not suffering major casualties and are fighting very smart and are well-equipped. Yet, in the next breath, he insists Russia is hemorrhaging troops because that he is what he is hearing from Ukrainian sources. He repeats the Western propaganda meme that Russian is sending untrained conscripts to the front but then, based on his personal observation, bluntly states that Ukraine is sending 60 year old, untrained, ill-equipped conscripts (i.e., guys grabbed off the street) into the meat grinder.

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Air Force general predicts U.S. will be at war with China in 2025

Afour-star Air Force general told officers that he predicts the United States will be at war with China in 2025. 

“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me [we’ll] fight in 2025,” Gen. Mike Minihan, Air Mobility Command leader, wrote Friday in a memo obtained by NBC News.

Both Taiwan and the U.S. have presidential elections in 2024. Minihan predicted in the memo that America will be “distracted” and Chinese President Xi Jinping will seize the opportunity to invade Taiwan.

The Air Mobility Command says it has approximately 110,000 personnel who focus on “Airlift, Air Refueling, Air Mobility Support and Aeromedical Evacuation.”

In the memo to all Air Mobility Command air wing commanders and other Air Force operational commanders, Minihan directed all AMC personnel next month to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.” 

He also ordered all personnel to update their emergency contact information and records.

A Defense Department official said the general’s “comments are not representative of the department’s view on China.”

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The Mass Media Used To Publish Perspectives On Ukraine That They Would Never Publish Today

The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn.

I bring this up because the perspectives you’ll find in that article are jarring in how severely they deviate from anything you’ll see published in the mainstream press about Ukraine in 2023. It places the brunt of the blame for the violence and tensions in that nation at that time squarely at Washington’s feet, opening with a warning that the “threat of war in Ukraine is growing” and saying there’s an “unelected government in Kiev,” and it only gets naughtier from there.

I strongly recommend reading the article in full if you want some perspective in just how dramatically the mass media has clamped down on dissenting ideas about Ukraine and Russia, beginning with the frenzied stoking of Russia hysteria in 2016 and exploding exponentially with the Russian invasion last year. I doubt there’s a single paragraph which could get published in any mainstream outlet in the media environment of today.

Milne writes about how “the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover,” and about “the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime.” He says that “Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia,” and that “you don’t hear much about the Ukrainian government’s veneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government’s ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down.” He says that “after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west’s attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure.”

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Warmongers 101 – Who Is the Institute for the Study of War?

Attention Students! Before we begin, that’s not a typographical error in the title.

Whenever one investigates a “think tank,” “study group,” “not-for-profit,” “non-governmental organization,” or other such meddlesome troublemakers it needs to start with who rather than what.

The people involved make the difference betwixt a mere charity and a nefarious character.

As will be seen below, the folks at The “Institute” For The Study Of War are about as sinister as they get.

Why Does the Establishment Sound Familiar…

If you have any interest in the Ukraine Conflict at all – or even if you are actively trying to avoid news on the topic – your senses have no doubt been assailed by a report, recommendation or review of matters breathlessly covered by the local news…brought helpfully to you courtesy of The Institute For The Study Of War.

This collective, which nobody – including most policy experts – had ever heard of until a few months ago now seems to be everywhere throughout every day.

Since the moniker sounds so very anodyne the casual viewer receiving these nightly (or hourly) dispatches might be lulled into believing the “Institute” is some leafy green Collegiate establishment where doddering old bespeckled professors hum and haw their way through lectures while wearing dusky black robes a la Mr. Chips.

Unfortunately, no.

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US To Increase Artillery Ammunition Production By 500% For Ukraine

The Pentagon is planning to boost its production of artillery ammunition by 500% over the next two years as the US is depleting its military stockpiles by sending millions of shells to Ukraine, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the US has pledged to send Ukraine over one million 155mm artillery shells. Before the US Army began efforts to increase production, it produced 14,400 155mm shells a month, but under the new plans, the number could reach over 90,000 each month.

According to the Times, an Army report said the plan will involve expanding factories and bringing in new producers in an effort described as “the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years” of the US military-industrial complex.

The unguided 155mm shells that are fired out of Howitzers include parts produced by several arms manufacturers, including steel bodies made by General Dynamics and explosives mixed by BAE Systems. American Ordnance pours the explosives into the bodies, and several other contractors produce the fuzes that are screwed into the shells.

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Northrop Grumman expects strong 2023 revenue as weapon demand surges

U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp NOC.N on Thursday forecast full-year sales above Wall Street estimates, as it benefits from strong demand for weapons from countries ramping up their defense spend.

The United States and its allies have been buying more arms and ammunitions and supporting Ukraine with billions of dollar in military aid after Russia invaded the country last year.

During the quarter, Northrop rolled out its new B-21 “Raider” jet, the first of a new fleet of long-range stealth nuclear bombers for the United States Air Force.

“We’re raising our sales outlook for 2023 and expect to deliver strong multi-year cash flow growth,” Northrop Grumman Chief Executive Kathy Warden said.

The Falls Church, Virginia-based company expects 2023 sales between $38 billion and $38.4 billion, ahead of the average analyst estimate of $37.86 billion, and an adjusted profit of $21.85 to $22.45 per share, compared with estimates of $22.30, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Meanwhile, rivals General Dynamics CorpGD.N and Lockheed Martin CorpLMT.N forecast their annual profit below estimates, as the industry grapples with labor and supply shortages.

Northrop, which produces the fuselage for the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, posted sales of about $10.03 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, ahead of analysts’ average estimate of $9.66 billion.

Sales in its space systems unit, which makes satellites and payloads, jumped 23% to $3.28 billion, helped by higher investments towards space exploration projects.

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Let the Weapons Flow and the Body Count Grow

Two articles I read Monday are typical of polarized, indeed antithetical, views on the Russia-Ukraine War.

At the British Guardian, Simon Tisdall says this is Europe’s moment to step up and support Ukraine in a righteous war against Putin. He concludes, with passion:

Zelenskiy is right. Risk-averse Nato has been too slow and too cautious from the start. To outpace tyranny, Europe must fight – and fight to win. Our common future depends on it.

Putin, the tyrant, must be stopped in Ukraine, or Poland and Germany could be next. Fighting to win means that Ukraine must be given not only hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks but also combat jets. The combination of tanks, jets, and related ancillary equipment will enable Ukraine to drive Russian forces out of the country in a quasi-Blitzkrieg operation. Victory to the West!Why not talks instead of tanks?

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