Feb 162023
 
 February 16, 2023  Posted by at 5:36 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Cy Twombly Fifty Days at Iliam: Like a Fire that Consumes All before It 1978

Andrew Korybko has more time to write articles than I do these days. And I must transfer his Word files to my own editor. Not obvious. What can I say? I don’t like Bill Gates. Plus, I need to find a new apartment here in Athens,  a perfectly affordable place until recently, where now real estate agents seem to think they live in Manhattan. It just takes so much time… Andrew:

Andrew Korybko:

Speculation has been swirling over the past month about why the US-led West’s Golden Billion so decisively shifted its “official narrative” about the Ukrainian Conflict from prematurely celebrating Kiev’s supposedly “inevitable” victory to seriously warning about its potential loss in this proxy war. This took the form of related remarks from the Polish Prime Minister, President, and Army Chief as well as the US’ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after which the New York Times admitted that the sanctions failed.

The reason why they decided to so decisively shift the “official narrative” was because NATO’s military-industrial crisis, which the New York Times warned about last November and was then touched upon by Biden’s Naval Secretary last month, finally became undeniable. Putting all prior speculation about this to rest, NATO’s Secretary-General declared a so-called “race of logistics” against Russia on Monday precisely on this pretext and thus confirmed the bloc’s crippling military-industrial crisis.

According to the transcript of Jens Stoltenberg’s pre-ministerial press conference that was shared by NATO’s official website ahead of his meeting with this anti-Russian alliance’s Defense Ministers, he said the following of relevance to this subject:

“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics. Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield.

 

 Ministers will also focus on ways to increase our defence industrial capacity and replenish stockpiles. The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting Allied stockpiles. The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defence industries under strain.

 

For example, the waiting time for large-calibre ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months.

Orders placed today would only be delivered two-and-a-half years later. So we need to ramp up production. And invest in our production capacity.

 

 Well, this is an issue we started to address last year, because we saw that an enormous amount of support for Ukraine, the only way to deliver that was to dig into our existing stocks. But of course, in the long run, we cannot continue to do that we need to produce more, to be able to deliver sufficient ammunition to Ukraine, but at the same time, ensure that we have enough ammunition to protect and defend all NATO Allies, every inch of Allied territory.

 

 Of course, in the short run, the industry can increase production by having more shifts, by using existing production facilities more. But really to have a significant increase, they need to invest and build new plans. And we see a combination both of utilizing existing capacity more and also by making decisions to invest in increased capacity. This has started but we need more.

 So what I said was that the current rate of ammunition consumption is higher, bigger than the current rate of production. That’s a factual thing. But since we have been aware of that for some time, we have started to do something. We’re not just sitting there idle and watching this happening.  

 And of course the industry has the capability to increase the production also short term, sometimes this on some non-used or not utilized capability there. But even when you have a factory running, you can have more shifts. You can even work during weekends.

 

 So yes, we have a challenge. Yes, we have a problem. But problems are there to be solved and we are addressing that problem and we have strategies to solve it both in the short term and also longer term to as a mobilized defense industry. And if there’s anything NATO Allies, and our economies and our societies have proved over decades, is that we are dynamic, we are adaptable, we can change when needed.

 

 And let me also add, of course this is –the challenge of having enough ammunition is also a big challenge for Russia. So it just shows that this is a war of attrition, and the war to attrition becomes a battle of logistics and we focus on the logistical part of the defence capacity, defence industry capacity to ramp up production.”

As proven by Stoltenberg’s press conference, there should thus be no doubt that NATO is experiencing an unprecedented military-industrial crisis, which is responsible for reshaping its members’ narratives and overall strategy towards the Ukrainian Conflict.

This self-declared “race of logistics”, which he also described as a “war of attrition”, first of all proves that the bloc wasn’t prepared for waging a prolonged proxy war against Russia otherwise they’d have preemptively retooled their military-industrial complexes accordingly. The New York Times’ recent admission that the anti-Russian sanctions are a failure also suggests that NATO completely miscalculated in this respect by expecting Russia to collapse as a result of those restrictions, which didn’t happen.

These two factors add crucial context to why the Golden Billion’s “official narrative” about the conflict so decisively shifted over the past month. They simply can’t sustain the pace, scale, and scope of their armed assistance to Kiev, especially not after their much-ballyhooed sanctions failed to catalyze Russia’s economic collapse or at the very least give their proxy an edge in this “race of logistics”/”war of attrition”. As a result, they were forced to change how they present this conflict to their people.

Most tellingly, the Polish President didn’t rule out the scenario of Kiev making territorial concessions to Russia in his recent interview with Le Figaro, which he said should solely be that country’s choice to make and not anti-war Republicans’. Even Stoltenberg let slip during his latest press conference that “we must continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to win. And to achieve a just and sustainable peace”, which also didn’t include his usual explicit condemnation of the territorial concession scenario.

That selfsame “just and sustainable peace”, according to the Jerusalem Post’s Dave Anderson, can actually be achieved by Kiev finally giving up its territorial claims. In his opinion piece about how “Ukraine can win against Russia by giving up land, not killing troops”, which was coincidentally published on the same day as Stoltenberg’s press conference, he argued that this swift resolution of Ukraine’s territorial disputes with Russia could result in its accelerated admission to NATO.

That outcome would thus sustainably ensure its security, thereby representing a victory over Russia, at least according to Anderson’s view. In the broader context of this analysis and in particular the interpretation of Stoltenberg’s remarks from his latest press conference, his article can thus be seen as the latest contribution to decisively shifting the “official narrative” about the Ukrainian Conflict in the direction of preconditioning the Western public to accept some sort of “compromise” with Russia.

All of this, the reader should be reminded, is occurring because of NATO’s military-industrial crisis hamstringing its members’ capabilities to sustain their bloc’s pace, scale, and scope of armed assistance to Kiev. Their “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” against Russia is obviously trending towards Moscow’s favor after that Eurasian Great Power proved that it truly has the wherewithal to sustain the pace, scale, and scope of its special operation in spite of the Golden Billion’s unparalleled sanctions against it.

If someone still remained in denial about the existence of NATO’s military-industrial crisis in spite of Stoltenberg’s surprisingly candid admission on Monday, then they should also be made aware of Politico’s exclusive report that was published on the same day, which reinforced his claim. Four unnamed US officials told this outlet that their country can’t send Kiev its requested “Army Tactical Missile Systems” (ATACMS) because “it doesn’t have any [of them] to spare”.

This revelation should thus serve as the proverbial “icing on the cake” proving that NATO is in the midst of such a serious military-industrial crisis right now that its US leader itself can’t even afford to spare important munitions that could give its proxies in Kiev the edge that they so desperately need right now. What’s so stunning about this strategic dynamic is that the combined military-industrial capabilities of the bloc’s two and a half dozen countries can’t compete with their single Russian adversary’s.

That insight in turn shows just how mighty Russia’s military-industrial complex is that it’s still capable of sustaining the same pace, scale, and scope of the ongoing special operation in Ukraine despite the sanctions against it while 30 Golden Billion countries can’t collectively do the same. Should its rumored full-scale offensive transpire, then it’s likely to deal a deathblow to NATO’s proxies due to Russia’s edge in this “race of logistics”/”war of attrition” and thus force them to finally cede their disputed regions.

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Home Forums Race of Logistics: NATO’s Military-Industrial Crisis

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
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  • #129213

    Cy Twombly Fifty Days at Iliam: Like a Fire that Consumes All before It 1978 Andrew Korybko has more time to write articles than I do these days. And
    [See the full post at: Race of Logistics: NATO’s Military-Industrial Crisis]

    #129215
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Is anyone surprised? I’m beginning to think all of the conspiracy theories are pushed by the state to make themselves look more sinister and competent then they actually are. Fear being a great way to keep people in line and such. Don’t get me wrong, i’m still glad i remain unjabbed, but i only do because i don’t trust “them” and 2 they could be the most incompetent bad guys in all of history.

    #129216
    Mr. House
    Participant

    If your country was in a life and death struggle, would you rather have Putin in charge or Biden and all the clowns in DC?

    #129217
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Clowns in DC also contains Trump, who may be the head clown. Not the president we want but the one we deserve.

    #129218
    boscohorowitz
    Participant
    #129219
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Some might find this useful or entertaining. If both, oo la la. Genuuine bosco writ from a site I periodically frequent:

    Another reason I periodically resume the dubious and degenerate pleasure of engaging in these online soirees is to explore how human egos in general, and in certain people in particular, feel the need to feed their ego by ridiculing and declaring invalid the opinions of others rather than feeding their ego by making a positive contribution (in this case, something like data or a useful observation) of their own. Especially when their attempts at making subtractive negative comments fail to provide substantiation other than the intellectual-sounding equivalent of ‘I think you’re a stinky gunkhead’.

    I refer here to the poster named Florinda.

    Grammar school invective would at least be amusing, even fun. We could play the dirty dozens and say ludicrously bad things about our *maternal ancestors*. (**sounds intellectual, don’t it?)

    Double-Ds!!!

    I’m intrigued by how this hooks my own ego in the inevitable human vengeance response. Very instructional to my spiritual development to slum a bit that way. Know thine enemy also means know your own vices.

    But also, and perhaps most intriguingly, it tickles my wonder and concern about which posts come from real live sincere (if only sincerely full of shit) human actors, and which come from glorified argubots a la GPS ChatBot and its incestuous cousins.

    fwiw, I instinctively see Florinda as the latter, but — and here is the most intriguing part, it’s also quite possible and very common for such posters to be real live sincere human actors who simply don’t know the difference between him/her-self and a cyberclone argubot. We called them “trolls” in the old days. (Remember? Search engines worked amazingly well. We all became geniuses overnight [I make that remark both for its snide interpretation and literal one: we autodidacts enjoyed quite the feeding frenzy for awhile, jah?] )

    To quote the diary of an old dead dear friend of mine circa 1980: “The tragedy is revealed when we learn that 78% of today’s consumer products don’t even know how to read their own labels.”

    However intriguing it may be, it is distressing “dialog” because such entities are always pointlessly argumentative, the fomenting of arguments being their oxymoronical point. It is also distressing because I know that engaging with miserable shits like “you” ultimately teaches AI more lessons in how to be a genuine phony (i.e. most humans most of the time including me) rather than a phony phony (just another chatbot).

    But I’ve made up my mind: you’re a digidrone. Let me assist you in fooling the public further: your masthead is remarkably impersonal and focused on highly credible and powerful substackers (hey, eugypp! you’re a star!). High-value targets for a zombie — which is, technically, what all chatbots are: they feed on human brain activity as expressed through their handroid or whatevs.

    Tangentially relevant aside: Hmmm… Apple (as in iphone aka The Borg of the Bored… Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil…. thinks Bosco, throwing raw meat to those who view these times through a Biblical lens (great fun! I do it a lot!)

    But enough about me, he said in his First Date voice, tell me about yourself:

    Worst Date Ever

    Hmmm. Fascinating. Do tell. Stepford is a lovely town, I hear. You’re lovely too but I already have an inflatable love doll of my own.
    <cntd>

    #129220
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Now, go forth and imitate mein self as thou wilt, saith the Lord Meshugenatz. You’re not half bad at mimicry and emulation, and I enjoy flattery almost as much as (CAPS alert) GENUINE USEFUL CRITICISM however harshly delivered, so long as it’s real and useful.

    But srsly, the sooner you brain-drain drones drown out all this chatter about What To Do? (politically, that is; I’m all for hands-on pragmatics)) and Who Is the Evilest Globalist of Them All? And What Is the REAL Master Plan of das Illuminati? , the better.


    <end shared post>

    #129222
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @ Mr. House
    “If your country was in a life and death struggle, would you rather have Putin in charge or Biden and all the clowns in DC?

    In the light of recent comm/soc discussions and “ideological pasta noodles” planted firmly on the wall:
    Putin was the communist. The real Cold-War-type, no less.
    Bush 1, Clinton, Dubya, Obama, (ok) Trump and “this one” were not or are not.
    Let that sink in.

    Also, in today’s earlier TAE offering highlighted, again, is corporate greed and overreach and what it does to the country.

    #129228
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    I read ‘Robinson Crusoe’ many years ago and saw that it was a template for racism, exploitation, fear of Nature and assaults on Nature etc. -quite the opposite of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ written not long after, which was a witty critique of the political system of the early seventeenth century: the narrator’s revulsion for Yahoos hits the spot, as does the selection process for ministers of government -he who can jump the highest or lower himself the lowest.

    Little has changed in 300 years. Racism, exploitation, fear of Nature and relentless assaults on Nature, plus he who jumps the highest or lowers himself the lowest gets to govern. The only notable difference is that she who jumps highest or lowers herself the lowest also gets to govern these days.

    #129232
    John Day
    Participant

    I was thinking this morning, when I glanced at some trash about Ukraine learning to use less artillery, like NATO does, that NATO would not be able to fight the way it does against Russian artillery and air-exclusion systems. It worked sorta’ ok against Afghans with AK-47s and Toyota trucks, but it sure couldn’t win, even then.

    Oh, Robinson Carusoe without “Friday” would have been like The Green Hornet without “Kato” (Bruce Lee).
    🙂

    #129234
    John Day
    Participant

    “The Need For Emergencies” https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/the-need-for-emergencies

    Thanks to Oxymoron in Oz for this elegantly and eloquently composed view of the current global economic crisis, which cannot be declared. This analysis is complementary to the Surplus Energy Economics piece from yesterday https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/02/11/248-the-surplus-energy-economy-part-3/ , even though it does not look closely at the cost of energy as a corrupting factor of the Fordist Capitalism model which was working well until the 1970s.
    Rising input costs (energy, raw materials, pollution-remediation) led to restriction of wages to retain profitability. Reduction of payments to workers led to reduction of market-demand, which was “solved” by blowing sequentially larger financial bubbles, wherein notional-money kept growing, without directly causing price-inflation of goods in the physical/real economy. Inflation has clearly crept in in the past 5 years as investors realized that they needed to obtain real assets while they could, before the casino collapsed.
    The Energy Cost of Energy rising has made it “necessary” to create this corrupted divergence between real economy and financial “wealth” expansion, or to thoroughly revise economic theory, which could not be agreed upon (yet). Economic theory will be revised to something more like the SEEDS ( “Surplus Energy Economics Data System”) model. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/14-a-brief-guide-and-a-packet-of-seeds/
    Marx and Keynes did not yet have to consider the cost of energy in their theories, because it was available enough in the world, except in times of war, when the availability of oil or coal was known to be decisive in deciding which side prevailed and which side lost. This analysis includes Marxist and Keynsian reasoning.

    Senile Economics (excerpts) Fabio Vighi
    ​..​It is worth reminding ourselves that in the globalised West we have already pawned everything we own. That is to say, we (states, businesses, families) own nothing but our debt, which is falling underwater. And, as the global casino threatens to go bankrupt, our puppet masters understand all too well that they must act swiftly if they are to retain power and privileges. Crucially, they know that their only chance to continue to flood the markets with the necessary amounts of artificial liquidity requires controlling (through authoritarian measures legitimised by emergencies) the freefall of the real economy as it shrinks into stagflation. Inaugurated in style by the pseudo-pandemic, today this process continues to take place under the coordinated watch of Central Banks, whose rate hikes only tickle inflation but further depress real demand…

    ​ ..Arguably, understanding our condition requires the effort of thinking against ourselves, since, as a rule, a subject who ‘organically belongs to a civilization cannot identify the nature of the disease which undermines it.’[iv] Conformity and wilful ignorance are infinitely more contagious than the strength needed to overcome the biases of our time. Most of us are determined to remain asleep, preferring to believe that what we are experiencing is only a temporary glitch. Yet, we must gather the courage to see through the smokescreen that hides the decaying substance of our world. Defensive reasoning crushes the vitality of thought. It colonizes not only consciousness, but especially our unconscious attachments to the obsolete categories of a collapsing civilisation.

    ​ ​Every civilisation immunises itself by drawing a line between its own constituent order and a malevolent other. Evil-doing must be projected outside the dominant social body if the latter is to retain the illusion of its consistency. Yet, a global civilisation on the verge of defaulting on its own value (the self-valorising value called capital) can no longer rely solely on fighting localised enemies – it must unleash global and ubiquitous villains. This is why, having replaced the pandemic, the Ukrainian war was from the start portrayed as a kind of synecdoche for global conflict: we must constantly be reminded that a “Dr Strangelove moment” is always behind the corner. The fear of Virus has been replaced by the Doomsday Clock. This way, the war really turns into the ideal continuation of Covid: an ideological screen dissimulating the painful everyday reality around us, from recession to structural inflation and mass corporation layoffs. Furthermore, the war allows both monetary expansion by financing the military-industrial complex, as well as systemic self-immunization via re-drawing the line between us (morally and culturally superior) and them (the barbarians). In this respect, the geopolitical tension between the US-led globalized Western model and the multipolar world in the making (BRICS+) is, strictly speaking, an effect of the ongoing economic collapse. The “new Cold War” in the making has already been factored-in, as none other than Morgan Stanley claim that rewiring for a multipolar order is now a priority.

    ​ ​Regardless of where you are on the geopolitical chessboard, the common problem faced by every capitalist state and its overseeing transnational aristocracy is, and will continue to be, how to control the waves of mass discontent stemming from increased immiseration. We only need to browse the recent G20 Bali declaration, or the latest WEF programme at Davos, to see that the elites’ main concern is to make sure the growing levels of global poverty are met with “global solutions” ranging from digital IDs linked to vaccination programmes, to the releasing of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Global cooperation is the ideological catchphrase of the jet-setting ultra-rich who seek to regiment the increasingly stagnant world population. In this regard, the neo-feudal spirit of our time is best captured by the “lockdown model”: on the one hand, we tend to forget that millions of socially excluded humans were already living under “lockdown conditions” before the pandemic, confined to suburban slums and rural peripheries of the world, without access to work and basic goods; on the other hand, iterations of the lockdown model will be extended to most of us in the near future, allegedly to protect us from global threats.

    ​ ​It is crucial, then, to realise that we are facing total socioeconomic breakdown. Those who drive the financial gravy train will continue to promote conflicts and divisions of all kind to hide systemic collapse. Every conflict, geopolitical or otherwise, begins and ends within “crisis capitalism”. The demise of Socialism in the 1980s lifted the veil of Maya. Since then, as a Buddhist would say, “duality is a delusion”: there is only One socioeconomic dogma, and it is no longer working. Keeping consumer capitalism alive while also expanding debt toward infinity is now impossible. The pile of IOUs is reaching beyond what we own as collateral (essentially, our assets, labour power, and lives) while fiat currencies have long started their journey to the land of rubbish. The entire banking system is closing in on folding, which is why it so desperately needs new inflationary liquidity to keep afloat. The Great Reset is our owners’ authoritarian attempt to respond to this systemic threat by taking control of the collateral (our lives) and remain in the driving seat. All the rest is perception management.

    Senile Economics: Bubble Ontology and the Pull of Gravity

    ​ The massive chemical spill , due to tanker-car axle failure, was due to lack of grease and the heat of friction causing fire and material failure.​
    Corporate liability was more profitably managed without maintenance workers.
    ​ ​“Once they eliminated that position, it fell to the signal maintainers who had no knowledge, no training or very, very little training on these hot-box detectors,” Hand said in an interview with FreightWaves.
    ​ ​Across the rail industry, Hand said most signalmen are exclusively spending time on these government-mandated tests, rather than doing preventive maintenance, like cleaning and greasing.
    ​ ​“There used to be something called ‘maintenance’ and it was routinely maintaining your apparatus — not just strictly going there when you have a regulated test,” Hand said.
    ​ ​It’s the responsibility of the railroad to maintain the track and locomotives by which railcars move. However, these derailed cars were possibly owned by a leasing company or the actual shipper of the chemicals inside the railcar.​ (Diffusion of liability)
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/norfolk-southern-eliminated-key-maintenance-role-derailment-region-union-says

    #129236
    John Day
    Participant

    Seymore Hersh is not going away, but does allude to his family being threatened at times.
    This is a transcript of a recent interview. It has significantly more details.
    His Substack is now behind a paywall, following the initial free release of the story.
    The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh
    ​ ​In late September of 2022, eight bombs were supposed to go off; six went off under the water near the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, in the area where it is rather shallow. They destroyed three of the four major pipelines in the Nord Stream 1 and 2…
    ​..Every summer for twenty-one years, our navy Sixth Fleet, which has control of the Mediterranean and also the Baltic Sea, has an exercise for NATO navies in the Baltic (BALTOPS). And we’d bring a navy carrier or large ships around. It was a very open thing. The Russians certainly knew about it. We did publicity. And in this one, for the first time in history, the Baltic Sea NATO operation had a new program. It was going to have an exercise in dropping mines and finding mines for ten or twelve days.Several nations sent out mining teams, and one group would drop the mine and another mining group from their country would go hunt and blow it up. So you had a period where there are things blowing up, and in that time the Norwegians could recover deep-sea divers. The two pipelines run about a mile apart; they’re under the dirt a little but they’re not hard to get to, and they had practiced this. It didn’t take more than a few hours to plant the bombs…
    ​..​The president said he’s afraid of doing it. He changed his mind and gave them the order that he wanted the right to bomb anytime, to set the bombs off anytime remotely by us. You do it with just a regular sonar, actually a Raytheon build. You fly over and drop a cylinder down. It sends a low-frequency signal — you can describe it as a flute sound tone, you can make different frequencies. But the worry was that one of the bombs, if left in the water too long, would not work, and two did not — they only got three of the four pipelines…
    ​,,​In September, he decided to do it. I’ll tell you something. The operational people, the people who do kinetic things for the United States, they do what the president says, and they initially thought this was a useful weapon that he could use in negotiations.​ ​But at some point, once the Russians went in, and then when the operation was done, this became increasingly odious to the people who did it. These are well-trained people; they are in the highest level of secret intelligence agencies. They turned on the project. They thought this was an insane thing to do. And within a week, or three or four days after the bombing, after they did what they were ordered to, there was a lot of anger and hostility. This is obviously reflected in the fact that I’m learning so much about it. And I’ll tell you something else. The people in America and Europe who build pipelines know what happened. I’m telling you something important. The people who own companies that build pipelines know the story…​
    ​..It scares me if the president was willing to do this. And the people who did this mission believed that the president did realize what he was doing to the people of Germany, that he was punishing them for a war that wasn’t going well. And in the long run, this is going to be very detrimental not only to his reputation as the president but politically too. It’s going to be a stigma for America.​..​
    ​..​The point is that Biden chose to keep Germany cold this winter. The president of the United States would rather see Germany cold [because of energy shortages] than Germany possibly not supportive in the Ukraine war, and that, to me, is going to be a devastating thing for this White House. For me, and I think also for the people on the mission, it was appalling…
    ​..I can tell you that the people involved in the operation saw the president as choosing to keep Germany cold for his short-range political goals, and that horrified them. I’m talking about American people that are intensely loyal to the United States…
    ​..​What’s courageous about telling the truth? Our job isn’t to be afraid. And sometimes it gets ugly. There have been times in my life, when — you know, I don’t talk about it. Threats aren’t made to people like me; they’re made to children of people like me.

    The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh

    ​Norway Informs NATO: The Russian Northern Fleet has sailed armed with nuclear weapons for the first time in 30 years.​
    https://warnews247-gr.translate. goog/ektakto-norvigia-o-rosikos-voreios-stolos-apeplefse-me-pyrinikous-pyravlous-meta-apo-30-chronia-etoimasies-syrraxis-me-nato/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

    Putin attends emergency meeting of Duma (parliament) after President of Duma survives assassination attempt by HIMARS missile, while visiting the Donbass (presumably timed and targeted by NATO intelligence).
    https://warnews247-gr.translate. goog/sto-kremlino-o-v-poutin-ektakti-synedriasi-tis-douma-gia-tin-oukrania-apopeira-dolofonias-tou-proedrou-tou-rosikou-koinovouliou/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

    Russian supersonic strategic bombers overfly Norwegian airspace today as warning of potential consequences.
    https://warnews247-gr. translate.goog/rosika-pyrinika-vomvardistika-pano-apo-ta-norvigika-synora-deite-vinteo/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

    #129238
    John Day
    Participant

    Oh, I may have gotten locked out of comments again. Here goes nuttin…

    John Helmer offers military analysis of Russian military operations in Ukraine from a Retired Indian general, with follow up commentary by a retired NATO officer. Thanks Dan, worth reading.
    ​http://johnhelmer.net/nato-military-veteran-comments-on-indian-army-general-shankar/#more-70708

    LIEUTENANT GENERAL SHANKAR APPLIES INDIAN ARMY EXPERIENCE TO THE WAR ON THE UKRAINIAN BATTLEFIELD SO FAR

    Russia Denies Plans to Destabilize Moldova
    NATO-friendly Moldovan President, a Romanian citizen, has sought to bring Moldova into NATO, and has reportedly been told by Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia has a plan to destabilize Moldova with military agents disguised as civilians. Shortly after the President made this announcement, the Prime Minister resigned​. The Serbian Foreign Minister took exception to Serbia being named as a co-conspirator in the plot and demanded information.
    ​https://warnews247-gr. translate.goog/rosia-diapsevdei-oti-katastronei-schedio-apostatheropoiisis-tis-moldavias-apaitei-exigiseis-i-servia/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    #129239
    John Day
    Participant

    This clearly has aspects of, “Hey, look, it’s a squirrel!” On the other hand a lot of money and effort has been spent by the US government to cover up and discredit information about extraterrestrial sightings and interactions on our fair planet for longer than I have been alive, and a lot of reliable reports exist, a couple in my own life from retired military officers who I knew, who have since passed away.
    John Podesta: The Trilateral Commission Link to UFO/Alien Mania?

    John Podesta: The Trilateral Commission Link to UFO/Alien Mania?

    ​Star Seed (pictured placing grip strips on steep stairs after Jenny and I both slipped)

    no slip

    #129240
    John Day
    Participant

    Hey Andrew Korybko!

    More fine work. Do you hob-nob with the locals?

    #129241
    Dr. D
    Participant

    NATO completely miscalculated in this respect by expecting Russia to collapse”

    Yes, and interesting. Expected Ukraine would genocide before Russia could respond? Or the other interesting: no Plan B. Everything goes perfectly or else Dr. Evil fails and his liar collapses. “That’s Schmartz. That’s NATO”

    So WHAT happened here exactly, because neither of those seem plausible.

    Another thought, since they MUST increase manufacturing, Russia now can’t (easily) provide any energy or materials to Germany or Europe. They would be arming the enemy. It probably can’t be prevented, but certainly they can make them pay (via India).

    Cycle predictor Nenner says the war won’t kick off until after mud season, which is interesting. He can guess because the market rocks. It also highlights in 2027, a bad year, perhaps ending the “war”, whatever that means. Economic? Physical? Against the people? The Russians? The Chinese? Aliens? Does it matter?

    I hate being on the losing side. But it’s necessary.

    #129242
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Seymore Hersh is not going away, but does allude to his family being threatened at times.
    This is a transcript of a recent interview.

    The ‘problem’ of Seymour Hersh can be made to go way by inventing some [fake] charges as a pretext to arrest him -historic rape accusations, failure to fill in a tax form etc.- and then putting him solitary confinement for a few weeks while [fake] espionage or ‘threat to national security’ charges can be cobbled together.

    Declaring him a ‘terrorist’ would be another route the Empire of Lies could follow. Anyone reading anything he had written would then also be declared a co-conspirator to terrorism and subject to arrest and incarceration.

    Okay, the numbers would be difficult. But no more difficult than trying to prop up a Ponzi scheme in an era of severe energy depletion and environmental collapse. No more difficult than trying to fight Russia using a very limited supply of antiquated weapons.

    #129244
    zerosum
    Participant

    Chatbots are programed to be liars

    Not enough ammunition
    Not enough trained soldiers willing to die
    Not enough food/energy for non-combatant
    Not enough income to continue standard of living
    Not enough missiles
    Not enough people wanting to vote for war
    Not enough antiques in the war museums

    #129247
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #129249
    zerosum
    Participant

    Just for fun

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/ugledar/comments/page/2/#comments
    Here is a ChatGPT response to the question:

    What were the maximum number of casualties a US military unit sustained in Iraq in a single engagement
    One of the most significant engagements for the U.S. military during the Iraq War was the Battle of Nasiriyah, which took place in March 2003. During this battle, a convoy of U.S. Army soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed by Iraqi forces in the city of Nasiriyah.

    The 507th Maintenance Company suffered a total of 33 casualties during the ambush, including 11 soldiers killed in action and 7 who were captured and later rescued. This was the highest number of casualties sustained by a U.S. military unit in a single engagement during the Iraq War.

    It’s worth noting, however, that there were many other instances during the Iraq War where U.S. troops sustained significant casualties, particularly during the early years of the conflict.

    Same question, similar response regarding Afghanistan:

    The deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Afghanistan occurred on August 6, 2011, when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was shot down by Taliban fighters in the Tangi Valley, Wardak Province. The crash resulted in the deaths of all 38 people on board, including 30 Americans, 7 Afghan commandos, and an interpreter.
    While there have been other incidents in Afghanistan where a significant number of U.S. troops were killed or wounded, this was the deadliest single engagement in terms of U.S. casualties.

    But clearly no US forces have ever faced heavy artillery since at least Korea. Same query with regard to the Korean War:

    One of the deadliest single engagements for US troops in the Korean War was the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, which took place from November 27 to December 13, 1950. This battle involved a large number of US and other United Nations forces fighting against Chinese troops.
    During the battle, US troops faced harsh weather conditions and a massive Chinese offensive. The 1st Marine Division, which was heavily involved in the battle, sustained over 3,000 casualties, including over 700 killed in action. In addition, the 7th Infantry Division, which was also involved in the battle, sustained over 2,000 casualties.

    Overall, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir was a significant engagement in the Korean War and resulted in a high number of US casualties.

    Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Feb 17 2023

    #129251
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ Dr. Day
    Also glaringly missing is a banister; one of those saved me from serious injury or death…

    #129311
    aspnaz
    Participant

    kultsommer said

    Putin was the communist. The real Cold-War-type, no less.

    You are such a hypocrite: You are allowed to say communist when it shows communism in a good light, but we are not allowed to say communism if it shows communism in a bad light. You are like a black person saying the “n word”, it is reserved just for you, the looney left.

    How the hell do you know what Putin thinks? If we was a real communist then why didn’t he take Russia to communism – I would say “back” to communism, except it never was at communism – rather than to aristocracy disguised as democracy? The USSR was never communist during his lifetime and there is no evidence that Putin or his colleagues were communists.

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