Larry Thinks About Hunger, Patrick--About Mistakes.

Larry Johnson asks a question--are we in for a famine? This is not a vain question, it is a very important one and Larry gives some numbers:

Let me help you with the math–Russia and the Ukraine combined accounted for 33% of all wheat exports among the top ten exporters. Russia exports more than the United States. Let that sink in for a moment.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is highly likely to disrupt Ukraine’s ability to fully plant and harvest wheat in 2022. And Russia will be blocked, in theory at least, from being able to accept U.S. dollars for its wheat export. On March 9 President Putin signed an order banning the exports of some goods and raw materials.

Larry presents some figures which should (we can only hope) give some pause to insanity which passes in the US for "foreign policy" and economics. Read the whole thing at Larry's blog--the link is in my blog-roll. 

Patrick Armstrong meanwhile writes about what he got wrong. I disagree, he got things right based on available information of that time. Nobody knew, albeit many did suspect, that new facts will change the thought process by many analysts, me included, about the objectives of Russia's campaign in 404. As Patrick writes:

So why was I wrong? What did I miss? I believe I missed three things – two I didn’t know about and one that I did but did not properly weigh. These are: the nuclear weapons issue, the planned strike on LDNR and the biolabs.

Biolabs is a huge issue with the US de facto admitting through Nuland's response at the hearings in Congress about them that the US was involved in developing bio-weapons program in Ukraine and was also working on a genetic weapons. This issue is not going anywhere, it will stay top and center in Russia's foreign policy agenda and it will feature prominently at the War Crimes Tribunal. By now Russian MoD and FSB have more than enough documents and witnesses to make a case, a very strong one.  

Lara Logan, however, makes one mistake, albeit it is not her mistake--it is an inevitable confusion by those in the US military who grasp at the last straw of US military credibility trying to confuse people who are removed from operational matters:

RuAF is a completely different animal than the USAF. Moreover, the flying hours of RuAF are probably in the top 5 in the world and RuAF performed extremely well, supporting a very high operational tempo in Syria, and now did an admirable job in 404. But that brings us to a larger issue which I stress all the time--Russia and the US fight very differently, but the US military is extremely sensitive when it comes to its combat "record" which, frankly, is underwhelming in the last 70+ years and the US fighting doctrine is distilled into a very simple principle--get overwhelming air dominance (against third rate opponents) and then blow shit indiscriminately. 

Moreover, the USAF doesn't know what it means to fight in the modern EW and AD environment. The last time it faced more or less adequate AD was in Vietnam and it lost 10,000 aircraft, 2,500 of them combat fixed wing ranging from B-52 strategic bombers to F-4s and even UAVs. Russian VKS of 2022 are a completely different game. And any USAF operations against Russia's VKS in a real conventional war will result in the most dramatic losses. Again, this only applies if US (NATO) air forces survive the meeting with Russia's high precision stand-off weapons at air bases. If to believe this video, it is Kinzhal flying to target--underground bunkers with ammo and weapons in Western Ukraine. Those were build to withstand indirect nuclear explosion impact. Kinzhal, reportedly, had no problems destroying them. I doubt this video shows Kinzhal, but still, military porn.

In related news, all Bastion launchers are capable to launch 3M22 Zircon. Evidently, per Russia's MoD, P-800 Onyx from Bastions are actively used in 404. I will expand on this military porn issue later. That's the primer for the weekend.