What's Next In Arms Race? Or, The Forms Must Be Obeyed.

Daniel Larison arrived three days ago to a conclusion that Donald Trump Doesn't Know How to Negotiate. Well, we have known that for quite some time now. As Larison notes:

As we have seen, Trump’s bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side’s capitulation. The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can’t agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government’s part, he condemns all of them as “terrible” because they did not result in the other party’s surrender.  

Of course, the foundation of this lack of negotiating skills--yeah, let's say it is just that, for now--is common for pretty much majority of US power elite--it is a malignant belief in own exceptionalism. Trump is flesh and blood of this culture, it is just that not having any serious scholarly nourishment or life experiences beyond the NYC real estate hustling, he delivers the message in the most crude and risible form. So, Trump is merely a cruder, less sophisticated form of US elites. He, most likely after brainwashing by his very own so called national security team, simply finished off INF Treaty. He, quite naturally, blamed Russia for violating this Treaty and, in two weeks after INF Treaty's demise, the United States launched the missile outlawed by this very treaty, thus creating a variety, of mostly sarcastic, reactions in Moscow, who, as we all know from the ever truthful US media, was blatantly violating the said treaty. The whole situation could have been really comedic, if not for it being very serious and that was precisely the mood with which Vladimir Putin responded to, what we all knew for years now, inevitable deployment of American TLAMs in the Aegis Ashore installations and other places in Europe. 

Russia says it won’t sit idle after the US tested a missile that was banned by the INF. As a response, Moscow has an ace up its sleeves and it won’t need to enter into a Cold War-style arms race, military analysts have told RT.No longer bound by the milestone Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) – which the US unilaterally scrapped – Washington recently tested a ground-launched version of its Tomahawk cruise missile.On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said he is not up for an all-out arms race, but ordered the military to evaluate and find reciprocal answers. So, what is Russia likely to have in store to counter the emerging threat?

First, let's recall what the INF Treaty was about and why the United States decided to kill it. As was stated not for once, INF Treaty was extremely favorable to the United States for a while because it didn't cover sea-launched intermediate range weapons--a precise domain in which in the end of 1980s the United States had a vast advantage over Soviet Union, whose main intermediate-range strike capabilities were land-based. Cretin Gorbachev and his "team", in the moment of utter insanity, unilaterally threw in, for a good measure, Operational-Tactical Missile complex (OTR-23) Oka to be eliminated. Then, the USSR collapsed and Russia has unilaterally, again, this time through the will of alcoholic Boris and his team of thieves and robber-barons turned herself into the door mat for the combined West. In fact, by the end of 1990s it was difficult to see how Russia's military could recover at all, granted it was sabotaged every step of the way by Russia's "liberal" political top. Yet, here we are in 2019 and one has to wonder if Russia is realistically sorry because of INF Treaty demise. I don't think she is. 

I kept my focus on this issue for years now. Recall my series of posts  titled The Perils of Mosquito. Or, for that matter, my prediction (even before Putin's historic speech to Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018) that, at that time (2017), Russia's existing cruise missile arsenal was more than enough to provide for what Russian Military Doctrine of 2014 called a "power (as in force) strategic containment by conventional high-precision stand-off weapons".  Remember this? 

Iran knows for sure that should the unthinkable but not improbable happen, such as an American attack on the Russian forces in Syria, Iran will not be left standing on the side—she gets immediately “involved” whether she wants it or not. So, the logic goes, why not make the best of it when all bets, other than nuclear, will be off. Iran may as well have Russian forces on her side and in her airspace, which, obviously helps significantly. But that also opens another serious operational possibility in case of a real conventional conflict in the area between Russia and the US—a scenario Neocons, due to their military illiteracy and overall detachment from the strategic reality, are dreaming about. Putting inevitable emotions aside and looking at the factual side of things, Russia’s Military Doctrine since 2010, reaffirmed in 2014 Edition, views the use of stand-off High Precision as a key in strategic force containment, as Article 26 of a doctrine clearly states. Russia doesn’t want war with the US, but if push comes to shove Russia is totally capable of not only reaching US ground assets, such as CENTCOM’s Qatar forward installation but, what is even more significant, also the naval ones in the Persian Gulf.  

Then came the Speech and a tectonic shift in the warfare which pushed warfare beyond present capabilities of the American military-industrial complex. One of many hints that (real) professionals in the US understand what they are facing now was this, four days ago:  

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is pulling the plug on a billion-dollar, technically troubled project to build a better weapon that would destroy incoming missiles. The move is aimed in part at considering new approaches to missile defense at a time of rapid technological change. The announced reason for canceling the Boeing contract, effective Thursday, was that the project’s design problems were so significant as to be either insurmountable or too costly to correct. Beyond those immediate concerns, the Pentagon is considering whether it needs to start over with designing a defense against intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, such as those North Korea aspires to build, as well as newly emerging types of missiles.

Pay attention to text highlighted in yellow. Those "newly emerging types of the missiles" are precisely those hyper-sonic maneuvering quasi-ballistic and cruise missiles which Russia developed for all three domains (land, air, sea) for her armed forces and those are already deployed. The only "response" the United States has at its disposal is to go for quantity of good ol' subsonic iterations of venerable Tomahawk and all kinds of other slow variations of TLAMs such as JASSM or allegedly super-pooper "magical" weapon such as CHAMP. All this is fine and dandy, but the issue for the United States is two fold:

1. She doesn't have hyper-sonic weapons and is years, if not decades, away from fielding a working prototype, forget IOC or fully deployed weapon system. 

2. Unlike Russia, American anti-missile systems are....well...let's recall what Publius Tacitus wrote about that:

A friend of mine who has expertise in these matters wrote me: Any air defense engineer with a security clearance that isn't lying through his teeth will admit that Russia's air defense technology surpassed us in the 1950's and we've never been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot 3's look like fucking nerf guns.

S-500 is already in serial production. What's coming next is simply a matter of speculation but it has to be understood that Russia not only is capable to match and then over-match greatly any strike capability of NATO in Europe or in US proper, Russia has means to blunt if not to completely repulse a massive strike of slow subsonic or theater ballistic missiles on her territory.  Numbers should help. 


Putin and his advisers continue to express concern with TLAMs being loaded into the MK-41 cells of Aegis Ashore in Deveselu, Romania, and Redzikowo, Poland. Even the brief glance on the map allows to conclude that Polish site will be primarily a threat to Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, due to a relatively short flight time of about 15 minutes (140 miles between Redzikowo and Kaliningrad), while missiles launched from Deveselu would have to be airborne for at least 40 minutes, including half of a path over water, to strike Sevastopol. 40 minutes is a very good time to not only have anti-missile complexes completely engaged (well, 15 minutes is also fairly generous) but to have response delivered to European facilities and to launch at North America. Strategically, in military terms, for Russia very little changes in terms of ratio of forces. In fact, as I write non-stop for years, Russia has qualitative edge over the United States in missile technologies for at least a decade, if not more. Russia's protestations, expected as they are, and having in them a very sincere component of traditional Russian aversion towards any kind of hostilities and arms races, are, nevertheless, primarily of the Frank Herbert's Dune Landsraad's tradition of "The Forms Must be Obeyed". 

But, diplomatic and media-PR posturing apart, military balance sheet between Russia and NATO in Europe in case, God forbids, of the serious escalation is very clear. NATO (US that is) has a salvo and has no defense against the response to put it in layman's lingo. NATO can launch at Russia and hope that some of it's salvo, most of it subsonic and fairly easily defended against, will leak through multilayered state-of-the-art anti-missile defense. What comes in response against Europe and US cannot be defended against--US has nothing in its arsenal that can meet and blunt dramatically the salvo of supersonic weapons, against hyper-sonic weapons--zero defenses and this will stay such for a long while in this strategic tic-tac-toe game in Europe. Of course, this is European contingency, there is also a Chinese, of Far East, one, but Russian response will be about the same--new anti-missile complexes and new strike weapons on the Far East. 

Meanwhile, Russia continues to evolve as Eurasian primary military power pole and new massive military exercises Center-2019 are yet another proof of that:

Russia and seven of its allies, including China and India, will send 128,000 soldiers to train in mass anti-terrorism drills next month, the country’s Defense Ministry has announced. The upcoming maneuvers will take place a year after Russia and China staged 300,000-strong anti-missile exercises near the Chinese border. Those exercises, which were Russia's largest war games since the Cold War, took place amid heightened tension between the West and Moscow over NATO’s expansion in eastern Europe.Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that 20,000 pieces of equipment, 600 aircraft and up to 15 warships will be rolled out across eight Russian training grounds for the Tsentr-2019 (Center-2019) exercises in September.

These maneuvers will involve a wide use of Russian Armed Forces' combat internet and all those gizmos and gadgets of what came to be known as Net-centric Warfare. I guess Russia is getting ready to defend subcontinent after Mr. Trump declared that US defeated ISIS and it is now up to...well...read for yourself:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that other countries will need to take up the fight against Islamic State militants, citing Russia, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran as examples.Earlier this year, U.S.-backed forces reclaimed the last remaining territory once held by Islamic State militants in Syria. Since then, however, there has been concern about the militant group gaining new strength in Iraq and Syria."At a certain point Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, they're going to have to fight their battles," Trump told reporters at the White House, later saying India should also get involved."All of these other countries where ISIS is around ... all of these are going to have to fight," he said, adding that the United States did not want to spend "another 19 years" fighting the Afghan war.

Sure. United States wouldn't have spent those 19 years in Afghanistan if it wouldn't have aided those very mujaheddin in 1980s who, together with the remnants of a demolished Iraqi Army and other jihad-minded humanitarians, constituted the core of both Taliban and ISIS. But we all know that hindsight is a 20/20 vision and one has to think now how the new "arms race" initiated by the United States will be viewed in the hindsight twenty or so years down the road, granted we all survive Mr. Trump's lack of negotiating skills, including skills in recognizing that he surrounded himself with militarily incompetent neocon fanatics and Israeli-firsters who, together with Wall Street Neo-liberal economic fundamentalists, are behind America's demise in military, economic and geopolitical senses. One may add a mental one, too.

ISIS Was Defeated, Alrighty Then.

People much more experienced in ground warfare than me wrote it not for once, albeit I wrote this too, that US position (Al-Tanf and around) is not tenable for a number of major reasons. Plus, R+6 victory over not just ISIS but whole Jihad Internationale became clear some time ago. Now, Trump promises US withdrawal from Syria. 

President Donald Trump will announce that the U.S. will withdraw troops from Syria on Wednesday, two U.S. officials confirm. There is no timeline yet for the pace of the withdrawal, the officials said. There are about 2,000 U.S. troops in eastern Syria advising and assisting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS. The first U.S. troops arrived in Syria under the Obama administration in October 2015. The original force of 50 U.S. advisers grew to an official level of more than 500, though it had actually grown beyond that figure to approximately 2,000 over the following year.

If true, these are really good news for Syria and really-really bad news for Kurds who may face Erdo-dude's wrath, plus, as usual, experience the sense of betrayal by so many "allies". 

As Bernhard of MoA writes:

With the U.S. moving out there will be a race to take those parts of Syria that the U.S. leaves. Turkey is likely to stick to its invasion plan. The Syrian government must now race to take back the Raqqa dam, the rich agricultural land north of the Euphrates and, most important, the oil and gas field near the Iraqi border which are needed to finance the country. It must also move parts of its army to the northeast Euphrates area to isolate and finally defeat the rest of ISIS that the U.S. seemingly leaves behind.

The deal between Erdogan and Trump is obvious, as is obvious a withdrawal of many Russian troops, with the exception of the contingent in both Khmeimim and Tartus, and a dramatic reduction of sorties by Russian VKS from 100 per day down to 2-4 a week now. The game for post-war "configuration" of Syria starts. There was another event which went almost unnoticed but was highly significant:

“Following the conversation between the Israeli PM & Minister of Defense and Vladimir Putin, senior IDF officers led by the Head of the Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, will go to Moscow tomorrow.”Advertisement“During the day-long visit, the delegation will brief their Russian counterparts on Operation Northern Shield and other operational issues,” the tweet concluded.

As great Ray Charles sang: everybody doin' the mess around. But inevitable question arises: who won? Syria defended her independence and that is what matters the most now. Russia, who contributed mightily to Syrian victory certainly benefits greatly too, both geopolitics and reputation-wise, Iran, however, will have to limit its freedom of actions in Syria which will be contingent on Russian-Israeli arrangements and this is the work in progress, granted greatly augmented by S-300 and S-400 complexes at a disposal of a greatly improved Syrian Air Defense. I am sure Syrian Arab AD professionals such as Akhmed Petrov, Mustafa Sidorov and Hafez Ivanov approve. But what was projected in 2015 by many, once Russia got involved in the fight against terrorist armies in Syria, she brought with her, inevitably, once the outcome became obvious, a massive geopolitical influence and earned a position of a primary broker in the Middle East. A significance of this is difficult to overstate--it has massive global ramifications. Behind that is Russia's military and economic power. 

What's next? The remnants of ISIS (and other unicorns) will move and join earlier arrivals of Jihadists from Syria to Afghanistan where the US will try to play another act of a Big Game against Russia. Maybe, China.  But we will see how the US will stick to its (now it was articulated) 60 to 100 days timeline, with US State Department "operatives" to be withdrawn within 24 hours. As I said, we'll see. Now, will Kurds, in a face of Turkey's military action against them, turn their sights to Damascus and Moscow for help? If they are not stupid, they will. You can not bargain with Erdogan, you can only move him into desirable position and then squeeze things from him. Meanwhile, Trump declared US victory over ISIS:

"We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,"

And that too was expected. Of course, who else but the US. Russians got used to this by now. After all, the US also defeated Hitler, if you know what I mean;) meanwhile, in a fine tradition of The Family Guy expressing the state of the affairs with someone else' art, enjoy:

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

I think it is really symptomatic that on this 11 September 2018 we read this.

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. The filming of staged chemical attack, allegedly carried out by the Syrian army against civilians, is already underway in the Idlib Governorate with the terrorists’ assistance, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria told reporters. "According to the data from the Idlib Governorate’s residents, currently the filming of a staged provocation of the alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian army against the civilians is underway in Jisr ash-Shugur. Film crews from several Middle East TV channels and also a regional branch of a leading US news TV channel arrived in Jisr ash-Shugur this morning for filming," the center said. The scenario includes a staged video of providing assistance to the citizens of Jisr ash-Shugur and activists of the Civil Defense (the White Helmets) after the alleged use of the so-called barrel bombs with toxic substances. The militants delivered two samples with a poisonous substance including chlorine this morning to ensure that the filming looks "natural," the center said. The Russian military notes that all videos are to be sent to the editorial offices of TV channels for broadcast after they are posted in social networks. In late August, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that militants were making preparations together with British intelligence services to stage a chemical weapons attack in the Idlib Governorate and blame it on the Syrian government. The ministry later said that the US-led Western coalition planned to use this provocation as a pretext to carry out another strike on Syria’s government facilities. The United States is already pulling in its forces to Syria. According to the ministry, in late August USS The Sullivans armed with 56 cruise missiles arrived in the Persian Gulf, while a US B1-B bomber equipped with 24 air-to-surface standoff missiles was relocated to the Al Udeid US air base in Qatar.

Of course, what could be better than to mark a sad anniversary of a slaughter of thousands of innocent Americans and other nationals by supporting the very same people who are responsible for 911 atrocity? There, assuredly, will be many honest average Americans who will be in denial that USAF and US Navy have become Al Qaeda and ISIS' forces—but it is what it is. Same goes for Western media who long ago turned into propaganda machine and they always supported Jihad. Meanwhile, Russia calmly reacts to a hysterical material by Wall Street Journal.

VLADIVOSTOK, September 11. /TASS/. The Kremlin does not take media reports about US airstrikes on Russian troops in Syria seriously any more, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters."We don’t take media reports seriously because they have completely discredited themselves," he said, commenting on a Wall Street Journal publication. "We focus on official statements," Peskov added

This is the only way to handle this and, indeed, what can Russia do? Well, except of being ready militarily to deal with possible escalation. I don't know what Donald Trump wrote to Putin in his recent private letter to him, and there are some reasons to believe that Trump and Putin could be in cahoots, but the probability of that is really low. Russians are extremely well aware of the situation Trump is in, granted he put himself into this situation by assembling a cabinet of ambitious war-mongers, but it is reasonable to assume that Kremlin, at this stage, understands that even the POTUS is not representative of an American power and there is literally nobody to talk to in D.C. American power structure is broken and there is no anymore any particular power center worthy of negotiating with. If that was true several years ago, it is just that today this chaos became much more pronounced and visible to anyone with the IQ higher than room temperature. In other words, American political system is in runaway mode and there is nobody of human and political statue who can take responsibility and restore some kind of order. US Congress is nothing more than organization, which, under the slogans about "democracy", is busy 24/7 in spreading the responsibility for dangerous and damaging decision as thin as possible. We also have a show-biz celebrity and NYC real estate developer in the White House who thinks that boarding school for the boys is a military experience one needs to run a nuclear power. So who? Among current political top—nobody. American top political class today is nothing more than a collection of spoiled brats most of whom have zero hard life experiences and who never served a day in uniform. It is an exclusive club of good ol' boys and girls who are utterly unqualified to run a nuclear superpower and most of who are corrupted to the very core.

This is not the kind of environment which produces outstanding statesmen or stateswomen. Same goes for Europe whose "leaders" like Angela Merkel are nothing more than political parties' apparatchiks—colorless, not very smart and ready to preach whatever is necessary to get elected. Fact is, I suspect that Merkel is not just not bright, I think she is dumb as fvck. This is the human material combined West in general, and the US in particular, have to live with and "choose" from. Indeed, the country which honors John McCain as a "hero"—there are some real issues with the state of mind of such a country. I will have to address the issue of "elites" in depth at some point of time, granted we live, but I want to remind you all that I delved into this topic once and even singled out draft dodger John Bolton. But for now, Russia launched the largest military exercise in her modern history and since 1981 and presses on with operations in Idlib.

Two Can Play The Game.

The difference, of course, is that Russians usually do not stage "chemical attacks" and do fight very real terrorists.  Here is a real shot across the bow for Ukraine. Russia's major media report about FSB catching an SBU asset from... ISIS (in Russian).

It is not necessary to comment on Ukraine in general and SBU's in particular involvement with all kinds of dirty assets from terrorists to very high probability of being "helpful" in producing a truck load of utter "intelligence" Trump-Russia collusion trash for the benefit of HRC and her campaign. It is just that this time the matter and accusation go really public. The question is not that Ukraine tries a terrorist activity on Russian territory--that everybody who has half-brain knows. It is that the connection between Ukraine and ISIS terrorists has been exposed this way.

Hm, why would Russia do this? I guess the message is clear: there is a consistent stream of information from Syria about weapons being delivered through (or BY) Ukraine to Al Qaeda and ISIS groups in Syria. Considering the fact that Ukraine lives under de facto external control it is easy to make a connection who really plays the puppet master. Not that cabal in Kiev wouldn't like most Russians dead and Russia... well..."ukronazified", but that is beyond the point in overall strategic situation. At this stage the United States which is undergoing a complete meltdown of its state institutions and is in the process of a slow coup, as the last resort has three possible pressure points (shcwerpunkt) , short of all out war with Russia. Those are obvious:

1. Ukraine;

2.Syria;

3. Nord Stream-2 and Europe. 

Numbers 1 and 2 involve an open military action either by proxy or, as some madmen in D.C. suggest, in first person against Russia. Well, if there could be some "calculations" on possible Syria provocation which can contain at least slim theoretical chances of gaining whatever neocon cabal wants to gain (long ago gone self-respect?), Ukraine is the place where the final remaking of the European (and global) Order will happen. It may happen relatively slow or it may happen really fast and this depends only on Russia and how she wants to proceed. Poroshenko desperately needs some kind of "action" and he doesn't give a damn if he loses most of Eastern Ukraine as a result--he needs political power by means of cancelling "elections" (or rather parade of Ukrainian psychopaths vying for power). He needs "war" with Russia. Obviously it has to be such a war that doesn't result in complete demolition of the Ukrainian State and Poroshenko, if shit hits the fan, having enough time for Porky to escape Pskov and Ivanovo paratroop divisions deploying around and into Kiev. Poroshenko needs something middle of the road. After all, nobody wants to have personal X-101 or 3M14 assigned to oneself. 

The United States also needs SOME reaction from Russia along the lines US "elites" think are beneficial to the US. OK, not to the US--to them personally, staying in power and finishing off what's left of once beautiful American idea of Republic and Supremacy of the LAW.  And here we run immediately into the same wall which I try to bypass for several years now--how can you explain to those "elites" that instead of saving the Republic they not only bankrupted it but accelerate its decline with each passing day. At this stage I don't think it is possible to explain this to the American power elite, at least most people there. It is not just that America has been sold out to Israeli, Saudi, and whoever pays more, interests, it is just we finally have to say this openly--modern American political class is dumb as a stump. It is uneducated and it is good only for one thing--to keep itself re-elected and close to government sinecures. They don't understand that there is no "winning" under any circumstances anymore. And that is what makes them so dangerous--monkey with a grenade is not a pretty or calming sight. So, what is it going to be: Syria or Ukraine? Or both? Truth is, many in D.C. are war criminals and terrorist enablers--I don't think any of them wants to face justice, a real one. But as much as I do not take anything what came out of Tom Clancy's amateur imagination, I somehow like the ending of otherwise lame The Sum Of All Fears. Granted we all survive and that Republic survives, I still have a hope, however fainting with every passing day. After all, real life is not Hollywood. 

     

Even People With Half-Brain Knew It All Along.

I don't think that MSM revealed anything here that hasn't been known for awhile to anyone with even basic logic. It was a PR sham all along. 

Defector says thousands of Islamic State fighters left Raqqa in secret deal 

  ...he told Reuters in an interview that the number of fighters who were allowed to go was far higher and the account of a last-ditch battle was a fiction designed to keep journalists away while the evacuation took place. He said a U.S. official in the international coalition against Islamic State, whom he did not identify, approved the deal at a meeting with an SDF commander.

Even pathetic neocon rag Newsweek reported on that. What is interesting here is how this whole thing will go with Israel's almost open support for takfiris and with Trump, in effect, declaring Jerusalem a capitol of Israel. I defer it to Colonel Lang who is a professional in the area:

IMO there will be no peace for Israel ... 

One phrase stands out in his piece:

Will the Muslims ever trust the US again to act as an honest broker? Dennis Ross badly damaged our credibility.  Is it completely gone - perhaps forever?  

Syria (after Ukraine), in my very humble opinion, changed not only regional, Middle East, but global dynamics and it is inevitable that many Arabs do turn back to Russia as I type this. In general, Umma seems to be in a rather welcoming mood, once one considers that couple of RUAF (VKS) TU-95 strategic bombers just two days ago were greeted in Indonesia--the largest Muslim nation in the world. So, a lot is going on right now.

Remember what Russia "sells" today--it is not just oil, gas, fighter planes, nuclear power plant, or space stations. Russia's main export today is (geo)political stability--the price of this product cannot be easily calculated in money, albeit monetary, and gigantic at that, value is there too. This is an extremely hot commodity in the world today--from Middle East to Asia-Pacific. It is a dramatic turn of events and there are many buyers for that commodity--some want just part of it, others want a Full Monty. This is how the new world order emerges.    

  

A "Mighty" State Of Israel.

Israel, who supports ISIS (which makes Israel a terrorist state) thinks that she can set the rules in Syria. A defining characteristic of likudniks is their delusional belief in their own superiority in... everything (reminds of anything?), even despite the fact that, realistically, Israel's renome was made by fighting grossly inadequate Arab militaries. Her both legitimate and not so much security concerns and strategies revolve around her big daddy US, whose entire foreign policy is utterly subverted by Zionist lobby and, putting it in a more down to earth language, US being this proverbial Israel's bitch. This, plus being in the pockets of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf satrapies' pockets. A dramatic change of the situation in Syria in the last two years in favor of Assad and final destruction of ISIS presents Israel with a serious challenge. So much so that she thinks, which is their MO for decades, she is smarter than everybody else and she can continue to fly missions in support of ISIS, who for Israel is a much more preferred option than secular Arab society. Especially if this society may build a competent army and start asking questions, say, about Golan Heights. 

Now Israel threatens to destroy Syria's Air Defense. The issue here, however, is this: does Netanyahu still think that Putin (Russia) is so sublime that he can continue to BS him or does he understand that Putin knows pretty much most of what Israel wants and does? As silly as it may sound, but the former is more likely than the latter. Israel's arrogance and bluster, the same as a complete lack of sense of scale and proportion, are legendary, which is a defining characteristic of culture in that area.  And here is the situation, unlike the US which does what Israel wants, Russia doesn't. What may happen, if Israel continues to do stupid things, forget if her vaunted Air Force kills accidentally (??) Russia's servicemen in Syria, is to abruptly and unexpectedly reveal to Israel (and the world) a brand new Syrian Air Defense and Air Force (wink, wink) which will operate not outdated and obsolete S-200s but something more capable which will make the "weather" over Syria very rough for flying and at this stage the only "ace" in Israel's sleeve left is her Air Force. The myth of Israel's superiority in technology and combined arms operations was completely dispelled in 2006. Obviously, one may expect the subsidiary of Israel's Knesset, US Congress, to start going apoplectic almost immediately but it wouldn't matter--Russia doesn't have AIPAC and neocon mafia and Russia's military and political history dwarfs that of Israel who, at some point of time, will have to face geopolitical realities of the 21st century and, maybe, stop BSing the nation which lost tens of millions of own citizens (including very many Soviet Jews who fought valiantly in the Red Army) in stopping, among many other atrocities, a Holocaust. Not that it wasn't known that it was BS from the get go in Syria.  Is it the time to start distributing yarmulkes at the Capitol Hill? 

            

 

 

Facepalm Of The Year.

No, it is not about a complete disgrace of Russia's "hacking" of US elections story, which firmly identified CIA and US "intelligence" in general as political organizations which are in business of promoting preposterous agendas, not an intelligence outfits. There is very little of intelligence, in direct and figurative senses, left there. The facepalm of the year (let's attribute it to 2016) goes to Pentagon's chief Ash Carter. In his "confession" to Wall Street Journal he stated that: Russia has done nothing to help defeat Islamic State forces in Syria and has adopted a strategy of “explicitly thwarting the U.S.”

OK, I get it, the Beltway is a sore loser which lives in parallel universe and has loyalty only to its, often explicitly anti-American, interests, but the issue is simple: if you do not respect us all, which is fine, at least respect yourself. You have to live the rest of your life knowing (???) that most of what you say is a complete pile of steaming shit, which has been debunked time after time by the overwhelming empirical evidence. Or maybe, maybe I am too naive to assume that there is still a modicum of integrity and human decency left in Obama's Administration? Yes, I think so--I am being naive. What a stupid thought to even assume so. In the end, Administration which thinks about mountain resorts in Rostov-On-Don region is as viable as Zimbabwe's space program. Nothing personal against Zimbabwe.

Hysteria And Delusion

The signs of this hysteria and delusion among today's US "elites" are all over the country. Nowhere it is more apparent than in US media, including the so called "scholarly" and "professional" magazines dealing with foreign affairs and geopolitics. Late Samuel Huntington was one of the founders of the Foreign Policy magazine, which for years demonstrated a complete lack of expertise on pretty much any serious Russia-related issue but after Crimea's return back home, to Russia, in 2014 this magazine has become a panopticon of BS-pushers, hack-produced "opinion" pieces and, in general, became an openly Russophobic rag which continues to defend indefensible.

It is my long standing contention, which I can back up with facts, that US "diplomacy" today is nothing more than a collection of badly educated and uncultured people who are brainwashed with American "exceptionalism" and most of whom are not really diplomats but have degrees in political "science"--that is have no systematic knowledge of the world around them. As the review of the book by real US diplomat, James Bruno, states:

Our foreign policy is in the hands of the clueless, the self-serving and the politically corrupt. Read this book first. Then fill out papers to emigrate. The author provides a first-hand view from inside the belly of the beast of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. His insights are so spot-on that government censors have blocked out whole sections of text. The Foreign Circus will have you alternatively laughing and shaking your head. And when you read tomorrow's headlines, you'll have a better appreciation why Washington screws up.

Enter the latest opus in Foreign Policy (and Hudson Institute) by yet another hysterical and delusional hack, Peter Rough. His piece has a very promising title: The Best Way to Defeat the Islamic State and Succeed in Syria? Push Back on Putin. The whole piece is a testimony to the depth of the both, yes, hysteria and delusion of American "exceptionalists" when forced to face the reality. I will allow the readers of my blog to make their own conclusions but... But who is Peter Rough? Here is what his biography tells us:

Peter Rough is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where he researches a wide range of national security issues. Currently, he is co-leading two in-depth studies: one that examines Iran’s challenge to the American-led regional order in the Middle East and another that investigates U.S. extended deterrence in the second nuclear age. Until recently, he helped edit Hudson's journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Prior to joining Hudson, Rough collaborated with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, published by Harvard University Press in fall 2014. A former Associate Director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, he also served as Director of Research in the Office of George W. Bush, assisting the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. Rough has completed stints as a Policy Analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he served also as staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed Unconventional Warfare doctrine for the Commanding General’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for U.S.-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he was a Cabot Corporation Scholar.
He is a native German speaker.


Isn't it a biography of a classic US humanities "educated" hack who knows everything a little bit and nothing at all? Here it is--a perfect embodiment, a portrait, of a current US faux-intellectual "elite" who not only fvcked the surrounding world up to the point of bringing it to the brink of the WW III, but screwed own country, that is US, so badly and have a stunning track record of utter failures in anything they apply their pathetic "skills" to, that the only thing which is left for them is to try to create a make-belief world where their supposed "expertise" is in demand. Evidently Rough (and his publishers), who are totally oblivious to the facts on the ground in Syria, missed the point at which they, accidentally, dropped their mask of "expertise" and "objectivity" and are openly suggesting support for Al Qaeda (and ISIS). This, of course, is apart from open lies which are in the foundation of current (and past) US Administrations' such as this:

If the president is rejecting Kerry’s counsel, the secretary of state should resign. Assad now ranks as perhaps the worst killer since Pol Pot brutalized Cambodia in the 1970s while Putin has revealed himself as an insatiable revisionist intent on exploiting American weakness. Far better for Kerry to exit the stage in a burst of honor than vainly travel the world like a modern-day Falstaff perpetually humiliated by Putin. It is past time for the U.S to end the diplomatic track and impose meaningful costs on Russia, Iran, and Assad. The future of the region and the defeat of the Islamic State depend on it.
 Come to think about it, if I were Peter Rough (or Foreign Policy editor) I would "exit the stage in a burst of honor", but sadly, meanings of such words as honor, integrity and academic honesty are unknown to likes of Rough and these "experts" will continue for now to poison the air with their hysteria, delusions and lies until are smashed by the inevitable march of history or not prosecuted at the war crimes tribunal where many of them truly belong. Unless, of course, they follow the example of their ideological father, Dr. Goebbels, and commit a suicide. Or start facing reality as, once respected by me (not anymore), Nicholas Gvozdev tries to do.

Last year, the calculation of Saudi Arabia—and by extension of the United States—was that Russia could not sustain its more assertive position in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) in light of declining energy prices, and that unsheathing the oil weapon would curb Kremlin ambitions. This was wrong. Today, it is Saudi Arabia that has begun to search for ways to firm up oil prices while Rosneft—Russia’s state oil company—declares that it has no need for capping production. Syria has not proven to be the quagmire that President Obama said it would be for Moscow. The Russia-Turkey partnership now seems to be back on track while Ankara’s ties with Washington worsen. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s signature economic initiative for Asia, is on political life support, Chinese president Xi Jinping will travel to the BRICS summit in Goa later this week to unveil ambitious proposals for free trade arrangements that bypass the West.

And while I may agree with this "Strategy" professor from Naval War College in this, his closing remarks still have me questioning his degree of the touch with the reality.

As an observer of U.S. policy, I can’t say for certain where the United States might be prepared to compromise and where it would stand firm. But U.S. leaders have to make these calls based on their assessment of U.S. values and interests combined with costs America is willing to pay. But U.S. policy will be on a firming footing once there is a salutary realization that, when it comes to the Kremlin, there are no risk-free options.
 
US policy cannot be on a "firming footing" anymore because the utter bankruptcy of US foreign policy institutions (and concepts) coupled with militant incompetency of its "think-tankdom" and so called "expert communities" is a fait accompli and what US needs is not "firming footing" for yet another military and political disaster and defeat, but a complete renewal of its political and academic elites--not complicit in creation of global chaos and bloodshed. This painful but necessary and long overdue, for national survival, process of beating addiction to perceived hegemony may start with electing Donald Trump to Oval Office. There is no guarantee that he will pursue policies which do serve real American national interests but there is a chance. The alternative to Trump leaves no chance at all and will see delusional people like Peter Rough setting US on the final approach to national suicide and with it, possibly, to a global one too. We still have a choice.

NOTE: I am still struggling with the formatting of this text, I will update links later.