Some Insights Now Begin To Arrive.

As was anticipated. CBS reports on actuality of war from the POV of the US military personnel and lo and behold--they say what I have been saying for many years, how the real war feels. 

Survivors of the deadliest Iranian attack on U.S. forces since the war began have disputed the Pentagon's description of events and said their unit in Kuwait was left dangerously exposed when six service members were killed and more than 20 wounded. Speaking publicly for the first time, members of the targeted unit offered CBS News a detailed account of the attack and its harrowing aftermath from the perspective of those on the ground. 

Of course, they have to dispute what Hegseth says. This is not your small arms firefights (however nasty they could be) where you call in CAS, this is long-range fires, my friends, and they are longer than many of those in the US arsenal. 

In the hours before the attack, incoming missile alarms had signaled to a crew of about 60 troops to take cover in a cement bunker while a ballistic missile flew overhead. But around 9:15 a.m., an all-clear alert sounded. Officers removed their helmets and returned to their desks in the wood and tin workspace, about the width of three trailers. From there they resumed managing the movement of equipment, munitions and personnel across the Middle East. About 30 minutes later, "everything shook," one soldier told CBS News. "And it's something like what you see in the movies. Your ears are ringing. Everything's fuzzy. Your vision is blurry. You're dizzy. There's dust and smoke everywhere."  Dazed, the service member surveyed a grisly scene: "Head wounds, heavy bleeding, lots of perforated eardrums, and then just shrapnel all over, so folks are bleeding from their abdomen, bleeding from arms, bleeding from legs."

Yep, I like this phrase "something like what you see in the movies"--correct, it is very symptomatic, because the US Army doesn't know what is a precise fire impact of stand-off weapons. Of course, even in Iraq or Afghanistan you still could have been hit by RPG while in Humvee or even experience a nasty IED, that did happen many times, but this is different. Shahed, the Iranian drone can carry anywhere between 50 and 90 kilos of high explosives.  It has the range of up to 2,500 kilometers and fully fits the criteria of a high precision stand-off weapon. It can pay visits in salvos, and often does and the results of that are not what Pentagon tries to spin ... away from the real story. 

Word of Hegseth's description of the events at a press conference in Washington did not sit well with some of the survivors. The secretary had described the drone as a "squirter" that "happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these are powerful weapons." And while several of those familiar with the events on the ground did not agree with the description, they did not want their remarks to be misconstrued. "It's not my intent to diminish morale or to disparage the Army or the Department of War more holistically, but I do think that telling the truth is important and we're not going to learn from these mistakes if we pretend these mistakes didn't happen," one soldier said.

I have news for this brave soldier--Pentagon doesn't learn, it cannot, look at the SMO. It is a different kind of war, which no US servicemen ever experienced, they did now. And that brings us to a purely technical issue:

Asked if the attack was an inherent reality of engaging in combat, he agreed. "That's true," he said. Asked if this attack was preventable, the soldier added: "In my opinion, absolutely, yes." "I am very sad for their loss and it's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life," he said. "But I'm also immensely proud of them and their sacrifice, and their family should be too."

1. The US has no air defense means to deal with one of this threats. Shaheds will continue to fly and will continue, together with ballistic and cruise missiles, take out anything they deem necessary. The US WILL NOT ask Russia and Russia WILL NOT agree to sell to Pentagon things it doesn't have and will not have any time soon, I list a few: Elka, Tunguska, S1 Pantsir, Tor M2, Buk M3 et al. No, it was not "preventable". 

2. Poor men who got killed. Their sacrifice was for Israel and not for the US Constitution and American people. Only part of American people but their loyalty is with Israel. 

Per Hegseth, something tells me he soon will be fired and maybe even more. Die you today for me to live and die tomorrow. That's Trump's MO.  

This Is The Operational Rear.

The training camp of VSU near the town of Shostka Sumy Region. 

This is RUK (recon Strike Complex) with Iskander at work. 

This tally, likely tens (if not hundred +) KIAs and shitload of wounded WILL NOT be counted by Russian Defense Ministry. Such strikes are happening every day in this form or another. So, the number of VSU's KIAs is now around 1.3-1.4 million. Reported kill ratios by Russians themselves (from frontlines) vary between 1 to 15, to 1 to 20. 

Russian Soldiers Die Too.

Nowhere near VSU numbers, but they do and their bodies are evacuated as soon as humanly possible and are given proper identification, send-off by relatives and are provided honorable funeral. I am not a cold hard animal, albeit I understand clearly the issue of physical annihilation of VSU and the remnants of 404 mobilizational potential. I also know the degree to which Ukrainians have been brainwashed and conditioned for this slaughter. But here is a sister of one of the VSU militants (I cannot call them soldiers anymore) who was called to identify the body of her KIAed brother--this is not neural network or propaganda, it is genuine--and she was is shock when she recognized that her brother's body was a ... stitched up collection of body parts of other 200s of VSU. You don't need to know Ukrainian language.

This is NATO war and NATO generals' frustration, envy, fear and lies manifest themselves in atrocities, and sheer inhumanity. Losers behave like this. 

Meanwhile, here is VSU's strongpoint after the work of Russian artillery and aviation. 

I want to reiterate--there is NO a single NATO officer from battalion up to command of army and army group who has any experience fighting while undergoing the rates of attrition West's armies simply incapable to grasp. Russians quantify the morale (combat spirit) as:

Does NATO want to find out what kind of Alpha will it have when fighting Russian Army defending her Motherland? I can tell you--it will not be good. 

Putin's voice: did they forget who took Berlin? British, French, Americans? The Red Army took it (c). Meanwhile Chinese girls are, yes, hitting on Russian boys))

This Is not Just Zelensky ...

... this is what his curators from London want. For them, Slavs are subhumans, as is true for most American "elites". So, killing children is a fine Nazi tradition, Hitlerjugend all the way, especially if those are Slavic children. Racial hatred towards Russians and criminal malice towards remaining VSU, including children, permeates Western media, especially British ones. Here is Colonel Davis with a good summary:

The reports of children, 18-year-olds and whole female formations of VSU now dying in astonishing numbers are corroborated even in the West, which is criminally responsible for that. Just to give you heads-up. Russia and VSU today exchanged bodies:    

Россия и Украина провели обмен телами военных. Россия и Украина провели обмен телами военных по формуле «909 на 41»

Translation: Russia and Ukraine exchanged bodies of soldiers. Russia and Ukraine exchanged bodies of soldiers according to the formula "909 for 41".

This is a very strong correlation with actual combat losses. So, divide roughly 909 by 41 and you get 1 to 22 in KIAs in Russia's favor at this stage of SMO. It is a slaughter, which London and Washington have been willing to precipitate largely due to military illiteracy of the political and military institutions in the West. So, DJT's statements like this:

“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,” Trump said, adding “We’re going to just take a pass, but hopefully we won’t have to do that.”

Are absolutely meaningless, and if the US wants to, somehow, continue to support 404, Russia will oblige and will continue to expose US military weakness, to use a polite term here, by destroying the bulk of remaining US military technology. COFM, my friends, COFM.   

Except, Kallas ...

 ... lived a life of privilege in USSR being a daughter of party nomenclature. The "trauma" was so huge that these three Baltic statelets are on the way out as ethnicities and countries, dying out due to all "freedoms" and "privileges" they got from EU and NATO for 30+ years. The only product they produce is rabid Russophobia which sells in Europe. That, plus whores for NATO contingents stationed on their soil. 

Doug uses now the 1.2 million number of KIAs in VSU. Sounds about right. Here is the demonstration what most of the fighting at the line of contact is reduced to in 404. Here is relatively recent from Velikaya Novoselka. A bunch of VSU creeps refuse to surrender (highly likely Nazi fanatics who know what is expecting them), they barricade themselves in the basement of the building. So, the guys from one of the storm companies of the 5th Independent Brigade deliver some presents (3 AT mines). The mop up continues. 

And this is what this is all about--harm Russia, kill them. The hatred, the fear and military impotence of Washington and European capitals on parade. NATO is good only at fighting civilians and committing atrocities, not at facing real armies. 

But Wait, They Always Win...

This is what Hollywood tells us. 

One member of a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group killed in Russia’s Bryansk Region had a prominent tattoo associated with the US Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, according to a video released by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The fighter was among four killed in a cross-border raid on Bryansk on Sunday, the FSB said. When searched afterwards, they were found to be equipped with foreign weapons and gear, as well as personal items indicating that they belonged to “third countries,” such as a Canadian flag, a Polish prayer book, and a notepad with notes on tactics in English, the FSB added. One of the dead men had a tattoo of an angel holding a rifle, with a banner reading ‘Ranger’ and ‘2d Bn’, apparently a reference to the 2nd Battalion of the US Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. The tattoo, and the man’s American-made combat fatigues, were displayed in a video published by the FSB on Monday.

Well, didn't they know that Border Guards of FSB are damn good at setting and acting out of ambushes? Of course they didn't. RT site has a video of the equipment and bodies of these "specialists".

The "Unexpected" (Not Really) Problem.

Russian troops report all along the line of contact. Obviously such a video is not available on YT. The problem is with the smell of rotting corpses of VSU cannon fodder--most of them lay in the field and are not evacuated. As you may expect the putrid smell is unbearable. Which brings us to the issue of KIAs--the number is growing. So much so, that even creeps from WaPo quote:

Kiev has lost a substantial number of Western-supplied armored vehicles in attempts to breach well-fortified Russian defenses in the southern section of the front, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing a military officer on the ground. In an interview with the newspaper, an unnamed Ukrainian air-assault-unit commander claimed that Kiev had gained some ground in Zaporozhye Region near the settlements of Robotino and Verbovoye, scenes of fierce fighting in recent weeks, although he admitted that the advance was “modest.”He added that the progress came at a high cost in military vehicles, including German Marder and US Stryker infantry fighting vehicles. “A lot of equipment was lost there,” he said, without providing exact numbers. The commander also pointed out that Ukrainian troops have encountered serious defenses along their way. “You just have to understand that there is a saturation of anti-tank mines and a saturation of enemy forces, it’s just colossal”, he said.

Which brings us to 404 BS about Klescheevka, which, in accordance to Western propaganda, is under "control" of VSU. First, there is literally nothing left of it, and secondly, as Akhmat guys laugh: yes, khokhol CAN enter Klescheevka, the problem for them is that by far not all of them can exit it afterwards. They played the video of how VSU cannon fodder "conducts operations" around there--basically they get personnel there, after that it gets slaughtered by Akhmat, then they wait for another batch and the process repeats itself over and over again. So, everything you need to know about NATO "tactics". 

Now, even sewer of Business Insider cannot bypass this "news". 

Russia's Soviet-era airplane bombs present a lethal challenge to Ukraine because they are difficult to intercept even using the most advanced air defense systems,  military experts say. Oleksiy Melnyk, from the Kyiv-based think tank Razumkov Center, said that combatting air-dropped bombs was "particularly vexing" for Ukraine. Hi-tech air defense missiles are designed to strike more lightweight targets and are ill-equipped to counter the bombs' old, heavy iron construction. The bombs' dense build and Russia's ample stocks are a significant problem for Ukraine, he said. The powerful bombs can weigh from 1,100 to 2,200 pounds. Melnyk told Insider that the "dumb" freefalling bombs are dropped from an aircraft during horizontal flights or with the plane's nose up or down. He said the plane's alignment and "altitude will further define the ballistic trajectory." 

Well, correct, he just forgot to make a distinction that these are Western "hi-tech" systems which cannot do that--all major Russian air defense complexes, however, have heavy bombs as their standard targets. E.g. for Buk AD system, JDAM munitions in all of their "modifications" is a standard target, not to mention the fact that that AD system is much more than just kinetic means. But what can you say? Real war is not studied in Western military academies, evidently. But then again, you cannot teach military science to cretins who work as "experts" in US media. 

As Larry penned the excellent piece on Ben Hodges:

Ben Hodges was not a good general and he is doing an even worse job as a pundit in his dotage. Ignore his “Pillsbury” doughboy demeanor. He can’t help that he is starting to look like his Aunt Mildred as he ages (just one of the consequences of losing testosterone and eating too much pudding). At least Jack Keane looks and sounds like a guy who once was a general. But Hodges cannot be excused for being a blind, partisan cheerleader when it comes to discussing the war in Ukraine. His weak-minded, shallow analysis reflects poorly on his prior education and his failure to comprehend concepts such as strategy, tactics and order of battle. To quote Bugs Bunny, “what a maroon.”

Exactly, and what I highlighted is even more important--Russian operational level officers are dumbfounded by sheer idiocy and manifest military incompetence of Western generals the likes of Petraeus, Ben Hodges, Keane et al, not to mention clowns from British Army who "consult" already retarded British media. The question is: what did they study in their service life? Evidently not much. So, when I say that such people like Petraeus or Ben Hodges wouldn't be allowed to command even the regiment in Russian Armed Forces I do not exaggerate much. 

Even They Have To Admit, However Partially...

 ... in the interview to BBC. I am talking about 404 Office of President adviser Mikhail Podolyak, who admitted that VSU loses between 100 to 200 KIAs every day.  

КИЕВ, 10 июня. /ТАСС/. Украина теряет в день от 100 до 200 военнослужащих убитыми. Об этом в четверг заявил советник главы офиса украинского президента Владимира Зеленского Михаил Подоляк, передает украинская служба Би-би-си.

Translation: Kyiv, June 10. /TASS/. Ukraine loses from 100 to 200 servicemen killed per day. Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said this on Thursday, the BBC Ukrainian service reports. 

Of course, we all know that the situation is much--many fold--worse for VSU, but the very fact that they begin to admit the rout is important.  Of course, Podolyak blamed these losses on whatever weapon systems VSU lacks, but hey, Kiev told the whole world that it fought Russian Army for eight years in Donbass. What has happened now in under 100 days then, once Russian Army showed up in moderately sized force?

As Bernhard of MoA points out to General Twitty's exchange with Richard Haas of CFR in his excellent write up on the "blame game". As Twitty responds to Haas:

And I also want to remind you we hear a lot about Russian casualties and Russian losses. We hear very little about Ukrainian losses, and keep in mind they’re losing soldiers throughout this war as well. They started at approximately two hundred thousand. Who knows where they are today?

Now, we all have to ask ourselves this question: hear from who? We know the answer--US MSM verbatim conveying Ukie propaganda, period. But you win on the battlefield, not on the talk shows. Now that even Ukie MoD confirms daily 500 sanitary (300s) losses, it all adds up to a military catastrophe and cessation of VSU as an actual army. Many can tell now where those 200,000 VSU are. I will omit here discussion of operational matters, because we still don't know all the facts, but I want to reiterate what I stated at the very beginning of SMO--this operation will be studied in the military academies everywhere for many decades to come as a primer for Strategic and Operational planning in modern warfare.

Thanks To Bernhard Or About Losses, Again...

Bernhard of MoA did a great service by providing a link to the article from yesterday which, in this particular case, does provide words from Pentagon man, that is not just some BSer from Reuters or CNN, or  WSJ who make numbers up and then lie that those numbers are from their "sources".  But even this "15,000 Russian troops killed" dude had to cool it on the Ukie BS being used by US media:

The US and NATO disagree over an estimate of 40,000 Russian casualties in Ukraine. "We continue to have low confidence in those estimates" 

But as I stated, even Pentagon's "figure" (7,000-15,000 KIAs), if it was delivered by someone "in the know" shows the absolute lack of even fleeting grasp of what is going on on the ground in Ukraine. I agree with Bernhard's title of his article and its content:

Propaganda Does Not Change The War - The Ukraine Is Still Losing - Updated

That is why I constantly cringe when, yet another, "analyst" begins to weep about Russia "losing the information war". Russia couldn't have "won" such a war abroad, because it is the only field in which US excels--creation of virtual reality by means of non-stop lies in every single field US media cover, be it elections, health, war (especially war), science, education, you name it. They lie, that's what they do.  Part of this lie serves political agenda of non-stop elections shell game, which passes for "democracy", a euphemism of substituting one incompetent amoral ignoramus for another. The other part is a genuine ignorance, no more so than in the field of warfare. For every truth Russia delivers, there are 10 respective insane lies. 

Just to demonstrate what kind of fraud this "journalism" is, we may go to Columbia University Journo "Program" and partake in the most difficult (in involves some calculations) part of this pseudo-profession and it is Data Journalism. As the title implies, the future "journo" will be taught how to handle data. Just get the load of this from curriculum:

Data Journalism students begin their program in the fall taking foundational computational and data courses as well as courses on the fundamentals of reporting. In the second semester, they continue honing their journalistic skills with Writing with Data and the Data, Computation, Innovation workshop, where they will explore cutting-edge storytelling using data and computation, and take a 15‐week seminar and production course with the Master of Science students. In the final semester, students work on the Master’s Project, a substantive piece of data-driven journalism. They also join the Master of Science students in taking a suite of courses called Journalism Essentials, which covers the business, historical, legal and ethical issues of the field. They also take Storytelling with Data and Data, Computation, Innovation II. 

So, in other words, they teach those "students" some Python, maybe some statistics and "data handling" with application to exactly what? A-ha, here is the issue, assuming, of course, with a very high probability of those students trying to get their M.S. (yes, Master of fvcking Science) in this "field" having no serious math and physics fundamental education crucial for any field of the modern technology-infused world, and that is why no matter what grade they get in this Hodgepodge collection of intro level programming, multi-media and some basic data-handling, they will remain as ignorant on the realities of engineering and design practices, real physical economy or science. But they also will not get even in the most basic form real warfare, ranging from tactics and operational art to more complex issues of sensors, weapon systems integration and combat control--it is a completely different world which is fully obscured by fanboys on YouTube who wouldn't know the difference between math.expectation and probability of hitting the target, and, incidentally, is precisely completely obfuscated by these very "journalism" and "communications" graduates who do not know shit from shinola and have zero background in warfare.

I don't need to really expose here such "wonderful" examples of military "journalism" such as David Axe or Michael Peck, among many others who grace the pages of innumerable US publications on war and military porn, but they are not there to "report". They are there to spin. I do appreciate and I know there are real American (and Russian) military reporters out there who have seen some shit and they try to report honestly (including by risking their lives) on war issues, but that is still--reporting. It gives some touch to the reality on the ground, but the essential thing which runs modern war: strategic and operational planning, combat command and control--these are very different animals and anyone wouldn't even get close to those without graduating serious military higher learning institution and having serious tactical let alone operational planning experience at least at the level of regiment and its staff. Brigade and division staff level is still preferred. And it is this level at which one begins to learn to handle immense arrays of data of which fanboys who discuss how one or another tank looks like or why F-16 is sexier than MiG-29 (which, actually, is true) have no clue about, as are the graduates of this Data Journalism courses. 

That is why such a BS about 15,000 Russian KIAs makes it to Western media, spun, of course, for the sake of the agenda of powers that be and really, any claims by American or European journos about "freedom of press" are met today in Russia and elsewhere with a Homeric laughter. But even factoring all those PR-"professionals" and propaganda pushers one still doesn't get the problem resolved. Professionals, especially serious professionals, and my blog allows many of them to speak here, such as Larry Johnson, or, by references such as Colonel Vladimir Trukhan, or Scott Ritter or Colonel Macgregor, no matter how one tries to convey a complexity of a modern C2 (Command and Control) on the modern and very complex battlefield, Hollywood will always win, as will those "unnamed" Pentagon officials who would be "leaking" a complete BS and non-sense to ignoramuses from media, who exist only for sensation and not for honest reporting. Some of them, as you all know, are downright war criminals. 

It is not that Western journos spread lies, it is the fact that with each passing day their BS becomes so outlandish that one has to ask the question: do they even know what basic arithmetic is? I begin to doubt it. I can try to explain to some moron from NYT or WSJ (not that they will be interested in it) how the combat tasks are set and how planning develops from there, how to approximately calculate the force size for a company, even battalion to accomplish the task, where the reserves will come and how, but I cannot help in cases when their parents and schools didn't teach them basic adding and subtraction, not to speak of multiplication and division (ooh, boy those stochastic coefficients, you have to multiply there). So, that is why General Patton is America's main WW II "hero", because BS sells and no matter how one may hate (and they deserve it fully) Erick Von Manstein, Heinz Guderian or Walter Model, should these people be alive today, as would have been Zhukov, Tolbukhin or Rokossovsky, they all would have come to an agreement that the US learned all the wrong lessons from WW II and that explains why the US lost all of its wars which followed. Goebbels would have loved to have Anglo-American MSM journos in his org in Hell. They would fit right in. 

In related news. New anecdote from Russia, Madeleine Albright gets to the Charon the ferryman at the river Styx and offers him a coin (one sixth of a Drachma) for crossing the river. Charon shakes his head in disagreement and replies to her: "I accept only Rubles".

And This Is The News Exactly How?

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along:

US officials have been lying to the American people about US failures in Afghanistan, where the US military has been fighting its longest armed conflict in US history, a collection of confidential documents obtained by the Washington Post revealed. Over the past 18 years of war, US officials have repeatedly insisted that the US is making progress in Afghanistan, but over 2,000 pages of notes from interviews with more than 400 people who had a direct role in the war in Afghanistan have revealed the truth about the conflict — that data was altered and facts were twisted to present a positive picture when the reality in country was far from it, The Post reports. John Sopko, head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the agency that conducted the interviews, told The Post that the documents clearly show "the American people have constantly been lied to." The documents obtained by The Post show that the US and its allies and partners had no clear mission, the US does not have a sufficient understanding of Afghanistan, and the US has wasted massive amounts of money trying to stabilize the still unstable country. "We didn't know what we were doing," Douglas Lute, a retired Army three-star general who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told interviewers in 2015. "What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking,"

There is one teeny-weeny "detail" here. The number of KIAs, same as in Iraq, is given only for regular military. There are, of course, those so called "contractors", who, if to believe reports by 2015 accounted for another around 2000 KIAs. Plus, lest we forget purely civilian contractors. As the news-piece continues:

"If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction ... 2,400 lives lost," he added. Since the start of the war in 2001, the US has sent more than 775,000 troops to Afghanistan. Around 2,400 service members have been killed, and more than 20,000 have been wounded. Furthermore, the US is estimated to have spent roughly $1 trillion on the conflict. "What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL who served both Bush and Obama as a White House staffer, asked, according to The Post.

So, at this stage, one must ask the question--what are they thinking in D.C.? It is especially scandalous against the background of Russia having to clean up the mess left by the United States in Afghanistan, with all fruits of Afghan "democracy", such as Taliban and ISIS, and other "progressive" Jihadist movements having plans for Middle Asia. That means Russia. One, of course, can wax geopolitical and conclude that the United States has The Great Game plans of  "containing" Russia by means of disturbing her "soft Asian underbelly". Well, sure, but not at the price of own humiliating defeat. The game is worth playing only when one gets some benefits. What benefits, exactly, did the United States reap from its longest war in history? So, the abused, as you may have guessed by now by political "scientists", and false argument of this Great Game simply doesn't fly, even if to imagine that some nominally American Transnational Corp will decide to do business in minerals-rich Afghanistan and will be ready to payoff Afghan conflicting tribal interests. Good luck with that. 

Of course, Afghanistan lies perilously close to China's BRI routes....

 

And Afghanistan seems like a nice bridgehead from which to destabilize weak links in this route, especially Tajikistan. Can they have such plans in D.C.? Observing the "level" of Geo-strategic "thinking" in Washington, one can totally conceive that such a delusion is being exercised. But that is where Russian 201st Military Base may turn itself into something much more substantial, granted Tajikistan wants to survive, but that is another issue altogether. Considering the fact that the United States is ungovernable and is mired in lost wars trying to postpone inevitable, as one observer noted about Syria "withdrawal" :

So to recap, we have a withdrawal that isn’t a withdrawal. We have an ostensibly antiwar left that’s too busy ferreting out the Russian spies in its Peloton supply chains to actually accomplish anything useful. We have a shiny, rebranded, “pro-working class” right that refuses to heed the foreign policy wishes of its newest constituents. We have a president who looks less like a commander-in-chief than a Tom and Jerry character falling down an endless set of stairs. And we have a national debt of $23 trillion and counting. Gold stars all around.

Couldn't have said better myself. 

Cutting Empire To Size, Or Yet Another "National Security" Crisis.

It becomes really redundant by now and, frankly, tiresome. 

WASHINGTON — America’s military superiority has “eroded to a dangerous degree,” leaving the U.S. in a “crisis of national security,” especially if faced with more than one conflict at once, a new congressionally-mandated report concluded.“The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” reads the report, issued Wednesday by the National Defense Strategy Commission. “It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.

Truth is, there is no "crisis of national security" in the US--nobody is intent on attacking the US or cut vital for the US Shipping Lanes Of Communications (SLOC), other than some terrorists, but FBI can handle that; US Navy, despite all of its very real problems, is still a very potent navy, especially its submarine component, to do the job of keeping SLOCs open. Neither Russia nor China are intent to interdict these SLOCs unless the United States decides to start a war on them, then, of course, if the US, say, tries to attack Russia, things change. Other than that--there is no crisis. Russia can obliterate the US today, she could do it yesterday, and she will be able to do it tomorrow, the same goes the other way--this is MAD, folks. But Russia explicitly doesn't want to attack the US. So, what's the fuss is all about? 

The fuss is about this (from the article):

But the authors worry that the department, as it is structured both strategically and financially right now, would not be able to successfully manage two conflicts at once – or be guaranteed victory in even one, should it come down to a fight with Russia or China.

Talk about folie de grandeur of unimaginable scale (see Report). One may ask the question on how those people in National Defense Strategy Commission really envision, say war against Russia alone. It is really a fascinating, for all the wrong reasons, scenario since, I am sure, these guys (such as former CNO Admiral Gary Roughead among other 11 members of this Commission) try to play this scenario strictly in conventional framework, because otherwise the United States as a state will cease to exist. 

I was thinking about this, not to mention getting tired of reading all kinds of alarmist, justified and not, as in this case, "reports" and here is my simple take. 

1. United States never fought against first-rate, well-trained, equipped and determined adversary which can match US capabilities across the whole spectrum of modern warfare. US fought in Vietnam where it lost to determined but largely peasant force with only some very few capabilities of a first world army, it fought in Korea where it ended with bloody stalemate and, of course, US had its turkey shoot against grossly incompetent Saddam's Army. US armed forces never fought in their modern history against the adversary capable to strike (conventionally) to the strategic depth. That means under no conditions were US troops, their rear services, bases, strategic command and control assets, ammunition stocks etc. subjected to a serious (and sustained) fire impact since one day Pearl Harbor affair.  Of course, we do not even talk about US proper.

2. United States doesn't have effective battle field air defense capable to prevent such a (stand-off) impact--no US AD complex is capable to reliably intercept most Russia's stand-off weapons thus exposing every single US combat asset on the theater of operations. 

3. A painful issue of US air assets--good luck dealing with the best air-defense in the world. A single regiment of S-300 PMU2 in Syria shut down Israeli Air Force (equipped with much vaunted F-35) operations over coastal Syria. 

4. Ground forces? Another wowser since nobody knows how US ground forces will fare against steady and fast attrition of its assets against arguably best anti-armor and area-impact weapons in the world. US simply has no historic experience with that under the conditions of very limited resources and manufacturing base being destroyed (conventionally) domestically. 

So, how this Commission envisions such a war is a really funny question. They do state, however: 

We recommend that DOD more clearly answer the question of how it intends to accomplish a core theme of the NDS—defeating major power rivals in competition and war. Without a credible approach to winning a war against China or Russia, DOD’s efforts will befor naught

Apart from fluffy (and expected) pseudo-military BS, I have question to this Commission--do they have any idea how it will feel, if they imagine a set-piece (totally unrealistic scenario) battle at Russia's borders in purely conventional way, to lose, say, 150,000 KIAs alone just within one-two months of "fighting"? You say impossible? I would say I am being way too cautious. After all, this is US Army Colonel speaking in 2012 BEFORE certain events unfolded:

In 110 days of fighting the German army in France during 1918, the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power. Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.

This should be emblazoned on every wall of any US military-related "think-tank" or "commission" because reality will be even grimmer once one understands that in order for US (NATO) to fight Russia they will need to come into Russia's backyard (Russia is not going to occupy or attack anyone unless attacked first) and people way more capable strategically and tactically than those in Pentagon tried it, not for once, and ended losing not only wars but their armies and  states. US military "thinkers" evidently have no grasp of what even conventional war with Russia may bring to the American side--the scale of attrition which will make Vietnam an easy stroll in the park in comparison, albeit Americans who fought there were tough soldiers and good leaders on tactical level. This is not the case today. But General Van Riper's lessons still must be studied to avoid a catastrophe which expects any adversary deciding to fight Russia in her vicinity. 

But what is this "crisis" really about? It is actually about not willing to face reality and fight a real war (it is scary and is pregnant with major political consequences), as opposed to comfortable rolling over grossly inferior adversaries. It is about constantly diminishing military capability margin, which was grossly inflated to start with in the wake of the Soviet collapse, and which now is getting to be more proportional to the Empire which is being "cut to size" by geopolitical, economic, military, technological and human reality. So, no--United States is not capable to fight either Russia or China separately, let alone those two simultaneously--this delusional idea was born out of ignorance, hubris and, frankly, lack of knowledge of the real warfare with capable adversaries. Projecting (lack of) "lessons" from Iraq or Afghanistan occupations and (not)fighting there in what is a medium to low intensity conventional (COIN) conflicts onto modern 21st century warfare against nuclear superpowers--it is either, indeed, folie de grandeur or a sign of a mental disorder among those who have to face reality of American very real economic and, with it, military decline. United States either learns to live within its by far not limitless means and accepts the new geopolitical reality, thus preserving own status as one of the few true global superpowers, or it will destroy itself completely trying to retain which it thinks, wrongly, a providence-bestowed crown of hegemon. I feel it is time to address some issues of possible casualties in a conventional conflict. I will do it later.