It Has Been Posted ...

 ... in comments, but it is worth repeating by Dmitry Medvedev. 

The U.S.–Iran conflict has been put on hold. Predictably, both sides are claiming victory. So who won? First of all, common sense did – though faith in it was badly shaken when the White House started talking about wiping out Iranian civilization in one day. Still, the very fact that Trump agreed to discuss the 10-point plan is a win for the Iranians. The question is whether Washington will accept it, since it includes, among other things, compensation for the damage inflicted on Iran, the continuation of its nuclear program, and Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz. The answer is clearly no. That would be humiliating and would amount to a real victory for the Islamic Republic. So what then? Back to war?

That’s possible. But there is also another option. Trump neither wants nor can sustain a long war, and he won’t find support in Congress for one, either. This means he must maintain the fragile ceasefire and pretend that everything is fine. Because every step on this board pushes the situation closer to zugzwang. But this is a game of chess with three players, not two: there’s also Israel, which is not playing on the U.S. side. It has no use for a ceasefire, and it has not achieved its objectives. It could very well make its own move: simply sweep all the pieces off the board. That makes the situation highly uncertain. Which also means the pigheaded European Russophobes will have to live in austerity mode for a long time. Because there is no cheap oil in sight…

Highlighted is the crux of the matter. I want to remind you:

A particular strategic policy must be devised for every war; each war is a special case, which requires its own particular logic, rather than any kind of stereotype or pattern, no matter how splendid it may be. The more our theory encompasses the entire content of modern war, the quicker it will assist us in analyzing a given situation. A narrow doctrine would probably confuse us more than guide us.

That's Svechin. The US "strategic policy", strategy and operational art is the always the same--launch whatever you have in stand-off weaponry (long range fires) and see what, like that proverbial substance, sticks. Svechin continues:

The first duty of the art of politics with respect to strategy is to formulate the political goal of a war. Any goal should be strictly coordinated with the resources available to achieve it. The political goal should be appropriate to one’s war-waging capabilities. To meet this requirement, a politician must have a correct conception of the relations of friendly to hostile forces, which requires extremely mature and profound judgment; a knowledge of the history, politics and statistics of both hostile states; and a certain amount of competence in basic military matters. The final statement of the goal would be made by the politician after an appropriate exchange of views with strategists, and it should help rather than hinder strategic decisions. 

As you might expect, it is not a secret, American politicians do not know what resources are, how they affect operational issues and, of course, average American politician thinks that he (she) is the brightest, most powerful and knowledgeable strategist because he (she) graduated Harvard or similar degree mill's political science or law school, while denying the same to their opponents. The fact that most people in US decision circle are highly uncultured, primitive uneducated hacks who know only apparatus games and staying elected (or appointed) doesn't occur to them. 

Rephrasing old military truism that "while amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics", while amateurs discuss capitalization and stocks, professionals discuss tons, units, kilowatt-hours and correlation of forces and means (COFM). So, Medvedev is spot on here and if hostilities resume (it may happen), they will resume with Iran dominating the battlefield even more and being able to inflict much more pain on the US and that chihuahua in Levant which without its nukes and American welfare is a third rate power. 

This guy, however, was pushed to sue for ceasefire by his Israeli masters because neither could take it anymore. So, will wait and see what comes out of it in the long run. 

Aw, Poor Poor Dears.

And yes, the real cost of this hare-brained scheme by NATO amateur planners is well known.  

The Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region ordered by Vladimir Zelensky came with “too high” a cost and did not deliver any operational results, former top Ukrainian General, and current Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, Valery Zaluzhny, claimed in an article published on Tuesday. The August 2024 operation involved an initial force of some 35,000 troops who invaded Russia’s Kursk Region, taking dozens of villages and killing local residents in a move Zelensky claimed would provide leverage for future peace talks. In April President Vladimir Putin declared the Kursk Region “fully liberated” and Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported that Ukraine had lost more than 76,000 troops killed and wounded in the operation, along with over 7,700 pieces of military equipment.

Well, it was here where NATO finally solidified its status as a collection of terrorists by committing atrocities against Russian civilians which would make SS proud. And then, they indeed paraded themselves as operations' amateurs not understanding what operational ART is. How "strategy" is taught and by whom--you can listen to Sarah Paine in US Naval War College, she is an Exhibit A for a reason why Pentagon has no clue what strategy is. And if 2023 "counter-offensive" catastrophe could still be assumed to be a "learning process" for NATO (specifically Generals Donahue and Aguto "planned" that disaster), after Kursk it became clear that they learned nothing and remain in the amateur league in operational and strategic senses. The only thing US (and later British) generals had as an advantage is the cannon fodder, which could be wasted without looking back at a traditional US very high sensitivity to own losses. 

You cannot learn operational ART based on movie Patton and Gulf War, especially in the military which seriously considers itself "a finest fighting force in history". I can only repeat what I said before--NATO in general and US in particular military education is a joke. It starts from STEM and goes to tactics and operations, especially as related to military history. ROTC is not an answer and never was. 

The consequences of this backslide are significant. Figure 2 (below) shows the percentage of officers, by rank, who possessed a STEM+M-related degree in 2020. Fewer than 14 percent of field grade officers and fewer than 16 percent of senior grade officers possess graduate-level STEM+M education. At these levels, 55 percent of Army battalions and nearly 15 percent of brigades are unlikely to have any staff officers possessing advanced STEM+M degrees. This shortage will become more important as the use of disruptive technologies increases during military operations where critical decisions are under accelerated time lines.

Good luck with on-line courses in STEM trying to "lift" percentages for "better" statistics. One has to start with elementary school to change all that, but do not expect any changes there. Meanwhile, Russia recreates traditional military academies which produced the best officer corps in the world (in Russian). 15 new ones till 2035 and, as you may have guessed it, all 5 years 6 days a week engineering schools. It doesn't mean that Russia will completely reject Military Departments in civilian universities (a remote analogue of ROTC and OCS) but they will take, as it always was, a secondary if not tertiary role in officer cadres. The gap will continue to grow because the US has neither system nor military culture adequate for a large scale conventional conflict.  

There Is No "Strategy".

NATO doesn't do strategy, in fact--most in it do not have even a fleeting grasp of what strategy is and how to match critical resources to political aims--you know, the reason why wars are fought. 

Multiple reports in Western news media highlight President Donald Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Financial Times reported that Trump had encouraged Kiev to punish Putin by striking deep inside Russian territory—perhaps even hitting Moscow—if the U.S. provided it with more long-range weapons. (Trump has denied he supports such strikes.)  In marked contrast to the initial weeks of his second term, Trump has now effectively signed on to NATO’s uncompromising strategy of insisting on Russia’s capitulation with respect to the terms of a peace accord between Russia and Ukraine. The Western demands include Russia’s complete withdrawal from conquered Ukrainian territory (including Crimea) and its acquiescence to Kiev’s possibly joining NATO. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis expresses the prevailing mentality of hardliners when he contends that sending Ukraine openly offensive weapons might be the most effective way to force Moscow back to the negotiating table.

Pentagon (I omit here amateurs from European armies) doesn't do strategy--one cannot do strategy based on own military fairy tales and Wall Street "economic" indices. But that is what they teach in NATO's military academies. So, Trump is free to sign on whatever it wants, but it gives me a great pleasure to point out, despite our irreconcilable differences on Russian history of the the 20th century, our almost word in word assessment of the Western militaries. 

You cannot overcome this cultural and mental block, period. And let's state very clearly, in fact, stress it--a MAJOR factor driving speeches and actions of such people like Stavridis or Keane is an insufferable professional jealousy and envy. Just to demonstrate another one fairy tales narrator from the US military--now Army Europe Chief General Donahue:

We know what we have to develop and the use case that we’re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,” he said. “The land domain is not becoming less important, it’s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, aerial-denial] A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground. All of those things we are watching happen in Ukraine.” For example, Donahue noted, Kaliningrad, Russia, is roughly 47 miles wide and surrounded by NATO on all sides and the Army and its allies now have the capability to “take that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we’ve ever been able to do.”

Somebody has to explain to him, that everything he was taught and knows about "war" (he never saw one) is largely police operations' mangled pseudo-strategic BS. I guess he still doesn't understand that the pivot of all US Army Field Manuals those proverbial "long-range fires" are not even in the same universe with what Russian Army fields today. And if he wants to "take" Kaliningrad, Russia will take out first any column of NATO troops moving towards Kaliningrad and if that will not help, she will take out Washington and most US bases around the world. But then again, this is the simple truth I try to convey for the last decade--choose your own league. Roger Waters gets it when explains that the US doesn't understand who did it get itself entangled with, but he is a musician--granted, a genius one--evidently US generals don't.  

It Is Becoming...

 ... nauseating. It is behind the paywall but what is available speaks volumes. 

On a recent trip to Ukraine, we walked through the rubble of a children’s hospital in Kyiv targeted by the Russians, toured an apartment building in Kharkiv where floor after floor had been destroyed by Russian missiles, and visited the front lines to meet with soldiers who spoke of the brutality of Russian human-wave tactics. But the most unsettling thing we saw was the American strategy in Ukraine, one that gives the Ukrainian people just enough military aid not to lose their war but not enough to win it. This strategy is slowly bleeding Ukraine, and its people, to death. Our visit was facilitated by With Honor, a bipartisan political-action committee that supports veterans in Congress, and we toured Ukraine alongside Republican and Democratic lawmakers. We are both Marine Corps veterans. We have a combined 60-year breadth of combat experience between us, including Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The horrors of war are not unfamiliar to us. Yet both of us felt deeply disturbed as we finished our trip.

And here, apart from these former marines parroting all types of 404 propaganda, which tells you immediately who they are as military professionals, some things need to be addressed. I'll start with the most abused term in the US--"strategy". These two do not know what strategy is, because what passes in the US for "strategy" is nothing more than knee jerking based on utter geopolitical and military incompetence based on confabulated military history and arrogance which manifested itself through dismal (and humiliating) American military record and military R&D and procurement policies which have nothing to do with real war. Albeit, at least in 1970s and 80s NATO was admitting its conventional weakness in Europe. 

But here comes this nauseating part, and you may have guessed it already, these two need to read this--their "combat" experiences are I-R-R-E-L-E-V-A-N-T for modern warfare. NO US military person ever fought against equal or better enemy than the US force, period. NO American serviceman knows, or, as on many occasions "maneuvers" of the US "volunteers" in 404 demonstrated when running away from serious contacts, can understand operational (emphasis on OPERATIONAL) realities and know how to act--recognizing one or another local tactical-operational reality the Joint Force Operations does not make. US never had real Joint Force, nor has any experience in having the main organ of combat control of ALL armed forces and that means General Staff. Joint Chiefs is not General Staff and America's military culture was always imperial expeditionary one and will remain such no matter what Washington does. So, these two former marines have to resign themselves to a cruel cold hard fact--the only people they fought in their lives have been essentially defenseless against them. With the exception of Vietnam which did have a serious support from the USSR.  

Thirdly, US military education is essentially a joke. Especially so in service academies whose serious modern warfare "studies" cannot even measure to what and how is taught in Russia. But here is something out of the left field for you. When even Masha Gessen (a fanatical Russophobe) speaking to another Russian deviant and foreign agent Dud' drops the truth bomb. 

Even this vile creature responding to Dud's question of what Americans think about WW II states that they really think that they won it. She points out that all this is due to arrogance and chauvinism. And then tells story from one of her experience at the exclusive gathering of CIA and Pentagon veterans when she was told to her face by one former CIA big honcho that: "We won WW II for you..." And even she (he, it) has been taken aback. When even this human anomaly has such an opinion, what do you expect from people who saw way more than these two "combat veterans" who are lost completely in the operational and strategic realities of SMO. Trump is correct here: 

The US has lost respect on the world stage and has become a laughing stock, former President Donald Trump said at a campaign event in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

And now you have many former and present US military people having a severe cognitive dissonance when they have been shown REAL war. But, of course, for them George Patton was and is great general. Hey, Hollywood says so. As per "human-wave" tactics, this is everything you need to know about these two marines--being militarily illiterate they would believe any "combat" BS, because nobody taught them real tactics and military history. Sore losers and amateurs...

Why They Are No Good.

I am talking about US military. Thanks to one of the commenters to my video--he pointed out to this piece of "strategic and operational wisdom"--we can now understand why the US cannot win a war. Behold:

Matthew Schmidt, Ph.D. Ph.D., Government, Georgetown University, 2011 M.A., Russian/East European Studies, University of Kansas, 2001 B.A., Government and Literature, Claremont McKenna College, 1998

Look at his "impressive" C.V., LOL)))

An expert on strategic analysis in foreign affairs, U.S. politics, security, and military matters, University of New Haven Associate Professor of National Security and Political Science Matthew Schmidt, Ph.D., has taught strategic and operational planning at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, consulted on doctored maps of a downed Russian jet with the Senate Arms Services Committee, been a representative to Ukraine’s post-revolution presidential election, and visiting professor of stability operations at the Army War College. Dr. Schmidt was also named #22 on Fast Company’s list of the 100 most creative people in America for his work bringing design techniques from architecture into military planning. An expert on defense and intelligence, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Europe, and U.S. foreign policy in North Korea and elsewhere, he also was part of the core team on the Project on National Security Reform, an initiative sponsored by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, which recommended major reforms to the U.S. intelligence and national security community after 9/11. His work has given him deep insight into the political dynamics of these issues. He is the co-host of Impolitic, a podcast that examines current issues in politics, national security and international affairs. 

The architecture bit is hilarious--yes, we all know that the guy wouldn't have any idea what resolution of uncertainties or topology of combat networks are, not to mention how to command a platoon, let alone company or battalion size unit, but here we are--they teaches at the US Army Command and General Staff College? No wonder US Army cannot win shit and is good only at beating third rate militaries. Can you imagine this clown with humanities background teaching "strategic and operational planning" in Russian Academy of General Staff? I cannot, but I am sure that with his B.A. in Government and... Literature (What the fuck is this degree--an auto-mechanic-gynecologist?) he will be able to teach the use of Markov Chains in strategic planning or how required force is calculated for operations the scale of SMO. 

And so, here is this guy's latest "strategic wisdom" for CNN with a telling title: Ukraine’s path to victory runs through the streets of Moscow. It is an excruciating reading for anyone with serious military background.  

Setting aside the complicated and depressing prospect of Ukraine giving away land and giving in to Russia, Kyiv is left with two ways to win. If Washington and Brussels manage to overcome political deadlock and deliver a new round of aid, and perhaps more advanced weaponry, Ukraine can seek to use it in a drastic bid to capture Crimea. Or, Kyiv can take the longer and more-likely route: pursue not a war-ending settlement that gives away territory, but a ceasefire that pauses the fighting while preserving Ukraine’s legal claims to its territory — in the hope that it one day can regain them.    

Immediate note--the guy is military-technologically illiterate--not surprising for a product of American fraudulent "education" in all things military through humanities and "government" degree mills. The guy, evidently, has no grasp of technological and OPERATIONAL mismatch between the US and Russia, a point I make now non-stop for years--the United States lost the arms race. This applies not just to nuclear weapons, in conventional field--the latest and "bestest" of the USAF, as an example, is not designed to fight modern air war with peer air force, let alone aided by peerless Air Defense. US Army IS not designed to fight a maneuver warfare under what it never experienced in its history--relentless strikes to operational depth by standoff weapons under the conditions of a severe disruptions due to ECM and ECCM by the enemy. Generally, there is NOTHING, short of nuclear weapons, United States can provide 404 which can change the outcome. Nothing! 

Lastly, the guy has no clue what modern Russia is. But, sure, for this "expert" going through bargaining stage of Kubler-Ross could be really painful, so, in order to make my life miserable he wrote this pathetic pretentious piece of garbage which I had to read and make you also miserable to only demonstrate--with professors like this, the US will never win anything. But hey, what do I know? Maybe this "professor" can get a clue here:

Operation Prosperity Guardian, the American-led coalition to defend shipping through the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden from Houthi attacks is showing major cracks just as it is forming. At the same time, the latest rash of drone strikes on commercial vessels appears to have spread far from Yemen's shores, to waters off India. 

And while at it, he can write something on the issue of a missile exchange within evolved Salvo Model? No? Well, I do not hold my breath, neither should you, but as the saying goes with "teachers" like that who needs enemies?

Europe Is Written Off.

 And how do we know this? Easy, today, at Primakov Readings:

 

Вопрос: Каковы перспективы российско-европейских торгово-экономических отношений? Учитывая, что Россия является поставщиком почти одной трети углеводородов в Европу, которая, видимо, будет искать альтернативу. Как Москва представляет себе развитие этих отношений?

С.В.Лавров: Даже не буду пытаться гадать, что Европа собирается делать. Думаю, она (кроме Канцлера ФРГ О.Шольца и вице-канцлера Р.Хабека) поняла, где оказалась.

Почитайте статистику, во сколько раз США обгоняют экономический рост Европы. Франция, судя по всему, будет в «нулях». Некогда «локомотивы» европейской экономики (Германия, Великобритания) будут «расти» вниз. После серии законов, принятых американцами для борьбы с инфляцией и по другим темам, цены на энергоносители в США в 4-5 раз ниже, чем в Европе, где происходит деиндустриализация.

Думающий о своем будущем бизнес переезжает в Соединенные Штаты. Убежден, что это не просто стечение обстоятельств, а осознанная политика Вашингтона. Потому что Европа – это тоже конкурент, который США не нужен. Им нужна группа «серых» людей, выполняющих то, что прикажут. Не хочу обижать европейцев, но нынешние политические элиты действуют именно так.

Смотрим статистику. Полезно понимать, что происходит. Но на данном этапе нам не надо думать о том, как восстановить отношения с Европой. Сейчас нужно думать, как не зависеть от «вывертов» в европейской политике (прежде всего в торговой, экономической, инвестиционной сферах), которые они делают под воздействием Вашингтона. Мы должны обезопасить себя во всех ключевых отраслях нашей экономики (безопасности и жизни в целом), от которых зависит будущее страны. Мы должны самостоятельно производить всё, что нам нужно для безопасности, развития экономики, обеспечения решений социальных вопросов, внедрения современных технологий (недавно прошло очередное мероприятие по искусственному интеллекту), чтобы не страдать от новых «капризов», когда и если они захотят накинуться на нас с санкциями.

Рестрикции никуда не исчезли. Запад хочет закончить всё «втихаря», по-хитрому. Заморозить, выиграть время (как было с Минскими соглашениями), опять вооружить нацистский режим в Киеве и продолжать свою гибридную (или не гибридную) агрессию против Российской Федерации. Но даже когда всё закончится, большинство санкций останутся.

Нам надо жить своим умом. Когда и если к ним придет «протрезвление», и нам будут что-то предлагать, мы десять раз подумаем, взвесим, отвечают ли все предложения нашим интересам и насколько европейские коллеги надежны. Они свою договороспособность и репутацию сильно подорвали. Может быть еще не окончательно.

Translation:

Question: What are the prospects for Russian-European trade and economic relations? Considering that Russia supplies almost one third of hydrocarbons to Europe, which will apparently be looking for an alternative. How does Moscow imagine the development of these relations? 

Sergey Lavrov: I won’t even try to guess what Europe is going to do. I think she (except for German Chancellor O. Scholz and Vice-Chancellor R. Habeck) understood where she ended up. Read the statistics on how many times the US economic growth is faster than Europe. France, apparently, will be in the “zeros”. The once “locomotives” of the European economy (Germany, Great Britain) will “grow” downwards. After a series of laws adopted by the Americans to combat inflation and other topics, energy prices in the United States are 4-5 times lower than in Europe, where deindustrialization is taking place. Businesses thinking about their future move to the United States. I am convinced that this is not just a coincidence, but a deliberate policy of Washington. Because Europe is also a competitor that the United States does not need. They need a group of “gray” people who do what they order. I don’t want to offend Europeans, but this is exactly how the current political elites act. Let's look at the statistics. It's useful to understand what's going on.  

But at this stage we do not need to think about how to restore relations with Europe. Now we need to think about how not to depend on the “twists” in European politics (primarily in the trade, economic, and investment spheres) that they make under the influence of Washington. We must protect ourselves in all key sectors of our economy (security and life in general), on which the future of the country depends. We must independently produce everything we need for security, economic development, providing solutions to social issues, introducing modern technologies (another event on artificial intelligence was recently held), so as not to suffer from new “whims” when and if they want to attack us with sanctions. The restrictions have not disappeared anywhere. The West wants to finish everything “on the sly,” in a cunning way. Freeze, buy time (as was the case with the Minsk agreements), again arm the Nazi regime in Kyiv and continue their hybrid (or non-hybrid) aggression against the Russian Federation. But even when everything is over, most of the sanctions will remain. We need to live by our own mind. When and if they “sober up” and they offer us something, we will think ten times, weigh whether all the proposals meet our interests and how reliable our European colleagues are. They have greatly undermined their ability to negotiate and their reputation. It may not be final yet.

There, everything is answered. And yes, Russia will talk to Washington only and only when she sees that Washington is ready to talk. Well, this is what happens when the high-school basketball team tries to play with NBA squad. Everything has been calculated and forecasted.

Yet Another Garbage From RAND.

RAND suddenly produced yet another "study" about SMO, this time about "propaganda". In this study titled The Nightingale Versus the Bear, What Persuasion Research Reveals About Ukraine's and Russia's Messaging on the War, RAND's continues to live in alternative universe and once one tries to take this "study" seriously, at the first try one immediately runs into the one of the reasons why the US cannot win a single war despite all efforts from RAND to pretend that they deal with strategy and not strategery. It doesn't take them long:

The Specifics of Period 1: Russia’s Initial Offensive and the Battle for Kyiv. Russia’s Messaging Targeting Russian Audiences. 

So, this group of RAND "scholars" evidently still believes, trying to do the "study", that there was some "Battle for Kiev". It is not surprising for RAND and overwhelming majority of the US think-tanks to confabulate things, but it may come as a shock to these shysters but there never was any Battle for Kiev, nor there was any intent on Russia's part to conduct any battle other than to do a demonstration probing attack to convince Kiev regime to sit at the negotiation table. There never was any operation conducted to take Kiev, nor any serious intent to surround (blockade) Kiev, and we still don't know a full set of objectives for Russian paratroopers fighting for Gostomel airfield. Part of it, obviously, was to take the field itself, but rumor has it there were things at this field which needed urgent taking care of, which did happen. 

But then again, what can one expect from US "think-tanks" when they use, like RAND did, this type of "experts". 

Khrystyna Holynska. Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND, and Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School Santa Monica Office.

Education: Ph.D. in political science, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine; MBA+MBAI in business administration, artificial intelligence and data analytics, Kyiv School of Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine; M.A. in political science, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine.

And here comes this proverbial issue--what good your "data" analysis IS when your "data" is utterly corrupted? GIGO--Garbage In, Garbage Out--this is the ONLY type of data which US "strategists", even those who try to be objective, use--garbage. The examples abound--America's "history" of WW II, America's economic data, GDP metric, finally, total, utter ukrainization of America's always second rate military analysis, and now fantasies about SMO, which paraded Pentagon and its subsidiaries like RAND as a collection of amateurs. RAND, read my lips--you do not have Russia specialists in your pseudo-academic org, neither you have any real military specialists in practical geopolitics and balance of power.

This whole book 5 years ago described in detail how your "models" and views of war and geopolitics are nothing but concoctions of utter rubbish. 

How about some excerpt from it:

We are not going to review Richardson’s arms race model here—it is outdated and requires very serious quality adjusters to an otherwise purely quantity-driven model. But one of the models which does reflect a degree of competition and is helpful in gaining an understanding of equilibrium between major powers that Richardson was trying to describe is the model, Status of the Nation. This model is claimed to be quantitative and is new despite absorbing many principles of geopolitics and military balance from as far back in time as the work of Alfred Thayer Mahan up to the 2005 RAND publication, Measuring National Power. This model, developed within the framework of the project Complex System Analysis and Modelling of Global Dynamics, which was done in the world-renowned Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences was developed by a group of researchers who titled their paper “Russia in the Context of World’s Geopolitical Dynamics: Quantitative Assessment of Historic Retrospective, Current State and Perspectives for Development.” This model is very instructive for a number of reasons, the main one being a manifest failure in accounting for qualitative, such as operational and technological, military factors as the main drivers of the geopolitical balance and status of nations. 

Guess from three times who turned out to be correct, me or RANDinians? Well, you know the answer. Remarkably, what I warned about for many years, namely utter incompetence of US military "modelling" establishment now became obvious to Russians who increasingly begin to not just question but state a complete failure of American views on XX century history, warfare and geopolitics. This failure is not anymore a theorem, but axiom and no amount of Ph.D degrees in useless contrived subjects, such as "Policy Analysis" can obfuscate the fact that no serious self-respecting people would continue to churn out in industrial quantities pseudo-academic bullshit which is absolutely useless, especially in the country undergoing what James Kunstler brilliantly described as:

And the USA is so lost in self mind-fuckery that we can’t even get our House of Representatives in order. The American students (and faculty!) cheerleading for Gaza’s Road Warrior executioners might represent the last stand of Woke derangement. This degenerate nonsense has run its course. It may dawn in our centers-of-learning — and every other collaborating institution — that we have more important things to think about than the etiquette around men who dress-up as women.  

American education is destroyed and so is its understanding of the real world which to a large degree drives this self mind-fuckery. RAND's yet another "paper" is a proof of it.

Fifteen Years Ago...

... on this date: 080808.  

The date Russia has made first statement about her arriving back from the near death. I recall all those "military experts", especially a bunch of shysters from Russia, promising that Russians will be defeated because US "trained" Georgian Army. US learned absolutely nothing since then. We all know thee result of that 5-day war. US "trained" Army disintegrated when faced with real combined arms. 

This is the type of human trash the US views as its "allies". 

But today something begins to trickle down even into the sewer of American media and clueless politicos:

Read my lips, you also may quote me on that: there is NO understanding of modern war in the US across the board, including most of American military. There is also NO serious strategist in the US who has a clear view of the formation of balance of power and how serious militaries write their doctrines. That is why I see sincere attempts by Daniel Larison to challenge one of the leading American "strategists" as misplaced and having all signs of the Sisyphus Labor.

Walter Russell Mead sells a pack of lies:

President Barack Obama was the Great Denialist in geopolitics, temporizing and tap dancing, appeasing and apologizing as an axis of anti-American revisionist powers consisting of China, Russia, Iran and their satellites stepped up their resistance and began to coordinate policies.

If anyone is being a revisionist here, it’s Mead with his wildly distorted description of Obama’s foreign policy record. Obama got many things wrong as president from Libya to Yemen, but the idea that he spent his eight years “appeasing and apologizing” while an “axis” of revisionists emerged is nothing but lazy propaganda from a bad analyst. The old lie of Obama’s imaginary “apology tour” is still with us almost fifteen years later, and it is even more ridiculous now than it was then. 

The US has only a handful of people, who also are the exception to the rule of a wholesale sheer military illiteracy, who are capable of speaking on and understanding how actual strategy is developed and implemented. Walter Russel Mead is not one of them. 99% of America's "strategists" are people with NO systemic military education, knowledge of history and the only skill those people have as the result of their "degrees" in the so called "strategic studies" from Ivy League humanities degree mills is juxtaposing of carefully selected facts. Walter Russel Mead has degree in English Literature from Yale and never served a day in any military or intel capacity. So, the fact that he teaches Clausewitz and Sun Tzu's one-liners in the times of neural networks, space-based ISR and hyper-sonic weapons whose physics and math he cannot possibly understand, tells you everything you need to know about America's "Strategy" academe. It also explains why those are incapable of talking in anything but pseudo-strategic platitudes--a euphemism for BS. 

In other words, Mead has zero qualifications for speaking and writing on modern geopolitics and strategy, because to do so one has to have the tool kit of looking at strategy in conjunction with operational level--two levels at which wars are won or lost and which require the depth. And that's the point I make for years--one cannot continue to merely challenge the BS fountaining from the deep recesses of US "academia" and think-tankdom, one has to challenge qualifications, that is to say start operating in the ad hominem mode, when dealing with a cabal of uncultured, unread, illiterate Ph.D shysters who toil for the benefit of America's homicidal foreign policy and military adventurism. Yes, they lie, but many of them sincerely believe those lies. That is why the ONLY American real strategist of true international repute, Alfred Thayer Mahan, was a graduate of the US Naval Academy, has been a cadre naval officer with combat experience all his life, and retired in the rank of Admiral. 

Military degrees and experiences in and of themselves do not guarantee from stupidity and fraud, enough to look at US generals at the so called ISW, or read US "doctrinal" documents, but it is time to finally start calling all those white board "strategists", who wouldn't know how operations are planned or insulate themselves from inconvenient facts of the America's grossly exaggerated military history, for what they are--frauds and shysters who know only pseudo-military verbiage and have no clue about the real history of the last two centuries. And it was on this date fifteen years ago when they have been taught the first lesson in real continental combined arms warfare. 

Or, as quoting Lieutenant-General Klokotov, at the time of the Gulf War the chief of the Strategy Department of Academy of the General Staff (guess from three times if "strategist" Mead and ilk will be even able to pass entrance exams there): 

“I would like to emphasize here that the Persian Gulf war was taken as the standard in studying the strategic nature of possible war. It would appear that this position, adopted in the draft ‘Fundamentals of Russian Military Doctrine,’ is dangerous. The fact is that this war [was] ‘strange’ in all respects [and] cannot serve as a standard.”

On August 8th, 2008 Russian Armed Forces started their healing and return to their proper shape allowing them to fight and defeat  combined NATO forces. The rest is history, but they don't teach it in the US anymore.