A Dose Of Reality.

I stressed not for once that America I used to know is no more. It is a different country today from what it was even 20 years ago and this latest may create in some (not entirely inexcusable) a schadenfreude moment, in others--a concern. 

Tampa (AFP) - Life expectancy in the United States dropped yet again as drug overdose deaths continued to climb -- taking more than 70,000 lives in 2017 -- and suicides rose, a US government report said Thursday. The drug overdose rate rose 9.6 percent compared to 2016, while suicides climbed 3.7 percent, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. As a result, the average life span in America dropped to "78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2016," said the report. The data comes as the United States grapples with a vast opioid epidemic, fueled by addiction to prescription painkillers as well as street drugs like heroin and synthetic opioids including fentanyl.

I drive to work very early in the morning and it is terrifying to see everyday many people wandering aimlessly along the highway and city streets obviously being in a drug-induced confusion. It gets worse with each year passing by. Whilst the article calls for judging this phenomenon cautiously, the statement is dramatic:

Anderson said declines like this haven't been seen since the great flu pandemic of 1918 and World War I -- though those losses were steeper.The peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s also saw a nationwide drop in life expectancy. "We're a developed country, we have a lot of resources, we should have increasing life expectancy, not decreasing life expectancy," he added. Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans. Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world, at almost 84. - 'Hard to digest' -

And here is one "small" detail, it is the background against which these new (old) revelations must be judged. In one of the comments a user says this:

Alcoholic here one year sober. trust me I wanted to die. I felt that there was nothing worth living for. Thank god Someone helped me get into rehab. I could not afford to myself as i had lost y job etc. but now I am in grad school. I am a productive member of society. im sure many of you on here would just give up on someone like me, but my purpose on Earth is to help others like me.

Here is this terrifying background.

White people in the United States are dying at alarmingly early ages. After decades of lengthening life expectancies, white lifespans are now going the other way. An increasingly unequal economy — alongside steadily declining opportunities for workers without a college degree — may be the cause, two rock-star Princeton economists conclude in their just-released latest research.

We may wax "economic" whatever we want here, but there is very little doubt that a bottom line of this demographic and human catastrophe was precipitated not merely by doctors prescribing more opioids or some other technical factor, such as automation--these are merely consequences--but in the fact of America's dramatic deindustrialization and denying its own citizens (yes, primarily white working class) any meaningful jobs by giving those to somebody else abroad. US surely succeeded in growing a gigantic class of office plankton, which in itself is a generator of a vast number of psychological and psychiatric disorders, inevitable in the environment of non-productive labor. This factor matters, a great deal (why, is a separate issue), but in the end, even if to consider a viable argument that this dying out class sometimes fails to even adopt for those very few, high quality new industrial jobs, a conclusion is irresistible; highly developed, first world country is not defined only by per-capita GDP, that metric in the West being false anyway, but by the structure of GDP and, as a result, the structure of a labor force employed in productive and well-paid sectors. 

It is, of course, is a very complex issue and it is not for this short post to provide deep analysis, but the bottom line is--so called "liberal", primarily financial, globalist capitalism is in its deepest crisis and the situation with American working-class is one of those indicators. Add here hedonistic, amoral, degenerate lifestyle being promoted every day in media and you get the picture. 

The collective decline of the working class has been in motion for decades with middle class wages peaking in the 1970s. Reversing this trend will require a similar timeline. While many feel the problem in their pocketbooks, it is in their doctor’s office where the collective trauma is increasingly being felt.

Just to illustrate. The first thing one reads on Yahoo featured  headline news  page is this:

Stormy Daniels has come out to say that her lawyer Michael Avenatti sued President Donald Trump for defamation despite her urging him not to, and now she’s not sure if she’ll keep him as her lawyer. In a report The Daily Beast published on Wednesday, Daniels says she asked Avenatti for information about the crowdsourced funds raised for her legal defense and that instead of providing more information, he started a new fundraising site to raise money for her without telling her, and she found out about it on Twitter.

In Orwell's 1984 special machines were writing pornographic novels for the consumption of proles. Today we have media doing this 24/7. When the whole world around one becomes one uninterrupted pornographic showing, be that in politics or in actual, increasingly perverted, pornography, all that happening in the world of no actual jobs and no hope--many simply stop wanting to live.  I know, I see many of those early in the morning along the highway to a Telegraph Road.

He Still Thinks That It Is A TV Show.

Reality and (pseudo)reality TV shows are not the same. But POTUS thinks that they are.  

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he may cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Argentina because of Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine. In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said he was awaiting a "full report" from his national security team Tuesday evening about Russia’s capture of three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews on Sunday."That will be very determinative," Trump told the Post. "Maybe I won't have the meeting. Maybe I won't even have the meeting ... I don't like that aggression. I don't want that aggression at all," he said.

By now it all became so redundant, if not nauseating, that no one in Moscow really pays attention to it other than in a "here we go again" manner. Kremlin is keenly aware that there could be no sensible dialogue with the United States anymore. Ron Unz already summarized Trump's presidency really well.

For foreign policy reasons, I had strongly favored Trump both in the primary and in the general election, but I hardly regarded him as a thoughtful vessel for the positions he claimed to espouse. To put it bluntly, he struck me much like a highly-opinionated construction worker, angrily spouting off on politics in his local neighborhood bar, being right on some matters and wrong on others, but with none of his views based upon any deep understanding of the issues. I suspect that even many of Trump’s strongest supporters have gradually come around to a similar appraisal of their idol.  

Putin, certainly, is well aware of that. At this stage the only subject which could and must be discussed, if the meeting goes ahead, is how to avoid sliding into direct military conflict between Russia and the US, because American side continues to be consistently unaware of the consequences of its actions. Trump doesn't control his own foreign policy or, as Phil Giraldi succinctly observed yesterday: 

U.S. Foreign Policy Has No Policy. Why can't we just leave everyone alone?

This is one of those key points that Trump and people around him fail to understand--Russia neither admires the United States nor wants to benefit from the Russian-American relations anymore. Those times are long gone. As I commented year and a half ago:

Russians long ago stopped viewing the United States as possible ally and after West's committing a cultural suicide in Russia with West's inspired coup in Kiev, the only thing Russians do want is for West to just go away. That is what this neutrality means. 

Trump is not aware of this. He still thinks that he and the US are admired, worshiped, and are used as a model. This is not the case with Russia at all. I will omit here commenting on China but it seems at least Chinese are trying to fashion themselves into US 2.0 in the post-American world. But in the end, it all comes down to the United States not being a treaty-worthy party. American geopolitical "strategies" are as primitive as people who devise and implement them and Putin is also keenly aware of that--he knows that the US is at war with Russia. So, for Russians it really doesn't mean that much if there will be the meeting or not--it is absolutely meaningless to negotiate with the country which has long ago became a bad parody of itself and lives in the virtual world of a reality show. Oxymoron is intentional.

UPDATE: Colonel Lang just wrote an excellent piece on Trump. And I agree with a lot what he writes. 

As I wrote earlier he sees the world through an entrepreneurial hustler's lens, crudely assigning absolute dollar values to ongoing policy outcomes and actions which have little to do with the actual world as opposed to the arena of contract negotiations.  He evidently learned about balance sheets at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and wishes to apply the principle of the bottom line to everything.

I also agree on humanities issue. To clarify: if someone gets an impression that I am against humanities--they are wrong. My quarrel is not with humanities field, which is essential for any cultured person, my quarrel with products of ONLY humanities studies trying to pass judgements on (military) issues which require years and years of rigorous study and experience.   

A Little Milestone.

Ha, I only now noticed that my little bloggy is past first million of views. What do ya know. As you may have guessed already--this blog is purely a personal outlet and I deliberately do not promote it in any way. Only seldom I provide a link to specific posts when, usually, posting at Unz discussion boards. Yet, people continue to find this blog, sadly, damn advertisers do it too. I don't know, do they track blogs by number of views to insert their damn commercials? Anyhow, this blog is now a millionaire. 

Per some news--a superb piece by Phil Giraldi at Unz, absolutely spot on. 

The reckless calibrations employed to set American policies in other parts of the world are also playing out badly. Russia has been hounded relentlessly since the 2016 election, wasting the opportunity to establish a modus vivendi that Trump appeared to be offering in his campaign. Russian and American soldiers confront each other in Syria, where the U.S. has absolutely no real interests beyond supporting feckless Israel and Saudi Arabia in an unnecessary armed conflict that has already been lost. There is now talk of war coming from both Moscow and Washington while NATO in the middle has turned aggressive in an attempt to justify its existence. The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Russia is now worse than it was towards the end of the Cold War while the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s doorstep has threatened the Kremlin’s vital interests without advancing any interest of the United States.

Read it, this is Phil Giraldi at his best.  

Poroshenko's Gambit.

I know, some people are waiting for my response to Ukraine's Azov Sea provocation. OK, here it is--Poroshenko, whose approval rating in Ukraine is about, what, 10% or so, got his wish and declared a Martial Law. LOL. Ukrainian "democracy" in a full swing and, most likely, no elections. Not that they mean anything in Ukraine. The rest? Sergei Viktorovich, help, please. Because I am not interested in discussing the abyss which separates Ukraine's "fleet" and competencies, quality and capability of Russian Coast Guard and other forces around Azov Sea. It is akin to comparing VW Beetle with T-90 tank. The result of clash is easily predictable. 

Update: Another wannabe idiot economist from Atlantic Council pretends that he is Chester Nimitz or, the least, Arleigh Burke.

A senior fellow at the pro-NATO Atlantic Council has said the US should send naval ships into the Sea of Azov to guarantee it stays open after a skirmish between Russian and Ukrainian ships. Only problem is, that would be illegal.

Since when all those amateurs, such as blank Blank or this Aslund guy who has zero qualifications to control a freaking 10-foot row boat, have competencies to call for any military responses? Can they, Goddamn, get back under their pretentious useless "humanities" degrees stones and continue to pretend that they have valuable skills. I wonder, how this Aslund creep imagines this whole US Navy "sending ships" to the Azov Sea. I omit, of course, a larger issue of the aviation of Russia's Southern Military District. Imbecile. That's, my friends, is the "level" of American think-tankdom and academe.  

Radiophotonics, Again.

I know I am being bad because I don't keep my word on getting to Radiophotonics topic but I have an excuse--I am really busy. This morning, however, some interesting news--it does exist, it is in the process of trials and addressing its inevitable issues (in Russian), and that means the end radio VLO as such in a very near future. Not that VLO is that much useful now in high end peer-to-peer warfare but ramifications of radiophotonics radar being deployed in the modern battle-field are immense and have strategic implications. This also explains Russia's rather calm and confident reaction in the last 20+ years to US radio VLO (Stealth) developments since modern signal processing and sensor fusion techniques allow for a very effective countering of "stealth" targets. 

In fact, at this stage any further investment into VLO technologies seems to be just a waste of time and money or, as Commanders Gattuso and Tanner wrote 17 years ago (in relation to CVN(X)), it is:

like polishing cannonballs so they will fly a little farther

Difficult to disagree. In fact, one of the reasons I am being that non-responsive re: this particular radiophotonics issue is because I decided to become a "Tom Clancy", just a teeny-weeny bit, otherwise I will need a serious detox, in trying to look into the future of the warfare and that is what parts of my new book are about. No doubt, new detection methods will play a crucial role in providing a reliable coverage against any kind of threats for those nations which will gain a decisive advantage in radiophotonics technology, among many others.     

Those Divine Ilyushin-62s (And The Movie To Boot). 1974.

Those who are around 50 in former USSR know this, by heart. 

Why this Singer (capital letter is intentional) means so much for my family--I may some time in the future tell. But this was 1974.  But those magnificent IL-62s--what magnificent liners they were. The movie was a smashing hit in USSR--it was called Incredible Adventures Of Italians In Russia. But the song--it never gets old...BTW, the movie was produced by Dino De Laurentis (he fvcked up), you know, the guy who produced Dune. Ahh, coincidences. 

This is him 1966, after La Scala. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of my favorite memes. In some sense it is a sign of completely crazy times, those who are above 40 will understand. LOL!

Translation: Get to Shoigu, he will restore your rank and tomorrow you fly to Admiral Kuznetsov. For now as a cook only. 

Ah, yes, Erica Eleniak!! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Why The West Is Lost (In The Cold War).

I know I am becoming simply nauseating with driving this point home but I will continue to do so to the last breath. Combined West knows shit about Russia, it knows even less about Russia's military, and here is another proof. Bloomberg (of course, who but Bloomberg with its military "expertise" and an army of experienced Russian military working for it) publishes today yet another sophomoric piece on NATO preparing for the Cold War, literally--the war in the North. Behind usual amateur fodder about NATO's Trident Juncture exercise written by Leonid Ragozin (some journo from Moscow "liberal" shuffle), we immediately begin to encounter one chef'-d'oeuvre after another. 

“If we discount the martians, there is no one else who can attack Norway apart from Russia,” says Aleksandr Golts, a Russian military analyst who observed the NATO exercise, which ended earlier this month. “The scenario and the sheer number of troops involved in both this and similar Russian exercises show that we are back to the Cold War-time military confrontation.”

I have some news to Bloomberg, well, actually not for Bloomberg (I don't give a shit about this organization), this is more for those who read this blog--Alexader Golts is NOT "military analyst", he never was one because he has zero qualifications or experience for that. The only way he was ever connected to military was during his tenure as an employee of the Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda) newspaper (till 2001) and has a degree in what else--journalism--from Moscow State. He is a feral Russophobe who currently writes for such sewer as Moscow Times and, actually, was known to work with Michael Kofman of Center for Naval Analysis by writing all kind of pseudo-"intelligence" BS on Russian military. Golts is about the same "military expert" as notorious Pavel Falgenhauer with the latter having the degree in biology (I believe the graduate thesis was on flat worms) from the same MSU, and who is known for predicting Georgian Army defeating Russia in 2008. Well, when your thesis is about flat worms and you didn't serve a day in uniform one is bound to be that "precise" in their forecasts. 

So, how humanities "educated" (often it is, actually, opposite result because it dumbs people down--I know many cases personally) civilian journalist who doesn't know shit from shinola and who uses Western "methodology" (Golts attended Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, to be trained in "talking points") on warfare (we all know the "shiny" record of "success" of those Centers) can become a military expert or analyst remains a complete mystery. At least for me. I understand that Golts might have rubbed shoulders with some Russian military professionals but rubbing shoulders does not mean having fundamental courses on tactics, operational art, military technology or combat experience rubbing off, same goes for Form 1A clearance. In other words, Golts is another ignoramus who is trained only in spewing from the scripts written for him by somebody else and I remember having a triple face-palm moment reading Golts' explanations on naval doctrine and his assertions that patrols of strategic missile submarines was not really a naval task. In general, one can easily find Golts' "expert" opinions on a whole plethora of Russia's military issues--all of them manifestly amateurish if not down right dumb. Obviously, it is difficult to explain to this "expert" how the force is calculated and what is criteria of effectiveness, or...yeah,--how to put it, it is difficult to explain to Russophobic journo how this whole "military science" thing operates. But in general, Golts is a classic representative of the new class of "military analysts" who populate Western publications and who helped to bring the West in general and US in particular to the sad state of a complete unawareness of Russia and her Armed Forces. 

Golts is simply more Russophobic than the others (similar) and he is one of those about who Margo Simonyan spoke explicitly:

I’ve been telling you for a long time to find normal advisers on Russia. Sack all those parasites.  

I need to make  here yet another disclaimer, I am NOT in the market, in fact I respect myself too much to "advise" any US MSM. Golts, however, is not alone--Russia is not free from people, and some of them I was unfortunate to communicate with, who are utterly unqualified to pass any judgements on serious military issues and all their "expertise" is based only on merit of studying couple-three courses in some Western civilian institutions on defense. As you may expect, people with humanities background, unless they are rigorously retrained  (not the case here) within actual military professional environment, will not do that well with modern tactics, operational art, weapons and C4ISR complex. One MUST have serious fundamental sciences, military technology background and tactical and operational experience to be able to operate within this environment. The United States is currently paying the price for armies of journalists, political "scientists", lawyers and other "humanities" folk who formed utterly delusional picture of American military capabilities because they thought that they can become "analysts". For Russia, however, things are different and openness afforded by modern communications technologies and freedom of speech allowed to identify false "experts"and "analysts" and call their BS out. 

But Bloomberg's (Ragozin's) piece doesn't stop there--it produces another wowser.    

Even Ukrainian officers were on hand for Trident Juncture, advising NATO forces on Russian tactics. Colonel Andriy Dyda of Ukraine’s military says he was eager to share his experience.

At this stage one has to (using quadruple face-palm) ask the question--what Russian tactics? I omit here the fact that Ukrainian Army had its ass handed to it in several cauldrons by primarily volunteer LDNR force (granted provided with some assistance from Russia, especially in ISR), so in this sense NATO needs to learn how to lose brigade and division size formation and Ukrainians are really good at it. But the question remains WHAT Russian tactics can possibly this Ukrainian Colonel know? I will disclose a "secret" here--Ukrainian Army didn't encounter ANY modern Russian tactics, bar some limited elements on net-centric warfare, but fought merely within confines of 1990s and early 2000s Combat Manuals and technology, some of them updated for Chechnya-2 and 2008 Georgia experiences. And, of course, there never were any Russian formations (read attentively--formations) in Ukraine which fought within modern Russian tactical and operational procedures. What those procedures are, you may ask? Well, we may start with what Russian Armed Forces will do if the real war comes and what Ukrainians didn't experience at all. 

For starters all communications will be suppressed completely (OK, Ukies did encounter some of it), so will be any sensors in range. Simultaneously sustained fire impact will start into the operational depth (well, around 700 kilometers) to wreak a havoc with Command and Control, logistics, rear personnel etc. Tactically, same will occur with sustained fire impact (Iskander anyone?) and....well, let me put it this way--if that would be Ukrainian Army, by the time advanced tank and motor-rifle formations of Russian Army would start movement, the army such as Ukrainian will cease to exist as a force. Thus the question: WHAT Russian tactics can this Duda guy possibly share with? As I said, he certainly can share with how to abandon positions, massive amounts of materiel and equipment and sustain huge losses. That is very good experience to be shared. But then again, if that would have been Russian "tactics" this Duda guy probably wouldn't be "sharing".  But the issue here, in the end, is not military per se--NATO is a military organization and it is completely within its prerogative to train and conduct military exercises on decent enough scale. My issue is--how much longer this army of thoroughly incompetent people and fraudulent "military analysts", who wouldn't be able to organize platoon for either defensive or offensive, even with the Combat Manual in hand, let alone would fail to plan basic operations for a battalion size unit, not to mention understand the mechanics of serious operational planning, will continue to spew utter unprofessional BS? My concern is sincere, because it is precisely this cabal of American (and "Russian")"military analysts" operating in the public space which may end up being partially responsible for whipping up increasingly insecure America into a very real conflict with Russia and then there will be the time to really learn about Russian tactics but at that time praying to God will be the only sensible course of actions. As for America, with "friends" and "analysts" like Golts who needs the enemies. After all, it is so normal for auto-mechanics to perform open heart surgeries. It is so easy... in the era of a wholesale incompetence.    

You Reap What You Sow.

Saudi Arabia's Asharq Al-Awsat reports today (Google does a decent job translating from Arabic):

وأكدت المصادر أن إسرائيل نفذت فقط غارتين جويتين على سوريا بعد تلك الحادثة، بتنسيق مع القوات الروسية. وفي كل مرة، كان الروس يبدون تبرمهم من هذا النوع من العمليات. والمعروف أن حكومة بنيامين نتنياهو فشلت حتى الآن في تسوية الخلافات مع موسكو. فالرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين صد مطالب نتنياهو للقائه على الأراضي الروسية طيلة الشهرين الفائتين. وعندما وافق على لقاء نتنياهو في باريس، الأسبوع الماضي، خلال حفل عشاء ضمن الاحتفالات بذكرى مائة سنة على الحرب العالمية الأولى، أصر على أن يكون اللقاء قصيراً (ربع ساعة) ومقتضباً، وذلك بعد جهود إسرائيلية وأميركية كثيرة مع موسكو. ومع أن نتنياهو اعتبره لقاءً مهماً ومفيداً، فإن بوتين اعتبره لقاءً عابراً، مؤكداً أنه من غير المرجح أن يلتقي معه مرة أخرى في المستقبل المنظور. وتبين من تقرير داخلي في المؤسسة الأمنية في تل أبيب أن «روسيا أوضحت لإسرائيل بطرق مختلفة أن الوضع الذي كان قائماً في السابق قد انتهى، لأن عمليات تل أبيب في سوريا تضر بمشروع موسكو الأساسي في المنطقة، أي استعادة الحكومة السورية سيطرتها على معظم أراضي البلاد، لضمان مصالح روسيا الاقتصادية والأمنية في سوريا. وهي تستغل حادثة الطائرة بكل قسوة لتحقيق أهدافها». وأكد التقرير أن الجانب الروسي بدأ يستخدم لهجة صارمة، تتسم بعض الأحيان بفظاظة، في اتصالات التنسيق مع العسكريين الإسرائيليين عبر ما يسمى «الخط الساخن»، الخاص بمنع وقوع الحوادث 

Translation: The sources confirmed that Israel carried out only two air raids on Syria after that incident, in coordination with Russian forces. Each time, the Russians began to sign these kinds of operations. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to settle differences with Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin blocked Netanyahu's demands to meet him on Russian territory for the past two months. When he agreed to meet with Netanyahu in Paris last week at a gala dinner marking the 100th anniversary of the First World War, he insisted that the meeting should be short (one-quarter of an hour) and brief, following many Israeli and American efforts with Moscow. Although Netanyahu considered it an important and useful meeting, Putin considered it a passing meeting, asserting that he is unlikely to meet with him again in the foreseeable future. "Russia has made it clear to Israel in different ways that the situation that existed in the past is over, because the Tel Aviv operations in Syria are harming Moscow's basic project in the region, that is, the restoration of the Syrian government's control over most of the country's territory, To ensure Russia's economic and security interests in Syria. It is taking advantage of the aircraft incident with all its cruelty to achieve its goals. " The report said that the Russian side began to use a strict tone, sometimes crude, in coordination contacts with the Israeli military through the so-called hotline, the prevention of accidents in Syria, between the parties.

This report comes on the heels of my publisher sending me yesterday a link to Bernhard's (MOA) excellent piece on Israel, which I read by then anyway. But Asharq Al-Awsat reports also on a significant increase of the sorties by Russian VKS' aircraft in Syrian air space and all this fits perfectly the pattern which I (well, forgive me, but can I feed my ego at least once in a while?) predicted within hours of IL-20s tragedy. This brings up this ever important issue (and I will soon resume my Russia's Non-Jewish History series of posts) of true influence of alleged Jewish (Israeli) lobby on Russia. As I already stated not for once, Russia's foreign and defense policies are immune to any kind of influences which contradict Russia's crucial national interests. Russia is interested in stable and secure Israel but not at the expense of own strategic interests. For sure, Israel has her own legitimate security concerns but the main question is what is the extent of this legitimacy? I don't know, I am not a specialist in the region, but the issue of new settlements and, inevitably, of Golan Heights will come up once Syria recovers most of her territory and will start in earnest postbellum restoration. 

Theoretically, Russia can guarantee Israel's survival but it will come with a lofty price tag. Obviously, for Israeli and American Likudniks (neocons, Israeli-firsters, what have you), who got used to kick US Congress around any way they want, such a disposition where they have to actually listen and not talk is huge humiliation, but, I hope, even most delusional Zionists both within Israel and US power structures, must recognize that Russia does have many strategic options, they--don't. As Asharq Al-Awsat reports:

 كشفت مصادر سياسية في تل أبيب أن القيادة العسكرية الإسرائيلية تبدي قلقاً من فشل القيادة السياسية في تسوية الأزمة القائمة مع روسيا في الشهرين الفائتين، منذ سقوط طائرة التجسس «إيل - 20» في 17 سبتمبر (أيلول) الماضي. وتقول إن استمرار هذه الأزمة يتسبب في تناقض مصالح مع روسيا، وبات يضيق على إسرائيل في خياراتها القتالية ضد الوجود الإيراني في سوريا، وحتى ضد نشاط «حزب الله» في لبنان.

Translation: Political sources in Tel Aviv revealed that the Israeli military leadership is concerned about the failure of the political leadership to resolve the crisis with Russia in the past two months, since the fall of the spy plane "El - 20" on 17 September. She says that the continuation of this crisis is causing a conflict of interests with Russia, and is narrowing Israel's choice of combat against the Iranian presence in Syria, and even against the activity of "Hezbollah" in Lebanon. 

The name of the "crisis", of course, are two (or three--who knows how many) battalions of S-300PMU2 Favorit and the evolution of this whole situation could serve as a classic example of the  Force In Being translating into tangible (geo)political results. Russia really wanted to work with Israel but Israel, obviously, grossly overestimated own capabilities, especially against the background of gross underestimation  of Russian ones--a scenario replayed constantly in the US which still remains enamored with Israel's military "achievements" against traditionally weak Arab military and para-military formations. Things are  changing, though. I will go out on a limb here and speculate that Syrian Arab Army's prestige among Arabs is extremely high, as is prestige of Hafez al-Assad, who defied Israel, international Jihad, Turkey and NATO. Syria IS emerging as a pivotal state of Arab secular nationalism whether intentionally or not--but it is the fact of life. Read MOA's review on some indications of that. Long term geopolitical, economic and cultural ramifications of that for the region are immense and Russia is only happy to benefit from that, apart from satisfaction from playing a key role in saving the last secular Arab state. Just one small fact: 

 SCAC signs the LOI with Alexcina LLC/15.11.2018

One may argue, justifiably, that this is so far only LOI--sure, but the breakthrough for Russian civilian aircraft into rich Gulfies' market is a good sign, considering the fact that Russian weapons there are in high demand and Qatar and Saudis are really interested on getting their hands on S-400s. For Arabs, in general, the fact of containment of Israel is huge and it matters that Israel was contained by Russian weapons. Israel has only herself to blame for finding herself in such a conundrum but, and this is my profound conviction, Israel got used to beating on weak and exerting an immense influence on the United States internally so much, that she simply forgot that Russia is not the United States and it is inconceivable to have THIS in Russia, in the US--it is a normal occurrence. And that is the difference Israel should understand and the faster she does it, the better it will be for all parties involved. In the end, you reap what you sow.

Leningrad, 1942--LDNR 2018.

The similarity between Nazis and US advice to Ukrainian side on how to deal with Donbass is uncanny--it is genocidal. In an interview to, get this, strictly Ukrainian media outlet Obozrevatel, former Deputy Chief of General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces Igor Romanenko disclosed what kind of advice American "diplomats" and military instructors give to Ukrainian regime:

"Американці пропонують Україні жорстко перекрити кордон, нікого і нічого не пускати, навіть ресурси – електроенергію та воду. І там дуже швидко складеться революційна ситуація, яка недопустима для Росії,

Translation: Americans suggest to Ukraine to firmly close the border, not to allow anyone or anything in, shut off electricity and water. This way it will develop revolutionary situation fast and this is not acceptable for Russia... 

I think, State Department and Pentagon should also introduce courses on concentration camps, their maintenance, disposal of bodies, torture (oh, wait--that is already available) and, maybe, some electives on gas chambers and mass executions. You know, to accelerate the development of revolutionary situations around the world. I guess American advisers will be happy to elevate their skills to a new level of proficiency. They may even employ techniques used by Nazis on Leningrad, especially in terms of starvation. They also should not bypass experiences of children's concentration camps.

The United States is desperate for Russia's real physical interference in Ukraine because it is, in American view, the only way Europe could be firmly put under American control and will allow removal of Russia from European energy market. Romanenko's revelations are nothing new, their value, so to speak, is in the fact that such a high-ranking Ukrainian official openly admits that people who US sends to "advice" Ukraine are genocidal maniacs and war criminals. In this sense, this is a very valuable admission. Obviously, Ukraine and her Armed Forces are not capable to close the border between LDNR and Russia but such advice from the US shows that what I just wrote a book about and write about non-stop. I will state it again: 

 American so called "elites" are utterly ignorant on real warfare and what it brings. Their only experience with war is one of the books and TV reports. NO American ever fought in the war where he (she) would fight defending own land, wife, children, relatives who are under constant danger of factors constituting continental warfare--shelling, bombing, starvation, thirst, disease, rape, pillaging. Because of that, there are NO inhibiting forces which, otherwise, would allow moral and human assessment of war and, with it, second thought. Those few in America who get it--they are not in decision making circle. 

In the end, if that is not the crime against humanity, what is?

But that also explains now the hysteria of American ruling class regarding latest Russian weaponry--suddenly they feel threatened by purely conventional, and thus more controllable, escalation which may, indeed, make them vulnerable to all wonderful things of kinetic impacts on them, poor dears, and those who they value--for them it is a new paradigm, they got used to inflict the pain and horror, not to be on the receiving end. With it, all last pretenses of any morality, humanity and consciousness are thrown out of the window and reveal an ugly face of a crumbling Empire.   

Kubler-Ross Model In One Picture.

LOL, I had to. 4 out of 5 stages of grief of Kubler-Ross Model are written in Russian. They are Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression. 

Who is fifth (Acceptance) stage, make your own conclusion. But Melania, good grief--what a stunning woman. That is why those deranged psychos on the so called "left" hate her so much. No, not because she is Trump's wife, albeit this factors in too. But because she is beautiful, feminine, smart and a class act, she is also a First Lady--all qualities all those feminazis and SJWs do not posses but secretly crave and hide their female complexes of inferiority behind pretense of caring for women. Yes, Melania in an American political lingo is royalty and behaves and is treated as such and they don't and that drives them crazy. Good, let them eat themselves. Ah yes, Melania is Slavic woman and she is a Cinderella on the ball of American female egos.

Polish Logic.

OK, I get it, Poles hate Russia (at least majority of them do), they still can not reconcile themselves with the fact that Poland is not and cannot be decisive European (forget global) player and is, generally, economic and military midget. Poland is also a willing American lapdog. Poland is terrified of the Nord Stream-2. So, Mr. Morawiecki, Poland's Prime Minister, came up with an astonishing stratagem--in accordance to him, once Ukrainian gas-transport (pipe), aka GTS, system becomes irrelevant "nothing can prevent Putin from marching to Kiev" (in Polish). Now, wait a minute--I am trying to wrap my brain around Morawiecki's "logic". Make no mistake, I love Polish culture, Poland is beautiful and all that, but once things get to anything related to Russia in Poland, most of Poland's "elites" stop making any sense. It is clear that Poland will buy American expensive LNG and thus will kill whatever is left of its once substantial industry (they will, of course, blame it on Russians), but the question is--WHY would Russia "march on Kiev" once Ukraine's decrepit GTS becomes irrelevant? Serious geopolitical and military logic is usually built around clear interests--be that obtaining new territories, new wealth and, in general, something which benefits the aggressor which wants to march anywhere. Ukraine is opposite of wealth--it is a massive drain on anyone's resources, especially without workable GTS. With GTS in working conditions, at least there could be some rational, however feeble, explanation for desire to "march on Kiev". But why when it stops working?

And here is the point--despite hysterical screaming of all kinds of the so called Russian "patriots" it is patently clear that Russia was correct when not invading Ukraine during the fateful events of the Spring of 2014. Since then, everything Russia was doing in relation to Ukraine was a complete decoupling from Ukraine's fast degenerating industries, and doing EVERYTHING for bypassing Ukrainian GTS and, incidentally, Poland to deliver Russia's natural gas directly to Germany and other European customers. Moreover, the only scenario in which Russia WILL march on Kiev is if NATO will march into Ukraine, other than that, and here is the catch, Russia, frankly, doesn't give a damn about Ukraine nor her hostile population. Yes, I know, a bummer, the plan from the get go was that Russia will get bogged down in Ukraine but she did not. Those people in Ukraine who wanted to remain Russians, like LDNR republics, they took up the arms, the rest--they wanted to remain Ukrainians but with Russia's economic benefits. Sorry, this is not how it works and Russians clearly understand that they do not want nor intent to burden themselves with tens of millions of hostile Ukrainian population and deal with decrepit Ukrainian economy. I know, it was such a revelation for Ukraine when it was understood that Russians do not give a damn that it led to a cultural shock--this was not supposed to be the case, but this is precisely the case. As long as Ukraine doesn't start the war or openly plays with NATO aspirations, Russia is fine with Ukraine rotting away and, eventually, breaking up--then, well, LDNR forces may march on Kiev and eventually will reconstitute a remaining (Eastern and Southern) Ukrainian rump as new Ukraine, or Novorossia and that will be it. 

Poland also in terms of her significance to Russia is approaching zero, with one exception of Poland going out of her way trying to be more American than Americans and trying to sabotage any kind of Russian-German energy integration. Nord-Stream 2 bypassing Poland (that was the idea from the get go) and what is known in Russia as the "Belt of Stupid", Poland and Baltic States, means Poland losing all those wonderful transit benefits she could have had if she would behave like a rational player, but Poland is not a rational player--hence Nord Stream 2. Once those European gas transit systems are complete, the only value of Poland for the US will be Polish Russo-phobia and possibly as US forces' pre-positioning area for theoretical attack (or containment) on Russia. That is concern for Russia but if push comes to shove and some substance hits the fan few people in Russia would be upset about rearranging stones in Polish localities where aggressive forces will be deployed. One reaps what one sows. 

So, Polish "concern" about Ukrainian GTS is not about Russia "marching on Kiev"--Russians are not idiots to pay for hostile freeloaders--it is about Poland losing her relevance and leverage in European economy and political set up and realization of the fact that the Polish bet was on the losing side (yet again). Ukrainian GTS will become irrelevant one way or another and Poland will also be left with the reality of dealing with the black hole of Ukrainian migrant workers, organized crime, drug and weapons' smuggling and other "benefits" of a failed Ukrainian state Poland so enthusiastically (out of visceral hatred for Russia) helped to create. This, plus expensive American LNG. But in case Mr. Morawiecki does not understand what I am talking about and what is Russian MO, here is an example. Russia makes hostile to her nobodies, such as representatives of the "Belt of Stupid", simply irrelevant--hardly a sign of impending invasion. To gain what? A wasteland populated with freeloaders? 

Here is one such Russia's response to the "Belt of Stupid". Baltic states do not like Russia, well, so be it--Russia builds her own port not to depend on those "proud" zeros--a colossal complex at Ust-Luga, not far from St. Petersburg. You see Mr. Morawiecki, no invasion or "marching"?

Here is some part of the complex.

Here is what leads to it on rail

Just tankers at Ust Luga

So, you get the idea. Russia doesn't invade, unless is asked for it, she decouples from all kinds of psychotic entities such as Baltic States or Ukraine and goes her own way. It is akin to normal person turning away from a beggar hurling insults while sitting in the wheel chair. As Andrei Raevsky (The Saker) astutely observed when writing of nations afflicted with PBS (Pilsudski-Bandera Syndrome):

Okay so we have established that the PBS is incurable, that it is here to stay, that the Russians cannot meaningfully affect it and that past policies have all failed.  So what does that leave?  It leaves one obvious solution: Do nothing. Have no policy. Give up. Ignore them.  Bypass them.

And this is exactly what Russia is doing. Poland, however, is facing 2020 when all those privileged loans and other instruments afforded to Poland to make her a shiny Eastern facade of EU coming up for repayment. Good luck. Considering the fact that Poland has very little to sell she has grim prospects for development and will have to double down selling to her masters in the US all kinds of geostrategic idiocy presented as a profundity, despite of it making no sense at all.

When You Begin To Lose...

A Faith in humanity, after events such as this:

It was a feel-good story for the ages — a homeless military veteran’s random act of kindness and a New Jersey couple intent on helping him get back on his feet during the holidays — that inspired people to donate more than $400,000 in an online fundraiser when it went viral last fall. But prosecutors say Mark D’Amico, Kate McClure and Johnny Bobbitt Jr. fabricated the story in an effort to raise money for themselves. “The paying it forward story that drove this fundraiser might seem too good to be true,” Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said at a press briefing in Mount Holly, N.J., on Thursday afternoon. “Unfortunately it was. The entire campaign was predicated on a lie.”

Suddenly some guy comes around and restores your faith:

Allyn Pierce didn’t think he would survive last week when his truck was surrounded by flames as he attempted to escape the deadly blaze in Paradise, California. Instead of driving to safety, the registered nurse decided to turn around — back into the flames. Pierce, who reportedly manages the ICU at Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, helped evacuate patients from the burning hospital as the massive Camp Fire drew near Thursday morning. Shortly after, he rounded up a few of his colleagues and attempted to drive them to safety, according to New York Times reporter Jack Nicas. “Like many residents in Paradise, they quickly hit gridlock,” Nicas wrote of the group in a tweet on Monday. “But unfortunately for them, they were stuck in the middle of the fire. Flames licked at the side of his truck, and as Allyn watched other cars catch fire, he thought his was next.”

Here is Allyn's truck after he helped save old patients from hospital about to be burned.  

Pierce wasn’t the only hero of the day. Tamara Ferguson, also a nurse at the hospital, detailed the harrowing evacuation in a Facebook post last week. Ferguson revealed that she and her co-workers ended up briefly caring for patients in the garage of a nearby home as they attempted to flee the burning area.

Allyn's words in conclusion, however, is what summarizes it best:

“Now all of us are like, ‘Oh, this is what we do,’ ” Pierce recalled to the Times. “We’re terrible at burning to death, but we’re amazing at taking care of people.”

Just your everyday, average...true heroes who risk their lives for others. It had to be better ending than that, albeit not losing a single patient to a fire is a huge reward in itself. But Toyota saw it:

“We are humbled you’d risk your life and Toyota Tundra to drive people to safety. Don’t worry about your truck, we’re honored to get you a new one!”

Isn't life worth living when such people are living next to you? I think it is.  And these are precisely the types of stories and people who should dominate media. 

It Is Getting Tiresome, Really.

I mean a constant barely hidden butt-hurt.

At least 13 countries are interested in buying a Russian missile system instead of platforms made by US companies, despite the threat of sanctions

When I am outraged by this butt-hurt I am not being facetious, self-righteous, chauvinistic or suffering from the acute case of schadenfreude. I am literally enraged by alleged professionals spewing an obvious utter bullshit for whatever reasons. In the end, when you come home in the evening you have to live with yourself. Here is what I am talking about:  

"It's the geopolitical aspects of the S-400 offerings that are the most interesting," said Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Karako highlighted that despite the appetite for the Russian-made system, the S-400 has yet to see combat, unlike America's Patriot missile defense system.

Here is an example for people who proclaim (or are being proclaimed) the experts and for those who are not. In any weapon system its evolution from basic legacy versions to advanced ones matters a great deal, hugely. In fact, this evolution is what defines latest version of the systems. Lessons, combat experiences, new technologies--all coalesce in latest versions of any weapon system. Record also does matter a great deal. And here is the issue: what combat performance of Patriot (of any PAC version) can even remotely touch a colossal combat experience of Soviet/Russian air defense complexes? Unless Mr. Karako wants to sell us a bridge about US air defense systems having a "record" (an underwhelming one, I may add, even against ancient SCUD ballistic missiles) in combat, he should recall that Soviet legacy systems, when manned by properly trained personnel, were a nightmare for many Air Forces in 1960s, 1970s and even 1980s. The sample space which was and still is available to Soviet designers of Air Defense (and anti-missile) complexes is on several orders of magnitude greater than any US designer and manufacturer of air defense systems could ever dream about. 

It is akin to US Navy (we will omit here operational necessity and viability today) having a sample space in carrier aviation--even Royal Navy's considerable carrier experience is dwarfed by that of US Navy's. US simply produced, operated and learned about carrier aviation more than anyone else. As an example, Russians are not butt-hurting about it--they know that Americans are on orders of magnitude better at this and Russians actually try to learn instead of coming up with lame excuses about combat. Patriot saw combat and it performance was lacking, to put it mildly. The record was set. Soviet AD systems, to which S-400 is heir saw much-much more combat than Patriot, let alone THAAD, and they performed extremely well including having a strategic impact on operations both in Vietnam and Middle East. 

We also should not forget an astounding performance of Soviet legacy and modern short-range systems in Syria this April. The result was a shock to the system with 70% of TLAMs intercepted by the technology of 1960s and 1970s, granted with some upgrades. I guess Mr. Karako should ask himself a question--is it reasonable then, that nations which are in line for S-400, instead of THAAD, do not read PR spins on "being in combat" but understand that April 2018 performance by old Syrian Air Defense was to a large degree thanks to sensor capabilities of this very S-400. If less capable S-300 PMU2 can shut down Israeli Air Force operations over coastal Syria and, most likely, Lebanon--how is it called, "combat" or not? So, straight question--are Russian air-defense and missile-defense systems superior to American ones? Yes, they are and no amount of PR spin by all kinds of self-proclaimed "experts" nor pretending that Patriot's combat use matters against a gigantic combat experience of Soviet and Russian air defense systems, it does not--different capabilities, different designs and combat use philosophies realized in Russian weapons. Russian weapons are not panacea; as any very complex technology they are prone to malfunctions, breakdowns, in the end they could be overwhelmed and defeated under some very strict conditions, but they are simply the best in what they do. This is precisely why S-400, as well as SU-35, as well as ANY versions of 3M54 or 3M14 and many other things are the hottest items on the international arms market. The biggest economy in the world, China, buys them.

Russians are not that sublime or, altogether, stupid to not recognize a potential for an immense commercial boost of Russia's weapon systems showcased in Syria. Everyone knew that the show was coming once Russian VKS' first units started to arrive to Khmeimim in 2015. That is why Mr. Ralph Peters went hysterical stating that Russia wanted to humiliate US military--what a load of crap. Russians merely showcased their real military capabilities and one of the centerpieces of this show was traditionally immensely impressive Soviet/Russian air-defense weapons. They are simply the best in the world, S-400 is one of such systems. S-500 which is already in IOC is altogether a change in anti-air and anti-missile weaponry paradigm. So it is reasonable to assume that people want to buy those from the vendor which, speaking in Amazon's or Hotels dot Com lingo, has all 5-star rankings. So, Karako's "combat" argument is not an argument at all but the last butt-hurt straw to be grasped in a feeble attempt to avoid stating the obvious--Russia's claims for eventually becoming the number one international weapons vendor may not be that far fetched after all. In the end, it is just business, nothing personal, and former Soviet, now Russian, weapons makers surely love being shrewd capitalists by doing what original expanding capitalism did--by making a better more affordable product.

No, Macron, Seriously.

There are many negative qualities US President Donald Trump exhibits on a daily bases, but there are some silver linings even in POTUS being boorish--he periodically says things which describe the actual state of the affairs, such as the background to this Macron's complain.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, on Wednesday hit back at Donald Trump's fierce Twitter attack on his call for a "real European army" by saying: "To be an ally is not to be a vassal". But he denied there was any tension between France and America. "At every moment in our history, we have been allies," the 40-year old leader said in an interview from France's nuclear aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle. "Between allies, we owe each other respect and I don't want to hear the rest.”

The reason Macron's stance brings smile to my face is because the times of the Great Convention with its caveat of "the forms must obeyed" are over. I would suggest Mr. Macron acquaint himself, and learn it by heart, with Lord Ismay's raison d'etre (how' s my French?) for NATO. As you all may recall it was expressed in three short geopolitical truisms, NATO was created "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Where is there anything about France? It has to be understood by Macron and any European still exercising sappy sentimental ideas of Atlantic solidarity and who try to still appeal to WW I which was dwarfed by a catastrophe and global consequences of WW II that Europe really matters--she does not. Only as a wealthy market for goods.

Speaking in broadsides, WW II outcome was about turning all European powerhouses, also responsible for unleashing WW I and laying down the groundwork for much bigger spectacle of WW II, into tamed, scared...ahem...vassals. The bigger boys came to rule--the Soviet Union by means of carrying the brunt of purely European invention of national-socialism's (and fascism) defeat in Europe, the US came on-board by defeating singlehandedly Imperial Japan (part of the Axis) and then allowing Great Britain to exhaust herself at the secondary theaters of operation before committing itself to closing acts of WW II in Europe. At least Great Britain resisted, France...well, we know the story. As one Russian observers recently noted--WW I, which is much further removed from us in time than WW II, with this war many veterans still surviving, "was the last victory of the West". I happen to agree. Of course there could be many, and some of them will be totally legitimate both in political and military terms, justifications found for France's capitulation to Hitler but in the end it was still humiliating defeat which no amount of celebrations and remembrances of much smaller WW I can obscure the actual decline of both Great Britain (on the winning side) and France (sort of on the winning side). British didn't send British SS Divisions to Russia, France did. As did most of Western Europe, from Dutch to Spain. Tolstoy with his War and Peace comes to mind immediately, when Tolstoy described Napoleon's Grand Armee as "a force of a dozen European languages". 

So, let me play Trump and be rude here for a minute: Churchill was smart enough to understand and, in fact, demand Britain's alliance with USSR, despite being a fanatical anti-Communist (in reality a euphemism for Anglo-Saxon Imperialist). France wasn't. One lives with the consequences of such decisions. Hitler (or more generally Axis) was destroyed by the Soviet Union, United States and Great Britain (and her Imperial appendices--2.5 million Indian troops fought for the Crown in WW II). So, in all it was Soviet-Anglo-Saxon victory, with USSR playing by far the largest role against the most capable adversary in the history of the world. French, of course, through De Gaulle, who at some point complained that Anglo-American Allied press was promoting him as if conducting advertisement campaign in selling a bar of soap, did partake but this couldn't obfuscate the fact of France departure from the status of superpower. Same went for the United Kingdom and Suez Crisis merely formalized the world as the United States, distant second UK, and the rest on one side--USSR and its allies on the other. 

While the United States had people the scale of Ike, George Marshall or even JFK the forms and pretense that Europe mattered in global military-political setup were obeyed. Bundeswehr, as an example, was a pretty impressive force for an utterly defeated and separated Germany. Germans were even allowed to do some things on their own, such as producing tanks, not aviation, of course--for that, the NATO's only big honcho had its own plans and...well, you know the story with F-104, as one of very many other examples of Atlantic "solidarity" and values of freedom and equality. But France became American vassal since immediately after WW II and when De Gaulle, a person of a scale of several orders of magnitude larger and more courageous than Macron, decided that France still mattered he was "helped" along his way out of French and European political life. Since then, all those 1968 children-students of Paris and other French cities' riots were firmly restrained in the rigid framework of the US humanities "education" which guaranteed that the only ideas which would be allowed will be those of Egalité! Liberté! Sexualité! Largely the same set of values whose catastrophic consequences we all observe today. As a result, no political figure of true scale ever emerged in French political life again, as is the case with the Europe and the US as a whole, with her "leaders" being increasingly smaller and smaller both in human-political scale and statue. Napoleon, a man of a rather underwhelming appearance, is rotating today in his tomb at the Les Invalides. 

So, it is really funny today to hear from a practical zero in every single sense which defines great leaders and humans, complaining about France being treated as a vassal of the US. But Trump is correct--France is American vassal. France is disintegrating country in the process of fast Islamization, with elites whose roots are in the feel good "leftism" and expanded horizons of Sexualite of 1968 and still living in a delusion that French art, cinema, music and intellectuals matter--they don't. European cultural and economic policies of the last half-century are nothing short of a disaster, this is not to mention the fact that Europeans really always knew that neither Soviet Union, nor Russia wanted to invade Western Europe and they left the task of "defense" from the enemy which was thinking how to defend itself to the United States. Well, what do they expect today? 

European Army? LOL. WHO out of current European "elites" has real balls, competences and ability to create such a force? Who would equip it? France? Germany? Well, Germans, probably, given the time and space eventually would have come up with something but, calling on Lord Ismay--keep Germany down. So, seeing today all those European pathetic losers who would sell their soul to the devil (together with their nations) for another term at the trough is really funny. A toy-boy asking for respect? If I would be Trump I wouldn't worry about European Armed Forces--not gonna happen, the last European human material which was capable to do something about pathetic debilitating state of Europe in general, and France in particular, was trashed out in 1968. A generation of gender-neutral tolerasts runs Europe today. Have you seen hippies and nihilists being real statesmen. I haven't and hopefully I will not have to--at least I hope so. In this sense, America, however in upheaval and declining, is still a much-much larger entity, militarily and economically, than France to take her seriously. It took uncultured Trump to merely state what everybody knew all along--vassals must behave like vassals. After all, "the forms must be obeyed".