Pepe Brutalizes (Justly) Macron.

I laughed out loud after reading a couple of Pepe's, ever astute, observations.  

Mr. Macron went to Moscow to see Mr. Putin with a simple 4-stage plan in mind. 1. Clinch a wide-ranging deal with Putin on Ukraine, thus stopping  “Russian aggression”. 2. Bask in the glow as the West’s Peacemaker. 3. Raise the EU’s tawdry profile, as he’s the current president of the EU Council. 4. Collect all the spoils then bag the April presidential election in France.

Tawdry it is and the reason those "leaders" fail time after time is precisely because elections and PR are the only things they can do.  This one was even more spot on:

Considering he all but begged for an audience in a flurry of phone calls, Macron was received by Putin with no special honors. Comic relief was provided by French mainstream media hysterics, “military strategists” included, evoking the “French castle” sketch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail while reaffirming every stereotype available about  “cowardly frogs”. Their “analysis”: Putin is “isolated” and wants “the military option”. Their top intel source: Bezos-owned CIA rag The Washington Post.  

Read the whole thing, it is charming in its mocking of Macron. The only caveat I have, however, is about this:

Now, a very high-level Deep State intel source, retired, comes down to the nitty gritty, pointing out how “the secret negotiations between Russia and the US center around missiles going into Eastern Europe, as the US frantically drives for completing its development of hypersonic missiles.”The main point is that if the US places such hypersonic missiles in Romania and Poland, as planned, the time for them to reach Moscow would be 1/10 the time of a Tomahawk. It’s even worse for Russia if they are placed in the Baltics. The source notes, “the US plan is to neutralize the more advanced defensive missile systems that seal Russia’s airspace."

Yes, Russia is worried about any missiles close to its territory, but the only thing anywhere near anything hypersonic the US has now is a Dark Eagle system which is not even out of the prototype stage. Moreover, in case this system is deployed in 2023--which, I, frankly, doubt--it is still behind the pace of Russia's development of already serial produced S-500, S-300V4, not to mention S-550 coming on-line in 2024, all of which are designed to intercept perspective hypersonic weapons which the US still... doesn't have. So, in the end, already new anti-missile systems now deployed can mitigate if not altogether prevent such a strike and one way or another the US proper will "get it" anyway. Especially with 3M22 Zircon planned to be deployed at Russian Navy subs in 2024. It is a lose-lose situation for the US and is the result of failure, including by the US top brass and MIC, to adapt to the warfare of the 21st century. But I am on record on that... for many years. In related news, the third serial-produced K-571 Krasnoyarsk SSGN of Yasen-M (pr. 885M) class gets to sea trials this June (in Russian) and these are all hulls which will be also Zircon carriers.