No Shit, Pardon My French.

Ignorant BSers from The Economist report:

UKRAINIANS WATCHED with glee as Russia flirted with civil war on June 24th. They had hoped that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow would tie up Russian troops and destabilise Vladimir Putin’s regime. Alas, the insurrection proved short-lived. In recent days, Ukraine’s army has made modest advances in the east. But a counter-offensive that began on June 4th shows little sign of breaking through Russian lines in force any time soon, making some Western officials nervous.

And as now Ria quotes The Economist (in Russian) the 404 GUR complains that "partners" tell VSU to "go ahead and fight with fury".  Oh boy, do I recognize neocons' signature move--make others die while they sit in their comfortable upscale restaurants and clubs and pretend to be military thinkers and strategists. None of them are and most would shit their pants just from the thought of being anywhere near operational zone. 

Now about Mearsheimer, or, rather, why I do not read or listen to him, or why in general I am not interested in what he has to say. People brought again his platitudes up, and "analysis" at a discussion board today re: his, yet another, set of platitudes:

Second, which side is likely to win the war? Russia will ultimately win the war, although it will not decisively defeat Ukraine. In other words, it is not going to conquer all of Ukraine, which is necessary to achieve three of Moscow’s goals: overthrowing the regime, demilitarizing the country, and severing Kyiv’s security ties with the West. But it will end up annexing a large swath of Ukrainian territory, while turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. In other words, Russia will win an ugly victory.

Before I directly address these issues, three preliminary points are in order. For starters, I am attempting to predict the future, which is not easy to do, given that we live in an uncertain world. Thus, I am not arguing that I have the truth; in fact, some of my claims may be proved wrong. Furthermore, I am not saying what I would like to see happen. I am not rooting for one side or the other. I am simply telling you what I think will happen as the war moves forward. Finally, I am not justifying Russian behavior or the actions of any of the states involved in the conflict. I am just explaining their actions.

This paragraph alone demonstrates for anyone with serious military background (Mearsheimer is a graduate of USMA at West Point) a complete confusion which befell Mearsheimer, who passes in the US for "realist":

1. Defeat of the enemy and Victory are synonyms, and in REAL war, they are identical and mean "achieving POLITICAL goals of a war". If Mearsheimer, who is of a respectable age, still doesn't know it, he can start with Svechin's Strategy in order to avoid embarrassment...

2. ...when trying to predict the future having absolutely no tool kit when it comes to Russia and XXI century warfare. Mearsheimer doesn't have it and is the same product of American cultural and pseudo-academic milieu, whose views on warfare grew primarily based on entertainment industry and American exceptionalism. E.g. he has no grasp of the real size of Russian economy and, especially, of technological and production capability of Russian military-industrial complex. Neither have most US political "scientists" from Mearsheimer's environment.

3. He remains still THE American exceptionalist and is not well versed in the history of the XX century and, especially, its military history. It shines through his speaking and writing. Hence he always resorts to platitudes, which, once in a while make sense. But, as we all know, even the broken clock... 

This is why I don't give Mearsheimer any respect as a scholar. In matters of the combined West against Russia in the XXI century he is an amateur with a lot of AMERICAN "academic" credentials which automatically disqualify those people from passing any judgement on issues of XXI century geopolitics.  In the end, political "science" is a fraudulent academic field designed to give credence to opinions of people who, otherwise, are incapable of productive and meaningful intellectual labor. In general, as, sadly, the example of respected by me Colonel Macgregor shows, even the best and the brightest in the US have huge issues with learning the real history of WW II and America's path to greatness, however short-lived in historical terms, especially so of the Eastern Front which contributed decisively to America's post-WW II resurgence.