Visiting Barnes And Noble...

 ... I did it yesterday again, and when sipping on my latte from B&N coffee shop I usually browse periodicals such as Combat Aircraft and Air Forces. Yesterday, looking at the latest issues of both I couldn't find any so called "Ukraine-Russia War" headline on the cover of Air Forces, which prior to a demolition of the fabled "counteroffensive" by VSU in Summer 2023 have been plastered with SMO's headlines all over on the covers and inside. Enough to take a look at June 2023 issue where Tim Ripley investigated the leaks from Pentagon about air war in SMO titled State's Secrets, in which he stresses Pentagon's own assessment of Russian Air Defense being 97% effective. But in the latest issues--nothing, except for some tiny note in the "cellar" about VSU shooting down Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers using some "long-range" missiles--the information based on... "intel" from UK Defense Ministry. That means wet fantasies of depressed amateurs with epaulets from London witnessing the true "scale" of UK as a nation and as a military (lack of) power. 

Except, of course, for masturbating convulsions by Bulgarian NATO shill and semi-literate BSer Alexander Mladenov who made a career for himself writing about things based on "data" supplied by VSU. So, the guy decided "to learn lessons" of air war in 404 based on "data" most of which is nothing but Ukie wet fantasies. It is difficult to explain to a graduate of a one-year (1996-97) so called "reserve" officer of Artillery and Air Defense vocational school in Sofia that masturbating to Top Gun: Maverick and "studying" air war records such as in... Afghanistan, against mighty Taliban's air defense and air force is not exactly a good foundation for combat study and operational assessment of... anything, but Mladenov continues to collect BS from Ukies and spread it as a fact. You cannot fix a Bulgarian нищеброд (a beggar with a pauper's concept of a wealth) who gets patted on the back and enjoys being anything but military professional. But that's the issue of which I speak non-stop. 

So, Mike Krupa sends me today the link to Quincy's Institute for the so called Responsible Statecraft with three "experts" Lieven, Beebe and Episkopos doing what they usually do in US so called "intellectual" circles of humanities credentialed and dumbed down individuals who want to be military analysts but have absolutely no background required for that. So, they produce (how predictable) a "paper" naturally titled: Right-Sizing the Russian Threat to Europe. Needless to say, it is a wowser. A collection of tropes, while exposing lack of any awareness of modern warfare by people none of who, even CIA's own Beebe, have basic tool kit for grasping balance of military power and how it is formed, as for Lieven--he is a pathetic BSer with own agenda. So, these three find nothing better than grab Radakin's BS and this table of linear nominal numbers:

Obviously, none of them has any clue about how Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM) is calculated, how strategies are developed and operational planning is done based on real data sets--all of which are highly classified--not some media BS and none of them having any clue and feel of Russian military environment. They cannot understand it, least of them Lieven, what "harmonization" in the coalition warfare is and why NATO's TOE is a joke--it is the TOE and operational concepts based on propaganda BS from Desert Storm and "optimism" of people who never saw and experienced real war. So, it is more surprising that after loads of BS they (come on, Beebe was a cadre CIA, after all) arrive to a semi-coherent conclusion: 

In short, the threat of war between Russia and NATO is quite real, but not because Russian leaders have any desire to initiate a war of conquest against the West.

Why did they need to produce this "paper" only to quote what was repeated by Russian political top non-stop beats me. Moreover, this trite "conclusion" misses the whole point--Europe is irrelevant, while the American military mythology has been utterly destroyed. Because of that, the processes of which anyone with a half-brain warned about for many years are beginning to manifest themselves in the most profound way. Instead of pasting BS military data, these three should be thinking now about how to approach the thermonuclear financial bomb of the US national debt and what will happen with the US as a country once it explodes. And, please, Mr. Bacevich, hire somebody with real military background to write strategy papers on Russia for your "Institute"--make sure they are not from D.C. area and preferably are not from the cesspool of the American "Russia Study" field. I am sure grants to your institute will cover this. But then again, it is only my friendly advice. I will discuss this "paper" with my friends from Russian military--they periodically need some laughter, pseudo academic fraud is a good subject for that.