Putin "didn't figure out the plan", this "plan" was in force since 1945 and the guy who figured it out was Stalin. Fact is, he knew it already in 1939. West eager to finish Russia as a great power – John Mearsheimer.
The only difference have been 1980s and 1990s when USSR took the path (originally formalized in 1975 in Helsinki but conceived in 1960s) of "peaceful coexistence" between the West and USSR, which resulted in dissolution of said USSR, collapse of the socialist system and participation of Yeltsin's criminal gang in destruction of Russia.
Mearsheimer really needs to update himself on WW II and how and by who Nazism has been crushed and why today Stalin is increasingly venerated in Russia because population at large can see how right he was viewing the West as an existential enemy of historic Russia. All this, mind you, despite incessant anti-Soviet and anti-Stalin propaganda in Russian media and among the so called "creative class". Putin is a product of the system which KNEW always what the combined West was up to and even before Putin's "arrival", Russia understood what was transpiring--hence Primakov's Doctrine, a radically anti-Western geopolitical vision which has been realized now.
... in the West sell "battle-proven" pseudo strategic BS and make profits by defrauding their "customers". SitRep and Belarus-Estonia "border". We reached Idiocracy, we really did.
It is obviously in Russian, but if anyone wants to listen to the whole thing you can follow this link to Russian MoD TG channel. But why it is interesting. It is interesting due to this and many other 404 POWs testimonies of the dominance of Russian artillery on the battlefield. This is for those who still continue to masturbate to UAVs not understanding that Fire and Strike impact on the battlefield is called "complex" because of its heterogeneous nature, meaning the use of a variety of means and artillery (both "barrel" and rocket, aka MLRS) remains a decisive factor on the battlefield providing proper fire productivity.
Here is one of many videos of Russians tankers (this one is T-80BM) explaining how they work from both ZOP (Enclosed Firing Positions) and directly.
Here the guys explain how they finished off one of the Leopards which was "de-tracked" by Russian infantry using Kornet and then T-80BM crew destroyed it through UAV's fire correction at the distance of 9.5 kilometers. Everything works as a system, and this is just the part, in this particular case, of ROK--Recon Fire Complex. To those who still don't get it--a reminder from Colonel Jacques Baud.
And then there is a lot to be said about Joint Force, a REAL one.
... my displeasure with wrong portrayal of my ... drinking. I drink Jack ON THE ROCKS. Where is ice, I ask you))
On a more serious note. The fate of 404 tanks. Nima asked me today a poignant question, on how Russians view 404 soldiers. Here is response of my friend Colonel Oleg Shalandin to butcher Zaluzhny.
I guess, Epstein "files" are now fully at work, as intended. But then again, people with honor and pride in D.C.? Nah, nobody has seen one in a long-long time.
Meanwhile, gadget masturbators and amateurs in the West still do understand the issue of scale and ISR. So,
Cretins at NBC (other types simply do not disgrace themselves working for human sewer of US MSM) still do not understand two things, neither do many in Pentagon and CIA:
1. There is NO AI--doesn't exist and will not exist for a very long time. Neural networks and advanced algorithms are NOT AI.
2. Most important: if it will come down to real war between Russia and NATO, the issue will be decided really fast on operational and strategic level and will be decided NOT by UAVs but massive strikes of long-range fires and stand-off weaponry against which neither Europe nor the US have any counter-measures. The military-political top of the West will simply be annihilated and then ... well, depends.
Likely, however, this anti-drone BS was a pathetic response to this:
... in one of the best in the universe concentration of specialists in armor warfare, London tabloid The Telegraph that is, LOL. So, they have been already tasting this sweet victory over those backward Russkies because, as you know, there is no better authority on armor warfare in the world than RUSI, King's College and ... The Telegraph.
Well, this Ajax thingy is a very classic British combat technology, akin to its Chobham armor which sucks, its Challenger tanks not-suited for real war, or, for that matter HMS Queen Elizabeth. But then again, how can you explain to any British general what real modern war is? Impossible, especially since they don't understand the meaning of RUK/ROK and overall netcentric nature of modern battlefield which is and will be controlled by Russia in any war due to massive leaps in both drone and anti-drone technology and AD the likes NATO simply has no concept of.
So, here is a demonstration from yesterday--this is called situational and tactical awareness and then ... yep, ROK--Recon Fire Complex.
What needs to be understood--Russians are not resting on laurels, they openly admit some gaps in terms of EW disruption (of course, there is a kinetic way to do so, but that's a whole other can of worms) of ISR by the US. But they are working on it and below the LEO (Low Earth Orbit) NATO ISR means in case of real war will be wiped out. But then again, what do I know ...
I am sure Russia's Combined Arms War College and Academy of General Staff are besieging The Telegraph and The Joint Services Command and Staff College, and of course RUSI, with requests for sending British officers to teach Russians about armor (and combined arms) warfare. British Army is welcome to send its new Ajaxes (before they injure most of their crews) to 404. I am sure SU-25s with Ka-52s, T-90Ms and Kornet crews need some additional R 50,000 for destroyed APC, which goes a long way in Russia.
... but in fairness to, say, British who marked (nothing to celebrate there but only mark in grief) their Remembrance Day yesterday.
The population of the Great Britain (without empire) in 1914 was around 46 million. The US population was around 79 million in 1914. But in terms of KIAs constituted merely 8.6% of British losses. Wars are always about impact on the society. In no ways trying to diminish dedication and heroism of American veterans of say WW I, but the impacts on British and American societies couldn't have been further apart. And don't get me started about WW II. I guess I made my point.
... visits personnel of 38 Marine Brigade of VSU in Mirnograd today.
Two points: 1. how 404 which doesn't have navy can have marines is a complete mystery. 2. That personnel is gone now. As always Russian MOD will not count them until it will be able to verify (count) whatever is left of them.
He is absolutely correct, an undeniable fact of all of us living in the world which was shaped by the West. And the defeat and its euphemism--the decline--does not mean that West as a civilization will disappear.
Slezkine identifies three paths for the West:
I see three paths forward. The first is a limited liberal restoration. ... Another possibility is a radical retrenchment, understood as an abandonment of empire in favor of the nation. Politically, such a move would be broadly popular. ... The third and final option, then, is a new transatlantic consolidation that replaces a liberal universalist logic with a self-consciously civilizational frame, with the United States as the acknowledged metropole and Europe as a privileged periphery.
I agree with Slezkine, the likely outcome will be some sort of combination of the three ... for now. A lot depends on the dynamics of Europe's decline and this one is difficult to predict in detail. But Slezkine, not without justification, states in conclusion:
In any event, the United States is poised to maintain a favorable position in a multipolar world. The legacy institutions of international liberalism have largely lost their purpose, but retain residual power (which, ironically, the U.S. can leverage most effectively against other members of the “liberal order”). Going forward, the Trump administration should continue to push for a reconfiguration of the transatlantic relationship as a self-consciously Western coalition united by a common approach to trade, technology, and resource management. And if Europe fails to accept its new role, or play it well, then Washington can cut bait and retrench to prepared positions in the Western Hemisphere.
Yes, this is the luxury the US has, again--for now only, which Europe does not.
... shows--as in any talk show in the West the main task is to create a shouting match between the guests and not to find the truth. Those hosts, from Solovyov, to Skabeeva with her hubby, to others are complete hacks who have been exposed by SMO as people who are not in complete agreement with their heads and also played a significant role in promoting a 404 fifth column (ask not why RT suddenly deleted 29 articles by officially designated extremist and terrorist Tatiana Montyan who they published often) in Russia, while in reality giving a vehicle to either outright or shadow assets of SBU and other intel orgs. Enough to mention a coward and self-promoter, militarily illiterate hack like Rybar (one of the main pushers of 404 propaganda), let alone outright 404 propagandist like Yuri Podolyaka. But that is a whole other story.
But why did I mention these Russian "talk-BS-shows"? Well, our good friend Peter Hanseler from Switzerland explains, again, why Mr. Gilbert Doctorow is NOT Russia "expert" and never was and why he gets his "opinions" primarily from such "sources" as Solovyov, Skabeeva with Popov and other similar latent pro-Western "liberal" Russian talk-show media. You can access the piece by following the link to Larry's blog.
So, as I repeat ad nauseam--to pass judgements on issues of strategy one must have a background and a grasp of issues. This applies fully and even more so to Russia. As Sir Bernard Pares wrote about Russia 90 years ago:
"And knowledge alone is not enough without understanding, which is much more hardly won. To no country does this apply more than to Russia....This gap has to be filled, or will it cost us dear."
So, Doctorow may pretend that he has the knowledge, but he doesn't and he certainly doesn't have it, let alone has understanding, when it comes to military-political proceedings in Moscow. For that, one must have a grasp of warfare fundamentals and Russia's strategic culture, which he does not have. And Peter Hanseler makes an astute observation, when speaking about such people as Scott Ritter and Larry Johnson:
One gets the impression that Gilbert Doctorow simply envies his colleagues and attacks them—unsavory.
That is what in the foundation of Doctorow's rage. But then again, trying to go toe to toe with heroic major of the USMC and intel officer or former CIA analyst and the US State Department anti-terrorism expert ... yeah, to do so you need a really serious pedigree in national security and defense fields, which Doctorow doesn't have. And here we are ...
Meanwhile. This is KAMAZ truck in military configuration.
This is the video we spoke about with Daniel Davis of ONE of funeral (bodies recovery) teams of Russian Army who are involved in collecting bodies of VSU in Krasnoarmeisk (aka Pokrovsk).
Just this team alone--as the serviceman states--up to five KAMAZ loads a day (for many days now) of bodies are collected and, as he states, the more we move forward the more bodies of VSU KIAs they have to collect.
Correct, they are, but as the USS Princeton learned it the hard way in 1991, without the minesweepers, also known today as anti-mine warfare ships or MCM (mine counter-measures), you are toast in the littoral and if not for the Canadian Navy's minesweepers, which took Princeton out of the area, this Aegis cruiser could have been stuck in the area for much longer time. And it was a complete incompetence and technological backwardness of Iraqis, and pure luck that it didn't get hit by anti-shipping missile.
Well, now Royal Navy, or whatever is left of it, laments.
I don't know why the author of this opinion piece claims this (unless he means WW II period, then yes), but in terms of the largest mine-sweeping operations in post-WW II period we can recall the US Navy's operation Nimbus Star in demining the Suez Canal, with Soviet Navy's task group joining in later in 1974 in demining Southern approaches to Suez Canal. Both US Navy's Task Force 65 and Soviet force with a notable presence, among other ships and minesweepers, of the Helicopter Carrier Leningrad, used helicopters for minesweeping.
But it was clear--the main force in clearing mines remained minesweepers. So, this guy from The Telegraph laments:
Sea mines are ubiquitous, lethal and ignored, all in equal measure. There hasn’t been a maritime conflict in the last 100 years where they haven’t been used, nor will there be in the next 100. If the purpose of navies is to command the sea, then their ability to defeat this cheap yet effective threat is a must. ... But their job is clearing mines, and there are only so many ways to do that. The US Navy has long clung to the idea that it can be done from helicopters, but that ran into the same problem that most air operations do – lack of persistence. Hunting mines using sonar is a slow business. If your chosen method for moving the sonar along in the sea is “non-persistent”, as when dangling it from a helicopter, you are not going to get much done. As for confirming that sonar blips are actually mines and destroying them, forget it.
Well, he has some point, but as is the case with any search and destroy operations--it is a slow process and must involve a complex approach in case of minesweeping. And here is the point, current state of the Royal Navy is not that of the global force, to put it mildly, and the only dedicated MCMs it has one venerable Sandown class MCM (HMS Bangor, M 109) and 6 downright ancient Hunt-class MCMs. How many of them are actually sea-worthy is unknown.
So, what do British do? Well, they couldn't man this beautiful vessel (commercial, mind you) before transferring it to the Royal Navy, and designating it HMS Stirling Castle.
They say she holds the promise for MCM operations. Well, RN is plagued with severe budget constrains and the whole situation with transferring this vessel to the navy and using it as MCM is ... well, make you own conclusions.
Do not forget, though, Russian Navy still operates some other types of MCMs, including 2 active Gorya-class and then, there is a huge number (around 20) of active old pr. 1265 Base MCMs, and, of course, venerable and tough Akvamarins (pr. 266) MCMs--some 5 of them remain in service.
But, of course, Alexandrits are now the backbone of Russian MCM fleet and their number only grows. You can dub this video (3 years old) which does review of these unique and powerful MCM ships.
Fiber-glass hulls (vacuum-infusion), state-of-the-art electronics and yes, Russia will have around 40 of those with new modifications will follow for sure down the road. Ah yes, so unglamorous, yet indispensable force which no serious navy in the world can live without. And I can feel Royal Navy's pain (I really do--nobody is going to deny its glorious history), but transfer of the essentially commercial vessel to the Navy and hoping it can address an obvious shortage of the MCM forces is a first indicator of a bad shape Royal Navy finds itself in, which is merely yet another manifestation of the deep crisis which affected United Kingdom.
... of culture (Civilization is a Culture Writ Large (c)) and statesmanship which provides proper governance--everything else flows from there, including comforts civilization affords to humans. 404 doesn't have any of it (Europe is next), as the result--a complete loss of civilization.
... stating numbers--the only language operational and strategic level planners understand. Larry is spot on here. But it also brings up the issue of (lack of) IDF's real military prowess--it is extremely low and most of it is a set of fairy tales, while in reality IDF cannot even conduct proper police operation of medium to high intensity without committing a genocide.
Mind you, this is the force which was made to be admired by Pentagon whose own record is dismal, to put it mildly. No wonder then that it all turned out to be not what was pushed on all of us by Mossad, AIPAC, Hollywood and other people whose ideas about warfare are that of the amateurish myths.
... for relaxation. Rondo and Ivanov (BTW, had huge concerts in Budokan in 1990s) wrote this wonderful song long time ago--here are some real Russian rockers singing it 14 years ago in Kremlin Palace. A song God, What A Trivial Thing.
And now, in the Battle of Generations Tatyana Kurtukova sings the original. This is 2025--this is Neo-Russian pop-folk which did what many in CIA (who had any clue) have been afraid of--Russian folk became hot and cool simultaneously with gorgeous women with amazing voices doing ... well, references.
Kurtukova can pack a 50,000 stadium like nothing--easy. And what she does is amazing. She is live and suddenly all those clones of "western" style look cheap and disposable looking at what she does.
She is a Russian equivalent of Shaman but many times more potent. She is a sublimation of Russian woman--this is what Russia was always about.
They are not going to rebuild them anymore. This is how NATO "strategic planning" looks like. Of course, by now, they planned, "Putin's Regime" should have been gone and a bunch of mentally unstable treasonous cretins from "opposition" should have been in place in Kremlin to get busy with Russia's partition and surrendering to the West. This is what happens when you "learn" history from the fairy tales books.
... things go as they go. I refer you (again) to Herrera's superb piece. And to delusions (across the board) and how they embed themselves into the national psyche. And why the West cannot do strategy. With "strategists" like Sarah Paine the US is doomed, not as a super-duper power, that title has been lost long time ago, but as a nation.
I wonder what Herrera would write today against the background of utter failure of the American strategic and operational approach WITH or WITHOUT ever-present infatuation with a conjured past.
... of the issue. No, it doesn't have to be in the US Dollars.
The ONLY dominating reason for the primacy of the US Dollar (aka Petrodollar) in the hydrocarbons trade was not some magical financial BS, albeit not without it, no--the main reason was a perception that the US CAN enforce the use of a US Dollar by means of its grossly exaggerated military power. Period, everything else was secondary. Now, suddenly, US has been exposed as a military paper tiger and the world took a note. Can US enforce anything with China? Of course not, not to mention the gargantuan scale and diversification of Chinese economy which dwarfs that of the US. Can the US enforce anything against Russia? Well, unlike US military academies and Pentagon, military people around the world actually DO study real military science and operations. They also study REAL military history and they know the score, especially against the background of SMO. Soooo .... ?
You get the picture, right? The US zenith as global economic power is over, if you doubt it--go to Walmart or COSTCO. The main issue now is how to preserve remaining American industrial capacity and expertise. Expansion? Seriously? Military-wise, you all know by now what it all turned out to be--a simulacrum, a projection by Hollywood primarily and by Wehrmacht. US military is obsessed with Wehrmacht as happens with impressionable and obsessive child who endows some adult person with qualities this child desperately wants to posses, not understanding that this adult is just average and lacks those qualities. It is called projection. Read it, read it attentively--it implicitly answers the question why Sarah Paine is "moron with Ph.D." and why the US military is primarily a figment of imagination of people like her. I speak about it in my video today and about how Epistemic Closure looks like. Here is a simpler explanation:
... and congratulations to Candace. A deadly mix of beauty, intellect and courage (granted I do have some complains, but they are minor). Number One podcast in the world!
... you know who)) A house for sale in Uzbekistan.
There is certain The Fifth Element reference here, purely accidental I may add, but Luc Besson's masterpiece was supposed to be grotesque and it beautifully worked there. Here ... Ahem, enjoy)))
So, I think that explains the issue. It also means that highly likely the hypersonic prototype does exist and I don't have to repeat strategic ramifications of all these developments--it is a full revolution, not just in military affairs, but technologically.
Meanwhile, 404 is moving (together with NATO and EU) towards advanced technologies of the end of the XIX century, because Russians had it with all this bullshit about "brotherly people" and combined West. This is Vinnitsa.
Hey, God forbid WW III breaks out, Russians do have a rather impressive park of moth-balled steam engines and they will be able to move troops and materiel if need be. But in the mean time, Darnitskaya TES (Thermal Power Station) in Kiev left the chat.
Agrarian remnants of 404 will not need that much generating capacity. They wanted to rid of Russian and Soviet heritage, Russian long-range fires and stand-off weaponry are working hard to help them.
... to settle 404 issue. He also asked him to develop Russian nuclear weapons and balance the budget ... ah, wait--Russia's budget runs a very low deficit.
... is a complete idiot, albeit I still have an excuse. My "problems" with videos as of lately had nothing to do with hue, settings and shit like that, because I can't see shit at close quarters I missed to remove a transparent plastic cover on camera. Ok, have a field day at my expense, LOL)) Now to video--why British officers think that they know what maneuverable warfare is is a complete mystery, but there is no mystery in why French do not like (like? More like hatred) Russians and continue to parade themselves as losers in their "assessments" and raising "Russian Question".
... for the West, which did all it could (what's new, really?) to "shape" Ivan Grozny as a satrap and murderer, who, actually, during his 34 year reign executed fewer people than "enlightened" France killed 10,000+ Huguenots in a few weeks. And NO--his title IS fucking NOT "Terrible", Grozny in Russian means both menacing and formidable. Now, Russians had enough with this European BS--a magnificent monument has been erected to Czar in Vologda.
A historic event of Russians returning their full historic memory.
... ass-hole. You all know who I am talking about--a war criminal croacked. His daughter, however, still poisons American air. Per these clowns from ISW:
No, no, no--everything is fine in Krasnoarmeisk, VSU and its NATO handlers are about to relieve those 10,000 trapped there. Ah, wait ... they tried, you all know how it all ended. You cannot teach Kagan's clan (who owns this BS lack of think-tank) what real war is. Unteachable--no background in military affairs whatsoever. But here is a butthurt British NATO dude. I am sure he knows how to command a platoon.
NATO officer corps is a fucking joke--specialists in PR only. Per this cretin, Irina Alksnis wrote an excellent piece on the matter (Google Translate will help). Britain Has Reasons For Hatred of Russia. Nations of losers such as UK, France, Germany and Italy have to resign themselves to the position of where they belong since mid-20th century--barking chihuahuas with no real militaries, real education, real culture and any viable future.
