Freakshow continues)))
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting national security adviser to replace Mike Waltz, whom he is nominating for United Nations ambassador. Trump announced the moves shortly after news broke that Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong were departing the administration just weeks after it was revealed that Waltz added a journalist to a Signal chat being used to discuss military plans.
Nebenzya will make a complete idiot out of this guy in UN publicly. DJT, of course, couldn't foresee that the neocon trash he imported into his admin will sabotage him/s. And while everyone discusses the "mineral deal" which has no meaning for reality on the ground, Nikolai Patrushev makes an important comment on upcoming BaltOps 25:
НАТО на учениях вблизи российских границ отрабатывает сценарии с захватом Калининградской области и превентивными ударами по ядерным арсеналам. Об этом в интервью ТАСС заявил помощник президента РФ, глава Морской коллегии Николай Патрушев. По его словам, Североатлантический альянс второй год проводит самые масштабные за последние десятилетия учения, «на которых отрабатывает сценарии наступательных действий на большой протяженности — от Вильнюса до Одессы, захвата Калининградской области, блокирования судоходства на Балтике и в Черном море, превентивных ударов по местам постоянного базирования российских сил ядерного сдерживания».
Translation: NATO is practicing scenarios involving the seizure of the Kaliningrad region and preemptive strikes on nuclear arsenals during exercises near the Russian border. This was stated in an interview with TASS by the Russian presidential aide and head of the Naval Collegium Nikolai Patrushev. According to him, the North Atlantic Alliance is holding the largest exercises in recent decades for the second year, "in which it is practicing scenarios of offensive actions over a large area - from Vilnius to Odessa, the seizure of the Kaliningrad region, blocking shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas, and preemptive strikes on the permanent bases of Russian nuclear deterrent forces."
While I am on record for decades now that it is conventional power which matters in military affairs--the competition NATO has lost--yesterday Ania asked me a pointed question: how many nukes it will take to "calm" NATO down. It goes without saying that Russia can sink every NATO fleet in Baltic conventionally, but it must be understood--any real move on Kaliningrad means immediate nuclear response, including at NATO's military political top. Conventionally, NATO (US included) is a paper tiger, but considering a complete insanity of European political "elites", turning some of the European and UK sites into parking lot could become necessary. We, of course, can discuss after that the algorithm of escalation (or de-escalation) after initial "lesson", but Russia can go with her own version of the Ledeen Doctrine: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Rephrase it in accordance with present situation from Russian point of view and the list of candidates pops up immediately. I'll give you a hint--the US will do nothing.
Leopold the Cat was appealing to his adversary mice non-stop. Guys, let's live like friends. But in the end, he had to take Ozverin pills to calm things down.
