... again. Plus, never discount the possibility of April's Fool arriving earlier)))
VON YOUR BIKE, URSULA: Euro boss Ursula von der Leyen is in the running to be new head of Nato
Si Vis Pacem, Para Vinum © Andrei Martyanov's Blog
... again. Plus, never discount the possibility of April's Fool arriving earlier)))
VON YOUR BIKE, URSULA: Euro boss Ursula von der Leyen is in the running to be new head of Nato
Starting from Pepe, who brilliantly observed from Moscow:
Speaking of which. I do not particularly care about Trump the person, or as POTUS, for that matter--he was and remains an empty suite who never was equipped for dealing with the swamp he so proudly declared he would drain. But his indictment, indeed, opened the can of worms which this country, which goes to hell with a tremendous acceleration, may not survive. As James Kunstler, ever eloquent, notes:
I, of course, am interested in sociopolitical impact of the indictment, but after I researched the "artistic" career of Stormy Daniels, I would say that Trump's taste in women, despite being married to a beautiful woman, is rather an extension of his political tastes--kitsch and low brow. In the end, there are way more attractive pornstars, not to speak of very high level prostitutes, laboring as high end escorts, he could have easily afforded. But that's just me, what do I know.
Now about EU "peacekeepers" in 404. Sure--more coffins for EU. The whole idea is risible and Russia will wipe them out. As for Lukashenko's attempts to stay relevant against the background of inevitable unification of Russia and Belarus, his "peace gesture"(c) was met, as expected, with this:
So, it is same ol', same ol' with Lukashenko, who never abandons his pathological habit of occupying two, or better three, chairs simultaneously, whilst sensing that the logic of the geopolitical events leads him into the irrelevance. Meanwhile in interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 404's Foreign Minister Melnik admitted:
Translation: "We don't want to start a counter-offensive that is not prepared. We now have about 50-60 tanks from the West, but the Russians, as now and in the past, are capable of producing or bringing combat capability up to ten tanks a day. And this means that we will still have a long time we will be unable to achieve a decisive advantage on the battlefield," the diplomat said.
No shit, geniuses (not Melnik, he understands nothing in the matter), finally someone in Pentagon and London did calculate a required force. Well, I guess attending Army War College and Command and General Staff College finally paid off. Somebody finally got a hold of a real economic capability of Russia--yes, 10 tanks a day x 365 days = 3, 650 tanks a year--and finally calculated that whopping 2 tank battalions of Western tanks is about a week or so of work for Russian tank and anti-tank crews and those pesky Ka-52s and Mi-28s. Ah, yes--the reality is a bitch. But sure, Russians are waiting for the last hope dash of the remnants of VSU and its NATO "allies" and then... well, only Kremlin and General Staff know what's then. Unleash your imagination.
Thank you Periscope Films channel for providing incredible historic insights. Yes, USSR in 1962.
... in the West, unless it is in the cellar of the news streams, but... heads of central banks of ASEAN nations have in the agenda of their upcoming meeting in Indonesia... well, judge for yourself.
Страны АСЕАН — Ассоциации государствЮго-Восточной Азии — обсудят отказ от основных валют, таких как доллар и евро, и переход к расчетам в местной валюте. Этот вопрос будет на повестке встречи министров финансов и управляющих центральными банками стран, которая пройдет в Индонезии. Издание уточняет, что речь идет о цифровой системе, благодаря которой жители одной страны объединения смогут платить за товары и услуги другой страны в собственной валюте. Индонезия, Малайзия, Сингапур, Филиппины и Таиланд уже подписали соглашение о сотрудничестве по этому проекту. Стоит напомнить, что в середине марта президент Индонезии Джоко Видодо призвал региональные власти отказаться от Mastercard и Visa. Он предложил использовать кредитные карты, выпущенные местными банками, чтобы защитить денежные транзакции от «возможных геополитических последствий».
Translation: The ASEAN countries - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - will discuss moving away from major currencies such as the dollar and the euro and moving to local currency settlements. This issue will be on the agenda of the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the countries, which will be held in Indonesia. The publication clarifies that we are talking about a digital system, thanks to which residents of one country of the association will be able to pay for goods and services of another country in their own currency. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand have already signed a cooperation agreement on this project. It is worth recalling that in mid-March, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called on regional authorities to abandon Mastercard and Visa. He suggested using credit cards issued by local banks to protect money transactions from "possible geopolitical consequences."
It is happening right now, right here. Two major geopolitical factors are at play here:
1. Sanctions on Russia and stealing Russia's assets;
2. The way Russia successfully stands alone (initially) against combined West and grinds its combined forces into dust.
Now, with Saudi Arabia moving closer to becoming a full fledged member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, one can only imagine what resources the BRICS will command, since Saudi Arabia is very keen on joining BRICS too.
That's strategy, meaning matching your resources to political ends, because any war, a real one, not some PR BS which US elites "fight" primarily in media, and the outcomes are calculated and predicted with certain probabilities. Ah, yes, those Markov Chains, probability matrices and Graph Theory which serious organizations such as general staffs and strategic forecast entities use, after collecting and systematizing all available facts. Unlike it is done in Washington D.C. where they are primarily into the business of juxtapositioning things to produce easily consumed BS by political shysters who infest today America's decision-making circles.
Sasha Rogers wrote three days ago an excellent--typical Rogers with his laser guided sarcasm and acerbic tone--piece which is titled "The Meat Storm" (in Russian). In it he posted Rusvesna video on how what's left of VSU and 404 simply have no options in purely military terms but to conduct much promised and spun by morons from Western media "offensive" with disastrous results.
The reason I call strategic inevitability is because neither Pentagon nor Kiev "planners" know what to do at this stage, and, considering the fact that most wars by the US are driven by PR, they need to undertake something--call it anyway you want: counter-offensive, offensive, massive attack or simply attack but it has to be repeated time after time--not on a single occasion VSU took any ground or settlement as a direct result of their combat activity. Each time these were Russian forces who have been withdrawn from operationally and strategically insignificant positions to save personnel. Enough to recall VSU "operations" around Kherson when they couldn't take anything around Kherson, not a single village, until the decision was made to save civilians and personnel and abandon Kherson. Only after Russian withdrawal VSU "captured" abandoned villages and the city.
Naturally, illiterate media and military "professionals" touted it as a huge success, even calling it stunning, because in the West the "victory" is defined only through TV picture and spin. What, of course, those "experts" do not understand is that the "stretching" of VSU forces is ongoing the picture, such as demonstrated in the video, repeats itself every single day with VSU and their "allies" being slaughtered in some catastrophic numbers. But that is strategic inevitability now not only for remnants of Kiev regime forces but NATO as a whole which exposed its military illiteracy in the most dramatic way. In doing so they "ensured" the picture which you can see in the video being replicated everywhere in 404.
Here is what Svechin wrote and was noted about Strategy in the preamble to his seminal work.
The problem with modern Western military as a whole is that it fails both in theory and real life with equally disastrous results and that is a strategic inevitability framed by illiterate military-political class of the combined West. They refused to do the homework (Svechin also writes about homework) and failed the test not just in 404, but globally.
... the world continues to move on.
Translation: Moscow. March 29. INTERFAX.RU - Russia and India are considering the possibility of creating a trans-Arctic container line and building processing facilities near the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russian Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexei Chekunkov said during a working visit to India. According to the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the main topic of the meeting of the Russian delegation on Tuesday with the Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways of India Sarbananda Sonoval was the use of the NSR for reliable and safe transportation of goods. "They discussed the creation of an alternative route for the delivery of goods from India to Europe - not along the southern or western routes, but along the eastern one, through the NSR, using both Russian and Indian port facilities. It was especially noted that the cost of delivering a container from Vladivostok to India is one third lower than the cost of shipping a container from Moscow," Chekunkov said in the message.
Not to be outdone, Saudi Arabia adopted the memorandum on the partnership with the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as reported by Saudi media and by TASS (in Russian). Also, barely noticed Russia finished the final preparation for the serial production of TU-214 and... launched it. This year three new TU-214 will be transferred to airlines and by 2025 the manufacturing will ramp up to 20 a year. Before 2025 eleven more of reborn and modernized TU-214 will be transferred to customers (in Russian). Mind you, Russia continues to manufacture SSJ-New and MC-21.
Finally, about the failed test of the USAF very own hypersonic ARRW.
Again, read my lips: the US eventually will be able to come up with some type of hypersonic weapon, most likely of a glider variety but neither China nor US will have anything even remotely equal to 3M22 Zircon. Moreover, it seems that US legislators and journos need a constant reminder of a huge difference between quasi ballistic systems and full power systems such as serially produced and deployed to Russian Navy's surface fleet Zircon. The only hypersonic thing which allegedly could get IOC is US Army's Dark Eagle but it is clear that there are "issues" with this system too. Well, doesn't look like Russia sweats too much about it. Plus S-300V4 and S-500 are specifically designed for dealing with such kind of threats and those are in serial production.
Last, but not least--two can play "strategic ambiguity" game. Russia's Foreign Ministry has stated that Russia will stop prior informing of the American side about launches of her strategic weapon systems. Well, let them guess and start calling Moscow each time. In conclusion about strategy of SMO:
The annihilation of the remnants of VSU and its "allies" from NATO continues and will continue till utter demilitarization of NATO. This is your primer for Wednesday.