Oh Boy, Now NATO Is Screwed...

 ... 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

Granted, it is The Sun, but still)))

 

Well, it is Friday. One of Canada's greatest. 

Once he starts, it's hard to stop(c)... that's West's "strategy" today.

Some Friday Business.

Starting from Pepe, who brilliantly observed from Moscow:

In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans. In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

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:

It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

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:

Belarusian proposals for a suspension of hostilities in Ukraine can be discussed but they don’t change Moscow’s analysis of the conflict, the Kremlin spokesman has stated. Dmitry Peskov noted that the initiative formulated by the key Russian ally could not be directly compared to the roadmap for peace in Ukraine set out by China. The latest proposals for a truce, which were outlined by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, involve a ban on the movement of troops and weapons, so neither Russia nor Ukraine could use the armistice to regather their forces.

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:

"Мы не хотим начинать контрнаступление, которое не подготовлено. У нас сейчас приблизительно 50-60 танков с Запада, но русские как сейчас, так и прежде способны ежедневно производить или приводить в боеспособность до десяти танков. А это означает, что мы еще долгое время будем неспособны добиться решающего преимущества на поле боя", — сообщил дипломат.

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.

What Ivan Knows That Johny Doesn't

Thank you Periscope Films channel for providing incredible historic insights. Yes, USSR in 1962. 

Remember this simple fact: an average Soviet public school graduate had three times more instruction in Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology than it was stipulated for the acceptance to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In many respect Soviet system of education is being returned in Russia. Even the return of children's military-patriotic games Zarnitsa is one of the signs of finally parting with cancerous debilitating liberal system of education (in Russian).

You Will Hardly Find This In The News...

 ... 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 государств Юго-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.

But to succeed in forecasting one must operate with verifiable data--this is not the case with the West. Do we even comprehend a true depth of a crisis. I can only speculate. I speak about it in my latest video:

Elmo Zumwalt's fears have come true in the 21st century. And don't tell me that I didn't warn about it, wink, wink;))

Larry Makes Some Excellent Points.

At Judge's show.  

Excellent Discussion.
 

Strategic Inevitability.

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. 

Here is how one Russian unit deals with four Ukie APCs (looks like M-113) and this tiny tactical action projected against the realities of a huge, 1000+ kilometers long, front demonstrates perfectly how VSU is going to be dealt with in case of their "offensive", now promised by Kiev regime to be along... several axes. Yeah, sure. 

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. 

I criticize many of my colleagues in the study of problems of military history and tsarist Russia, in that they usually strove, immediately following a factual statement of events, to develop their deductions and conclusions, which often had rather limited scope and depth. A truly scientific approach consists of, once the facts have been stated, shifting to a reflection of them. "The difference between the terms, conclusion [vyvod], on the one hand, and contemplation [razmyshlenie], on the other, reflects different understandings of the relationships between theory and real life." 

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. 

Meanwhile...

 ... the world continues to move on. 

Москва. 29 марта. INTERFAX.RU - Россия и Индия рассматривают возможность создания трансарктической контейнерной линии и строительства перерабатывающих мощностей рядом с Северным морским путем (СМП), заявил министр РФ по развитию Дальнего Востока и Арктики Алексей Чекунков в ходе рабочего визита в Индию. Как сообщает Минвостокразвития, главной темой состоявшейся во вторник встречи российской делегации с министром портов, судоходства и водных путей Индии Сарбанандой Соновалом стало использование СМП для надежной и безопасной транспортировки грузов. "Обсуждалось создание альтернативного пути доставки грузов из Индии в Европу - не по южному или западному маршрутам, а по восточному, через СМП, с задействованием как российских, так и индийских портовых мощностей. Особо отмечено, что стоимость доставки контейнера из Владивостока до Индии на треть ниже, чем стоимость доставки контейнера из Москвы", - приводятся в сообщении слова Чекункова.

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.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s March 13 test of a hypersonic weapon was “not a success,” the service secretary told lawmakers Tuesday.Frank Kendall indicated the Lockheed Martin-made AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon program may be in jeopardy. The service, he said, is “more committed to HACM [the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, the service’s other major hypersonic weapon program] at this point in time than we are to ARRW.” The ARRW effort “has struggled a little bit in its testing program,” Kendall told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel during a hearing on the fiscal 2024 budget request. He said an ultimate decision on whether to continue with the program could come as part of the FY25 budget process next year following a study of the failed March test and possibly two more test launches. Hypersonic weapons travel at speeds topping Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable, making them difficult to track and shoot down. China and Russia have invested considerable resources in developing these weapons for their militaries, and several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that the country is not doing enough to field its own hypersonic capabilities.

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:

There is no possible political or diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict with Ukraine at the moment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted. He added that Moscow regrets other avenues for resolution are not open. Speaking to Russian journalists on Wednesday, Peskov reiterated Moscow’s resolve to reach its goals, which were outlined by President Vladimir Putin at the start of the military operation over a year ago. “We have repeatedly said that Russia’s goals … can be achieved in various ways. These are politico-diplomatic or – if politico-diplomatic are currently impossible, and in the case of Ukraine, they are impossible, to our regret – through military means, that is, through the special military operation,” Peskov stated.

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.