A Lesson In Real Realism.

I do follow Daniel Larison's writing periodically and just yesterday he posted a note about ABM Treaty, or rather its abrogation by the United States. In it he notes, correctly: 

The Folly of Leaving the ABM Treaty, 20 Years Later.Withdrawing from the ABM Treaty was an early Bush blunder, but it is one whose costs we continue to pay even now.

In his piece he refers to Mr. James Acton of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (LOL)))  who also laments, not unreasonably, this blunder with ABM Treaty. Acton writes:

It’s clear now that withdrawing was an epic mistake. The United States’ homeland missile defenses are porous; why else would Washington worry that North Korea is deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)? Yet those defenses have succeeded in fueling arms races with Russia, whose hostility toward the United States is alive and well, and now with China too. This experience should prompt Washington to try to negotiate new limits on missile defenses, and it provides a cautionary tale about the very real costs of withdrawing from international agreements. Bush’s central contention was that the treaty “prevents us from developing effective defenses.” He was wrong on two counts. First, the treaty wasn’t the problem. Physics was. And engineering. And program management. And budgets. 

Obviously it is true but another (third) count Acton misses (not surprisingly for a person working for Carnegie Endowment) is the fact that neither Bush and his infested with neocons administration nor other administrations which followed had any clue what they were dealing with. Namely, Russia. Remarkably Larison IS on record about the utter ignorance of the US establishment, both political and what passes in the US for intellectual, on the account of the world outside. But if there is a country which represents a complete caricature in the American elitist mind it is Russia. The other count on which US establishment is ignorant is a real war (I doubt Mr. Acton understands it either) and, more generally, the nature of the conflict on the global scale. It is a cultural issue and most even smart people such as Mr. Acton do have serious difficulties penetrating the depth of it. 

Surely, Acton's background of a physicist makes him somewhat more predisposed to a rational thinking but here too we immediately are reminded that cultural ignorance doesn't spare even Ph.Ds in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge. Acton does admit that what Russia does technologically pretty much nullifies US efforts in ABM defenses but that is far as it goes. For starters, Acton lies, even if he doesn't understand it (which is even more damaging) and I return back to the first quote from him, read attentively:

Yet those defenses have succeeded in fueling arms races with Russia, whose hostility toward the United States is alive and well. 

Judging by the looks of Acton and, especially, the start of his activity as a scientist which falls on the second half of the first decade of 2000s, it is reasonable to assume that he met the collapse of the Soviet Union and immediate consequences of this collapse in 1990s being of a fairly tender age and having zero life experiences and self-awareness to assess times when Russia not only was NOT hostile to the US, but with the incredible energy tuned herself into a door mat for the United States up to the point of self-humiliation. Russians loved and admired the United States and then Yugoslavia happened. He doesn't remember that, I do. So, he lies following a classic BS taught in Anglo-world as a "history", hence his other quote from him.

The tens of billions of dollars that the United States has poured into homeland missile defense since 2001 have proved ineffective, and they have fueled arms races with China and Russia that have undermined U.S. security. President Joe Biden’s administration has sensibly identified arms control as a way to manage these growing dangers. A willingness to negotiate new limits on homeland missile defenses—in return for significant concessions from China and Russia—should be part of its approach.  

Acton does not recognize (he can't) that starting from late 1980s USSR (and then Russia) was surrendering one after another, in an act of unprecedented historically generosity, bordering on folly, her  strategic advantages. Not that the United States didn't benefit from those--the list is very long. And Russia learned her lesson. Mr. Acton, evidently, not, if he ever knew what that lesson was. I am sure he was never taught that in Cambridge--for that you need to attend a serious higher military educational facility. That is why what is highlighted in yellow is preposterous and could be only the product of a person with a white board life experiences and zero foreign policy, military and geopolitical acumen. 

                     LESSON IN REALISM FOR JAMES ACTON:

No normal nation, especially Russia after her experiences with what Pat Buchanan described as:

The Russian people, having extended a hand in friendship and seen it slapped away, cheered the ouster of the accommodating Boris Yeltsin and the arrival of an autocratic strong man who would make Russia respected again. We ourselves prepared the path for Vladimir Putin. 

Would trade any of her growing military-technological advantage over the United States, especially when the United Sates has zero on offer. Not because the US is holding back, but because there is nothing of value, bar general geopolitical favors, to offer in exchange. Because you don't exchange 3M22 Zircon for F-35, you do not trade S-550 or A-235 Nudol for THAAD or AEGIS ashore. Would Acton trade his 2020 Ferrari Pista Coupe (Russians, and other Slavs here, you keep your mouths shut;)) for Chevrolet Citation without cash? Would he trade his Ph.D in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge for AA in creative writing from local community college? The answer seems obvious. Geopolitics is not a charity. But Acton's arrogance and ignorance of the modern history of the last 40 years shows. What can possibly the United States offer to Russia and her people, who observe the American collapse in real time and whose only concern is not to allow the United States and its lap dogs unleash the war in a desperate attempt to hold on to elusive power for a little bit longer. 

Russia's is not trading her military edge, she is using it to keep the combined West within limits until it either sorts itself out or collapses into oblivion but without taking the rest of the humanity with it. But to understand that, one has to know Russia and her history, especially starting from 1812. It is now too late to cry about the fate of ABM Treaty, what is done--is done. Time to face consequences--a concept modern Western elites will learn soon. In fact, the process has already started. Ah yes, I warned 8 years ago that the time to negotiate is now until it is too late and the time of the ultimatums, not concessions, comes. Well, Mr. Acton, that time has arrived and it is not the West which issues them. Because any treaty with the West and its leader, the United States, is not worth the paper it is written on. 

START Is Dead.

START Treaty is dead, because of the US exceptionalism, I mean, because of US political class being exceptionally arrogant and exceptionally incompetent, if not outright dumb. Marshall Billingslea is your typical product of the US law "education" machine and political career within swamp. Serving as an aid to late Jesse Helms alone qualifies a man for a serious observation by experienced psychologist but that is only half the problem. The issue is larger and it is that realistically it is impossible to teach US upper power echelon anything because it makes shit up as it goes to experience a constant gratification from own aggrandizement, a perpetual orgasm, of sorts, and one does not negotiate with such people. So, this dude came up with the set of conditions for extension of START Treaty, which, everybody understand the United States wants dead and works hard for that. He spoke to Washington Examiner and declared:

New START is an issue that the Russians are seized upon,” he said. “It does nothing for the United States with respect to our concerns regarding China, and it does nothing for the United States with respect to our concerns regarding what Russia has been doing, which are a series of destabilizing activities outside of — and not constrained by — the treaty.

There is no need to debunk this obvious newspeak, but some retrospective is needed here--obviously the United States, at the peak of own, grossly talked up, unipolar moment in 2002 decided to quit 1972 ABM Treaty--one of the most important building blocks of the arms control system. But here is a clue, in 2002 Bush Jr. Admin thought itself to be very righteous and very competent--a defining characteristic of US body politic. They, and their in-house lawyers and corridor generals, thought that the end of history has arrived and US was well on its way to a complete "democratic" global dominance--a typical mode of thinking, or, rather lack thereof, by the whole highly concentrated cabal of all kinds of geopolitical, military, economic and what have you "experts" abusing their sinecures inside the Beltway think-tankdom. Well, it is not 2002 anymore and some hard cold military-technological realities begin to dawn even on all those career bureaucrats in, now, Trump Admin. 

The reason to a Billingslea's bloviation about START is not even China and preposterous desire to make her a party to this treaty, despite the fact that even if to consider a degree of misinformation  about the actual size of Chinese strategic nuclear arsenal emanating from Chinese themselves, China's arsenal still remains well below massive nuclear arsenals of Russia and US. But, obviously, nobody in Trump Administration ever heard of weight categories in boxing, power lifting and wrestling. The real, also well know, reason for this patent BS from US Department of State is this:

The two systems covered by the treaty are the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic missile stage, a maneuvering nuclear or conventional warhead delivery system. Three other new weapons include a new air-launched ICBM called Kinzhal; and the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped subsonic cruise missile. That new missile blew up during a test in August, killing several Russian arms developers and spreading radiation in the White Sea. The last new strategic weapon is a drone submarine armed with a large nuclear warhead capable of blowing up ports.

Here is the real deal. As I stated not for once, and even wrote a book on this issue, main concern is a dramatic shift in geopolitical power balance that Kinzhal and Burevestnik provide even merely in a conventional, non-nuclear that is, variants. Burevestnik (Petrel) is a weapon which assures that no one who makes a homicidal decision to unleash a global war, while sitting it out somewhere in Patagonia or in New Zealand, will feel safe from, as it is becoming known, Mach=6+ justice capable to wait for attack for days in the air. In general, this weapon is for cooling heads trying to save their asses in the Southern Hemisphere, in addition to its already wide range of purely military applications globally. Per Kinzhal--it was discussed so much and on so many occasions that I simply see no reason to concentrate again of the weapon which changed naval warfare forever. Wait for 3M22 Zircon getting to IOC by the end of this--start next year and you may confidently add this too to the list. The issue is a dramatic lag of the United States in hypersonic weaponry and anti-air and anti-missile defense. In other words, the US lost arms race in these and other key fields of military (or dual use) technology. There is simply nothing out there which can compete with something like S-400, not to speak of S-500, forget about Nudol, US has NO supersonic missile weapons, it certainly doesn't have any viable hypersonic technology and I can continue with this list for a long time. 

In one of the more remarkable demonstration of the depth to which US military-industrial complex fell in the last decades is the fact that the US Navy for years hasn't been able to come up with a viable design for a frigate and was forced to resort to an Italian (Finkantieri) design of what essentially is a FREMM class frigate. It is a nice ship and the US Navy made a choice in favor of this ship. These are unprecedented developments which can not obscure the fact, that even with the most of hulls and equipment of the American origin, this frigate follows in the wake of a technological and fighting doctrine catastrophe of a ship-class known as LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) known in US Navy as self-propelled 57-mm gun. If that wasn't enough, latest revelations about F-35 not being capable to fly super-sonic without damaging itself, only underscore a major clusterfvck that US technological "expertise" has become and underscores neurotic, delusional and arrogant statements from US political top, which was, most likely, briefed on a simple fact that the only default position for the US in a new world is to build as many nuclear ICBMs as possible and even this position is untenable, once one takes a look at the US economy.

As is often the case, under such circumstances US "elites" resort to lying and stealing, so much so that even Russia's Foreign Ministry today officially demanded from Trump Administration to stop lying about WW II (in Russian). Daniel Larison may lament the upcoming death of the START and Trump's China "diversion", but behind all this hustle in D.C. ranging from perpetual sanctions' war, to losing one war after another, to killing START to lying about WW II is a reaction of sore losers who desperately want to see and feel themselves important and powerful. Same as Barbara Jean Trenton from Twilight Zone Episode "Sixteen-millimeter Shrine", in which aging movie star still pretends to be a young starlet capable to play roles of young lover, forgetting that she lives not in 1934 but in 1959. I know, reality is a bitch and US political top has neither class, nor competence, nor education to understand that making grandiose demands and statements they increasingly look like clowns or Barbara Jean Trenton. But I am on record, for years now, that most of those people have no concept of causality and that every act has consequences.     

We Have Been Through This Before, Haven't We?

Last time, the US got lucky that Soviet Union had a person at its helm who was hell bent on destroying the country and, as a consequence, shut down any serious expertise in the issue of what came to be known as SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), aka Star Wars. Serious experts in USSR (military and scientists) desperately tried to inform Gorbachev that this SDI thing was mostly bluff and cartoons. They were ignored, Gorbachev needed an excuse, as Yakov Kedmi termed it, for meeting American "partners" in a doggy-style manner. We all know what happened next and, as usual, the United States learned all the wrong lessons from this. 

American idea of keeping a homeland completely defended from any kind of attack is understandable, it is also utterly utopian. Yet, acting both on wrong geopolitical (and historic, I may add) assumptions and out of interests of powerful military-industrial complex lobby and totally corrupt political system, US tries to repeat what she perceives her greatest triumph in the Cold War 1.0, facts and real history be damned.  So, the United States decided to: 

President Donald Trump ripped yet another page from Cold War strategy books Thursday by directing the Pentagon to look into developing a constellation of space-based sensors and interceptors that could stop missiles before they reach the United States. “We will de­stroy every type of mis­sile at­tack against any Amer­i­can tar­get, whether before or af­ter launch,” he told a crowd assembled inside the Pentagon auditorium. “When it comes to de­fend­ing Amer­ica, we will not take any chances. We will only take ac­tion.” The need for new technologies, the President said, was necessary to deal with the growing size and sophistication of missile arsenals belonging to hostile states, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. In addition, he out­lined plans to install 20 additional ground-based inter­cep­tor mis­siles at Fort Greely, Alaska, a decision that was previously announced.

As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. While some are afraid of the arms race between the US and Russia (and China), truth is--this race never stopped. American political and intellectual top has become so sterile in terms of its, well, intellect, that the only thing it is capable of is to remain an old dog incapable of learning new tricks. This, plus a desperate desire to bury INF Treaty, which comes down to "intercepting" Iranian (LOL) missiles at Russian borders. But Deja Vu doesn't stop here. As ever confused German diplomacy starts its so familiar from 1980s, in slightly more modern arrangements, tune:

Moscow (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday called on Russia to destroy a controversial missile system Washington says breaches a key arms control treaty. "We believe Russia can save this treaty," Maas said after talks with Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF). "It affects our security interests in a fundamental way."

Maas sings here from the American music sheet and it is totally expected from Germany. As I wrote some time ago, it is all about a generational lag in weapon systems between US and Russia. People in Pentagon are not idiots, at least some of them, they can calculate probabilities, required forces (missiles), math expectations etc. So, they know the score:

1. No system, unless it is based on a dramatically radical new technology, based on some bizarre physical principles (no, not lasers) can intercept any of Russia's newest weapons. This is decades away. Putting something ABM in Alaska against the background of RS-28 Sarmat or Avangard which can attack from any direction (how about through Mexico), is akin to treating 4th stage aggressive cancer with aspirin. But:

2. Pouring money into some systems, which are immensely expensive, will be good for US military-industrial complex which will greatly improve employment statistics and the fountain of desirable fat bonuses and new sinecures for retiring Pentagon people will erupt with a renewed force. 

Probably, the first indication that 1980s SDI trick will not work as desired is Russian rather nonchalant reaction to all this. Obviously, Lavrov expressed regret that INF Treaty is all but over (Russians know that START will follow) and all that chit-chat, but Russian military solution is already in place and what is left is to observe in amusement how the United States will continue to bankrupt itself by "investing" into something totally useless. There is another hypothesis here too: those people in the US who, actually, tried to study Russia, they couldn't fail to notice that Russia's recent (since mid-2000s) economic breakthrough was achieved by means of revitalizing Russian military-industrial complex (MIC), which was used as locomotive of hi-tech development. This will not work in US since Russian and American MICs are genetically different and have different effect on respective economies. For starters, incidents of Russian MIC producing enormously expensive dubious systems are dramatically lower than is the case in the US. 

As per actual weapons--the reason this whole thing is utopian and wasteful is because Russia (and reportedly China) is far ahead in developing anti-satellite weapons, which will act as interceptors for any space-based weapon systems thus degrading greatly any possible response. Here is 2017 report of the Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coates to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

Some new Russian and Chinese ASAT weapons, including destructive systems, will probably complete development in the next several years. Russian military strategists likely view counterspace weapons as an integral part of broader aerospace defense rearmament and are very likely pursuing a diverse suite of capabilities to affect satellites in all orbital regimes. Russian lawmakers have promoted military pursuit of ASAT missiles to strike low-Earth orbiting satellites, and Russia is testing such a weapon for eventual deployment. A Russian official also acknowledged development of an aircraft launched missile capable of destroying satellites in low-Earth orbit.

We need to be very clear on what is going on, especially after March 1, 2018 public arrival of a new paradigm in warfare--the US was put in a position which she thought she would never be in--a necessity to respond and to catch up. Destruction of Arms Control regime and attempts to replay Cold War 1.0 are such responses. Many observers, me included, noted already in 2014 that the United States was put into zugzwang, when each next move deteriorates position. Why it is so, my next book looks into these issues. In the end, nobody forced the United States to unilaterally abandon ABM Treaty in 2002, she did it completely on own volition and, may I add, wrong assumptions. And that was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. 

One Can Feel A Desperation.

When and if the story of the American intellectual collapse will be written, among many examples of a stupefying idiocy which afflicted American military-political thought lately, today's piece by Barry M. Blechman in USA Today must be used as a prime example of a desperation which completely wipes out any pretense of "scholarship" and reduces alleged thinking to the spewing of some propaganda points.   

Make no mistake, Blechman's list of Ph.Ds and employment by all kinds of military-political think-tanks is impressive by American establishment standards. Yet this list evidently does not reflect in any way Blechman's ability to make a coherent argument since he is, indeed, desperate. The desperation oozes from his piece and it is dense. Indeed,  the author, with all his Ph.Ds and experience to produce all kinds of pseudo-scholarly BS about war doesn't have any grasp of a reality since using the United States and "international law" in one sentence is an affront to even rudimentary morality and common sense.

In its latest “in your face” assault on international law, Russia has developed and now deployed operationally an intermediate-range cruise missile — a weapon that the U.S. and USSR solemnly agreed to ban in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The U.S. has long known that the new Russian missile, the SSC-8, was being developed and has sought to bring Russia back into compliance.  After denying for years it had been developing such a weapon, within the past few months Russia cheated even more flagrantly by deploying an operational battalion. A second battalion remains at the development site and no doubt could be fielded quickly.  

So, according to Blechman, it is Russia who assaults "into you face" international law, while it is good ol' USA who, actually, completely demolished it and unleashed a mayhem by destroying several nations such as Libya, Syria, Iraq and, failed miserably, in Afghanistan. While doing so, the United States killed hundreds of thousands of people, wounded and displaced even more, unleashed deadly civil wars, undermined not only regional but global stability and to top it all paraded herself as an exhibit A of a complete political corruption and ended up supporting terrorists. All that, I assume, was due to the US' particular admiration for the law in general and international one in particular. Ah yes, while doing so, United States, completely on her own volition, withdrew from a landmark ABM Treaty in 2002, but I guess Mr. Blechman is not aware of the fact that as of lately US is not a treaty-worthy party precisely for the reasons that she doesn't care about this proverbial international law. In the end, the main rationale for withdrawal from ABM Treaty was the fact that US (at that time) thought herself to be a greatest everything, the slayer of dragons and, in general, humanity's greatest hope. Russia's legitimate appeals to the US in an effort to uphold this important treaty were met with condescension and were viewed as Russia's weakness. Of course, how could those backward and evil Russkies respond to a flagrant violation of the treaty obligations by the US. 

Well, Russian did respond. Ain't life a bitch? Now, Mr. Blechman makes, in his piece, a fascinating reversal to completely destroy his own argument:

Russian leaders know that their new cruise missile has no military value. One can only guess at their motives for developing the weapon, but they likely are political — to weaken NATO by reigniting the debates that nearly destroyed the alliance in the 1980s. Responding to the Russian violation with conventionally-armed LRSOs would counter Russia’s cheating effectively, while avoiding the political fall-out that would accompany a nuclear response.    

Wait a minute, Mr. numerous Ph.Ds in BS--how come that you just fumed the whole article about those nasty Russkies cheating on holier than thou United States on cruise missiles and after making a passionate "argument" you state that those missile(s) "has no military value". Then what this whole fuss is all about? Hey, if the weapon has no military value then why worry? Actually, "Russian leaders" know damn well that be it SSC-8, or any other kind of other cruise missiles, they do have huge military value. But SSC-8 is a figment of imagination of the ever so "reliable" US "intelligence" community and media,  and the whole Blechman's worry is not about this "secret" SSC-8, it is about technological re-balancing, especially in the field where Russia holds an advantage over US--cruise missile technologies. Be it Iskander missile-complex, or Kalibr's 3M14  or 5000+ kilometer range X-101, all those missiles are completely capable to conventionally, within one salvo, demolish any Anti Ballistic Missile installation in Europe. This IS the real reason for Mr. Blechman's incoherent, to put it mildly, "argument". 

Of course, who likes to be on the receiving end. Mr. Blechman certainly doesn't. It is one thing to bomb helpless Arabs into the stone age with impunity, totally another to live with understanding that firing solution is one push of a button away from being entered into the "enemy's" cruise missiles on-board computers. And while some US "scholars" are busy concocting another propaganda BS about those evil Russlies who can not appreciate (backward people, after all) all magnanimity of the US, after all, all hell was unleashed out of the best "democratic" intentions, Russia continues to do what seems only natural--to increase her totally legitimate salvo by Kalibr cruise missiles (3M14) from sea-platforms. In this particular case, Russian Navy signed the contract for another three Buyan-class missile corvettes and that means another 24 powerful (and totally legit) 3M14s in the first salvo be it from Baltic Sea, at Poland's ABM positions, or Romania's, from the Black Sea. That is why Mr. Bleachman is so desperate--the missile balance between US and Russia is changing and for the US this dynamics is highly unpleasant, especially with 10000+ km range cruise missiles being in line for procurement, not to mention hyper-sonic missiles and vehicles completing their trials. Without this "secret" SSC-8 even today Russia has enough missiles to make sure that the equilibrium is preserved. In the end, Mr. Blechman should know how it works, he wrote the whole book on the use of armed forces without actually going to war and that goes well with Sun Tzu's immortal truism on not fighting wars.