I Didn't Want To Do It...

... but a bunch of fanboys write about alleged "response" to me by this Simplicius guy. Comments appear in this blog under my video etc.  So, let me demonstrate to you how to obfuscate this issue:

1. Recall my constant requests since ISR "piece" by this S guy (in reality compilation of headlines), I even did my own research, trying to answer simple question: WHO IS Colonel Falichev, no serious data? Guess what, this is response from the S guy:

While I certainly don’t begrudge him such thoroughness and demanding standards, I will simply note that nothing Falichev said was debunked but rather his military standing was merely called into question. This is not a response directly to Martyanov, of whom I am a fan though he appears to be less so one of me, but rather an answer to the few requests of my own audience I’ve gotten to make a response on the matter. I like for people to have their own minds and agency in making determinations, so the only things I’ll say is that firstly, Falichev’s piece was obviously published in the official Russian Army journal, hosted on their own official site:

And then he proceeds to "answer" whatever BUT the question of WHO Colonel Falichev is.  He certainly goes into copious amount of "elaborations", including, for some reason, posting biographies of the Editorial Boards of Army Digest and Military Thought (the latter one featuring prominently in my latest book's bibliography), remarkably, with all those board members having their bios known, their academic backgrounds and service being public, Mr. S still doesn't answer the question I posited from the get go: WHO Colonel Falichev is. I later elaborated--WHAT, namely military academy, did he graduate from, which will constitute his VUS (Military Registration Specialty). No answer, but Falichev bio matters a great deal. Yet, Mr. S speculates:

In this case, for instance, the takedown of Falichev could imply that I don’t use good sources in my research—but you can clearly see the contrary is the case. Not only is the Russian Army journal I used a top source, its own Editor-in-Chief has an unassailably storied career, having graduated from three different top command schools:    

You see how it is done? "Implied", I do not imply anything:

2. ... I specifically ask a simple question of military-academic background of Colonel Falichev, which determines if he has professional engineering background to pass his opinions on the issue of ISR in general and netcentric operations in particular or is he merely a military journalist with anecdotal (and rumor collection) "knowledge" of the issue. If Falichev has engineering command VUS, has experience serving as officer-operator of TsAMO (General Staff) or operational level staff officer among many other things, then his opinion is worth something. If he is not, then he merely provided a compilation of "facts" based on somebody's opinions which can differ dramatically on many issues, including what is known as "smoking room bashing" by officers. That's what professional military magazines exist for--to publish all kinds of views.

3. Then comes this issue of ISR and netcentricity in which there are satellites and there are Satellites. Starlink is called such because it is primarily communications constellation whose main purpose is to provide broad band data-links. It can provide some valuable sign-int but that's about it. The main threat for Russian Armed Forces in the field (and the sea) are the so called "spy satellites" which provide the "view" of the battlefield in optical and electromagnetic diapasons and this is primarily anchored to air assets such as E-Sentry, P-8 Poseidon, RC-135, drones and other aircraft. If Falichev doesn't understand that ALL of them fly in the international air space near Russia's borders (especially Crimea) and CAN NOT be shot down without escalating the conflict to the WW III levels, I don't know then why he begins to talk about two different ISR systems operating under completely different sets of circumstances, with NATO ISR having a gigantic advantage operating behind the wall of International Laws and Conventions regulating air and space activity in peace time. Does Falichev know the effects of RUK/ROKs in SMO zone? Does he understand what "R" stands there for? 

And here is the main issue, again, can somebody finally tell me who Colonel Falichev is? Having his full article would help too, I cannot access Army Digest, I have access to Military Thought, though. For those who want to read up of Netcentricity, at some time Lt. Colonel Kondratiev wrote extensively on that. Now, here is how I explain (for laymen) what Sensor/Data Fusion is which is in the foundation of modern ISR in 2019. 

Here I post some pages--the introductory level explanation of NCW and Fusion. 

Why the area in the lake in which the boat can possibly be located becomes not quadrangle but ellipse--that's the whole science of probabilistic analysis and based on sensor fusion and it is some damn serious math (algorithms) which are operating at the back end of network.  Here is a very basic representation:

If you want to see some math behind it, here is some interactive Kalman Filter. These are very basic things required (imperative) for understanding of modern ISR. But the question remains: WHO is Colonel Falichev because he should understand the unprecedented scale of netcentric operations Russian Armed Forces conduct in 404 and conduct extremely successfully granted with some hiccups, but this is a normal process. 

About Talked About Article.

I want to start with solemn "thank you" to our very own Johnny Rotten who two days ago pointed out to me some thoughts by President of Russia on political "science". And, of course, I am profoundly thankful to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for his proper and long awaited statement on the issue of a fraudulent pseudo-academic field known as political "science".  I am talking about this:

МОСКВА, 7 июля. /ТАСС/. Президент РФ Владимир Путин усомнился в том, что политологию можно классифицировать как науку, потому что сложно найти метод исследования, присущий только этой области знаний. Такой оценкой он поделился в четверг на встрече с победителями четвертого сезона конкурса "Лидеры России". Услышав о том, что одна из конкурсанток собирается защищать кандидатскую диссертацию в области политических наук, глава государства удивился: "В области политологии?" Есть такая наука - политология?" Услышав утвердительный ответ, он со смехом добавил: "Спорный вопрос". "Я так понимаю, всегда так считалось, что чтобы какая-то сфера знаний претендовала на то, чтобы называться наукой, у нее должен быть собственный предмет исследования и собственный метод исследования. В политологии как-то трудно найти присущий только ей метод исследования", - поделился Путин своим видением ситуации.

Translation: MOSCOW, 7 July. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin doubted that political science can be classified as a science, because it is difficult to find a research method that is unique to this field of knowledge. He shared this assessment on Thursday at a meeting with the winners of the fourth season of the Leaders of Russia contest. Hearing that one of the contestants was going to defend her Ph.D. thesis in the field of political science, the head of state was surprised: "In the field of political science?" Is there such a science - political science?" Hearing an affirmative answer, he added with a laugh: "A moot point." "As I understand it, it has always been believed that in order for a certain field of knowledge to claim to be called a science, it must have its own subject of study and its own research method. In political science, it is somehow difficult to find a research method inherent only to it," - Putin shared his vision of the situation.

It is one thing when some insignificant washout like me tries to get across the point that political "science" is a fraud, totally another when arguably the most important statesman, highly educated and cultured at that, of the 21st century finally speaks his mind on a fraudulent field "of study" which, to a very large extent, is a reason why the modern West continues with its both homicidal and suicidal policies and arrived at the precipice of the historic, tectonic, defeat. It is becoming exceedingly obvious that 99% of Western political "scientists" are people who shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions (I underscore: opinions) on any subject dealing with modern civilization in so far as its complex machinery, both directly and figuratively speaking, least of all in the field of warfare. 

The record of utter, grotesque failure of political "science" is easily traceable through the even brief review of the Western geopolitical "thought" which provided us with copious amount of geopolitical speculations practically all of which are nothing more than pseudo-academic trash ranging from risible sophomoric Fukuyama's demagoguery to Huntington's "Clash", and I don't mean the band, to 2018 Mearsheimer's meandering and ignorant speculation on the fate of liberalism. We all can go further and recall writings of late Zbig, or the fate of Russian Studies field in the West stuffed with this kind of pseudo-academic parasites, or we can all laugh at pretentious BS produced by CFR which is saturated with political "scientists", including its big honcho Richard Haas, who cannot find their own asses with their both hands in a brightly lit room. In the end, look at the US Congress. 

Speaking of the Council on Foreign Relations and its main publication Foreign Affairs. Here is the guy who penned a few days ago yet another "gem" of the Western political "science" thinking, or, rather lack thereof, and his name is Barry R. Posen who is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT. If a well documented inability of the political "science" to predict own next bowel movement wasn't enough--purely on statistical merit they should have predicted by now something right, you know broken clock being correct twice a day thing--Posen decided to buttress Vladimir Putin's (and mine, for a very long time, mind you) thesis about this academic fraud filed, which exists only for generating credentialism for people who, otherwise, have issues with serious fields of study, to which political "science" does not belong and is characterized by Pushkin's immortal words from Evgenii Onegin. 

We all meandered through our schooling 

haphazard; so, to God be thanks,

 it's easy, without too much fooling, 

to pass for cultured in our ranks. 

Well, Mr. Posen penned this talked about (in some circles) article in Foreign Affairs. The title of article is a classic pretentious BS one would expect from the American political "science" so called "experts" in matters of war and Russia: Ukraine’s Implausible Theories of Victory.The Fantasy of Russian Defeat and the Case for Diplomacy. As I already stated (and wrote three books on that) American political class and the "expert" community, a euphemism for a cabal of primarily political scientists, which shapes its views on the outside world are utterly ignorant in two fundamental things:

1. Warfare, which requires a range of expertise which is not even in the same vicinity of the political "science", because you have to have a rock solid graduate level STEM and tactical-operational background and that means actual service in military and intel environment at the officer level. 

2. Russia. West, it can be stated clearly and decisively now, has no clue what it is dealing with in Russia and Russian people. American political "science" field contributed mightily to a complete delusion of the West about Russia and that brought about this current situation of the combined West committing suicide by Russia. 

Obviously, Posen's article title immediately exhibits a fantastical thinking because the "case for diplomacy" has long expired and it has everything to do with:

1. Actual state of the SMO in Ukraine and the dynamics of operations in Ukraine in terms of obvious changing correlation of forces engaged and that is pointing towards utter destruction of VSU. 

2. Inability to see (or admit) the fact that Ukraine is but one of many theaters of a global warm war between Russia and combined West and that war has been started by the West. So, when Lavrov says openly that there is nothing to talk about with combined West that means NO "diplomacy" the way ignorant and incompetent US "diplomats" understand it. 

So, the title alone with its "case for diplomacy" is nothing more than a fantastical thinking by Posen who, naturally, has no clue about Russia and Russian way of war. Posen's tenure in Pentagon and RAND as analyst is of no use, because neither Pentagon nor RAND have a grasp of what the US was getting itself into when organized bloody and criminal coup in 2013-2014 in Ukraine. Plus, pardon my French, one has to have at least some record of successes and accomplishments, which in case of Pentagon is non-existent in the last 20+ years. I doubt the product of organization with a totally confused fighting doctrine and miscalculating every single enemy it ever fought can have anything to add to the issue of outcome in Ukraine.  Yet, he tries, and in doing so betrays the desperation for a face saving exit for the US which now observes its greatest ever proxy SOB being taken apart by Russia. 

A negotiated solution to the war would no doubt be hard to achieve, but the outlines of a settlement are already visible. Each side would have to make painful concessions. Ukraine would have to relinquish considerable territory and do so in writing. Russia would need to relinquish some of its battlefield gains and renounce future territorial claims. To prevent a future Russian attack, Ukraine would surely need strong assurances of U.S. and European military support, as well as continuing military aid (but consisting mainly of defensive, not offensive, weapons). Russia would need to acknowledge the legitimacy of such arrangements. The West would need to agree to relax many of the economic sanctions it has placed on Russia. NATO and Russia would need to launch a new set of negotiations to limit the intensity of military deployments and interactions along their respective frontiers. U.S. leadership would be essential to a diplomatic solution. Because the United States is Ukraine’s principal backer and the organizer of the West’s economic pressure campaign against Russia, it possesses the greatest leverage over the two parties. 

A fantastical, detached from the reality thinking. Each phrase in this segment is an Exhibit A of a delusion of a grandeur, hubris and stupidity. I have news to Posen: for starters, there will be no "concessions". Russia will take what she needs without asking anybody what and how they think about her actions. Moreover, Posen is being totally disingenuous, and I repeat, SMO is but the part, however important, of a larger existential conflict between Russia and combined West. This time it is fully global and to even grasp what is going on here and what mechanism have been engaged on the Russian side, ranging from economic, military, cultural and spiritual, Posen needs to know Russia's real history, culture and, especially so, her military history and the history of WW II. None of these subjects is properly taught in the US. Posen as most US political "scientists" has no clue of the subject. But the quip about "US leadership being essential for diplomatic solution" is altogether risible. 

For Posen and people who took this baloney of his seriously: the US cannot provide any "leadership", because it is not viewed as a serious counterpart by Russia (and many others) because any arrangements with the US are not worth the paper they written on (non-agreement capable). Secondly, the US "diplomacy" is an insult to an honorable profession and looking at the US State Department and its "quality" it is only natural to avoid any contact with those people who have no honor or integrity. Thirdly, the US IS NOT a military factor in Ukraine because, short of all out war, in which the US and NATO will be physically annihilated, nothing the United States can do to influence a military outcome which dictates a political one. I am not sure Posen ever heard of Deng Xiaoping's famous inversion of Clausewitz: "Diplomacy is a continuation of war by other, peaceful, means." Russia has an overwhelming escalation dominance in Ukraine. 

But Posen, who, obviously doesn't understand what escalation dominance is (you need a very serious military professional background to understand that), has to be reminded:

It ended with Peskov "clarifying" that Russia didn't even engage its main forces in Ukarine. They don't understand the correlation of forces and combat effectiveness issues in political "science" community. But Posen continues to have wet dreams:

It is easier to state these principles than it is to hammer them into the implementable provisions of an agreement. But that is precisely why negotiations should start sooner rather than later. The Ukrainian and Western theories of victory have been built on weak reasoning. At best, they are a costly avenue to a painful stalemate that leaves much Ukrainian territory in Russian hands. If this is the best that can be hoped for after additional months or years of fighting, then there is only one responsible thing to do: seek a diplomatic end to the war now.

No, Western "theories of victory" have been built on utter propaganda and completely made up numbers, with propaganda being spread as information influence operation driven, among many others, by losers from US top brass, who apart from parading themselves as amateurs, couldn't hide their utter butt-hurt from seeing how real operations with severe constrains due to civilians being used as human shield (a good old Nazi tactics and Nazis are admired by many in the US) are conducted. And no, Mr. Posen, the only solution will be Russia dictating the conditions of capitulation by Kiev regime and its main puppeteers from Washington D.C. The fear of a much larger and far reaching humiliation than even shameful run from Afghanistan is the main reason for this sophomoric and fantastical thinking article by Posen. This, plus absolute inability to wrap their political "scientists'" brains around a simple fact that none of them understand real war and nothing can help them with this understanding because, as Putin succinctly noted: "As I understand it, it has always been believed that in order for a certain field of knowledge to claim to be called a science, it must have its own subject of study and its own research method. In political science, it is somehow difficult to find a research method inherent only to it." 

There is no research method in it, never existed and the only reason this pseudo-science was created, same as another fake filed of "geoeconomics" or, for that matter, Queer Studies is to bestow some higher education degree on people who never were and are good in anything other than pseudo-academic demagoguery on subjects which are hard to learn. Plus, there are always historians and lawyers, granted they are honest people, who can provide all needed expertise on matters of political "science". The article by Posen proves the failure of political "scientists" perfectly. As Russian military has a saying--учи, блядь, материальную часть (Study the fucking equipment). Applies to Posen and his ilk perfectly.     

Niall Ferguson Has No Idea.

Russians discuss today a piece Niall Ferguson of Hoover Institute penned for The Economist (red flag immediately) and many scratch their heads in disbelief. Whole piece was translated and is posted at a famous Russian resource InoSMI (Foreign Media), and even respectable RIA gives a summary of this "historic insight" (in Russian) under the title A Big War Was Promised to the World Because of the Crash of American Empire. To understand who Mr. Ferguson is, I posted a link to his bio above, one has to immediately recognize that he is the man who never held any viable job in his life and is a product of humanities departments of Anglo-Saxon educational institutions which gave us BoJo, W, Obama, neocons etc. You get my drift. The original of Ferguson's piece could be found at The Economist site for those who have a disposal income they feel no compunction in wasting on all kinds of pseudo-scholastic psychobabble The Economist is known for, but here it is:

Niall Ferguson on why the end of America’s empire won’t be peaceful. As it leaves Afghanistan in chaos, America’s decline mirrors Britain’s a century ago. It may also invite wider conflict, warns a historian

Before I get to this Ferguson's piece, I have to mention the other glorious (and not without a talent or significance) British mind, late Sir Roger Scruton, who being a nominal British, or Anglo-Saxon in general, "conservative" left after himself some rather strange (pseudo)historic constructs on matters of global balance of power, such as his conclusion that, and I quote:

John O'Sullivan has forcefully argued that the simultaneous presence in the highest offices of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul Second was the cause of the Soviet Collapse. And my own experience confirms this. 

Well, it is natural for former editor of a neocon rag National Review to be fully a-historical and ignorant because that is what Anglo-Saxon-Jewish "conservatism" is--it is a narrative which fails in three major aspects, which Ferguson's piece demonstrates perfectly. Albeit, it has to be noted that when faced with complexities of a modern world most historians everywhere begin to make one huge mistake--they start to draw parallels to cover up own incompetence in practically any mechanism which drives modern world. As a result, they produce a distorted picture at best, at worst--they falsify, both willingly and not, the whole history. I am on record about my extreme caution regarding drawing any historical parallels, and when I do draw them, I do it with major caveats. This failure with "historical parallels" I usually tie to a second failure of Anglo-Saxondom "history"--it is its utter incompetence in modern warfare and global power balance and Ferguson's piece is an Exhibit A of a beaten to death, trite and ignorant historical narrative. 

American decline DOES NOT mirror Britain's decline in any way since at the height of her power British Empire could subdue aborigines with the power of her 16-inch guns, carried around the globe by the squadrons of battleships of the Royal Navy and London could manipulate global politics to a degree being an island, a locality insulated from travails of a continental warfare with all its horrors that is, and if Ferguson does not understand the difference between nuclear superpower which can destroy the whole world several times over and tries to draw parallels with a senescent Empire which by 1939 was a hollow force militarily and could not out of own means stand against Nazi Germany and her allies, Ferguson needs to refresh his "history" by reading a true brilliant British mind:

Great Britain went out as a lesser of the Big Three both as a result of economic weakness and inability to develop a sound strategy for WW II, an event which was rewritten by Anglo-Saxon historians to such a degree, that both in London and D.C. it long ago stopped being connected to the reality of events of the XX Century completely. But I am sure Ferguson understands those intricacies of the WW II events and a default nature of the America's superpowerdom in 1945. Right? Today, when Great Britain is a tertiary military power whose military potential is dwarfed by that of the United States and Russia, and China and whose economy is primarily FIRE, that is largely non-productive one, we come to the third failure of Anglo-Saxon "historians" and "intellectuals"--they have no clue about how real economy works. Enough to read the rag in which Ferguson published his piece--The Economist. 

Few publications are as delusional and are detached from the world's economic reality as London's own The Economist (and the group which owns it). In many respects The Economist could be viewed today as a log of the decline of the global Anglo-Saxondom and of Britain's desperate desire to feel herself relevant in the world which ignores The Economist's analysis and virtues and moves on based on military and economic power which dwarfs anything Great Britain even had. And here is the main point, there are NO parallels between British decline which was protracted and...only relatively insignificant against the background of the colossal events of the WW II and of the Eastern Front which played a crucial role in both British decline and America's emergence as the post-WW II superpower. This history is yet to be fully written and it surely cannot be written by likes of Ferguson. Not only there are no parallels between Britain's and American decline, but we are in a completely new paradigm and stage in world history, where, indeed, the fate of the whole world is at stake--a scale of consequences no British monarch, statesman or intellectual, least of all Churchill, could ever imagine. 

The prevention of the possible (predicted by Ferguson) war of American collapse cannot be based on anything Churchill or most other British minds with a claim to fame could ever conceive, being traumatized by British decline and still residing in a delusion of British, long gone, grandeur to which they accommodate the history by means of rewriting it, instead of learning about the outside world. They simply have no mental instruments to grasp a profound difference between the tools of a state in 1939 and in 2021. American decline is based not on the "exhaustion from the empire", especially with the US Dollar being world's reserve currency and the United States being able to export inflation around the world since 1971, but on inability to win any war, especially on cheap, which, when combined with a catastrophic deliberate deindustrialization, doomed the United States--a set of circumstances Great Britain never encountered, not to mention the fact of the United States failing to form a core nation. Superficial similarities between any empires are just that, superficial similarities. All empires fall. There is very little in common between Roman, Russian, British or American empires. In fact, most of what is different between them dominates the balance and drawing any parallels between them is a fool's errand. 

Appearance of the British Fleet within 50 kilometers of Jutland Peninsula meant that this fleet must be met with same of Germany, resulting in a bloodbath in 1916. Bismark engaged HMS Hood at 26, 500 yards with final third salvo at around 14,100 yards, in 1941. Neither 1916 or 1941 military and geopolitical realities correspond to the present realities. Today whole of Royal Navy or US Navy's CBG can be destroyed in bases with salvos from 4,500 kilometers away or in the ocean from ranges of 1,500 kilometers. The seat of the British, or any other, for that matter, Government could be destroyed with the accuracy and precision unmatched by anything in the history of human civilization and all this could be done without the use of nuclear weapons. Or with them, if it comes down to it. This is what keeps today the world in balance and at peace--inability of the combined West to match those capabilities. These are the realities of modern world which many in Anglo-Saxon world with graduate and post-graduate humanities degrees refuse or fail to acknowledge and continue to pretend that some past glories may somehow compensate for the lack of serious technical, military, geopolitical and economic knowledge. But that is the issue I write about non-stop--they just cannot learn, because they cannot handle the truth(c). Ferguson's meandering piece in The Economist is a perfect example and illustration of the causes for a general decline of Anglo-Saxondom in the XX century. Or speaking in layman's lingo--Ferguson, go and goddamn learn your historical facts.

About This "Pro-Russian" Article.

From Atlantic Council's Emma Ashford and Matthew Borrows. Evidently their piece called:

Reality Check #4: Focus on interests, not on human rights with Russia

Which calls for a pragmatic approach to Russia created a shit-tempest in the cup of American (lack of) foreign policy "establishment" and think-tankdom. Even silly points, made by Ashford and Borrows, such as these among few others, were too much for the so called US "hawks":

1. The US-Russian relationship has too long been predicated on the fantasy that Russia could be reshaped – whether through aid or coercion – into a Western, liberal democracy. However, there is little prospect of transformation or of ending human rights abuses. Policymakers must be clear-eyed about Russia: it is not a minor power that can be punished for its transgressions, but a powerful autocracy with the capacity to undermine US interests and act as a global spoiler. 

2. US policy toward Russia has become punitive. Though sanctions are ostensibly framed as deterrence or coercion, existing frameworks offer no real way for sanctions to be removed even if Russian behavior improves. In some cases, the United States has painted itself into a corner, demanding unrealistic policy change (i.e., that Russia relinquish its hold on Crimea) in exchange for sanctions relief. 

It is really funny to read about reaction of hawks who even blame, as Sputnik reports:

Describing the anger at the Washington DC-based pro-NATO institution, Politico posed the question as to how such an unorthodox article found its way to the think tank's website. One of the report's critics pinned the blame on Charles Koch, an American billionaire and philanthropist, who donated $4.5 million over five years to the Atlantic Council. Politico's interlocutor suggested that the article is a product reflecting Koch's influence, accusing the billionaire of "destroying good institutions" and having "pretty much the same views as the Russians."

The problem, of course, with this "realist" approach, and the piece from Ashford and Burrows qualifies clearly as such, after all Koch finances, together with Soros, what openly is proclaimed to be THE realist think tank, Quincy Institute, that both allegedly "realists" and hawks, while differing in some approaches to foreign policy, are drinking the same Kool Aid and are joined at the hip by the American exceptionalism and the gross ignorance of the America's real status and role in the world. I wrote about this on many occasions, such as this four years ago. In the end, you can always get John Mearsheimer's The Great Delusion, of which I also wrote both in my books and in this blog and you will be treated, again, to a completely false narrative of America's role and her real power. 

Ashford and Burrow's piece is yet another demonstration of America's delusion about herself, now projected from the allegedly "realist" point of view. Read my lips: America HAS NOTHING to offer modern Russia. None, zero, zilch, nada. In fact, if the United States have disappeared tomorrow, very few people in Russia would have noticed, other than few minor things and the change of the tone of the informational background, which would be less tense. As Petr Akopov of Ria noted today about this Atlantic Council silly business.

Нам в России такой накал борьбы только выгоден. Потому что, когда робкие попытки голоса разума забиваются на корню, это свидетельствует только об одном. Американская глобалистская элита (а АС* — это ее важная часть) утратила адекватное восприятие реальности, а значит, и чувство самосохранения. То есть она не может различить пропаганду и геополитику, агитацию и национальные интересы.

Translation: for us in Russia such intensity of a struggle is only beneficial. Because when even timid attempts at common sense are stomped at the root it testifies only to the fact that American globalist elite (Atlantic Council--is an important part of it) lost the adequate perception of the reality and, hence, the sense of self-preservation. This elite cannot distinguish between propaganda and geopolitics, agitation and national interests. 

Hm, what this conclusion by Akopov reminds me about? Couple-three books by some guy whose name is on the tip of my tongue but I cannot still recall it. Yeah, he writes about it constantly, wink-wink. I will only add here, that if not for the weapons of mass-destruction and a complete loss of a strategic awareness which may still result in a global conflict unleashed by the US, Russians, generally, do not give a damn about America--this is a bitter pill to swallow for American exceptionalists, be them hawks or the so called "realists", because the whole notion that America's danger for the world is not in her strength, always grossly inflated, but in her weakness ranging from economy, to military to institutions and a complete loss of competence by the American "elites", is an intolerably painful thought for them to accept. So, they delude themselves. The whole affair with the article by Ashford and Burrows demonstrates this perfectly--there is nobody to talk to in the US for Russia. But I warned about it years ago. 

People Are Talking About It. A Warning.

Let's recall what Colonel Douglas Macgregor, whose professional background is absolutely undeniable and he IS a real military expert, said about real war 8 years ago in his Time magazine piece. I quote:

In 110 days of fighting the German army in France during 1918, the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power. Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.

That, folks, is a real professional speaking, not some media clowns and self-proclaimed "experts" akin to permanently butt-hurt David Axe or his ilk. The reason I use Macgregor's quote is not because it tickles Russian rah-rah but because decision makers in the US, most of them with law and political science backgrounds, have no a faintest clue on how REAL war of the 21st century will look like between peers, let alone against power which is above peer level in some key technological issues of warfare. 

So, it is one thing when people with no academic and service military background sell military porn to teenagers, totally another when people, who usually stay behind the curtain, come out and say things which matter. So, couple of Ph.Ds in military science and associate professors (and senior officers) of Air Force Academy (Air War College) of Zhukovsky and Gagarin published the article in service magazine:

A war between Moscow and the West might start on the ground, but it would be settled in the air. That’s the verdict of two top Russian military strategists, published in a new analysis of how a putative conflict might play out.Writing in a new edition of the Air and Space Forces Journal, two associate professors at Russia’s pilot-training academy set out how any invasion launched against the country by NATO allies would depend on a massive aerial bombardment with warplanes and missiles. Vladilen Stuchinsky and Mikhail Korolkov say, however, that the approach isn’t foolproof.In order to disrupt the bombardment and frustrate ground-based operations, the analysts say, Russia should launch a colossal counter or pre-emptive strike to wipe out enemy hardware. This could be achieved, they argue, with the combined use of drones, missiles, cyber warfare and new weaponry, destroying Western equipment before it can even get airborne.

To understand what I am talking about, here is a link to a previous--free access--issues of this magazine and, yes, this is not some political BS or fashion rag. It is in Russian but has English summaries to many of its articles. People without physics and mathematics background may find the magazine intimidating. Here is December 2020 issue. This is a type of a magazine serious intelligence analysts are paid to read.  So, when these professors talk, we better listen. The summary of their article is rather simple: any NATO target will be detected, tracked and annihilated in case US and NATO decide to do a stupid thing. Hm, this is not the news, really, because when even RAND and its aerospace experts arrive to the same conclusion one has to think that, yeah, they have a point. Remember?

Of course, the US is not fighting on its own turf here. Neither do the RAND team explain exactly how America ended up fighting a hypothetical war thousands of miles from home. But defense money is defense money, and the researchers were keen to paint an apocalyptic picture, no doubt timed to coincide with the 2020 military budget, released on Monday. “We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” RAND analyst David Ochmanek told a security conference on Thursday. “In our games, when we fight Russia and China, blue gets its ass handed to it.”

It is very reassuring that professionals on both sides arrive to the same conclusion and it is especially significant against today's statement by Russia's Defense Minister that:

МОСКВА, 9 февраля. /ТАСС/. Основу сил неядерного сдерживания составят гиперзвуковые комплексы различного базирования.

Translation: In the foundation of the Russian forces of non-nuclear containment will be hypersonic weapon complexes of different basing. 

This is what Shoigu told to the participants of the operational-mobilization meeting of the command corps in Moscow. Now, the mathematics of the conventional war in Europe (and against the US proper) in case US and NATO decide to suicide themselves was in place for years. And it changes non-stop towards dis-balancing constantly, because Russia's Armed Forces are in a perpetual technological and operational evolution, which is the first sign of a healthy and cutting edge military. So, can Russia deliver an Alpha-strike at any combination of NATO forces in Europe? Evidently she can, since stand-off high precision weapons are being delivered and deployed constantly and, given those systems very long ranges and very high probabilities of acquiring targets and "leaking" through NATO's air/missile defenses, one can, with a solid reliability predict that on the modern battlefield, survival of the stationary targets (such as airfields, troops assembly areas, field HQs etc.) without top level integrated air/missile defense is getting exceedingly low. 

NATO doesn't have air/missile defense which can handle massive cruise missiles salvo, let alone any hyper-sonic weapon. Even considering the inevitable degrading of the C4ISR, including low-orbit space recon assets, modern means of detection, air defense and targeting allow Russia to see aircraft at the runways as far away as Netherlands. What could be a result of such an "Alpha-strike"? It is easy to predict--a massive loss in personnel and hardware. How massive? Let me get out on a limb here and give the order of magnitude of personnel losses--many thousands from the first strike. Those air assets which will manage to get airborne will have to fight in the environment they never experienced before: aggressive ECM-ECCM, multilayered Air Defense, including AD ambushes and, in the end, facing off with a world-class RuAF operating from well defended airfields. Yes, folks, Russia is not Iraq. She is not even Iran. Moreover, she is not even China. That is a whole other level of military preparedness and firepower.  And then, of course, there are naval assets of NATO. What would NATO do if it loses a division-size force (across all domains) in a first strike? Your guess is a good as mine.

The importance of this article, however, is in fact that it is a warning, primarily. A very professional one, from people who are actual, active experts capable to speak from the background which involves also the highest level of clearance, which also tells us that by far not everything is articulated. But what is, is enough to give a pause to NATO and that is good enough for Russia. I go back to Elmo Zumwalt, again, and will continue to do so. As early as 1970 he was forced to contemplate the scale of the crisis if the US Navy lost one of its CVNs. Hence Project 60 and ideas on Sea Control Ships to screen US Navy's carriers from what already then was fast evolving anti-ship missile technology. Today? You all know what is today. Tomorrow? The end of a warfare as we know it by means of AI-driven, new sensors and combat networks equipped, delivery with precision of a massive conventional firepower to the ranges which ten years ago seemed inconceivable. Recall this? It is all in serial production. This also explains why China may really want to get into the military alliance with Russia. The tray of goodies is simply too tantalizing to bypass. But we knew this all along.         

Good Ol' Henry.

Dillon yesterday (thank you) dropped the link to Henry Kissinger's article in Wall Street Journal where Kissinger waxes geopolitical. For some reason Kissinger has reputation in US as a geopolitical thinker of scale, but then again Francis Fukuyama and Zbigniew Brzezinski also have the same reputation, which, in its turn, is an affront to the term "reputation", not to speak of the modern geopolitics as a combination of a broad spectrum of knowledge ranging from history, economics, international relations, geography, military, industry, technological development and some other funny things like theory of probability and other strictly math-physics related issues. We, of course, can all remember, among his achievements, his brilliant idea of "opening China" which resulted in the long run in stripping the US of its industrial might. In general, long term thinking is not a strong point among American geopolitical "thinkers" and Kissinger is an exhibit A of such a trait. Yet, good ol' 96 year old Henry, in his WSJ's piece on Covid-19 arrives to a funny conclusion:

The world’s democracies need to defend and sustain their Enlightenment values. A global retreat from balancing power with legitimacy will cause the social contract to disintegrate both domestically and internationally.

After I stopped laughing, I formulated a question: what ARE those Enlightenment values as Kissinger understands them? Last time I checked the main Enlightenment "value" which made combined West great was a rational thought. Everything else follows from it, including such a simulacra as man's freedom (whatever freedom is in each given historic age). The rest is up for never-ending philosophical debate on what those "values" truly are.  And here is the problem--modern West lost its ability to think and act rationally long time ago. In fact, Kissinger should know this very well--he was and still is in the midst of the decision making kitchen in the West which begins to increasingly look and feel like a psychiatric ward populated with people very many of who suffer from acute cases of sociopathic decease, while some are down right open psychopaths incapable of rational thought and even basic reasoning in principle. If Kissinger thinks that figures of Merkel, W, Obama, Mike Pompeo or Trump are representative of "Enlightenment values" then we certainly think about very different "values". 

But the next Kissinger's statement is altogether a wowser:    

Third, safeguard the principles of the liberal world order.  

My question is: did Kissinger actually study the history of "liberalism" and what it did both to the combined West and the world as a whole? This is what I wrote a year ago in my latest book:

Liberalism, in its different contemporary manifestations, such as globalist capitalism, also known as globalization, has a “stellar” record of using threats as a primary tool in international relations. Globalism is aggressive for a number of reasons ranging from purely economic interests to convictions of cultural superiority. These form a ballast for what goes on to become military aggression, easily resorted to because of the often complete inability to understand the practice (what really happens during warfare) and the consequences of the application of military power (what really happens as a result of that trauma and destruction) and accordingly an appreciation of how to achieve a global military balance precluding war.... There is no good life without peace and liberalism is not capable of defining that as a key component of a good life, due to liberalism and its scholarship living in a complete delusion about the predatory intentions driving its own economic and military (often grossly exaggerated) capability.

Even earlier than that, three years ago, I wrote:

Where does this leave us all on the globe in general and in the US in particular? There is no denying that the economic decline both in relative and absolute terms is a fact of life for the United States and the order it came to embody. This order is a globalist liberal vision—America’s crisis is a crisis of liberalism and of global financial capitalism. The utopian modern liberal orthodoxy (a euphemism for free trade) remains based on money and profit as a measure of everything. This doesn’t work anymore.

But forget about me, I wrote it in the times when the going was good and it seemed that everything will be fine. Well, it wasn't fine then already, in fact--it never was. And then, the man of a scale much larger than Kissinger ever was, and a geopolitical thinker orders of magnitude larger than him, stated:

The liberal ideology that has underpinned Western democracy for decades is “obsolete,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times published Friday.

So, Kissinger, using fuzzy platitudes doesn't want liberalism, or whatever passes today under this stupid term, as such to be preserved, he wants, behind this psychobabble of "geopolitical" doctrine-mongering, to preserve the world in which the United States is the only one force which sets up the rules. But this is this main issue with most American "geopolitical thinkers", Kissinger included--they still live in those halcyon days of America's self-proclaimed "exceptionalism" of early 1990s and they don't have required cognitive instruments to recognize the scale of the geopolitical balance's shift which happened since 2007. The world became much more complex and weapons evolved to the point of being unstoppable--a little fact they don't teach in political "science" courses. 

What will evolve in the aftermath of the Covid-19 and America's steady departure, due to both ideological and economic bankruptcy, from its self-anointed status of hegemon is a topic for a separate discussion, which will require non-stop application of the main Enlightenment Value of a rational thought and competent reasoning--the value long ago lost in deep dark recesses of the liberalism's mythology as an answer to humanity's real challenges in the XXI Century. The answer it is not and the emerging new world order may yet answer this challenge by creating a more just and more peaceful world, that task the combined West ultimately failed at.     

An Interesting Realist Point From USNI Proceedings.

A rather interesting article by Andrew Metrick in October issue of the US Naval Institute Proceedings which is a very welcome respite after reading and watching all kinds of min-boggling pseudo-scientific gibberish such as this Swedish dude's "insights". Metrick's article in Proceedings has a very simple title: (Un)Mind the Gap. The Gap, of course, being Cold War's good ol' GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United kingdom) Gap, which served as a , using Russian lingo, Protivolodochnyi Rubezh (ASW barrier) standing in the way of Soviet submarines trying to break out into the Northern and Mid-Atlantic Ocean to harass NATO-crucial SLOCs and sink all kinds of vessels and naval ships. 

Metrick, to his credit, gives some retrospection into Anti-Submarine Warfare of the closing phase of the Cold War 1.0 and writes:

The last generation of Soviet SSNs and SSGNs from the 1980s were just as quiet as the Delta IVs. The final batch of Akulas built before the dissolution of the Soviet Union were quieter still. SOSUS and the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System no longer were the silver bullets they had been during the halcyon days of the 1960s. The United States and NATO responded with both technical and operational solutions. On the technical front, the United States invested in new deployable acoustic surveillance systems, including the Surveillance Towed Array Sonar System (SURTASS) and its controversial low-frequency active component.10 Concurrently, technical solutions were paired with increased cooperation between surface and aerial assets to track Soviet submarines.

It is an important admission since even in 1990s, due to propaganda inertia even some "analysts" who were supposed to know better didn't know better about USSR and Soviet Navy closing the proverbial "acoustic" quieting/sonar gap in 1980s, which lead to a complete dramatic operational shift in the oceans with Soviet Subs not only breaking through GIUK Gap but traveling to and patrolling entrances to the Strait of Juan De Fuca (forget the Gulf of Alaska--patrols there were a routine in 1970s) in 1980s thus controlling exit of US Navy's subs from their base. Should late Tom Clancy have been alive today he would have had aneurysm reading memoirs such as by CO of the Victor-III class (project 671 RTM) K-492 SSN of Kamchatka Flotilla now Rear-Admiral Dudko, who writes about such operations in his "Heroes of Bangor. Operation Sea Wanderer. Submariners of Kamchatka" (in Russian).  As I state constantly, in fact, ad nauseam--the story of the Cold War 1.0 hasn't been written yet. Most (not all) what general public in the West knows about it is sheer propaganda, which was well tailored to the fact of the Soviet collapse. Reality, of course, was much more complex. Metrick's retrospection, in this case, is an effort to be lauded. 

Metrick is also correct when points out that:

After the Cold War, the United States and NATO largely abandoned their ASW capabilities.

But, he is not the first one who signals a decay of, usually, very fast degrading and, arguably, most complex naval skills such as ASW. Well, US Navy doesn't like unglamorous, very hard, tedious and complex ASW, aka "slow warfare". Degradation of US ASW was pointed out by US important ASW authority John Benedict as early as in 1997 and then in 2005 providing "score cards" and analysis of the US Navy's ASW trends. 

Today, this trend analysis must be adjusted dramatically and the author acknowledges it, while making one major strategic mistake:

The primary mission for Russian attack and guided-missile submarines is to prevent the reinforcement of the European theater from the United States by sea. Today’s Russian platforms may resemble those of the Cold War, but their weapon systems have improved dramatically. Russia does not need to hunt sealift vessels in the open ocean to halt reinforcement of NATO across the Atlantic. Its long-range land-attack cruise missiles can strike the vital North Sea port infrastructure in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany from launch platforms in the Norwegian and Barents seas. The revolution in Russian naval long-range strike capabilities has dramatically decreased the relevance of the GIUK Gap.

While Metrick does a good job describing an effect of a salvo of tens of 3M14 missiles on Bremenhaven as a main "unloading point" of arriving NATO reinforcements to attack Russia (yes, namely this way, not the other way around), he is incorrect in assuming that such an asset as Project 885 Yasen-class SSGNs will be involved in striking European ports--for that Russia has more than enough 3M14 and X-101s loaded on a fleet of missile corvettes, SSKs and strategic bombers of Tu-160 and Tu-95 variety. The first salvo from these assets may involve up to 150-200 long range cruise missiles--all of them within the range of any European port capable to receive reinforcements from the US. Yasens are a different breed--they are specifically designed for operations on SLOC, their own ASW (against NATO subs) and, finally, these are dedicated CBGs killers, more so than even monstrous Oscar-II (Project 949A) SSGNs. Next year, first launch of hypersonic 3M22 Zircon is planned from one of the Yasen-class subs. This weapon changes calculus of any war on the high seas completely.

We will never know, of course, a typical load of Yasen-class SSGNs once Zircon is out of IOC and is deployed fully. Even 4-5 of such weapons, when combined with the load of Kalibr (including ASW missiles) family missiles and P-800 Onyx, is enough to deny operations in case of war of couple of US Navy's CBGs, thus removing ultimately required surface escort for reinforcements. In general, all of it doesn't look good for NATO. Metrick DOES conclude along the same lines:

Russia’s new strike capabilities give its navy and, in particular, its submarine fleet a tremendous ability to influence the European military balance. The GIUK Gap will not provide a geographic crutch to help mitigate the threat, as long-range weapons allow Russian submarines to operate from the relative security of the Norwegian and Barents seas.¹⁷ For example, a submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) with a range of 1,000 miles would give the Russian Navy a potential patrol area of 100,000 square miles from which it could strike Bremerhaven while remaining reasonably secure.     

So, why Metrick's article is important? It DOES acknowledge, however incompletely, a new reality of Real Revolution In Military Affairs in one of very few reputable American military media, which still retains a degree of respect among military professionals globally. There are things I disagree with Metrick on some operational matters, including his generalities about  UUVs and operations above Arctic Circle, but at least these are disagreements on practical matters. It is good to see that someone tries to take a realistic assessment of the situation and maybe, instead of unleashing unwinnable arms race, may arrive to a conclusion that some other than military solutions are needed in settling things between combined West and Russia. After all, Russia is not that interested in the West other than the market. West can have its "values" and feel secure about it--Russia doesn't share them. Any attempt, however, to impose those "values" by force will have a devastating response and good that this is recognized, however, implicitly.    

Really, Really Puzzling.

Thanks to RT, I got involved in reading a piece from Naval War College Review, by lecturer from Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterrey, CA,  Thomas-Durell Young. This is what RT has to say:

Young’s article, titled ‘NATO’s selective naval blindness’ and published in the most recent issue of the Naval War College Review, makes the case that the situation is “both serious and desperate,” and that the navies of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania and Montenegro all suffer from not just old ships but “legacy concepts” when it comes to sea power.

One of the moments, which RT also paid attention to, in puzzlement, was this passage from Young's article (you can download it directly from RT site):

7.  Lastly, in this summary of remaining antithetical concepts, in central and eastern Europe there is an odd absence of either a conceptual understanding of or linguistic cognate for capability. In some Slavic languages this is defined as potential, which misses the fundamental meaning of such a key concept of modern Western military planning and operations. Thus, the concept that a platform is not an asset unless its crew is fully trained, exercised, and provisioned is being recognized only slowly. The lack of understanding of this key concept throughout these defense institutions partly explains why commanders do not have operations and maintenance budgets, and therefore cannot reliably produce capabilities.

I was floored, honestly. I don't know under what stone Mr. Young lived prior to writing his piece but I am personally is exactly the product of those "legacy concepts" Mr. Young is feeling so desperate about when speaks of the navies of the (relatively) new NATO members such as Poland, Croatia or Romania. To start with: Russian-language word возможности (or Polish, for that matter, możliwości) which are capabilities ARE NOT defined in Russian language as potential (потенциал), which had a somewhat different meaning. In fact, definition of capabilities in Soviet/Russian military environment sounded and continues to sound like this: 

БОЕВЫЕ ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ ВС (ВОЙСК, СИЛ ФЛОТА) - количественно-качественные показатели, характеризующие возможности ВС (объединений, соединений, частей и подразделений) выполнять боевые задачи в установленное время в конкретной обстановке. Зависят от состава ВС (войск, сил флота), их боеспособности, уровня подготовки, морально-психологического состояния, искусства командного состава, а также характера противодействия противника, условий местности и погоды.   

Translation: Combat Capabilities of Armed Forces (Troops, Naval Forces)--quantitative-qualitative indicators which characterize capabilities of Armed Forces (formations, units, sub-units) to fulfill (complete) combat tasks in defined time under specific circumstances (situation). They depend upon force composition, level of training, moral-psychological state, abilities (art) of command core and also on character of counter-actions by enemy, weather and locality's conditions. 

 

I don't know what Mr. Young studied but "legacy" as well as modern military structure of USSR/Russia was and is revolving around Combat Readiness (боеготовность), which, in the end is built around exactly the concept, and I quote Mr. Young: 

Thus, the concept that a platform is not an asset unless its crew is fully trained, exercised, and provisioned is being recognized only slowly.(c)

Hm, I don't know what "legacy" things exist in all those new NATO navies, after historic Russia left them alone to pursue their "democratic" future, but in the Soviet military science "capabilities" were recognized exactly for what Mr. Young is trying to preach (to a choir, I may add), so, if those navies have their "legacy" issues today--this is precisely because they didn't study or trained well, nor copied properly their Soviet vis-a-vis. And then, you wouldn't become a real military professional until you owned a process of combat training to the utmost degree. But that is the whole other story altogether. If Mr. Young doesn't know what is the difference between potential and capability in former Warsaw Pact, with Potential having a variety connotations, ranging from the Military Potential of the State, to the same (combat) of Armed Forces, to specific services--he really should update himself on those issues, especially since potential and capability are closely related synonyms even in English language. 

One, then, has to ask a question--what's the point of Young's article? Here is the point:

The governments of the new navies must move in the short term to reconceptualize the use and management of their navies. Perhaps controversially, this policy redefinition should precede a commitment of funds to recapitalize their navies so as to ensure that money is not wasted unwittingly supporting legacy concepts and platforms.

Now, it all becomes clear. In other words, buy "advanced" and "democratic" platforms and weapons. This what this article is all about--money. The pseudo-linguistic and pseudo-operational mambo-jumbo is just that, to create a fluffy (and false) filler for a sales pitch. In the end, Mr.Young should understand (I am sure he does) that the only thing those new NATO navies are good for is to be a buyer of new shiny military toys which will be, in case of a serious war, annihilated within first minutes of real hostilities, their geography notwithstanding. If Thomas-Durell Young doesn't understand that, he may talk to Mr. Ochmanek of RAND--he may explain to him how it all will look like. Just saying. I, of course, do not even talk here about capabilities of "legacy" NATO members--that is a sad-sad (for NATO) story. 

Stephen Cohen Makes A Slight Mistake.

When Dr. Stephen Cohen speaks, I listen. So, I read his latest piece on pathological neocon war-mongers (most of them draft-dodgers or humanities "professors" thousands miles away from theaters of operation) in RT. It is a good piece:

Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding forty-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or a policy option. Here are only a few random but representative examples: In a March 8 Washington Post opinion article, two American professors, neither with any apparent substantive knowledge of Russia or Cold War history, warned that the Kremlin is trying “to undermine our trust in the institutions that sustain a strong nation and a strong democracy. The media, science, academia and the electoral process are all regular targets.” Decades ago, J. Edgar Hoover, the policeman of that Cold War, said the same, indeed made it an operational doctrine.

But then Doctor Cohen makes a slight mistake when states that:

But the preceding Cold War was driven by an intense ideological conflict between Soviet Communism and Western capitalism.

Here, we have to be very clear that on the West's (primarily Anglo-Saxon West) side this war was against historic Russia, not "communism" (grossly misunderstood and deliberately misinterpreted) and Russians. Hans Morgenthau was explicit in 1957, as were explicit American ideological doctrines that emphasized:

   "I would say, and I have said many times before, that if the czars still reigned in Russia, that if Lenin had died of the measles at an early age, that if Stalin had never been heard of, but the power of the Soviet Union were exactly what it is today, the problem of Russia would be for us by and large what it is today. If the Russian armies stood exactly where they stand today, and if Russian technological development were what it is today, we would be by and large confronted with the same problems which confront us today."

US problem was not with "communism", which was merely a propaganda cliche, it was with Russia and Russians as  such, as a nation.  It still is. It was and is the issue of precious bodily fluids from the get go, especially today between neocons and so called interventionist "elites". I totally get where Cohen comes from, I addressed this issue myself not for once--US "strategists" (let alone utterly corrupt media) are for the most part unqualified and not that well educated people, as last 20 years, or so, so manifestly demonstrated. The danger of these people such as Kagans, Petraeuses, or this mindless bimbo AOC is that these people are utterly unqualified for a statesmanship and, maybe with some caveat for such military "leader" as Petraeus, have no a faintest idea what real war is. So, I also have issues with calling such a pseudo-"thinker" as Robert Kagan, or coward John Bolton or anyone from this pool of ignoramuses running US foreign policy and military disasters, "warriors"--none of those people have any idea what being real warrior is and that too is a problem. As I stated not for once, I feel slightly more secure when I know that Dunford and Gerasimov talk to each-other--talking to Bolton or Pompeo is a waste of time. 

Today, observing an American wasteland of military and geopolitical thought which follows in step with complete political and ideological degeneration of the American state, one is forced to prepare for war which, in a current American case, could be unleashed by people who have no clue. 

P.S. I don't think that Dr. Cohen serves his noble cause well when references the name of Solzhenitsyn who played his, however small, role in helping to topple one of the versions of the historic Russia and maybe Dr. Cohen has to ask himself a question why the monument to this self-proclaimed "consciousness of Russia" in Moscow is under specifically setup 24/7 video surveillance. But that is a separate topic of Russian history and here I and Dr. Cohen may have different views altogether.