Larry On David Petraeus.

Frankly speaking, by now somebody should have told David Petraeues that he embarrasses not only himself, which is fine, but that his rants reflect extremely poorly on the US Army. As Larry notes, Petraeus was...

... interviewed by the Georgian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and confirms, by virtue of his responses, that he is either one of the dumbest men to ever pin on four stars or one of the most intellectually dishonest. Perhaps both.

After that Larry proceeds to methodically demolish Petraeus' "arguments", which even a lieutenant fresh from a combined arms academy would simply reject as pure military amateurism. And Larry is spot on when he points out: 

I have two words for General Dave — Iraq, Afghanistan. What major victories did he achieve in those two theaters? The answer is none. And he was not up against entrenched forces, with artillery and HIMARS, and tanks, and he failed to defeat guerrilla forces armed with assault rifles and an occasional mortar. He has never been in charge of a battle against forces using combined arms. This is just one more example of his arrogance and lack of critical thinking skills. I am not shocked by the shallowness and ignorance of Petraeus. It is those qualities that enabled him to earn four stars through his skilled practice in the art of sycophancy. And I assume that some of his proteges, who are gifted with the same degree of incompetence, are in command positions ready to lead U.S. forces into disaster.

Exactly! No American military leader has been in real combined arms war for ages. Beating the crap from backward, bought out and demoralized Saddam's Army in 2003 is NOT a combined arms, it is beating the crap from grossly, if not grotesquely, inferior opponent--nothing more, nothing less. But even here we know the result. Read Larry's excellent piece at his blog.

Which brings us to this. The American Thinker magazine noted six days ago:  

The West’s sanctions, the most severe ever imposed on a country, were meant to teach Russia the lesson that “aggression does not pay,” in the words of NATO’s Stoltenberg.  The ferocity of the sanctions, the subsequent cancellation of Russian artists and athletes in the West, and expectation of an end of the Russian Federation by political and military elites such as Former Commanding General of the US Army in Europe, General Ben Hodges, shocked Russia out of its complacency, and led it to learn very different lessons: That the West was determined to destroy it, and that its existence required it to arm itself to the teeth and end its economic interdependence with the West. The sanctions on Russia awoke the sleeping giant that had been Russia, and the West may soon be faced with the consequences.

Meanwhile, Li Shangfu is having a great visit in Russia, all against the background of Russia's Pacific Fleet showing the support for this visit. Yes, both events are coordinated, so stay tuned for the results of this visit, which, I suspect, will be extremely fruitful for both sides. Do not forget--the US cannot fight China on land, it is rather risible proposition due to its total... impossibility. But naval affairs in the region will be heating up and there is opinion out there that soon Taiwan will have issues with its chip products due to China closing the gap very fast. This has major geostrategic ramifications. Excellent Russian Sinologist Ruslan Karmanov thinks that the US is very interested in getting Japan (and ROK) into the actual shooting war with China. 10 years ago it would have been 50/50--today, no chance. As Chinese curse goes--let you live in interesting times. We sure as hell do.

I Kid You Not.

The surrealism of everything happening on the strategic axis US-Ukraine is sometimes so much off the scale, that I am forced to simply shake my head in disbelief. Get this, one of the "greatest" military leaders of our generation and, certainly, the greatest eater of the men's ties, former Georgia's President, Mikhail Saakashvili just disclosed some wowser of a news. And believe me, I almost had hernia from laughing when reading Georgia's Defense Ministry account of the Russian-Georgian War of 080808, and the Ministry was headed then by this guy. So, Saakashvili speaking to a funny Ukrainian TV channel Ukraina 24, disclosed:

Как утверждает политик, экс-директор ЦРУ и экс-глава Центрального командования США Дэвид Петреус призывал киевские власти наступать на Донецк и даже подготовил план по взятию города. При этом Саакашвили не уточнил, когда именно Вашингтон планировал воплотить эту идею в жизнь. "Я помню, был момент, когда они могли взять Донецк. Я не от себя это говорю — мне генерал Петреус <…> направил тогда длинную СМС, я был на севере штата Нью-Йорк, на каком-то празднике. Он говорит: "А, Б, В, Г, Д" — по пунктам расписано, почему сейчас хороший момент заходить в Донецк", — сказал Саакашвили. По его словам, Петреус настаивал на необходимости захватить Донецк, обосновывая это тем, что силовики могли справиться своими силами. 

Translation: According to the politician, ex-CIA director and ex-head of the US Central Command David Petraeus called on the Kiev authorities to attack Donetsk and even prepared a plan to take the city. At the same time, Saakashvili did not specify exactly when Washington planned to implement this idea. “I remember there was a moment when they could take Donetsk. I’m not saying this on my own behalf - General Petraeus <...> sent me a long SMS then, I was in the north of New York, on some kind of holiday. He says:" A, B, C, D, D "- it is written down the points why now is a good time to go to Donetsk," Saakashvili said. According to him, Petraeus insisted on the need to seize Donetsk, justifying this by the fact that the security forces could cope on their own.

Saakashvili then insists that he has shown this "plan" (LOL!!) to Poroshenko but Poroshenko didn't express any enthusiasm. For you to understand why I am so shell-shocked with this news,  I'll explain. 

1. David Petraeus:

David Howell Petraeus is a retired United States Army general and public official. He served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from September 6, 2011,^] until his resignation on November 9, 2012. Prior to his assuming the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus served 37 years in the United States Army. His last assignments in the Army were as commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and commander, U.S. Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A) from July 4, 2010, to July 18, 2011. His other four-star assignments include serving as the 10th commander, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) from October 13, 2008, to June 30, 2010, and as commanding general, Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) from February 10, 2007, to September 16, 2008. As commander of MNF-I, Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq.

Alright, so, here is the guy who graduated every single top military school in the United States, was the top of the top, creme de la creme of military brass and, if that hasn't been enough--he ran CIA. You know, THAT allegedly "intelligence" organization which is always on top of the events. Nah, I am screwing with you. So, here is the guy who should understand the issue of combined arms operations and allegedly should have a good insight by 2014 into the capabilities of Ukrainian Armed Forces, military forces of emerging LDNR and, since he ran CIA, should have some insight in Russia's military capabilities. Right? Well...

2. Donetsk. The size of population of Donetsk-proper is 930,000+, metropolitan area--2,000,000.  In general, it is a large city, mostly concrete. 

Read on why this city was called Yuzovka in the past. It is as much Russian as it was a Welsh city. Yes, like in Wales, UK. So, here is Donetsk's geographic location. 

You may ask why I measured the distance (of 160 kilometers) from Donetsk to Russia's very own Rostov-on-Don? Well, Petraeus, being former big army honcho and CIA Director, should have known and saw how Russian Army dealt with Georgian one (including its Navy) in a matter of less than 5 days. Then he should have seen an absolute masterpiece of operation in securing Crimea. Now, looking at the map, one definitely should have asked the question--any junior officer would: where the location of the HQ of Russian Armed Forces Southern Military District is. As you may have already guessed it, it is in Rostov-on-Don and it is in a very-very short distance from Donetsk. But that is a strategic factor. The tactical and operational one is the fact that Donetsk is the type of the city the United States Army has zero experience in dealing with. Not only it is large, albeit Baghdad was still larger, but apart from rather serious anti-Maidan sentiment, that city was packed with very many people who served in the Soviet Army and that is a completely different paradigm than fighting some third world Arab army. 

This factor alone should have prompted Petraeus not to plan anything, against the background of Ukrainian Army being totally corrupt, underfunded and extremely badly trained, with many higher-ups in it already lacking in terms of modern war-fighting being stuck with the Soviet Army's combat manuals and TOE of the late 1970s-early 1980s. So, if Petraeus thought that this force is capable of capturing a huge city without the air force, which was immediately "grounded" (well, look at the map) and, as time has shown, was no match to Russia's C4ISR which was providing LDNR's armed forces in real time, how could this guy (again, CIA Director) not know what he was dealing with? Was (is) he that incompetent? Was he so oblivious to the fact that any serious attempt by Ukraine to "take" Donetsk would have resulted in a horrendous bloodshed and a complete annihilation of the Ukrainian Forces by Russia? Was he THAT ignorant, we are taking about the former head of CENTCOM and CIA?    

But above all, isn't it strange that he was SMSing his, obviously risible "plan", to a known psychopath who was thrown out of his own country? What was he expecting? Remarkably, Poroshenko most likely already knew then that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were already in dire straits. Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo have shown that Ukrainian Armed Forces were in no shape tactically, operationally and strategically to undertake any serious operations and were no match to a much more determined and skillful forces of LDNR. A bunch of neocon think-tanks continues today to "study" that war based on Ukrainian narratives, myths and urban legends, not to speak of "opinions" of pseudo-experts, some of who also predicted that in 2008 Georgian Army will "roll over" Russians, because Georgians were partially equipped by Israel and NATO, and were trained by US instructors. Boy, you all know how that thing went. But Russia and her Armed Forces of 2014 were very different form those forces which in 2008 wiped the floor with Saakashvili's Army. They were much more advanced. If David Petraeus didn't know that, it only confirms my worst suspicions about the way US military-political top thinks. Because, let's not beat around the bush here, fighting Russians, even when they are merely "militias" of Donetsk is a completely different game than whatever the United States ever encountered in its military history. George S. Patton's ignorant bravado about Russians notwithstanding. They just don't learn.