There Is Absolutely Nothing ...

 ... staggering in it. 

A staggering 87 percent of Ukraine’s fleet of M1 Abrams main battle tanks (MBTs) has been destroyed, captured or lost since the series was first delivered to the frontlines of the ongoing war last year. According to Military Watch Magazine, 27 out of the 31 vehicles delivered to Kyiv are no longer in commission. The United States and several of its NATO allies initially pledged to bolster Ukraine’s defensive objectives by providing a slew of tanks. In addition to the American-made Abrams, the German-made Leopard and the British-made Challenger II were also delivered to support Kyiv amidst the ongoing invasion.

In fact, do not try to discuss the combat stability of the US Army Brigade Combat Team with General Donahue, who wants to take Kaliningrad. Mind you, this is the guy with a stellar record of NOT facing any real war other than high intensity police operation in Afghanistan which was lost already by 2006. The "American General" is already becoming a meme akin to used by Russians "British Scientists", when someone wants to underscore the absurdity of anything. E.g. a research conducted by British scientists for the last five years established that the water is wet. Something like this. 

Evidently the only subjects the graduates of the USMA at West Point are good at are arrogance and military incompetence. Donahue is butthurt--the US lost all of its wars of the last 70 years failing to achieve any objectives of those wars. Complex of inferiority is a bitch, it can eat one from the inside and that is in the foundation of a decline. I discuss some of the realities of the REAL war in my today's video which should be up shortly. 

There Is No "Strategy".

NATO doesn't do strategy, in fact--most in it do not have even a fleeting grasp of what strategy is and how to match critical resources to political aims--you know, the reason why wars are fought. 

Multiple reports in Western news media highlight President Donald Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Financial Times reported that Trump had encouraged Kiev to punish Putin by striking deep inside Russian territory—perhaps even hitting Moscow—if the U.S. provided it with more long-range weapons. (Trump has denied he supports such strikes.)  In marked contrast to the initial weeks of his second term, Trump has now effectively signed on to NATO’s uncompromising strategy of insisting on Russia’s capitulation with respect to the terms of a peace accord between Russia and Ukraine. The Western demands include Russia’s complete withdrawal from conquered Ukrainian territory (including Crimea) and its acquiescence to Kiev’s possibly joining NATO. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis expresses the prevailing mentality of hardliners when he contends that sending Ukraine openly offensive weapons might be the most effective way to force Moscow back to the negotiating table.

Pentagon (I omit here amateurs from European armies) doesn't do strategy--one cannot do strategy based on own military fairy tales and Wall Street "economic" indices. But that is what they teach in NATO's military academies. So, Trump is free to sign on whatever it wants, but it gives me a great pleasure to point out, despite our irreconcilable differences on Russian history of the the 20th century, our almost word in word assessment of the Western militaries. 

You cannot overcome this cultural and mental block, period. And let's state very clearly, in fact, stress it--a MAJOR factor driving speeches and actions of such people like Stavridis or Keane is an insufferable professional jealousy and envy. Just to demonstrate another one fairy tales narrator from the US military--now Army Europe Chief General Donahue:

We know what we have to develop and the use case that we’re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,” he said. “The land domain is not becoming less important, it’s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, aerial-denial] A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground. All of those things we are watching happen in Ukraine.” For example, Donahue noted, Kaliningrad, Russia, is roughly 47 miles wide and surrounded by NATO on all sides and the Army and its allies now have the capability to “take that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we’ve ever been able to do.”

Somebody has to explain to him, that everything he was taught and knows about "war" (he never saw one) is largely police operations' mangled pseudo-strategic BS. I guess he still doesn't understand that the pivot of all US Army Field Manuals those proverbial "long-range fires" are not even in the same universe with what Russian Army fields today. And if he wants to "take" Kaliningrad, Russia will take out first any column of NATO troops moving towards Kaliningrad and if that will not help, she will take out Washington and most US bases around the world. But then again, this is the simple truth I try to convey for the last decade--choose your own league. Roger Waters gets it when explains that the US doesn't understand who did it get itself entangled with, but he is a musician--granted, a genius one--evidently US generals don't.