Ah, Wait. We Heard Different ...

 ... all the time from all "military experts". 

Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet ‘no longer fit for purpose’. Former Navy chief calls for ‘radical’ action to revive programme after catastrophic failures.

And if anyone thinks that this could be fixed--I have bad news, not gonna happen. Obviously, for people who still remember halcyon days of the Royal Navy it is a torturous admission. But it is not about just submarine fleet. Get a load this:

By now I do not even bother with "argumentation" of "why"--it is self-evident, as frontline embarrassing failures of Leopards, Challengers, Abrams, what have you demonstrated--one needs a design school based on fighting off the best of the best. NATO became complacent with easy victories over inept Arab militaries operating "monkey models" of Soviet tanks and ignored tactical and operational reality in favor of narratives. Well, there is a reason why Challengers have been withdrawn from the line of combat contact in 404--if not, they all would have been destroyed. Chobham armor--grossly talked up and "admired"--is no contest for modern UAVs, ARGMs and tanks, even T-72 earlier models. This is what happens when people skip lectures on tactics, operations and operational research. Well, you get this clown)) 

I’m a veteran tank soldier, and I believe there is a way to fix the struggling Ajax

LOL. Let me show a REAL veteran tank commander who also happened to have an engineering degree (not degree in agriculture) and who commanded all of it and won the war against NATO.

Well, I wrote so much about Russia's military education.

Kupyansk Is Liberated ...

 ... Yampol is liberated, in Krasnoarmeisk a few buildings remain to be mopped up. 

Hence the US "peace plan", if you get my drift))

It Changes Absolutely Nothing.

 You cannot repair the country in its death throes. 

The French government has fallen after Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a crucial confidence vote in parliament on Monday. Bayrou is the second consecutive prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron to be ousted, throwing the nation into political and economic turmoil. A no-confidence motion in the National Assembly requires at least 288 votes to pass. Monday’s motion received 364 votes, with the left-wing New Popular Front and the right-wing National Rally uniting in opposition to end a months-long standoff over Bayrou’s austerity budget. Having previously survived eight no-confidence motions, Bayrou called this vote himself, in a bid to secure backing for proposals that forecast almost €44 billion ($52 billion) of savings to ease France’s debt burden before the budget is presented in October. The prime minister, who has repeatedly warned that France’s national debt poses a “mortal danger” to the country, appeared to acknowledge his fate. In a bitter remark on Sunday, Bayrou lashed out at rival parties that he said “hate each other” yet joined forces “to bring down the government.” 

It doesn't matter who  the next government will be--France is going to disintegrate, part of it being due to neoliberal policies, part of it due to murdering the indigenous culture, other part--due to French national character, which still cannot resign itself to the position of the second rate country. Meanwhile:

На внеочередном онлайн-саммите БРИКС участники обсудили глобальные вызовы и акцентировали внимание на необходимости реформирования системы мирового управления. По итогам мероприятия пресс-служба президента Бразилии опубликовала сообщение, в котором отмечается, что страны блока провели комплексную оценку текущей международной ситуации, передает РИА «Новости». В результате достигнут консенсус о необходимости перехода к более справедливому, сбалансированному и инклюзивному международному порядку. В заявлении отмечается, что новый порядок должен лучше отражать происходящие преобразования и эффективнее реагировать на нужды глобального Юга. Как писала газета ВЗГЛЯД, президент России Владимир Путин принял участие во внеочередном саммите БРИКС в режиме видеосвязи. Встреча завершилась обсуждением экономического партнерства между странами объединения в ответ на тарифные меры США. 

Translate: At the extraordinary online BRICS summit, participants discussed global challenges and focused on the need to reform the global governance system. Following the event, the press service of the President of Brazil published a statement noting that the bloc countries had conducted a comprehensive assessment of the current international situation, RIA Novosti reports. As a result, a consensus was reached on the need to move to a more just, balanced and inclusive international order. The statement notes that the new order should better reflect the ongoing transformations and respond more effectively to the needs of the global South. As Vzglyad newspaper wrote, Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the extraordinary BRICS summit via video link. The meeting ended with a discussion of the economic partnership between the countries of the association in response to US tariff measures.

So, that is why Russia is not impressed with the West, especially against the background of Valery Gerasimov's 70th birthday. I explain this, and why Zakharova is correct when talking about Kallas being "critically uneducated"--it applies to all of them--in my latest video which should be up shortly.

Vladimir Putin and Gerasimov ...

... in Kursk. Vladimir Putin especially underscored that mercenaries are not protected by Geneva and ... well, that's the response, including the necessity to establish security zone (ah, yes, Sumy get ready), to the "ceasefire" kindergarten play by Trump. 

In Russian only, sadly. Now Trump will learn about real geopolitics. 

Ouch!

Su-34 dropping FAB-500s from a very low altitude. 

In related news, about Krynki--as Vladimir Putin admitted, Gerasimov told him that he wants to keep the VSU foothold on the left bank because it is a very convenient method of reducing VSU's remaining elite. As Putin himself stated--they are just merely disposing of the remaining personnel for the PR effect in Kiev. Russia obliged. The zone of a few hundred meters wide and a couple-three hundred meters in depth is littered with VSU bodies. It is a massacre there. 

Long Gone Are The Times...

 ... when the US Dollar was supported by America's massive industrial might. Today, the only thing "supporting" it are Wall Street and a bunch of code writers who pass for "tech companies". 

Moscow will continue expanding trade relations with ‘friendly’ countries and boost the use of national currencies, cutting the US dollar’s share, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Friday. According to the top diplomat, Moscow has no intention of undermining the US currency’s global role, but Washington is doing that itself. “We obviously are not developing our line against the US, against the West. It’s not that we want to ruin the dollar. The US no longer ensures the dollar’s global role that could satisfy everyone. That’s the problem,” Lavrov told students at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO).

Lavrov is absolutely correct--accounting fraud becomes a feature, not a bug of the US economy. But in real world only tangible things matter. The warfare delusion that the Gulf War produced is easily paralleled by money making out of a thin air by Wall Street shysters. Indeed, the US is doing a swell job herself discrediting and annihilating the US Dollar--Lavrov is spot on here. Now consider the removal of the PR myth about US military power and you get a perfect storm of factors coming together in undermining the USD. 

Yep, the times of the American mighty industries which seemed to have no limits in their output are long gone. I touch upon this issue a little bit in my latest video which I will post shortly (in 30 minutes or so). Tucker definitely stirred the pot with his prediction of the hot war between Russia and the US but one has to ask the question if the US has the capacity to build armor (hint: she doesn't) and if many of those military experts read Svechin and know about strategy of exhausting the enemy? Valery Gerasimov is an avid reader of Svechin, wink, wink.

In Related News.

Against the news of Patriot being annihilated this should not also be forgotten. 

Several Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which were recently supplied to Ukraine by Britain, have been shot down by Russian air defenses over the past 24 hours, its Defense Ministry has said. “Seven Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, three HARM anti-radar missiles and seven HIMARS multiple rocket launcher shells were intercepted,” the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, announced during a briefing on Tuesday. He didn’t say where the intercepts had taken place. According to Konashenkov, 22 Ukrainian drones were also destroyed over Russia’s newly incorporated territories: the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions.

This is how REAL air defense works. So, as was explained earlier, first two Storm Shadows which haven't been intercepted have been launched at civilian targets in Lugansk. Naturally, those targets haven't been defended by AD systems. US provides 24/7 intel to VSU, including electronic "map" which accounts for radar "picture" of Russian AD systems. In other words, the US provides intel on gaps in radar field. But even here they are primarily reduced to what amounts to attacks on civilian targets. As I already stated on many occasions, I will repeat again--the SMO will be, if not already, studied in all leading military academies as an example of how to fight modern war. 

Now, here is my friend and REAL war correspondent Marat Khairulin (in Russian) explains why Gerasimov is an outstanding military leader and also explains how Mr. Prigozhin "fought". 

Marat also comments on "voenkurvas". This is a very militarily literate SitRep by a professional.

Larry Asks The Question...

 ... if it is the endgame for Ukraine in Bakhmut. 

While Western pundits (I think shills is a more apt description) and media continue to insist that Ukraine is pounding the snot out of Russia, the facts on the ground in Soledar and Bahkmut tell a different story.

Then proceeds to demolish Western "analysts". It is the end game at this operational direction and it has severe strategic implications for 404. Like this--I love this--funny meme. 

So, don't be surprised with appointment of Gerasimov as overall commander of SMO. Recall what Georgy Zhukov was, starting from his position of the Chief of General Staff in 1941, throughout WW II. Most of his time he was a representative of Stavka, coordinating all kinds of battles from Stalingrad, to Kursk, to Operation Bagration. In the end he was given a command of a monstrously powerful 1st Belorussian Front and in this capacity he took Berlin. So, Gerasimov's "move" is pretty standard. 

Also, take a look at Brian's very good spread on Western propaganda. 

And I will be addressing this today too, including the issue of "industrial warfare" as presented by Colonel Alex Vershinin of British Army in the now much talked about RUSI Report from June 2022 about the industrial warfare. I am sad, very sad;)) I warned about industrial warfare since the inception of this blog in 2014 and then wrote 3 books on that well before any Western military "think-tank" knew what they were doing. I warned about it! They never knew what they were dealing with. Now they know, but it is too late. Will we see Winter Offensive? We'll see.

They Continue to Run With This BS.

I mean it. NYT, obviously, is a professional and human sewer serving as a bullhorn of DNC propaganda, but after making a risible story on "attempt" on Gerasimov, immediately the main source of Western media "info", mentally unstable Arestovich "confirmed".

Kiev's forces did attempt to kill Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov during a visit he made to the frontlines in Ukraine, Alexey Arestovich, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has admitted. Arestovich was commenting on a report by the New York Times on Saturday that claimed Washington, which backs Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, sought to talk Kiev out of targeting the top Russian commander back in April. The paper’s sources claimed that the US had concealed the information about Gerasimov’s possible planned visit to the frontlines from Zelensky’s government, over concerns that an attack on a valuable Russian asset could provoke a direct military confrontation between Russian and American forces.

It is impossible to explain to imbeciles in NYT, who made this shit up in a desperate attempt to demonstrate the US willingness to "talk to Russia", and in preparation to the shift in narrative on 404, how the system of measures of preparation of such visits looks like, because US media have no real experts in modern war and, especially, the way Russia conducts it. It was only natural for mutual BS-feeders such as NYT (or US media, in general) and Ukie Goebbels to pair in spreading yet another utter delirium. I speak about this today:

The desperation in D.C. and in EU is palpable. You can almost cut it with knife. Hence a geopolitical and military delirium from Kissinger. There will be many who will swallow this fantasy hook, line and sinker. But, events in and around Bakhmut and Russia "running out of missiles and ammo" have their own logic which is beyond the grasp of Western establishment. I am on record--they don't teach real military history in Western universities. I will omit now speaking on Pentagon's approach to training of operational and strategic level command corps, but something tells me it is not education and training of appropriate level. One has to plan, but American military-political system institutionally is not designed for real planning. Look at the "glorious" results of the US military "operations". Facts speak for themselves and no amount of spin can change it.

And Why I Am Not Surprised.

In the middle of an amateurish pseudo-operational BS from Michael Koffman of CNA (so called Center for Naval Analysis) or some other Colonel from the US Army to New York Times--normal competent people do not consult this rag which lives out the remnants of its once solid reputation--we find, in a long and meandering BS piece about SMO, this admission:

Ukrainian commanders in Bakhmut said recently that even the presence of U.S.-supplied rocket systems, known as HIMARS, have failed to put much of a dent in the Russian supply chain. That’s a marked change from Ukrainian commanders’ accounts over the summer when the weapons first arrived — suggesting that Russia had adapted to the strikes by better dispersing its ammunition stockpiles.

I am not sure that be that Michael Koffman or whatever the name of the other Colonel is, who "shared" their military wisdom with NYT, are capable to grasp the way Russian Air Defense operates, they simply do not have any experience with that, not to mention the fact that the only thing US military does well is PR. It is impossible to explain to Koffman or any other political "scientist" abusing sinecures in the US "think-tanks" in and around D.C. how real integrated battlefield AD operates and why for it such targets as HIMARS projectiles are typical targets which are no different than, accidentally, genuinely hyper-sonic (M=5.3) Tochka U.  

I get it, Koffman and people in NYT have bills to pay and are "proud" in the most wrong way, can we call it an American "garrulous patriotism" as de Tocqueville defined in in his classic work, but Russian Air Defense operators are not impressed with HIMARS. What Koffman and others should worry about, of course, is the fact that always superior to the West in the combat use of her Air Defense complex, today Russia obtained an incredible combat experience which in terms of AD and ABM systems will only accelerate the widening of already very wide lead over anything West ever produced. In fact, as data (not from Ukrainian "sources") confirms, including videos, even TOR-M2s are now capable of shooting down such targets as Tochka-U. 

But then, of course, another American shitty rag which squandered the remnants of a reputation in the last few years, Time, when taking interview with VSU's Commander General Zaluzhny, quotes this from him:

But Zaluzhny also respected and admired the institutions of his Russian counterparts. In his office, he keeps the collected works of General Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian armed forces, who is 17 years his senior. “I was raised on Russian military doctrine, and I still think that the science of war is all located in Russia,” Zaluzhny says. “I learned from Gerasimov. I read everything he ever wrote … He is the smartest of men, and my expectations of him were enormous.”

Well, he merely confirms what I am writing about for years, corollary to Zaluzhny's statement, the US is, certainly, not well versed in the science of war, especially modern one, but what do I know. Zaluzhny's interview is not accidental--the Russians, who according to US military "experts" suffer huge losses, "lost initiative" and, in general, are about to surrender Moscow, in three days will add more than 100,000 square kilometers and more than 5.5 million people to Russia. I guess, if this is how the "loss of initiative" looks like, then we may only imagine how possession of thereof will look like. But there is a possible, more sinister, reason for this interview--Zelensky's useful life has expired and, in a view of increasingly active operations of Russian Army, the West will try to preserve whatever it can from its project in 404 not least in a feeble attempt to save own face. Zaluzhny can be this figure which could be moved to premier position in 404. I doubt it will make any difference, but desperate times--desperate measures, or... grasping for the last straw.

At this stage and with the results of referendum already pretty much known, UK Defense Ministry as represented by the Chief of General Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin met Russian Military Attache in London, Maxim Elovik, to "improve communications channels between British and Russian militaries to mitigate risks and escalation" (in Russian). Sure, considering who current British Prime Minister is--good idea. I am on record, I feel much safer when I know that Gerasimov and Milley are talking, than when Blinken tries to avoid Lavrov by all means possible. So, all in all, I am not surprised.

As You All Know...

... from the most honest and freest American-Ukrainian MSM (yes, the US MSM are disinformation machine and run on Ukie BS "intel") Putin "has a cancer", Shoigu is, probably, dead and Valery Gerasimov was targeted in 404 and was wounded by victorious 404 forces. Larry Johnson has already elaborated on Putin's "cancer":

Guess what? The United States Intelligence Community also has weighed in and reportedly believes that some dark days lie in store for Vladimir. Their source? Open Source media. In other words, the alleged Russian General posting on Telegram. If you are a U.S. tax payer and wonder what the Intel Community is doing with your hard earned dollars you now have a partial answer–they are reading social media. Unclassified by the way until they slap a TS on a document that they are sending to Dementia Joe passing on the Telegram gossip.

Judging by the US MSM "experts" in combined arms warfare or intel, who exhibit a high school level of "understanding" of the warfare and intel with propaganda, most of them, it seems, have a fantastical thinking. They, as good ol' Caucasus proverb says, think that if they repeat the BS many times it will come true. You know, if you say Baklava 100 times you will eventually start tasting sweetness in your mouth. That both underscores utter incompetence and desperation. But that's Putin's "cancer" thing. 

Now dead Shoigu and wounded Gerasimov seem today to be very much alive and unscathed, and, in fact, in good working mood while holding a selector (conference) meeting in MoD. Obviously, the video is not available on YouTube yet, but you can watch it by following the hyperlink below and here is what important in this TASS report:

МОСКВА, 4 мая. /ТАСС/. Прибывшие на Украину транспортные средства НАТО с оружием и амуницией для Вооруженных сил Украины (ВСУ) будут уничтожаться, заявил в среду глава Минобороны РФ Сергей Шойгу на селекторном совещании."США и их союзники по НАТО продолжают накачивать Украину оружием", - сказал Шойгу. Он отметил,  что любой транспорт альянса, который прибыл на территорию страны с вооружением или материальными средствами для нужд вооруженных сил Украины, рассматривается как законная цель для поражения.По словам Шойгу, в ходе спецоперации военнослужащие России обеспечивают безопасность населения Донбасса, проявляют отвагу и мужество и с честью исполняют свой воинский долг. "Российские вооруженные силы продолжат выполнять все задачи, поставленные верховным главнокомандующим", - заявил министр.

Translation:  MOSCOW, 4 May. /TASS/. NATO transports with weapons and ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) that arrived in Ukraine will be destroyed, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday at a conference call. "The United States and its NATO allies continue to pump weapons into Ukraine," Shoigu said. He noted that any alliance transport that arrived on the territory of the country with weapons or materiel for the needs of the armed forces of Ukraine is considered a legitimate target for destruction. According to Shoigu, during the special operation, the Russian military ensure the safety of the population of Donbass, show courage and courage and honorably fulfill their military duty. "The Russian Armed Forces will continue to fulfill all the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief," the minister said.

This is really bad news to NATO, because even if to consider salvos by supersonic (Mach-2.8+) P-800 Onyx missiles, which exhibited since Syria and incredible, not just anti-shipping capability and range of well in excess of 800 kilometers (get a hint from 3M22 Zircon) or M=9, 2000 kilometer range Kinzhal any "airlift" to 404 by NATO looks like this for Onyx alone. 

Do not also forget that Iskander uses TWO types of missiles. Considering the fact that Russia has an excellent space-based intel and recon assets, targeting will not be a problem. If the US (and its NATO poodles) think that they can supply Nazi regime in Kiev with, quite useless, actually, weapons, Russia, certainly, has the right to cut those "lines of communications", including air transports. For MiG-31 K with Kinzhal taking off from Rostov-on-Don it would take approximately 10-12 minutes to take off and reach the launch point in about 1000 kilometers of any air field in Western Ukraine and that gives any NATO transport about 10-12 min. + around 300 seconds (or about 5 minutes) to reach the target. Right, about 17 minutes max. Make your own conclusion on the probability of transport aircraft with weapons survivability. After all, it takes a significant time to unload one, well in excess of 17 minutes. In the end, any airfield could easily be wiped off the map and that is what Shoigu talked about today. 

You know, about playing hard. Ask Congressman Adam Kizinger if he wants to pilot one of those C-17s to Ukraine. He wanted to fight Russia, let him experience a real war. It is not the same as flying transports into Iraq or Afghanistan.

Yeah, Good Luck With That.

France, as was anticipated, started to complain and take "actions". 

French shipbuilder Naval Group has said it will send a “detailed and calculated proposal” to Australia after Canberra canned a $40 billion submarine deal in favor of a new pact with the US and UK, much to France’s dismay. On Wednesday, Naval Group CEO Pierre Eric Pommellet told France’s Le Figaro newspaper that Australia would be receiving a bill for the submarine contract which was cancelled last week. Pommellet said a “detailed and calculated proposal” would be sent to Canberra in the next “few weeks” which sets out the money it expects Australia to cough up for cancelling the 2016 deal. The shipbuilder chief said that such an eventuality had been planned for by the French firm.The bill will supposedly cover costs already incurred as well as those to come, with some “linked to demobilization of infrastructure and IT as well as the redeployment of employees,” he said, adding that the company will assert its rights.

Any chance of me getting on the French legal team which will be dealing with this issue? I expect a financial bonanza for lawyers in this matter. But, on the other hand, one has to keep in mind that at this level, same as was with hapless Mistrals' deal (awarded to France by Russia for "mediation" after Russian-Georgian War of 080808), geopolitics and operational realities play as large, if not larger, role as financial considerations, however important $40 billion are. As I continue to stress for the last week: we still don't have all facts on our hands in terms of American-Australian intentions and I want to underscore--we are merely speculating for now. If lease comes through, things will become much clearer. Some are even suggesting the possibility of US converted Ohio-class SSGNs leased out to Australia. I doubt it, but I could be wrong. Obviously with a single Ohio-class SSGN packing 154 TLAMs this is a concern for China. But then again--I stress it--for now it is mostly a speculation. 

 

I personally lean towards SSNs on SLOCs, but we just have to wait and see. As for French grievances, well, what can I say--geopolitical weight of players is too different, not in France's favor, for France to have any reasonable chances on substantial compensation, not to speak of a wounded national pride. Thanks to Larch for pointing this out. 

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) — The top U.S. military officer met with his Russian counterpart Wednesday, against the backdrop of U.S. struggles to get military basing rights and other counterterrorism support in countries bordering Afghanistan — a move Moscow has flatly opposed. The meeting in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, between Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov comes at a crucial time in the wake of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Without troops on the ground, the U.S. needs to forge more basing, intelligence sharing and other agreements to help monitor al-Qaida and Islamic State militants in Afghanistan to ensure they are not regrouping and posing a threat to America and its allies. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in July, however, that Moscow warned the U.S. that any deployment of American troops in countries neighboring Afghanistan “is unacceptable.” He said Russia told the U.S. “in a direct and straightforward way that it would change a lot of things not only in our perceptions of what’s going on in that important region, but also in our relations with the United States.”

As I am on record for years--I feel better when Russian and American militaries speak to each-other. Russia, obviously, is not going to allow US troops to be stationed in all those Stans, but I want to stress another tremendously important point: there IS a very real threat of Jihad and terrorism which should not be discounted against the background of the US escape from Afghanistan. We can only speculate (yet again) on a complexity of this issue, but it is an established fact that exchange between Russia and US regarding these matters exists and it is steady. Well, the United States can only blame itself for this development, with special thanks to Zbig, who due to him being a rather fanatical Russophobe and a pseudo-scholar thought that the United States can manage Political Islam it helped to create and fund. We all know how American political "science" works in real life, ask Fukuyama, late Huntington or present day Mearsheimer who got lost completely in their ignorance of the outside world.  But then again, it is a defining feature of American "academe" and elites. The proof, as it is known, is in the pudding, or as Hegel stated--practice is the criterion of the truth. Those who are not brainwashed are well aware of this truth.    

In related news, Russia continues to build and launch those pesky missile corvettes capable of carrying anything from 3M14M and 3M54M to Zircon, like there is no tomorrow. The latest one, two days ago was launched in Kerch, at Zaliv wharf. 

This one is named Askold after the famous Russian cruiser of Russo-Japanese war and of Gallipoli fame. It (she) still has to have navalized Pantsir and other systems installed. Can you imagine a ceremony at Zaliv when first project 23900 LHD will be launched? I hope to live to see this. I am sure HIMSELF will be present for this occasion. I am also in a desperate anticipation of Admiral Nakhimov getting more publicity and getting ready for sea trials in 2023. I cannot recognize this world anymore. The changes in the last 5 years are stunning and historic in scale and scope.

Oh, Not Again.

Another one of those pieces by some Pentagon's big honcho about this and that. Pentagon's R&D Chief Mike Griffin waxes exceptional and writes another, in a row of now tiresome, platitudes about how US Armed Forces are great... sort of. He starts with a predictable fodder of Berlin Wall:

Nov. 9 marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event followed within a couple of years by the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the freeing of the Eastern European vassal states. Francis Fukuyama thought we had reached “the end of history,” that global great power conflict was at its end and that the ascendancy of the Western liberal concept was the permanent future. “We won the Cold War” — it says so in all the history books. Winning is great, except for the part where the losers retreat, rethink, retrain and try again; while the winner thinks the race is won once and for all — which is why the United States now finds itself running from behind in certain aspects of today’s great power rivalry. How did we get here, and what should we do about it?

I have news for Griffin: Fukuyama is a classic representative of the American so called political pseudo-science class and could serve only as an Exhibit A of sheer ignorance, expected from the guy with no particular education or coherent analytical skills. Obviously, neither Fukuyama nor Griffin are good scholars of Clausewitz who is explicit in that: in war the outcome is never final. (c) Oh boy, was Clausewitz a Marxist? I though in a 200 years since Vom Kriege was penned we all should have developed some degree of recognition of what works and what doesn't in Western Civilization's most important work on war. No wonder Lenin was a huge fan of good ol' Carl. But that simple fact aside, there is one thing which Griffin, himself a superb engineer with a stunning array of STEM degrees and former NASA chief must know that his this statement is trivial at best:

Equally critical was the ability to prevail against a larger force in a conventional fight. The U.S. seized the advantage with precision, with a precise conventional strike, enabled by pattern-matching seekers. With a global positioning system to guide force projection to the right place, stealth technology to hide our aircraft from enemy radar, encrypted high-rate communications to enable superior command and control, electronic warfare to deny that advantage to our enemies, unmanned aerial vehicles for both reconnaissance and force projection, and the uncontested dominance of the space domain to tie it all together, we prevailed.

It is becoming downright nauseating reading these Clanciesque pop-warfare narratives since most of them are not true. I don't know if Griffin's tenure at NASA taught him anything but NASA being a paying customer of Russian rocketry for years now, he surely must know that the age of precision guided weapons originally was started by Nazi Germans in WW II when they sunk Italian battleship Roma with radio-guided Fritz-X bomb. But these were Soviet who developed an astonishing array of anti-ship missiles in post-WW II period and I am sure Griffin should know that those by definition are precision guided weapons. It just happened so that the United States was not even a competitor in this field from the inception, lagging badly in development of combat missile technologies in which Soviet Union and Russia had and have a dramatic technological lead, which today may have become insurmountable for the United States. In terms of air defenses the United States military is not even a competitor having nothing even remotely comparable to S-3XX-4XX-5XX systems, not to mention systems of A-235 Nudol. I will skip talking about hyper-sonic weapons here altogether. I will just add that Russians were involved with satellite-based navigation since the same time US got involved with GPS--early 1970s, such as Parus. GLONASS followed in 1982. Griffin surely must know about TU-143 Reis or even ancient LA-17R too. You know, drones.

My question is not even with Griffin's statement such as this:

In brief, the United States no longer possesses the unquestioned technical superiority to dominate a future fight.

Because most of "unquestioned" was primarily, up to late 1970s, in processing power and electronics, but in the fact that Griffin narrates totally made up history of US weaponry which, bar few limited fields, was neither "unquestioned" nor dominant. Even US jewel of a true technological excellence, it's world-class superb nuclear submarine force experienced a serious technological push-back since late 1970s which resulted in at least technological parity by 1990s. My quarrel is with this "creative" history of the warfare as a narrative of only American ingenuity and pioneering--this is absolutely false. Those challenges Griffin talks about--and they ARE challenges in every sense from technological to doctrinal--they didn't appear out of nowhere in an instant. All those challenges gestated and grew out of these very Russians understanding the nature of the warfare and doing their due diligence in R&D and fighting doctrine field. The roots of those "challenges" are in 1970s and 1980s, not in 2010s. Well, what do you know--I just wrote a book on the nature of real revolution in military affairs. It is precisely about what Griffin talks. But in the end, these ad nauseam trivialities, such as this:

What near-term risks are we willing to take, and what current systems are we willing to let go, so that we can invest in capabilities that will impose costs on our adversaries and deter them from starting a fight because they know they cannot win? This is the critical national security challenge of our time.

Invoke only one question--under what stone did Mr.Griffin spend last 20 years in order to not recognize the fact that it is the United States who unleashed non-stop violent wars and coups all over the globe and made sure that people will start the fight once they recognize that their livelihood and sovereignty is under attack by the United States. Luckily, the instruments to defend themselves against American military aggression are better than those of the aggressor and that what saddens US establishment, which has no idea what real war is. Or maybe they do? And that is why they are sad.

This brings me to another point, of Michail Khodaryonok today making a statement to RT:

An attack by NATO on Russia’s westernmost exclave Kaliningrad – a scenario that’s been speculated about in the media lately – would lead to a nuclear apocalypse and affect even countries not involved in a hypothetical conflict.International media have recently made regular publications on how Kaliningrad – the Russian outpost in Europe – could be ‘captured’.Such publications serve the interests of NATO members’ military and industrial complex, according to Kaliningrad’s governor Anton Alikhanov.

What Khodaryonok forgets to mention is that Russia has enough conventional deterrent to not go for the nukes. I may understand (I think) where Khodaryonok is coming from but he, as a graduate of the Academy of General Staff, should know that conventional step in the escalation process in case NATO wants to commit suicide, is, in fact, an additional deterrent and adds robustness to Kaliningrad's defense. Khodaryonok writes:

Now, a few remarks on the message posted by China’s Eastday.com. It says that if NATO and Russia went to war, the bloc could seize the Russian region in a matter of two days. Our Chinese comrades are a little off with their timeline. The operation would not actually take this long, and the result would be very different. It would take Russia no longer than 40-45 minutes to launch a nuclear strike, and after that we would be able to do only one thing – discuss the peculiar aspects of the modern nuclear apocalypse. To sum it up, the battle for Kaliningrad would under no circumstances remain an isolated military conflict. It would become just an episode of a global nuclear war. And even the countries not involved in this conflict would suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, these are the effects of using strategic nuclear weapons.

While Khodaryonok is absolutely correct in stating that such a conflict will not stay local, I don't know if he missed Valery Gerasimov's statement (in Russian) couple of years ago that already then Russia had enough cruise missiles deployed on critical strategic directions for a complex deterrence by means of high precision weapons. A lot of time passed since then and when even RAND admits impossibility of involving NATO in a conventional conflict with Russia:

“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.”

Khodaryonok  retired from the Armed Forces in 2000. 19 years ago. Since then one could observe a dramatic change in Russia's doctrinal thinking with introduction of "strategic force deterrence by high-precision weapons" already in 2010 Military Doctrine. One couldn't fail to notice that these were primarily conventional forces that Russia was improving and updating since early 2000s. This was done primarily to be able to fight a conventional, not a nuclear, conflict. So, if Mikhail Khodaryonok thinks that in case of NATO attacking Kaliningrad, Russia is going to go for nuclear jugular immediately, I have a bit of disagreement with him, because the first thing which will be done will be a conventional strike on NATO's infrastructure and for that Russia has enough force to disrupt NATO's C4ISR architecture and inflict major losses. That is precisely what is called a "strategic force deterrence" by means of stand-off, precision-guided weaponry. In the end, rearranging stones in D.C., Brussels or London in purely conventional way is nothing that 3M14 or X-101 cannot do. It is also a good way to avoid apocalyptic scenario by inflicting a lot of pain for aggressor to have second thought about escalation. It is so self-evident from Russia's military development since mid-2000s, that it is strange that Khodaryonok had to reply in this manner to some strategic delusions by some butt-hurt "strategists" who lost every single war they were involved in since 2000 and who still are dreaming of some revenge out of desperation after seeing the myth of their conventional military power blown to smithereens. In the end, even R.D. Hooker's "opus" is about "defending" Baltics and cannot be taken seriously from any professional point of view. Khodaryonok, evidently, forgot Macron begging not to sink French frigate or harm any forces in April 2018. They are not complete idiots there, yet. They can calculate and know, as an example, that NATO's fleet combat life in case of attacking Kaliningrad will be counted in tens of minutes before Kinzhals or P-800s arriving. Khodaryonok MUST know these things. As for nuclear war. Well, no special commentary is needed here.