No, Really!

They call themselves a military power. 

BRITAIN’S £3.5billion aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has broken down again as army chiefs warn threats to the UK are greater than ever. The aircraft carrier has been plagued with problems since it was first brought into service.

Well, at least smoky Admiral Kuznetsov, which was laughed at by NATO, did go to Syria and conducted operations, this floating coffin, however, seems to be in a constant repair cycle because she got shafted, literally. This dubious platform has issues with its main shaft, constantly. Its combat value, however, is only as an attractor to a few hypersonic missiles before being destroyed. 

But then again, the way NATO calculates power is a very strange approach--primarily on visuals and with the ideas from 1960s, which define its thinking.  

These platforms, such as another immensely expensive lemon, the USS Gerald Ford, are nothing more than vanity projects, akin to a huge tough talking guy who buys expensive truck because of a small dick. To compensate. This is exactly what it is. To remind you what these ships face in case of REAL war, here they are--3M22 Zircons arriving at targets. 

If you think that anything in NATO's arsenal can intercept this--I have a bridge to sell you. Far from its halcyon days of being a magnificent combat navy, Royal Navy today is nothing more than a collection of obsolete ships not fit to fight a REAL war. A joke, really. 

Yes, It Is ...

 ... there is only one teeny-weeny problem--Moscow doesn't know about this "plan". 

A reported plan devised by the U.S. and Russia involving major territorial concessions from Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine would amount to a “capitulation” for Kyiv, a Ukrainian advocacy group has told Newsweek. Reports carried by Axios, Reuters and the Financial Times said Moscow and Washington had privately drawn up proposals for Kyiv to give up some territories and weapons and significantly cut Ukraine's Armed Forces. Olena Halushka, co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory, told Newsweek on Thursday that everything included in this proposal "is either aiming at strengthening Russia's battlefield position or sowing internal tensions inside Ukraine."

It doesn't matter how much defeated West wants to "massage" the issue of SMO, the result will be the same--capitulation, but not of the virtual entity known as 404, but of the combined West. The West's adventurism ran its course and the offramp for the US is being closed as I type this. Per Europe, you all know the outcome. 

There is no other outcome when one even considers this)): HMS Prince of Wales is ready for war and available to allies - 'if NATO provides escorts', LOL. 

This is, in a nutshell, the whole issue with combined West today--building obsolete and expensive toys while having no means to sustain them. In case of UK--with one operational sea-going SSN of Astute-class and a couple Type-45 DDGs which can actually go to sea and perform duties, this is what it amounts to--if somebody provides something, which is critical for operation of this fat floating target in real war. 

Meanwhile, The Mirror, an Indian media resource, gives a review of Russia's exposition at Dubai 2025. 

Correct, all of it produced out of Russia's own resources and means. As many astutely noted, very good washing machines and microwaves. India wants Su-57. And the news are swirling around like crazy:

Ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India next month, Moscow has made a significant military proposal to New Delhi that could potentially reshape the future of Indian air power. Russia has reportedly offered India "unrestricted access" to technology for the new fifth-generation Su-57 stealth fighter jet ahead of Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi. The development comes even as Su-57E, the export variant, made an appearance at the Dubai Air Show and conducted flight displays.

Highly likely this deal will happen, together with HAL's license-built fully Russian SSJ-100, which is another technological wowser. 

A lot is happening in Eurasia this very moment and I would lie if I state that I do not enjoy a complete implosion of West's pseudo-academic "Russia expertise", which long ago turned into primitive collection of propaganda slogans for mentally retarded--a precise contingent produced by degree mills in the West. 

A Good (or Bad) ...

 ... joke)) 

The United Kingdom could resort to military force against China in the event of an escalation over Taiwan, British Defense Secretary John Healey has said, though he emphasized that London continues to prefer a diplomatic resolution. Speaking to The Telegraph during a visit to Australia, Healey said Britain would “secure peace through strength” if necessary – marking one of the clearest signals yet from a senior UK official regarding the possibility of direct confrontation with Beijing. Healey made the remarks as the HMS Prince of Wales, a British aircraft carrier equipped with F-35 fighter jets, docked in the northern Australian city of Darwin. It is the first time in nearly 30 years that a British strike group has arrived in the region. The carrier is on a nine-month Pacific deployment, participating in Australia’s Talisman Sabre exercise and visiting ports in Japan and South Korea. ”If we have to fight, as we have done in the past, Australia and the UK are nations that will fight together. We exercise together and by exercising together and being more ready to fight, we deter better together,” Healey said when asked what London would do in case of an escalation around Taiwan.

Somebody has to remind Mr. Healey that the UK has no military force to resort to. For starters, UK has no real army to speak of, and the Royal Navy's "combat stability" (ability to continue to carry out tasks under combat conditions) is questionable at best. If Healey who has ZERO military background thinks that flattops are not fat prestigious targets, well--sell him a bridge. With one huge pile of metal called HMS Prince of Wales and a single operational Astute-class nuclear powered sub available to what passes for the UK Navy which used to be a proud Royal Navy, time for these clowns to finally resign themselves to the reality of the UK approaching the status of the third world country, with her armed forces being a great embodiment of a rotting husk of once mighty empire. Without the US, militarily UK is not a serious power, period. 

That's The Way You Do It(c).

And even this way is still misleading (e.g. Russian energy bill is... 40 times smaller than European one, in Russian), but at least it is a good start for British tabloids to look at the prices' dynamics.  The Sun laments:

WELCOME to sanctions-hit Russia – where heating bills and fuel prices are a fraction of those in Britain. Food costs are also coming down every month and Vladimir Putin’s people are partying as if there is no war.

Then it proceeds to tabulate things which DO matter in real life. 

The reason I have a smug smile on my face is not because I am smug, by nature I am not, but because I like to be proven right once in a while, because in 200 years, if we survive as humanity, very few people will remember the capitalization of Apple or Facebook if they will even exist then, which I doubt, but historians will be very interested in the price of things which matter. Right, energy, cabbage, potatoes and things of this nature, which our civilized and moderately comfortable lives depend on. 

Of course, British tabloid wouldn't be British tabloid if it still wouldn't produce a pile of steaming shit from some professor of astrology, pardon me, economics who stated this:

Explaining how Russia had managed to buck the trend, strategy specialist Professor Michael Clarke said: “Their government has the cash right now to subsidise food, and as long as they have oil and energy money, they can keep subsiding. “But what the price of energy will be next year is anybody’s guess. It will get a lot harder for them from next year onwards. “At some point I believe their economy will be in very bad shape, either next year or the year after. “But that depends on the price of energy. “The rouble is doing OK because they are making people only buy and sell using the ruble. That will keep the currency strong for a while.”

Generally speaking, and I am on record here, economics departments in the West, together with a bulk of "liberal arts" departments should simply be disbanded while "professors" in economics, sociology, literary criticism and Queer studies should be stripped off their "degrees" and forbidden to "teach" because they peddle a pseudo-academic BS as a legitimate knowledge. Professor Michael Clarke of the University of Exeter  certainly qualifies for academic defenestration, because he, same as his former employer of RUSI, have no clue what they are talking about. This also applies to British military and intel establishment populated with barely educated hacks, as the events of the last several days with VSU "counter-offensive" and NPP attacks have demonstrated so dramatically. Not only they have no idea what modern war is, they cannot run their own country. Studying Russia would have helped but there are no real scholars on Russia in the combined West. 

Speaking of which. Peskov stated today that Russia is "ready to talk to Ukraine... on how Ukraine will fulfill Russia's conditions" (in Russian). This is a euphemism for capitulation, of course. And here is one piece of news of note. You should remember that starting from 2014 I am constantly on record that Ukraine has coalesced into the political nation distinct from Russia. These ARE different people. Putin and others from Russia political top were forced by political decorum and public mood to constantly stress that Ukrainians and Russians are "brotherly nations". Of course, it was only partially true and it takes a couple of generations to completely reprogram any kind of limitrophes into believing all kinds of pseudo-historic BS and this is what happened in Ukraine in the last 30 years. Here is proof. As whatever is left of the VSU 35th Brigade of Naval Infantry cries from the front lines:

«Это никакая не война, нас просто истребляют... Сколько еще наши матери и жены прольют слез? Сколько детей останутся без отцов? Сколько еще будет братских могил? Братья, кто не пережил эту ночь, вы навсегда в наших сердцах... Где мобилизованные? Всех на фронт! Всех на защиту Украины! У нас батальоны остались только на бумаге, а они гуляют себе!» – сообщают разгромленные морпехи в своем Telegram-канале.

Translation: “This is not a war, we are simply being exterminated ... How many more tears will our mothers and wives shed? How many children will be left without fathers? How many more mass graves will there be? Brothers, who did not survive this night, you are forever in our hearts... Where are the mobilized? Everyone to the front! All--to the defense of Ukraine! We have battalions left only on paper, while they (in the rear) are partying!” - the defeated marines report in their Telegram channel.     

You see, they still want to defend the avatar of a country, known in Russia as country 404 and its Nazi puppet regime in Kiev. So, I want to stress again--war, and SMO is war, albeit a very peculiar one, is never about re-educating local civilians only. No, war, quoting our good ol' friend Carl von Clausewitz, is about "compelling the enemy to do our will." In order to do so, you destroy its armies and that means physical annihilation of enemy's war material economy and, yes, extermination of those military personnel who still want to fight. 

You see how it works? Peskov articulates Russia's will (conditions), Russian Armed Forces do this proverbial clausewitzian "compelling". Until Kiev is compelled to do Russia's will. But, of course, and that IS the main issue--many Ukrainians are so brainwashed and so banderized that they still do not understand that and continue to go to the slaughterhouse on the East to be denazified and demilitarized in the most radical manner--physical extermination. Arestovich admitted today that he lies about the real state of the affairs on the front (in Russian), but, unlike MI6 and (Royal) General Staff, we knew it all along. And the cycle of disposal of the most stubborn believers in Ukraine's "history", concocted and financed by the US State Department and CIA (and London), continues until mobilization potential of Ukraine is completely annihilated to a dismay of military "planners" in Pentagon and London. I know, I know--real military history, Theory of Operations, math, physics are hard, much harder than learning "proper" gender pronouns.  

Which, in conclusion, brings us to this: the starboard shaft is a goner on HMS Prince of Wales and I wonder what this major "failure" was precipitated by? Was this purely navigational--a euphemism for striking the ground--or was this independent failure? We should know soon. In any case, it is an embarrassment for the Royal Navy and its hapless program of aircraft carriers. I will, for now, abstain from commenting too much on this issue, precisely because I am not a rocketry specialist:

NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System likely won’t fly in September. After a fuel leak forced the agency to scrub its second attempt to launch Artemis 1, there had been some hope the mission could get underway before its current launch window ended on September 6th. That won’t be the case. "We will not be launching in this launch period," Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, told a room full of journalists after the events of Saturday morning. “This was not a manageable leak,” Artemis Mission Manager Michael Sarafin added, referring to the “quick disconnect” fitting that gave NASA so much trouble yesterday. Ground crew at Kennedy Space Center attempted to troubleshoot the issue three times before recommending a “no go” for Saturday’s launch. According to Sarafin, the leak began after one of the fuel lines to Artemis 1’s core booster went through a brief and “inadvertent” overpressurization. An “errant” manual command from Mission Control triggered the incident. As of Saturday, Sarafin said it was too early to know if that was the cause of the fuel leak, but there was enough flammable hydrogen gas near the rocket that it would not have been safe to launch. "We want to be deliberate and careful about drawing conclusions here, because correlation does not equal causation," he added.

But as many in Russian space program circles started to talk after yet another delay, one of those being rocket systems engineer Dmitry Konanykhin (in Russian), Artemis-1 is nothing more than same ol' slightly modified Shuttle Launch System which, naturally, inherited most problems this system had to start with. Sticking some brand new orbital module on the top of essentially the same tank which was responsible for destroying both Challenger and Columbia and killing their crews is not a way to do it. Dmitry is very gracious towards NASA engineers because he constantly stresses that as engineers they are good, but they are constantly under pressure to "deliver" including by bypassing safety procedures. We heard this story before, didn't we? We know how it all ends. And that is your primer for Sunday.

Sic Transit Gloria Americae.

For any observer nowadays it is enough to take a look at the front page of Oilprice.com, popular but definitely globalist in character, resource to make a conclusion that the game is nearing its end and something altogether unknown is ahead of us. Just take a look at these headlines from today, August 29, 2022. 

I underlined in red the headlines, among many other ones, which not just testify but scream at you about the ongoing and very visible collapse of Pax Americana and about the world moving away from the West-dominated and centric world. 

People ask me all the time to write on this or that matter, primarily military ones, and I understand them. How can one miss that news:

Britain’s biggest ship and the second of the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, has broken down shortly after embarking on a cross-Atlantic aviation trial. The carrier “remains in the South Coast Exercise Area while conducting investigations into an emerging mechanical issue,” the Royal Navy’s spokesperson said in a statement to the media on Sunday. The incident occurred just one day after the vessel left Portsmouth for what the Royal Navy described as “a landmark mission to shape the future of stealth jet and drone operations.” The UK Defence Journal cited a source as saying divers discovered that the ship’s propeller shaft appeared to be damaged. According to Sky News, the Prince of Wales is now anchored southeast of the Isle of Wight in England.

OK, let's start with obvious--aircraft carriers of this size, and Prince of Wales is a very large ship, are very complex engineering "products" which, due to their inherent complexity, are bound to have a higher probability of getting something out of order than, as an example, even a fairly large motor yachts, like this gorgeous Fleming 78, my dream never to be realized:

But even these boats tend to break down now and then. But with HMS Prince of Wales we have s "slightly" larger problem, even larger than that with its fire protection sprinkler system. It is about the main propeller shaft. Roughly speaking--if it is an assembly which keeps propeller ON the shaft, this might be resolved in a fairly short time, BUT...if we are talking about shaft as a whole... Oh, boy.

 

This is roughly how it looks like (give and take) but the main issue of shaft always is its need to be centered with surgical accuracy, otherwise you will have a vibrating noisy ship which will not be able to serve a third of its life. If the damage is to the shaft as such, this may mean either the new shaft or repairing and re-centering the damaged one, this may take months. But at this stage we don't have any details, so be patient. It is embarrassing, no doubt about it, but for now I would wait for details of what, how and why this damage occurred. 

But I agree, things were getting broken with increased frequency around the western world and it is difficult to ignore--across the board things simply refuse to work. If this Ukie "counter-offensive" (in reality--couple battalion attempt at attack tactical episode) which resulted in them having their asses handed to them, naturally, one has to ask the question if those American and British "advisers" planned this whopper? If they did, it merely confirms a suspicion which increasingly becomes a conviction that Western military planners are not good, in fact, incompetent when it comes to fighting a real war. And this is only natural for the realm (Western civ.) where any workable policies and solutions have been completely substituted with the PR activities, which do not require serious skills in anything. Hey, I didn't invent Communications Departments and programs in Western universities. So, yes, shit ceases to work in the West because it is conceived in the alternative universe and is designed as such. 

It is akin to HMS Prince of Wales which out of two years in commission spent about 80 days in the sea. Well, on the other hand USS Gerald Ford, four years after her joining, sort of, the fleet, still hasn't been combat ready. The issue, obviously, is systemic and no amount of makeup and voodoo ceremonies can hide the ugly truth of modern West from increasing number of people both in and outside the combined West. Shit will continue to break down and the frequency will only increase. I don't know how the issue of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, joining BRICS will be viewed from Washington or Brussels, but what is absolutely clear, such a move will be the end of NATO as we know it and political and economic crisis unfolding in the West will mark the end of political and economic model whose existence was declared sacred and was supposed to mark the end of history. Can you believe it? Bunch of CEOs and Wall Street banksters bought this shit. 

As James Kunstler noted today: 

It remains for Mr. Trump to renounce his support for the evil fruits of the Warp Speed operation he presided over. He must face the fact that he was played, and he may be forgiven, considering all the evidence coming recently from the likes of Deborah Birx and others that he was lied to and manipulated. But he doesn’t have much more time to get it right, or else his political career will be over well before the 2024 election. That may be all for the better. America probably needs a clean sweep of our desecrated political landscape. All in all, Mr. Trump was a good soldier, brave and resolute under tremendous adversity, but he’s not the only one who can lead our country back to itself.

Trump WAS played, which does testify to his limited abilities as a statesman, because no serious statesman allows to be manipulated to a degree Trump was--enough to recall why he appointed Mattis a Sec.Def., it is comical--and what James implies and what I speak about for a long time, for the US to not completely disintegrate and maintain its status as major power it will take a new generation of politicians and a demolition of the America's uni-party and the emergence of a strong centrist force. But this is in the future, for now, though, enjoy Saker's description of Ukie "counter-offensive".