Mearsheimer, As Always ...

 ... has no clue. 

His ideas about "two conditions", especially about drones, are those of the amateur in warfare and its specific field of Air Defense. But then again, where can he get his data from? Of course from same amateurs as he is and they take it from visuals and 404 propaganda. Yet, this guy remains in continuous rotation in every media and delivers platitudes time after time. He was wrong about Russia so consistently, so outlandishly bad for the last 10+ years, that I don't even know how to explain to him what REAL air defense is and how it operates. He will not grasp it. He will not listen anyway. 

For Mearsheimer it is advised to get acquainted with Russia's Military Doctrine and to look up real situation on the battlefield and then try to figure out what are the objectives of Russia in SMO, and not from merely statements of Russian officials but based on verifiable data. I have news for him--and videos and testimonies, such as deputy commander of the 4th Brigade of the 6th Motor Rifle Division responsible for UAV systems and their operations (among many others) who actually implement daily what amounts to anti-drone measures, effectively UAV air-to-air combat in the tactical zone.

While REAL number of UAV leakers into Russia is expressed in SINGLE digits, but Mearsheimer knows nothing about. For the US those things are beyond the grasp, including this thing: 

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. The number of FPV drones in the Russian troops has increased dramatically, now about 4 thousand are delivered per day, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said.

This was in 2024, since then the production increased a number of times. Russia outproduces whole of combined West (NATO and shit) by an order of magnitude in all types of drones. Now let's get to 2026. This is Mr. Manturov:

The Russian military-industrial complex (MIC) has the ability to produce more than 15 thousand FPV drones per day. This was announced on June 3 by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov. "Domestic enterprises can already ensure the supply of over 15 thousand pieces per day of FPV drones alone, and in 2023 such a number was produced per month," he said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper.

For arithmetically challenged (forget about combat models used for planning of operations against NATO's aerial terrorism) this means: 365 x 15,000 = 5,475,000 drones per year. Combined West's economies will choke trying to match this. But then again, one must be situationally aware--a novelty thing for Pentagon, CIA and so called "analysts" such as Mearsheimer. And so he continues with platitudes. 

Now to the crux of the matter--Russia MAY strike Europe, and among targets could be some of those UAVs-producing facilities, but if it happens, it is going to be NOT the main consideration, and NATO's UAVs could be used MERELY as casus belli. Already now Russia blunted and mitigated all this "wall of drones"--yet another pathetic moniker for NATO's military impotence--if Russia will be striking Europe she will come in hard and main targets will be the remnants of NATO's industrial plant, thus solving a strategic task of a complete demilitarization of Europe. But here we enter the sphere of a strategic ambiguity which plays extremely well for Russia, who knows about herself and combined West orders of magnitude more than Mr. Mearsheimer. 

P.S. You all know that 404 "struck" today ... drum roll ... 46 "Russian tankers" in the Sea of Azov. I was incensed--why such a low number? There should have been at least 250 tankers hit and another 50,000 Russians killed around Moscow, which is about to fall. This "quick victory" thing becomes nauseating. 

Scott Ritter On Mearsheimer.

Thanks to my friend Mike Krupa who pointed my attention to this piece by Ritter. But first, if you type "Mearsheimer" in the search bar in this blog, the results which will be found containing Mearsheimer's name will be numerous and going back as far as 2015-2016. Well, I am on record that not only most of what passes for the American 'realism' in geopolitics is not really a realism, but it is also as ignorant and exceptionalist as aggressive neoconservatism, which is a euphemism for American imperialism. Most representatives of the 'realist' school in the US are not only just softer less insane version of exceptionalists, most of them are absolutely ignorant on the main tool of geopolitics which is military-industrial power, or, in broader terms--what are those, now proverbial, 14 points by Jeffry Barnett (not to be mistaken with great late Correlli Barnett). 

Just a few days ago (namely 9 days ago) I wrote about Mearsheimer, again:

Mr. Mearsheimer, for all his accomplishments, continues to demonstrate a complete ignorance of the realities of modern warfare in his piece in Foreign Affairs. Mearsheimer, having no clue about what the current state of military balance in Europe is, speculates how the US can get involved directly into the conflict.  ...Mearsheimer, a graduate of the USMA at West Point in early 1970s is still stuck in... 1945 and continues to drink Kool-Aid from US media, not understanding what state the VSU are in and not understanding that Russia maintains an overwhelming escalation dominance and ability of a strategic maneuver by force.

Read the whole piece. But Mearsheimer's sophomoric "forecasting" rubs the wrong way not only me. Scott Ritter wrote an excellent take-down of Mearsheimer's military-nuclear fantasies for RT this week.

Fears that the Ukraine conflict is now bogged down into some sort of stalemate which risks dangerous escalation from the parties involved in order to achieve victory are misplaced. There is only one victor in the Ukraine conflict, and that is Russia. Nothing can change this reality. Renowned American intellectual John Mearsheimer has written an important article about the conflict, entitled: ‘Playing with Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation’. The article paints a dark picture about both the nature of the war in Ukraine (prolonged stalemate) and probable outcome (decisive escalation by the parties involved to stave off defeat). Mearsheimer’s underpinning premises, however, are fundamentally flawed. Russia possesses the strategic initiative – militarily, politically, and economically – when it comes to the war in Ukraine and the larger proxy engagement with NATO. Moreover, neither the US nor NATO is in a position to escalate, decisively or otherwise, to thwart a Russian victory, and Russia has no need for any similar escalation on its part. In short, the Ukraine conflict is over, and Russia has won. All that remains is a long and bloody mopping up.

But this is the fact, which Mearsheimer doesn't get. He doesn't get it for two reasons:

1. Despite his initial military background, Mearsheimer spent too much time dealing with political science at the expense of serious geopolitical analysis based on facts, not chimeras. 

2. In terms of knowledge of modern warfare he is still stuck in 1970s and, as it is obvious with most US "experts", drinks the Kool Aid of the Desert Storm, not understanding that to be in shape geopolitically, one needs to constantly keep oneself updated on warfare matters, and especially in terms of C4ISR. It is, after all, 2022, not 1975 or even 1992. 

Not only Ritter, correctly, demolished Mearsheimer's "theory" of escalation, especially towards nuclear threshold, but he stresses:

The fact is, while US government officials may make bold statements about the need to inflict harm, via proxy, on the Russian military through the provision of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine, it is the US which has had defeat inflicted on it in terms of the ongoing losses of its Ukrainian proxy military and the destruction of the equipment provided in support. The US, like its NATO allies, has proven to be very good at making bold pronouncements about goals and intent, but very bad at putting them into practice. This is the state of American ‘ambitions’ vis-à-vis Ukraine today – all rhetoric, no meaningful action. Any fear of a US and/or NATO military intervention in Ukraine must be weighed against the reality that hot air does not generate cold steel; US politicians might be adept at filling the pages of a compliant mainstream media with impressive-sounding words, but neither the US military nor its NATO allies are able to generate the kind of meaningful military capability needed to effectively challenge Russia on the ground in Ukraine.

In general, it is an excellent take-down worthy of our attention and it is absolutely necessary to remind people who pass in the West for 'realists' that they better learn subject before offering their, largely incompetent, opinions on serious matters such as large scale combined arms operations and nuclear escalation. Otherwise, their alleged 'realism' looks awfully similar to neocon exceptionalism, which is a euphemism for residing in the alternative universe of the America's omnipotence, which in reality is long gone, if there ever was one. As Mike Krupa stated 10 days ago, Mearsheimer should concentrate on writing about America's Israeli Lobby--he is really good at that. 

In related news, now hypersonic Kinzhal is carried not just by updated MiG-31K, but by a fully modernized and capable of delivering Kinzhal to launch point in fully automatic mode MiG-31I is what now is deployed to Kaliningrad Oblast. This modification, evidently, also has an anti-satellite capability (in Russian). Also, rumor has it, the land-based Zircon will be ready by the end of this year and will begin to arrive to first line units. In conclusion, about Russian Armed Forces expanding its personnel size--not just personnel, but billets, positions, and that means fully new personnel--it is all about:

1. Integrating already existing LDNR units into the Armed Forces of Russia;

2. The expansion of "techno" troops such as additional Air Defense, Missile Troops, Tanks, Navy etc. 

3. It has nothing to do with Russia's losses in Ukraine. Because filling billets of servicemen killed is NOT the EXPANSION. 

In this case, however, we are talking about cadre expansion, which will make already impressive Russian Armed Forces even stronger. We will have answers to some questions starting from August 30, when Vostok-2022 will begin. Chinese Army already has its troops in place (in Russian). So, here it is--your primer for the weekend.

Self-explanatory.

A few points for the day. This is self-explanatory. 

Three Mig-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft carrying Kinzhal air-to-surface hypersonic missiles have been deployed to Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad, the country’s Defense Ministry has announced. On Thursday, the planes were relocated to Chkalovsk airfield in Kaliningrad Region as part of “additional strategic deterrence measures,” the ministry explained. During their flight, the Mig-31s worked out interactions with Russian forces stationed in the area, as well as the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet, it added. The planes will be placed on 24/7 combat duty in Kaliningrad, according to the Defense Ministry.

With Kinzhal's own range of 2,000 kilometers, it is clear what is in store for NATO C2 centers in case they decide to play stupid game.

Considering the ability of Kinzhal, as was demonstrated in Ukraine, to penetrate very deep into the ground, such as was the case on many occasions, especially against reinforced underground targets, this also becomes self-explanatory and sends a clear message.  

Also, for those of us who still doubt a catastrophic state of VSU, here is the first hand account, which corroborates many serious analysts' estimates of losses, which partially is confirmed by Kiev regime. 

МОСКВА, 18 авг — РИА Новости. Киев значительно занижает свои потери в спецоперации России, среди украинских военных уже числятся около 200 тысяч погибших, заявил РИА Новости один из лидеров запорожского ополчения, командир отряда "Троя" Владимир Новиков с позывным "Алабай". "Это мое сугубое мнение, думаю, порядка 200 тысяч "двухсотых" (погибших. — Прим. ред.) и больше 300 тысяч раненых, которые уже не вернутся в строй", — сказал Новиков. По словам командира отряда, он использует различные источники информации. "По совокупности информации могу озвучить такие цифры", — отметил он.

Translation: MOSCOW, August 18 - RIA Novosti. Kyiv significantly underestimates its losses in the Russian special operation, among the Ukrainian military there are already about 200 thousand dead, one of the leaders of the Zaporozhye militia, the commander of the Troy detachment, Vladimir Novikov, with the call sign Alabai, told RIA Novosti. "This is my personal opinion, I think about 200 thousand" two hundredth "(dead. - Approx. ed.) and more than 300 thousand wounded who will not return to duty," Novikov said. According to the commander of the detachment, he uses various sources of information. "Based on the totality of information, I can voice such figures," he said.

That explains quite well a hysterical reaction of neocon cabal, such as this yesterday's desperate and risible piece by all those great "strategists" in The Hill. 

US must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late 

This juxtapositions itself quite well against yet another testimony about US weapons being not exactly as they are constantly advertised and of which I wrote three books. 

Efficiency of US missiles in Ukraine questioned.Radar-killing AGM-88 HARM missiles will have only “limited impact” on the battlefield, an expert believe. 

Now, before saying anything about RT using Business Insider "experts" as a source, it has to be stated that US MSM in general DO NOT have real military experts, firstly, because there could be no experts on tactics and operational matters among the graduates of the journo and communications schools and, secondly, the level of the American military "expertise" as performed by all those generals, colonels and "intel" people in 90% of cases is appalling in its ignorance and lack of understanding of modern war and Russia. And yes, US military "technology" is largely a failure in a peer-to-peer environment. So, as is expected a lot of butt-hurt and consumption of copium. And, thanks to my friend Mile Krupa, Mr. Mearsheimer, for all his accomplishments, continues to demonstrate a complete ignorance of the realities of modern warfare in his piece in Foreign Affairs. Mearsheimer, having no clue about what the current state of military balance in Europe is, speculates how the US can get involved directly into the conflict.

A more likely scenario for U.S. intervention would come about if the Ukrainian army began to collapse and Russia seemed likely to win a major victory. In that case, given the Biden administration’s deep commitment to preventing that outcome, the United States could try to turn the tide by getting directly involved in the fighting. One can easily imagine U.S. officials believing that their country’s credibility was at stake and convincing themselves that a limited use of force would save Ukraine without prompting Putin to use nuclear weapons. Alternatively, a desperate Ukraine might launch large-scale attacks against Russian towns and cities, hoping that such escalation would provoke a massive Russian response that would finally force the United States to join the fighting. The final scenario for American involvement entails inadvertent escalation: without wanting to, Washington gets drawn into the war by an unforeseen event that spirals upward. Perhaps U.S. and Russian fighter jets, which have come into close contact over the Baltic Sea, accidentally collide. Such an incident could easily escalate, given the high levels of fear on both sides, the lack of communication, and the mutual demonization.

Mearsheimer, a graduate of the USMA at West Point in early 1970s is still stuck in... 1945 and continues to drink Kool-Aid from US media, not understanding what state the VSU are in and not understanding that Russia maintains an overwhelming escalation dominance and ability of a strategic maneuver by force. But he speaks with a confidence on this:

What about the ultimate form of escalation? There are three circumstances in which Putin might use nuclear weapons. The first would be if the United States and its NATO allies entered the fight. Not only would that development markedly shift the military balance against Russia, greatly increasing the likelihood of its defeat, but it would also mean that Russia would be fighting a great-power war on its doorstep that could easily spill into its territory.

Unlike Mearsheimer, I am largely up to date on general view of Russian military on Western military "power" and, having an engineering degree am all ears and eyes trying to hear from Mearsheimer some details on WHAT force and HOW can NATO muster to attack Russia. Don't expect a professional answer from Mearsheimer, because he still thinks that it is 1980 and NATO can do a Reforger type thingy. He doesn't understand, that in order to fight Russia conventionally in Eastern Europe NATO, headed by the US, will need a force around 1 million ground troops with adequate equipment and C4ISR to even have a shot at not being defeated outright--a task impossible in principle, not to mention the fact I would like Mearsheimer's "forecasts" on matters of the US daily losses, in thousands KIAs and WIAs daily, on reconstituting a draft in the US, on the combat readiness of the US ground troops and, in the end, on all those "sophisticated" weapons which the United States is simply afraid to provide not because they are just afraid, and the US is afraid, of real escalation, but because all of those "sophisticated" weapons do not work in real. 

I do not expect from Mearsheimer any assessment of operations of RuAF, Air Defense or Navy--he doesn't know it--but maybe he will have enough integrity for stopping spewing an absolutely sophomoric amateur BS on subjects neither he, nor his "political science" environment, have any clue about. In the end, he better learn that it is the United States, not Russia, who is very use of nuclear weapons biased nation precisely because it is incapable of planning and executing anything even remotely similar to SMO. But then again, I don't know if he studies real military history of the world, not BS they teach in Ivy League circle jerk on American exceptionalism. As Mike correctly concluded: "Mearsheimer better concentrate on writing about Israeli Lobby". Agree 100%, this is his field and he better resign himself there: real history, warfare, practical geopolitics, real Russia studies and operational art are not his forte. 

In related news: my book is out in Poland.

Germany is next. This is your primer for today.

Even The Broken Clock... Or Fast Response To Simon.

One of our friends, Simon, decided to criticize me for putting the doubt over John Mearsheimer's both academic adequacy and intentions, which I described in my post yesterday. Here is what Simon wrote. 

What are you talking about? As I heard him, Mearsheimer is clearly criticising the USAmerican habit of hiding its aggressions behind the fig leaf of "democracy". Respectfully, maybe you need to just stop, count to ten, take a deep breath and go back and listen to what he actually said.

I do not deny the fact that I also hear Mearsheimer expressing common sense thoughts in the last several years. And the fact that he and late Stephen Cohen made a stand against hysteria of Russiagate can only be applauded and admired. But I never stated that Mearsheimer is a coward, far from it--his common sense position is an indicator of a significant human courage and that too should be admired. But the problem is that Mearsheimer also speaks as a classic American imperialist and one can easily find his verbal threats issued to Australia (the video of that was posted on our discussion boards), not to mention the fact that he has a very peculiar view on the history of the 20th Century. Here it is:

This is his recent, 2018, work of political "science" and it is disastrous in fundamentals. For starters, any "academic" who quotes Fukuyama in his work should immediately be viewed with suspicion in regards to its historical knowledge. But while Mearsheimer tries to figure out "liberalism's" place in the new world, he still thinks that it was Liberalism which defeated Nazism. Well, here is the issue, such view of the history is in foundation of both neocon "tradition" and American exceptionalism. Mearsheimer should accept a simple truth and a fact that it was Western liberalism which gave the rise to both Fascism and German National-Socialism and that "liberalism" exists today still, granted it poisons air with it's putrid gases of decomposition, ONLY because 27 million Soviet citizens died in WW II and in doing so gave a chance to the US to recover from debilitating Depression and saved Western civilization--the crucible of "liberalism"--from itself. It was Russia's contribution which gave "liberalism" another 70 years. But Mearshmeir doesn't bother himself with serious study of warfare.

It was Marshal Zhukov on record who noted in 1945: "We liberated them, and they will hate us for that forever." He was prophetic, while the whole Mearsheimer's historic view, it seems, is built around Anglo-Saxon world saving "liberalism". The fact of him, like those proverbial broken clock, being right (showing the correct time) twice a day is a matter of purely human common sense and the ability to calculate some consequences of escalation, not of his "academic" convictions which are those of a devout American imperialist and exceptionalist--both stances defeated by reality already. In the end, one can even find a rational seed in even the most outlandish manifestos, but American "realist" school is nothing more than a feeble attempt to recognize reality strictly on the American conditions, in America-centric world. Here is a classic US "realist". A card carrying one. And he is very representative one of such school of thought, same as Mearsheimer, who continues to push fully bankrupt ideas of American "realism".

The Discreet Charm Of The American Academe

I stated many times (in fact, this was one of the main reasons I started this blog) that most of what passes in US as Russian Studies field has to be either 90% cleansed of those, mostly self-proclaimed, "Russia experts" or this field has to be completely closed for good. The reason for that drastic measure being, to put it straight, inability of most (with some few exceptions) US "academe" to have even remotely objective and knowledgeable view on the subject of their "expertise"--Russia. Enter John Mearsheimer, whose academic credentials are indisputable and who is well known in the US and abroad, to some audiences, as an author on mostly foreign relations and big power politics and, of course, as an author of The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy. Mearsheimer is a former US Air Force officer, a graduate of the West Point. Now that we cleared this, let's get to the point(s). 

1) There is no such thing as political "science"--it is a figment of imagination of humanities "educated" bureaucrats for growing their own field and providing more and more tenures (or sinecures) for people who have difficulties with differential equations and salvo model. The so called "political science" is nothing more than a collection of some postulates and theories all of which separately are wrong because they can not be right for reasons of a stochastic nature of human life. In the last 30+ only one (single) theory on foreign relations and geopolitics came more or less relatively close, and even then with some major mistakes, to describing our complex world's reality, it was Samuel Huntington's magnum opus "The Clash Of Civilizations And The Remaking Of World Order". The rest produced in this field is basically nothing more than a collection of pretentious pseud-academic crap which was debunked already by overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary: be it Fukyama's The End Of History or Brzezinski's  take on geopolitics--all of those "theories" turned out to be a complete crap, all of this crap is produced mostly by Ivy League "educated" political "scientists" such as... Mearsheimer. Ideologies? Well, that is another game and that is the only field where "political science" has any meaning since it is good only for justification of one or another delirious political idea. Or, in layman's lingo--good for bullshitting people.

2. There is also no such science as "history", it never existed and today, in the unfolding new technological paradigm it ceased to exists as we know it. Why? Because for history to become a "science" it has to have its causalities right. Well, getting causalities right sometimes is difficult even in precise sciences (which, incidentally, require an intellectual effort on several orders of magnitude larger than in "humanities" field) and in order to be serious modern historian one has to have a wide range of competences ranging from military history to economics, languages to serious technological expertise. One especially has to get military history right. All this is required to get more or less objective picture of the world and here is the catch: 

Mearsheimer's mantra is the "decline of Russia".  Not for once did I note his this, supposedly very "academic", assessment of Russia and I did ask not for once myself a question: is it a lapse of judgement by otherwise well recognized academician or is there something more sinister in all of that? Well, I have got my answer yesterday. 

“This (Russia) is a declining great power. The only reason we have problems with it is because we have pursued liberal hegemony which called for running our alliance structure right up to their border. A self-created problem.” 

While Mearsheimer  is absolutely correct in identifying some of the reasons of the US "problems" with Russia he completely misses the issue--great or super powerdom IS NOT defined the way it is defined by the combined West. And here we must recall what late Samuel Huntington predicted in 1996, a decline of the West relative to other emerging powers. So let me not procrastinate and get to the point: Mearsheimer gets it totally wrong since it is the US, not Russia, who is declining power and in fact, last three years saw a great acceleration of this decline. Russia, meanwhile, is in ascension mode, re-emerging from her forcefully induced slumber. And here comes this state of mind of US true elites, people with consciousness, common sense, integrity and real patriotism, such as deeply respected by me Philip Giraldi who in his yesterday's piece in The American Conservative makes the same mistake as Mearsheimer.  

"The reality is that Russia, apart from its nuclear arsenal, is a bit of a mouse that roared. Its struggling economy generates a GNP that is on par with that of Italy, and it spends one-seventh as much as the U.S. on the military. It has one aircraft carrier versus 10 in the American arsenal, one-sixth as many helicopters, one-third the number of fighter aircraft, and less than half as many active-duty military personnel. It has no effective military allies, while the U.S. has nearly all of Eastern and Western Europe in NATO."

As I pointed many times in this blog--it doesn't matter what Russia spends or how many aircraft carriers she has, what matters and this is the only metric which matters is what bang Russia is getting for her buck while spending much less than US. In the end, what matters is the ability to win wars, not the number of aircraft carriers. Russia is not going to fight US Navy's CBGs on the high seas for a dubious and operationally and strategically meaningless victory (or defeat) there. Far from it, Russia would "invite" if push comes to shove those CBGs closer to Russian shores where, as I already delved into here, she will be able to deploy an overwhelming force of aircraft, ASMs, Air Defense, ECM and ECCM that will make any number of CBGs fat targets for a sequence of salvos from the air, land and on and underwater. It doesn't matter how many helicopters or aircraft USAF has, not all of them will be deployed and those which will be in the case of conventional war (I underscore--conventional) will face a collection of threats USAF encountered.... never. Nothing like it experienced in its history. Hence is this hysteria from yet another US general. 

People are missing the most important point: Russia's GDP, which is incidentally much larger than that of Italy or France, is large enough and structured in such a way that it is totally capable (not without delays and setbacks, but who doesn't have those) to produce for a fraction of costs of NATO nations state of the art weapons and operational concepts which will force the enemies to fight the war by Russian, not their, rules. Like with the moving Soviet heavy industry during Great Patriotic War to Urals, beyond the reach of Luftwaffe--the feat without comparison in human history (1500 machine building plant were transferred in several months)--the speed with which Russian Armed Forces rearmed into the state-of-the-art modern fighting force should have served as a warning and a hint that something is missing with all this Russia's expert analysis, but it didn't. But if definition of the superpowerdom in the US rests on this proverbial power projection one has to ask a question, can this US power projection work against Russia? Well, it can't and what is most important neither US, not combine NATO force (what kind of force is that--is a separate story altogether) not only cannot "defeat" Russia in her vicinity but will sustain losses and damages on the scale it never even planned for and, eventually, will be utterly defeated.  If the best soldiers in history--those of the top form Wehrmacht and SS formations circa 1942-43 found themselves signing the capitulation act in Berlin in 1945, I think the conclusion is inevitable. But other, inevitable and highly warranted conclusion has to be made--if self-proclaimed military hyper-power can not win a single war and is doomed to sustain a catastrophic defeat should it try to conventionally attack this eternally declining Russia, what is the conclusion? What does it say about this hyper-power? I guess we all know the answer and no amount of BS or mantras will change anything. We just need to hope that some rogue "exceptional" element in Pentagon will not lose his nerve and will not do a stupid thing which will cost all of us dear. After all, some people do believe fairy tales of their own making but it is time to face the hard cold facts.