Why They Are Not Bright.

The US is a fractured nation (or using Huntington's lingo--a torn one) and against the background of a precipitous (always not very high) decline of cognitive abilities of the best of the best the US "elite machine" produces, be them politicians or military, one has to question motives of those so called "elites". Going back to this NYT piece (of shit), Larry did a good write up about it yesterday: 

I can summarize the massive story in one sentence — Ukraine would have destroyed the weak, incompetent Russians if only the Ukrainian generals had followed the guidance from the US military. If you’re looking for a signal that the war in Ukraine is on its last legs, this article is it. This is a ridiculous attempt to burnish the image of the Pentagon and US European Command as strategic and tactical geniuses who could have beaten the Russians if only those damn Ukrainians had followed their advice.

But here is the critical point which is very interesting for Russian General Staff and military academies where, now confirmed by the NYT, intellectual impotence of Pentagon will be studied in astonishment for years to come. Here is this phrase. 

One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.

Let me translate it to you: using one of many definitions (all of them very similar) we define the Kill Chain as: kill chain is the ability of an organization to rapidly and accurately execute all the steps from locating to killing an enemy target. It represents the essential contest in modern warfare. In other words, cretins from NYT confirmed what Russians knew all along--the US was in full command and control of VSU top-bottom. Well, apart from the moral aspect of the story that the US military excelled primarily in attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure, the conclusion is not only warranted but inescapable--US military knows very little about modern warfare, especially in the C2 (Command and Control) field where even modern Comms, Computers and ISR are no match to a much more experienced and technologically advanced opponent with an immense advantage in kinetic means. 

For those who still do not understand the depth of this loss for--now we can openly state it--the US Armed Forces in 404, I want to remind you one thing which has been repeated by Russian military non-stop--Russian Army never lost operational initiative. American generals, however, have been looking, as it is now a pattern, in all the wrong places for planning and, as is always the case, descended into the tactical minutiae and PR-based assessment of the battlefield. The fact that they also bought 404's propaganda about casualties also tells everything you need to know about Pentagon. By the time they started to suspect something--it was too late. And then there was a "counter-offensive". It was planned by the US generals and, naturally, it ended in catastrophe for them and those unlucky 160,000+ VSU who have never reached even the first line of Russian defense and have been slaughtered in the forefield (security zone). This is what I wrote about this disaster for NATO and, naturally, strategic victory for Russia. 

The most stunning factor in this whole situation was the fact of not classifying the so-called “counter-offensive” by AFU, while classifying the assessment which, correctly, forecasted some serious issues for the AFU. This assessment was definitely driven by a common military sense and basic understanding of what is called the Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM). Of course, the problem for the West was that the Russian side was preparing to turn those “shortfalls” into unmitigated military catastrophe for Ukraine and the Biden Administration, who had pushed for this amateurishly planned adventure. But even this “classified” assessment—a marked departure from the Biden administration’s public pronouncements about the vitality of Ukraine’s army—should have given the planners in the White House, State Department and Pentagon a serious pause. But it didn’t. The reason it didn’t lies in both the U.S. military’s lack of expertise with real modern warfare of the 21st century across the board and in a precipitous intellectual decline of the fully “echo-chambered” Washington elite, whose insulation from reality and lack of serious competencies in any matters of military strategies and national governance reached grotesque and deadly proportions for both the remnants of Ukraine and for the United States itself. 

I can go off on a tangent of sorts here (again) while describing a dramatic cultural and institutional difference between American "way" of war and Russian one, but that is just the part of problem--the problem is in incompetence of American elites who are the products of a completely confabulated history and of fragile insecure view of themselves. The US is not the "finest fighting force" and it never has been and because of that, as Michael Brenner astutely noted:

Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be in jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality. There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road. 

By getting involved with 404 and trying to destroy Russia, the US and its chihuahuas from European NATO collapsed this edifice and exposed a rather unimpressive structure which convinced itself that it can fight and win a conventional war against military superpower of Russia which has been such a superpower longer than the United States existed as a nation. A few good (and competent) men cannot fix the mechanism which was broken for decades and the SMO confirmed it fully. NYT, however, gave us an ample confirmation that the US ran the whole damn thing from military standpoint, and this is a critical admission. Or as they say on the street--FAFO. I thank you, NYT, for not being bright and exposing, accidently, the truth.     

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.