And How Exactly This "Meaningful Support" ...

 ... is defined? I follow periodically the so-called Quincy Institute (Responsible Statecraft) publications and can reiterate my point that this Institute is nothing more than a collection of the sinecures and a tribune for credentialed amateurs, such as people "the caliber" of Anatol Lieven or even George Beebe, both of who wouldn't understand a first thing about Russia and warfare, but still continue to write all kinds of nonsense, expected from people with no applicable education and experience. But if Responsible Statecraft publishing on Russia, bar a very few competent pieces by people the scale of Esteemed Ambassador Jack Matlock, is nothing that a jumbled pseudo-academic BS, we have now yet another Ph.D who writes about Russian-Iranian relations. I want to forestall any kind of accusations and state that the extend of my Farsi knowledge is the name of dice in Nard and that I never visited Iran, albeit I guarded the maritime border between USSR and Iran during very interesting (to put it mildly) times. 

So, Ahmad Mahmoudian penned the piece about Russian-Iranian relations in which he, ignoring most of the facts of developing ties between Tehran and Moscow (he needs to pay attention to shipyards in Astrakhan and what is going on there, as one example), concludes that Iran will be sidelined once the SMO concludes. OK, I am sure that this school of thought has the right to exist, but Mahmoudian arrives to this conclusion based, among other things, on this:

Yet, Iran’s newfound influence had clear limits. Russia continued to withhold advanced aircraft, and during Iran’s confrontations with Israel in April and October of 2024, Moscow refrained from offering meaningful support to Tehran. This underscored the constraints of their partnership, while cooperation had deepened, it remained shaped by competing interests and underlying power asymmetries.

My immediate question is how Mr. Mahmoudian knows that Moscow "refrained from offering meaningful support" to Tehran? What does "meaningful" mean in Mr. Mahmoudian's universe. Is Mr. Mahmoudian privy to classified communications between Russian MoD and MoD of Iran? Can he guarantee that Russian ISR have not been working for Iran who successfully repelled Israel's attempt? Or can Mr. Mahmoudian explain to his readers what that is? 

This one is Ghadir Radar station--a second one for Iran. You can see the set here. This radar is the most advanced 1000-km range radar capable of detecting the so called "stealth" targets, ballistic missiles and hypersonic ones. Hm, it doesn't look to me that Russians do not offer "meaningful support" to Iran after all. Moreover, they were doing this well before that start of SMO, which, in accordance to Mr. Mahmoudian, "shaped" Russian-Iranian relations. Hm, strange, what to do with this then, from 2020?

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, August 24. /TASS/. Russian-made radar Rezonans-NE, which Iran purchased to identify and track stealth aircraft and hypersonic targets, successfully spotted and tracked US F-35 fighters near the country’s borders during an aggravation of tensions at the beginning of 2020 following the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the deputy CEO of the research center Rezonans Alexander Stuchilin told TASS on Monday. At the beginning of 2020 this radar identified US F-35 planes and tracked them," he said on the sidelines of the international military-technical forum Army-2020.

Stuchilin said that he was referring to the "well-known events of the beginning of this year." "The radar’s personnel were transmitting information, including the routes of F-35 flights, in clear, thus confirming that it was reliably tracking the planes. For this reason, the opponent did not commit any irreparable actions that might have caused a big war," Stuchilin said. He remarked that the Rezonans-NE radar had been on round-the-clock combat duty in Iran for several years.

I will not comment on the persistent rumors of Russia's deliveries of Su-35s to Iran. Will wait for the confirmation, but here is my point--this is the XXI century, and this is the time for all kinds of "Ph.Ds" in political pseudo-science to abstain from writing on any things related to military-political matters without the basic understanding of military technology and how it influences operations in all four domains and how this operational impact (effect) is measured. I read for three years a delirium by Anatol Lieven and other "experts" about SMO and Russia. It looks like the same type of "expertise" is being published, yet again, by Quincy Institute which, it seems, is into the business of recycling same credentialed Washington "intellectuals" who wouldn't know shit from shinola. They certainly wouldn't understand what "leakers" are and how to assess them. 

P.S. In other news, Iran produces domestically rather decent AD complexes, many of which are knockoffs (good ones) of Russian ones. They are good enough to defend Iran as the events with successful repelling of Israeli attack demonstrated fully. 

Visiting Barnes And Noble...

 ... I did it yesterday again, and when sipping on my latte from B&N coffee shop I usually browse periodicals such as Combat Aircraft and Air Forces. Yesterday, looking at the latest issues of both I couldn't find any so called "Ukraine-Russia War" headline on the cover of Air Forces, which prior to a demolition of the fabled "counteroffensive" by VSU in Summer 2023 have been plastered with SMO's headlines all over on the covers and inside. Enough to take a look at June 2023 issue where Tim Ripley investigated the leaks from Pentagon about air war in SMO titled State's Secrets, in which he stresses Pentagon's own assessment of Russian Air Defense being 97% effective. But in the latest issues--nothing, except for some tiny note in the "cellar" about VSU shooting down Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers using some "long-range" missiles--the information based on... "intel" from UK Defense Ministry. That means wet fantasies of depressed amateurs with epaulets from London witnessing the true "scale" of UK as a nation and as a military (lack of) power. 

Except, of course, for masturbating convulsions by Bulgarian NATO shill and semi-literate BSer Alexander Mladenov who made a career for himself writing about things based on "data" supplied by VSU. So, the guy decided "to learn lessons" of air war in 404 based on "data" most of which is nothing but Ukie wet fantasies. It is difficult to explain to a graduate of a one-year (1996-97) so called "reserve" officer of Artillery and Air Defense vocational school in Sofia that masturbating to Top Gun: Maverick and "studying" air war records such as in... Afghanistan, against mighty Taliban's air defense and air force is not exactly a good foundation for combat study and operational assessment of... anything, but Mladenov continues to collect BS from Ukies and spread it as a fact. You cannot fix a Bulgarian нищеброд (a beggar with a pauper's concept of a wealth) who gets patted on the back and enjoys being anything but military professional. But that's the issue of which I speak non-stop. 

So, Mike Krupa sends me today the link to Quincy's Institute for the so called Responsible Statecraft with three "experts" Lieven, Beebe and Episkopos doing what they usually do in US so called "intellectual" circles of humanities credentialed and dumbed down individuals who want to be military analysts but have absolutely no background required for that. So, they produce (how predictable) a "paper" naturally titled: Right-Sizing the Russian Threat to Europe. Needless to say, it is a wowser. A collection of tropes, while exposing lack of any awareness of modern warfare by people none of who, even CIA's own Beebe, have basic tool kit for grasping balance of military power and how it is formed, as for Lieven--he is a pathetic BSer with own agenda. So, these three find nothing better than grab Radakin's BS and this table of linear nominal numbers:

Obviously, none of them has any clue about how Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM) is calculated, how strategies are developed and operational planning is done based on real data sets--all of which are highly classified--not some media BS and none of them having any clue and feel of Russian military environment. They cannot understand it, least of them Lieven, what "harmonization" in the coalition warfare is and why NATO's TOE is a joke--it is the TOE and operational concepts based on propaganda BS from Desert Storm and "optimism" of people who never saw and experienced real war. So, it is more surprising that after loads of BS they (come on, Beebe was a cadre CIA, after all) arrive to a semi-coherent conclusion: 

In short, the threat of war between Russia and NATO is quite real, but not because Russian leaders have any desire to initiate a war of conquest against the West.

Why did they need to produce this "paper" only to quote what was repeated by Russian political top non-stop beats me. Moreover, this trite "conclusion" misses the whole point--Europe is irrelevant, while the American military mythology has been utterly destroyed. Because of that, the processes of which anyone with a half-brain warned about for many years are beginning to manifest themselves in the most profound way. Instead of pasting BS military data, these three should be thinking now about how to approach the thermonuclear financial bomb of the US national debt and what will happen with the US as a country once it explodes. And, please, Mr. Bacevich, hire somebody with real military background to write strategy papers on Russia for your "Institute"--make sure they are not from D.C. area and preferably are not from the cesspool of the American "Russia Study" field. I am sure grants to your institute will cover this. But then again, it is only my friendly advice. I will discuss this "paper" with my friends from Russian military--they periodically need some laughter, pseudo academic fraud is a good subject for that. 

Anatol Lieven Is an Idiot.

Which is expected from Anglo-American dumbed down Ph.D in political pseudo-science and the guy who has absolutely zero background in modern world other than dropping quotes from people who described the world in times of dreadnoughts and ballistic tables at best, and operated on the very general idea of selsyn driven analogue computers and basic principles of internal combustion engines. This is in the basic case scenario. Now we have all these "humanities"-educated "strategists" running like a bunch of goats slated for the slaughter trying to make out what do they see in this complex reality and as the result we have this pseudo-scholastic BS in Soros-funded Quincy Institute:

Putin’s move on Donestk, Lugansk is illegal but falls short of new ‘invasion. The next steps are critical: we must hold threat of full scale sanctions and a Ukrainian military response, until Russia extends farther. 

They just don't learn. They are incapable of learning. Top-bottom. For Lieven, personally, learn the goddamn history of Russia of the 20th century before offering your ignorant opinion on the issues of mobilization and real economy before trying to make sense on the events of such a scale that the "professors" from your Cambridge College can not even wrap their pea-brains around it. Resign yourself to a simple fact that islanders (UK-and US) suck at real continental warfare and you know zilch about it in the 21st century (same is applied to real economy and R&D). Yet, they continue to bloviate. It is really nauseating reading sweeping generalizations on "strategy" from people who would not recognize the difference between uncertainty in getting a STD from a crack whore in London and uncertainty in targeting received from space based assets when sensory fused with platforms organic sensors. Yet, here we are, good ol' boys from "elite" colleges where they pretend to "study" trying to make a sense out of what they see, having no tools to grasp it. That is why his "reasoning" reads like this: 

Russia’s action has narrowed the space for diplomacy to resolve this crisis, but not yet destroyed it. As long as there is any hope of preventing a wider war, it is our duty to pursue it, both by the genuine and credible threat of massive economic sanctions, and by the genuine and sincere offer of reasonable compromise.

Sounds and reads as that of a totally detached from the reality teenager. Sad, really, seeing this demagogue (together with Rod Dreher from TAC among many others) having a tribune in yet another pseudo "realist" remuneration source in D.C. Andrew Bacevich should know better. Especially the fact that US "diplomacy" is a simulacrum.

I Am Not Sure Yet How To View This.

I mean new think-tank headed by Andrew Bacevich--The Quincy Institute. From the get go one is startled by the names of couple of contributors to what is defined as responsible statecraft institute--George Soros' name definitely makes one to pause. Yet, one has to keep in mind that ideas behind this new think-tank set it in a complete opposition to a majority of the present US think-tanks whose main purpose is justification of disastrous US foreign policy and military adventurism. So, Quincy Institute's intro does make sense:

The foreign policy of the United States has become detached from any defensible conception of U.S. interests and from a decent respect for the rights and dignity of humankind. Political leaders have increasingly deployed the military in a costly, counterproductive, and indiscriminate manner, normalizing war and treating armed dominance as an end in itself. Moreover, much of the foreign policy community in Washington has succumbed to intellectual lethargy and dysfunction. It suppresses or avoids serious debate and fails to hold policymakers and commentators accountable for disastrous policies. It has forfeited the confidence of the American public. The result is a foreign policy that undermines American interests and tramples on American values while sacrificing the stores of influence that the United States had earned.

Attacks by the most vile Neo-cons, such as low-life Bill Kristol, against this new think-tank also make total sense--the whole idea that somebody other than them (Neo-cons) will have a platform when discussing issues of war and peace terrifies them, especially when such a platform is headed by a cadre US Army senior officer with operational experience, especially knowing what a personal tragedy this officer went through when losing his son, US Army young officer in a criminal military adventure in Iraq. Bacevich's voice does matter in this case. 

Larison's comment on this new endeavor is good:

The name of the Quincy Institute for this new effort to promote a foreign policy of peace and restraint is well-chosen. As we are coming up on the bicentennial of John Quincy Adams’ famous July 4th speech in a couple years, we do well to remember what he said to his fellow countrymen. This passage in particular should be repeated as often as possible:

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

It took a long time, but Adams’ warning came to pass. We did enlist under other banners than our own, and we did involve ourselves in the wars of interest and intrigue, and the maxims of our policy have changed to force. There are many that want to make sure that our foreign policy remains this way, and the Quincy Institute offers Americans the hope that it does not have to be that way forever.

Remarkably, the only sensible discussion on America's real and legitimate national interests is possible only within the framework which Quincy Institute wants to establish. At this stage one is only hopeful that establishment of this institute is not one step too few, too late.