I Think Larry and Pepe ...

 ... have a point about Iran's nukes. It is likely (how likely, IDK) it exists. What is absolutely positive--it is Iran's delivery capability. If nukes exist Iran has a very good delivery capability against any target in the region (Israel, that's you) and parts of Europe. 

There has been a dramatic and noticeable shift in Donald Trump’s rhetoric and social media posts regarding Iran since Pepe and I received the report of Iran’s threat to do a demonstration detonation of a nuclear warhead if the US does not cease its attacks on Iran. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Iran is still willing to negotiate a peaceful end to the war with the US and Israel but is insisting that the US end its blockade, stop its attacks on Iranian vessels, and halt the Israeli attacks in Lebanon. In the latest news we received from the Pakistani source, Pakistani officials are expressing optimism that they will be able to broker a deal between the US and Iran that will culminate in a meeting between Donald Trump and Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Islamabad, Pakistan within the next 40 days. Here’s the raw intelligence:

As is correctly pointed out in graphics--Trump is now selling offramp. 

Meanwhile, Scott unleashes a fiery takedown of Europe at SPIEF and I entirely agree with Scott. 

In fact, I subscribe to every word. Europa Delenda Est! In the US--we will try to figure something out on our own. 

I Am Sure KGB ...

 ... coerced these poor robots (by blackmailing them through their immediate families) )))

Why can't they be free like American robots;))

June 17, SitRep.

Prior to this SitRep is my talking head tired of illiterate military technological BS being spread by Western media, especially those from that little insignificant island country which still pretends that it matters. 

I also explain the meaning of horseradish, while the butcher's bill today is on decline, relatively speaking, since VSU lost today under 1,000 KIAs. 

Little consolation for Washington and London, because people there never saw anything like this in their lives. The butcher's bill for June so far is terrifying.

11, 430 KIAs in VSU as of today (for some reason the data for June 8th is still not available). And here is the catch--scaling up the operation and merely linearly extrapolating casualties data from it doesn't work, the larger the scale of operation the more difference there is in the tactical, operational and strategic dynamics. This is for those who still think about "putting boots" of the US Army on the ground. Read my lips:

1. US Army is not prepared to fight such a war because it will be denied practically every single advantage it usually has over mighty Taliban, Grenada or terrorist groups with AK-47s and RPGs. Plus, US Army cannot fight without USAF dominating skies. There will be no USAF in the skies in case of Washington willing to commit a suicide;

2. The US Army simply is NOT capable to take casualties of the scale of VSU. In "boots on the ground" scenario (God forbids) the number of KIAs will grow exponentially once Russia will begin to fight a war, not conduct SMO--two different things. 

3. Much of VSU personnel, unlike it is the case with US Army, are brainwashed and many are, albeit declining in quantity, fight doggedly and have a very real hatred of Russians, which originates from the place no US serviceman has or understands. 

4. NATO "training" is worthless not just because many from VSU are better fighters and themselves can train NATO armies, US Army included, but because NATO fighting doctrines and manuals do not reflect realities of real war. No US Army operational-strategic formation--division, corps, army et al--knows or trains to fight when the whole of command corps is annihilated in decapitation strike. Russia can deliver such strikes consistently in large combined arms conflict, the NATO cannot due to issues with Air Defense and lack of any serious high speed high precision stand off weapons. This doesn't mean that there can be no leakers or even lucky hits--this is certainly possible, but any NATO battlefield C2 asset will be degraded with a much higher speed than the same can be done against Russia. 

And there you have it--this is reality of modern war. Not some BS turkey shoot in Gulf against defenseless opponent. That's the SitRep for June 17th.  Now Pentagon, allegedly, wants to "guard" reputation of its generals. Good luck with that, the only reputation all of them have is in losing wars. Nobody damages their "reputation" better than they do it themselves. And don't tell me that I didn't warn about it--I did.

RT Staff Is Ignorant...

Mr. Lukyanov is not an "expert" in anything as is not Simonyan--the big honcho of RT-- or most people "populating" the so called Russia's "expert community" (most of them humanities dumbed-down Ph.Ds) in "foreign relations". His only claim to anything is his navigation of the Moscow's political Beau Monde. 

The Russian military offensive in Ukraine is likely to last for a long time and will bring about the “decoupling” of the Russian and Western economies, Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent expert on international relations and editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs said on Thursday. Speaking to RT, Lukyanov spoke about short-term prospects for the conflict, noting that at the beginning of the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine both Moscow and the West probably had some “illusions” that the conflict could be resolved diplomatically. “Now we have this particular situation where military force only decides,” he said. Both Russia and Ukraine, he stressed, are now led by “a military logic” which suggests that any cessation of military action would give the other side a chance to regroup and prepare for further actions.

Mr. Lukyanov cannot have any competent opinion on SMO in principle because he is absolutely ignorant on anything related to military operations (or any operations, for that matter) because his horizon is a horizon of "journalist" and a recruiter for his publication based on credentialism of others like him and a rumor mill of Moscow political, yes, again, Beau Monde, period. Why this ignoramus, as well as others like him, unless, of course they are some sort of psyops by SVR which wants to parade Russians as heralds of geopolitical triviality, still find a tribune at RT beats me. Read my lips--happy times of "humanities" educated fanboys from Moscow (or D.C.) "humanities" madras are over--they have zero skills related to modern statesmanship and the main reason for that is because they have zero (in fact, negative, as is case with Lukyanov) understanding of power which is a main driver of modern geopolitics. It matters especially in the case of Lukyanov whose understanding of a  combined West is as reliable as my understanding of Chinese choreography.

G8? Not Again!

The (relatively) old broken record is on a turntable, again: 

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The Group of Eight (G8) has been losing its importance for Russia given the changing political and economic situation, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "Over the years, this forum has been losing its importance because given the changing political and economic situation, other platforms, such as the G20, where Russia is an active member, have been becoming more important," Peskov said. At the same time, he declined to speculate as to whether Russia would be willing to go back to the G8 platform in case there was an invitation to do that. A number of media outlets said earlier that the German parliament had spoken out in favor of reviving the G8 in order to better oppose the US influence on the European policies. Russia was excluded from the G8 in 2014 following its reunification with Crimea, so the group was reformatted back into the G7

I clearly understand German economic and political aspirations (and conundrum) here since Russia is Germany's critical partner in a number of economic fields, energy being a prime one, but, as I stated not for once, what is there for Russia to do in this G7? I clearly understand an allure of being "accepted" by the so called West for Russian uber-liberals, but they are not formulating Russia's foreign policy nor, as usual, do they represent any substantial or, for that matter, humanly worthy part of vast and complex Russian population. And then there is this rather touchy and sensitive, and propaganda, issue—G7 of supposedly economically most developed nations is not quite adequate to this title anymore. No doubt, G7 still boasts the highest living standard in the world but, omitting here the issue of how this standard was achieved and where it is going, it must be understood that Russia's hypothetical, and highly unlikely, return to G7, thus making it back to G8, brings into it (Russian) economy which is roughly the size that of Germany and which is smaller in this G8 only than economies of the United States (grossly overvalued anyway) and that of Japan. The rest of the economies of this G8 are distant "second" to that of Russia and those are economies of France, Italy, Canada and UK. As one can see from the data by CIA, not only Russia brings to the table a rather massive and (still) grossly undervalued economy:

Russia brings to hypothetical G8 what Germany needs—a massive military-strategic alternative and counter-balance to the US. Recall Putin hinting to Macron several days ago at SPIEF that if need be Russia will be able to take care of Europe's "security". The United States will NOT allow Russia's return to G7 format for precisely this reason, but Russia doesn't want that anyway. Indeed, why? Russia's major economic interests today lay not only in politically unstable Europe but in Asia too and Russia is having a much more productive interaction there be it with China, India or any other major economy there. Remarkably, those economies, unlike subjugated political midget of Europe, do not really care about US "sanctions". And yes, Russia IS not only military or technological but also an energy superpower. Who would have thought that this definition given by Putin a decade or so ago and which was laughed at by Russia's so called "liberals" will come true with a vengeance and will expose those Russian "experts" as complete fraud that they always were.

We left St. Petersburg one day before the start of SPIEF—we left an incredibly vibrant, confident and immensely crowded by Europeans city. Same with Moscow which, together with many other Russian cities, also projects today this new found sense of optimism, confidence and growth, despite Russia's very real economic and other problems, but the sense of optimism and anticipation is in the air all over Russia. This also differed from 2016. Economic dynamism is there, it is palpable and CNC operators, machinists, drafters, mechanics, engineers are needed everywhere. So, what is Russia to gain by entering an informal and rather boring club when she has behind her back a 23 trillion dollar Chinese and 9 trillion dollar Indian, among many others, economies with their immense markets for technology and energy? Nothing. We are in the phase of the major shift in the global order and Russia seems to be doing just fine of her own. If Germany, Italy or France want to talk—they know where to call and who to visit.  They want real security--talk to the Boss.