Aw, Poor, Poor Dears ...

 ... in neocon central Newsweek. 

For a brief period it appeared as if President Trump had changed his strategy on Ukraine, after months of fruitless peace talks aimed at finding a diplomatic resolution to the war with Russia. Trump said last month that he believed Ukraine could beat Russia on the battlefield with more help from the West. He followed that up earlier this week by saying he might arm Ukraine with powerful Tomahawk cruise missiles that are capable of striking deep into Russian territory, putting Moscow within range. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior U.S. officials also ratcheted up their rhetoric against Moscow in recent days, ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House Friday — a further sign, it seemed, of the shift in thinking inside the administration amid growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to end the war. Then Trump spoke to Putin Thursday, and threw all of that into question.  

As I repeat ad nauseam--the only thing the US can produce militarily now is bluff and threatening rhetoric. Morons in US MSM are just that--they are morons and do not understand their own BS noise. 

Can the US supply these beautiful, powerful, shiny TLAMs to 404? Yes, it can. But then the issue arises--how do you launch them from 404 territory? Typhoon? All (like three or five) of them are in Philippines and other places in Asia. This Oshkosh X-MAV or whatever the fuck this cardboard shit is--it doesn't exist as a weapon system. 

So? Well, Vladimir Putin explained to Donald today, during the phone call, that the only way the US can launch TLAMs against Russia FROM the territory (and possibly air space) of 404 is by basing B-52 or B-1B Lancers at air fields INSIDE 404. That also means that once those TLAMs are released against targets inside Russia, most military-intel targets and US (and NATO) personnel cease to exist all over Europe (together with 404, of course) and the new civilization emerges within next 1 to 2 hours. But then, Donny is correct, the US needs those TLAMs because to get even a hundred or so leakers against Russian targets, the US will need most of its TLAMs arsenal, if to imagine that the US launches outside 404. One, single salvo. There will be no second one. Meanwhile, decommunization of 404 cities continues unbated. 

404 IS NOT going to have modern power generating capability and grid again. It doesn't need it--agriculture, while energy consuming, is nowhere near energy needs of the machine building complex, which 404 is not going to have. 

Just Numbers.

Main platforms for TLAMs in the US are surface ships (DDGs of Arleigh Burke class) and Virginia-class SSNs. So, to those who continue to view SMO through the prism of media hot air and empty statements by politicians. Here is the table:

Here is the analysis (basic calculations) from people in the know. 

This plaque shows how many Block V modification "Tomahawk" cruise missiles have been purchased since 2014 - about 1000 units. The total stock, minus those decommissioned and disposed of, launched during military operations or exercises, is about 3800 cruise missiles. Yes, there were plans in 2023 to increase the production of non-nuclear (there are no others and will not be) "axes" to 250-280 units per year, but instead, in 2024, 0 units were purchased. The US used to estimate the annual production of long-range sea cruise missiles in the Empire at about 250 units per year. And they had reasons for that - roughly such figures, minus nuclear variants, were declassified but were unlikely to be entirely truthful. And now they estimate the monthly production of only the 3M14 "Kalibr" in non-nuclear variants to be much higher than their own annual production. And we think they are still underestimating...

I want to reiterate--real military professionals are dealing with math, ranging from arithmetic to complex models, every day, because war IS math and always was. Once you begin to consider the technical "attrition" of arsenal you begin to understand why everything the US does in military field is a bluff, or bullshit in normal parlance. The US can only supply (per Financial Times) only between 20 to 50 TLAMs. OK. Lavrov today clearly stated that Moscow sees Trump's machinations. Meanwhile:

Sure, sure))

Omega Issue For Those ...

 ... who still don't get it about this silly Tomahawk (TLAMs) issue. This is omega: 

The Greek letter, whose lower case in Operations Theory stands for mathematical expectation, aka weighted average, for anything. In our case here--it is a weighted average of TLAMs required to destroy--emphasis on "destroy", not to damage-- any kind of target if it strikes it.

Consider this problem (in generalities), this is TAIF-NK refinery in Tatarstan (just a segment, not a full facility).

Here is TANECO refinery and storage, also just a part of it. 

So, here is TANECO, one of many Russia's refineries on the map.

Diagonally, as you can see yourself it is almost 6.5 miles. Now let's find some American general with degree in political science and ROTC commission, or even some graduate of the West Point and ask him a question--how many TLAMs would be required to put just a single refinery of TANECO size out of business for, say, a year--yes, what is this Omega, a math expectation. I'll give you a hint--they don't know, they never planned nor operated with anything that can shoot back. The same goes for USAF--there is not a single American pilot who has any idea how to handle real AD. 

But I can tell you what this Omega MIGHT be without AD, and I am talking about taking TANECO out, not some PR pin-pricks by 404 with drones hitting one of the towers or pipelines which are easily repaired within days, sometimes hours. No, I am talking about strategic impact. Well, even without AD, with TLAMs ALL of them being leakers it will require at least 100 (one hundred). Well, the problem for Pentagon which is utterly incompetent in issues of air defense, when operating within the environment such as Russian Air Defense, in order for them to provide 100 leakers, they will need something on the order of couple of thousands of TLAMs, which the US simply doesn't have and is incapable to produce within reasonable amount of time--say couple of months. So, do you get my drift? Correct, the only hope for the US in supplying a couple of Typhoons with TLAMs to 404 is to score some PR pin-pricks at civilian targets. 

Now, back to SMO. If you consider the fact that Russia since the very start of SMO in 2022 was using (very roughly) daily on average between 15 to 20 high precision stand off weapons (not Geraniums, I stress it) such as: 3M14 Kalibr, 3M22 Zircon, Kinzhal, P-800 Oniks, Iskander et all, then we can calculate the sum for 1,320 days of SMO. I go with higher margin because Iskanders alone are the bulk of this number. So, 1,320 x 20 = 26,400 High Precision stand-off weapons Russia used so far on targets in 404. Realistically, this number is even higher and when one adds here drones such as Geraniums the number runs into hundreds of thousands. This is BEYOND the US industrial capability by two orders of magnitude and that gives you a bit of a perspective on the scale of things and why Russians are really nonchalant about this TLAM business. Did Mr. Trump check his omega lately? You know the answer. Some in Pentagon do too--but they are a minority. 

What's Next In Arms Race? Or, The Forms Must Be Obeyed.

Daniel Larison arrived three days ago to a conclusion that Donald Trump Doesn't Know How to Negotiate. Well, we have known that for quite some time now. As Larison notes:

As we have seen, Trump’s bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side’s capitulation. The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can’t agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government’s part, he condemns all of them as “terrible” because they did not result in the other party’s surrender.  

Of course, the foundation of this lack of negotiating skills--yeah, let's say it is just that, for now--is common for pretty much majority of US power elite--it is a malignant belief in own exceptionalism. Trump is flesh and blood of this culture, it is just that not having any serious scholarly nourishment or life experiences beyond the NYC real estate hustling, he delivers the message in the most crude and risible form. So, Trump is merely a cruder, less sophisticated form of US elites. He, most likely after brainwashing by his very own so called national security team, simply finished off INF Treaty. He, quite naturally, blamed Russia for violating this Treaty and, in two weeks after INF Treaty's demise, the United States launched the missile outlawed by this very treaty, thus creating a variety, of mostly sarcastic, reactions in Moscow, who, as we all know from the ever truthful US media, was blatantly violating the said treaty. The whole situation could have been really comedic, if not for it being very serious and that was precisely the mood with which Vladimir Putin responded to, what we all knew for years now, inevitable deployment of American TLAMs in the Aegis Ashore installations and other places in Europe. 

Russia says it won’t sit idle after the US tested a missile that was banned by the INF. As a response, Moscow has an ace up its sleeves and it won’t need to enter into a Cold War-style arms race, military analysts have told RT.No longer bound by the milestone Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) – which the US unilaterally scrapped – Washington recently tested a ground-launched version of its Tomahawk cruise missile.On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said he is not up for an all-out arms race, but ordered the military to evaluate and find reciprocal answers. So, what is Russia likely to have in store to counter the emerging threat?

First, let's recall what the INF Treaty was about and why the United States decided to kill it. As was stated not for once, INF Treaty was extremely favorable to the United States for a while because it didn't cover sea-launched intermediate range weapons--a precise domain in which in the end of 1980s the United States had a vast advantage over Soviet Union, whose main intermediate-range strike capabilities were land-based. Cretin Gorbachev and his "team", in the moment of utter insanity, unilaterally threw in, for a good measure, Operational-Tactical Missile complex (OTR-23) Oka to be eliminated. Then, the USSR collapsed and Russia has unilaterally, again, this time through the will of alcoholic Boris and his team of thieves and robber-barons turned herself into the door mat for the combined West. In fact, by the end of 1990s it was difficult to see how Russia's military could recover at all, granted it was sabotaged every step of the way by Russia's "liberal" political top. Yet, here we are in 2019 and one has to wonder if Russia is realistically sorry because of INF Treaty demise. I don't think she is. 

I kept my focus on this issue for years now. Recall my series of posts  titled The Perils of Mosquito. Or, for that matter, my prediction (even before Putin's historic speech to Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018) that, at that time (2017), Russia's existing cruise missile arsenal was more than enough to provide for what Russian Military Doctrine of 2014 called a "power (as in force) strategic containment by conventional high-precision stand-off weapons".  Remember this? 

Iran knows for sure that should the unthinkable but not improbable happen, such as an American attack on the Russian forces in Syria, Iran will not be left standing on the side—she gets immediately “involved” whether she wants it or not. So, the logic goes, why not make the best of it when all bets, other than nuclear, will be off. Iran may as well have Russian forces on her side and in her airspace, which, obviously helps significantly. But that also opens another serious operational possibility in case of a real conventional conflict in the area between Russia and the US—a scenario Neocons, due to their military illiteracy and overall detachment from the strategic reality, are dreaming about. Putting inevitable emotions aside and looking at the factual side of things, Russia’s Military Doctrine since 2010, reaffirmed in 2014 Edition, views the use of stand-off High Precision as a key in strategic force containment, as Article 26 of a doctrine clearly states. Russia doesn’t want war with the US, but if push comes to shove Russia is totally capable of not only reaching US ground assets, such as CENTCOM’s Qatar forward installation but, what is even more significant, also the naval ones in the Persian Gulf.  

Then came the Speech and a tectonic shift in the warfare which pushed warfare beyond present capabilities of the American military-industrial complex. One of many hints that (real) professionals in the US understand what they are facing now was this, four days ago:  

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is pulling the plug on a billion-dollar, technically troubled project to build a better weapon that would destroy incoming missiles. The move is aimed in part at considering new approaches to missile defense at a time of rapid technological change. The announced reason for canceling the Boeing contract, effective Thursday, was that the project’s design problems were so significant as to be either insurmountable or too costly to correct. Beyond those immediate concerns, the Pentagon is considering whether it needs to start over with designing a defense against intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, such as those North Korea aspires to build, as well as newly emerging types of missiles.

Pay attention to text highlighted in yellow. Those "newly emerging types of the missiles" are precisely those hyper-sonic maneuvering quasi-ballistic and cruise missiles which Russia developed for all three domains (land, air, sea) for her armed forces and those are already deployed. The only "response" the United States has at its disposal is to go for quantity of good ol' subsonic iterations of venerable Tomahawk and all kinds of other slow variations of TLAMs such as JASSM or allegedly super-pooper "magical" weapon such as CHAMP. All this is fine and dandy, but the issue for the United States is two fold:

1. She doesn't have hyper-sonic weapons and is years, if not decades, away from fielding a working prototype, forget IOC or fully deployed weapon system. 

2. Unlike Russia, American anti-missile systems are....well...let's recall what Publius Tacitus wrote about that:

A friend of mine who has expertise in these matters wrote me: Any air defense engineer with a security clearance that isn't lying through his teeth will admit that Russia's air defense technology surpassed us in the 1950's and we've never been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot 3's look like fucking nerf guns.

S-500 is already in serial production. What's coming next is simply a matter of speculation but it has to be understood that Russia not only is capable to match and then over-match greatly any strike capability of NATO in Europe or in US proper, Russia has means to blunt if not to completely repulse a massive strike of slow subsonic or theater ballistic missiles on her territory.  Numbers should help. 


Putin and his advisers continue to express concern with TLAMs being loaded into the MK-41 cells of Aegis Ashore in Deveselu, Romania, and Redzikowo, Poland. Even the brief glance on the map allows to conclude that Polish site will be primarily a threat to Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, due to a relatively short flight time of about 15 minutes (140 miles between Redzikowo and Kaliningrad), while missiles launched from Deveselu would have to be airborne for at least 40 minutes, including half of a path over water, to strike Sevastopol. 40 minutes is a very good time to not only have anti-missile complexes completely engaged (well, 15 minutes is also fairly generous) but to have response delivered to European facilities and to launch at North America. Strategically, in military terms, for Russia very little changes in terms of ratio of forces. In fact, as I write non-stop for years, Russia has qualitative edge over the United States in missile technologies for at least a decade, if not more. Russia's protestations, expected as they are, and having in them a very sincere component of traditional Russian aversion towards any kind of hostilities and arms races, are, nevertheless, primarily of the Frank Herbert's Dune Landsraad's tradition of "The Forms Must be Obeyed". 

But, diplomatic and media-PR posturing apart, military balance sheet between Russia and NATO in Europe in case, God forbids, of the serious escalation is very clear. NATO (US that is) has a salvo and has no defense against the response to put it in layman's lingo. NATO can launch at Russia and hope that some of it's salvo, most of it subsonic and fairly easily defended against, will leak through multilayered state-of-the-art anti-missile defense. What comes in response against Europe and US cannot be defended against--US has nothing in its arsenal that can meet and blunt dramatically the salvo of supersonic weapons, against hyper-sonic weapons--zero defenses and this will stay such for a long while in this strategic tic-tac-toe game in Europe. Of course, this is European contingency, there is also a Chinese, of Far East, one, but Russian response will be about the same--new anti-missile complexes and new strike weapons on the Far East. 

Meanwhile, Russia continues to evolve as Eurasian primary military power pole and new massive military exercises Center-2019 are yet another proof of that:

Russia and seven of its allies, including China and India, will send 128,000 soldiers to train in mass anti-terrorism drills next month, the country’s Defense Ministry has announced. The upcoming maneuvers will take place a year after Russia and China staged 300,000-strong anti-missile exercises near the Chinese border. Those exercises, which were Russia's largest war games since the Cold War, took place amid heightened tension between the West and Moscow over NATO’s expansion in eastern Europe.Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that 20,000 pieces of equipment, 600 aircraft and up to 15 warships will be rolled out across eight Russian training grounds for the Tsentr-2019 (Center-2019) exercises in September.

These maneuvers will involve a wide use of Russian Armed Forces' combat internet and all those gizmos and gadgets of what came to be known as Net-centric Warfare. I guess Russia is getting ready to defend subcontinent after Mr. Trump declared that US defeated ISIS and it is now up to...well...read for yourself:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that other countries will need to take up the fight against Islamic State militants, citing Russia, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran as examples.Earlier this year, U.S.-backed forces reclaimed the last remaining territory once held by Islamic State militants in Syria. Since then, however, there has been concern about the militant group gaining new strength in Iraq and Syria."At a certain point Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, they're going to have to fight their battles," Trump told reporters at the White House, later saying India should also get involved."All of these other countries where ISIS is around ... all of these are going to have to fight," he said, adding that the United States did not want to spend "another 19 years" fighting the Afghan war.

Sure. United States wouldn't have spent those 19 years in Afghanistan if it wouldn't have aided those very mujaheddin in 1980s who, together with the remnants of a demolished Iraqi Army and other jihad-minded humanitarians, constituted the core of both Taliban and ISIS. But we all know that hindsight is a 20/20 vision and one has to think now how the new "arms race" initiated by the United States will be viewed in the hindsight twenty or so years down the road, granted we all survive Mr. Trump's lack of negotiating skills, including skills in recognizing that he surrounded himself with militarily incompetent neocon fanatics and Israeli-firsters who, together with Wall Street Neo-liberal economic fundamentalists, are behind America's demise in military, economic and geopolitical senses. One may add a mental one, too.

Russian General Staff Exhibition.

Of "smart" missiles which took part in illegal strike on Syria on April 13. It is obvious that this is not the whole harvest, with declared one Tomahawk and one JASSM accurately "landed" and being now in possession of Russian military, but, in general--this is rather telling proof of an excellent performance by the Syria's AD armed mostly with old Soviet tech. As Ria reports:

In this place were Russian MoD photos. Somehow they are gone. I didn't take them down. I wonder what made them disappear. It is truly bizarre. Well, let's try this then:

By far more important news, however, was this today's statement from General Staff:

MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. Syria will receive new missile defense systems in the near future and Russian experts will teach Syrians to use them, Head of the Main Operations Department at Russia’s General Staff Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi said at a briefing on Wednesday.

General Staff in Russia doesn't set policies--Kremlin does, so Rudskoy's statement is the statement of policy sanctioned on the highest political level. As I always repeat some of the more profound truisms--all actions have consequences. It was clear that April 13 attack will not be left without response. It seems response is "pouring in" now in full force. What would Israel do? I suggest her to call Kremlin. As per exhibition of those "all" missiles which struck Syria's chemical facilities and "none" of which was shot down--I guess this small exhibition speaks volumes. But then again, there will be many "experts" who would state that these are merely remnants of missiles which struck targets. Of course they are, of course they are. In related news--I am Mickey Mouse. 

As Colonel Lang stated today: 

So what happened? I am told by several foreign sources with access to the information needed to make a valid judgment that the Russians are correct. These people are friendly to the United States as are their governments. Over two thirds of the US coalition missiles failed to reach their targets. Why? All the reasons cited above must have played a role in this aerial defeat. Obsolescent weapons, a fully integrated air defense and skill brought to the fight.

"Russian experts will continue to train Syrian military servicemen, particularly teaching them to use the new missile defense systems that are planned to be delivered to Syria in the near future," he said.


More:
http://tass.com/defense/1001702

No amount of PR can hide the fact that both sides of the conflict know the score and it is not in favor of NATO and Israel. I will omit for now elaboration on possible "improvement" of TLAMs which is coming--to understand why it will not matter that much... well, my book should be out fairly soon. 

Let The Western Media "Win".

This morning, more-or-less verified data started to pour in. And it is not pretty, to put it mildly, for NATO "technology" and Western media went into overdrive delivering what they deliver best--incompetent BS and propaganda. But the main takeaway from this insanity by US and her two pathetic lap-dog, UK and France, is this:

1. It is obvious, that the strike was "choreographed" between US and Russia to allow both face saving and diffusing way out for POTUS who is an aggressive incompetent bully, who will try to put the world on the brink yet again, especially considering the fact that he is not "briefable" and runs completely on his mood and amateur impulses. One of the, obvious now, condition for strike was to both avoid hitting any Russian asset and, as most likely was settled, to keep Russian AD assets in Syria from direct engaging of NATO targets. 

2. Thus only Syrian AD was engaged in repulsing of the illegal NATO strike. Syrian AD proper, unlike newest Russian assets there, has mostly equipment, bar 40 S1s and some Buk-M2s, from 1980s. Of course, even those assets are now integrated into the Russian AD system and do receive acquisition and targeting information from Russian complexes' plethora of modern radar and optronic systems. 

3. Out of 103 TLAMs launched by NATO, it is confirmed now--71 have been shot down by Syrian AD. It is an outstanding result for older, granted--upgraded, AD systems. It is also an embarrassment for NATO. Judging by the overall pictures from Damascus and Homs even early morning--life seemed absolutely normal and very few hits and mild destruction were reported. As Deputy Chief of General Staff Alexander Rudskoy stated: there are no killed among SAA's servicemen (in Russian). He also expanded on the "sources" of launches which included B-1B bombers and launches were conducted both from Med and Red Sea. 

4. Evidently Buk-M2 performed extremely well and that is the system which was delivered to Syria some time ago and nobody knows how many of those are there. They are there, though--it is a confirmed fact. 

5. The United States, let alone her poodles from NATO, never experienced, since Vietnam, competent and effective AD system. Performance of Syrian AD today can easily be graded as A-  and it is totally deserved. 

In coming days and weeks US propaganda machine will continue to parrot pathetic grandiose statements by POTUS and Pentagon, but first conclusion is clear--they know their technology is good only against weak, badly trained, third world militaries. One thing Syrian AD has now, which all those "integrated" and "modern" systems from 1950s and 1960s in Iraq or in Yugoslavia didn't have is serious EW (ECM and ECCM) capability which Russia obviously provides for Syria today. Once this factors in--it becomes clear that once AD, such as Syrian one, gets its personnel properly trained and AD properly integrated with modern detection-acquisition-targeting complex it becomes deadly and reduces strike options only to stand-off weapons. Entrance of any manned aircraft into the range spells doom for aircraft and, possibly, for pilot. 

US can not and doesn't know how to lose--it will double down to overcome embarrassment and knowing clearly who Donald Trump is today, we will see escalation. But let's still give credit where credit is due--to Mad Dog Mattis and to Joseph Dunford who did all they could to keep insane dwellers of the mad house, aka The White House, from unleashing the WW III. At least not yet. For now let the sewer known as US media percolate triumphalist BS. 

P.S. Yes, it seems S-300 latest versions will be now delivered to all Russia's allies.