There Is Really Nothing To See There.

Trump is an empty suite and hot air balloon, who never controlled any of his administrations which are nothing more than collections of shysters with competing interests. Only cretins from the US pundits' class could hypothesize about some "strategy" and "balances" from such "composition" of Trump's "team", not seeing that the only purpose of Trump's presidency is self-aggrandizing and serving people who own him. 

Someone in Washington could be trying to undermine US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has suggested, commenting on the recent leaks of his conversations with the envoy. At least some of the purported leaks are fake, he added. Speaking to Kommersant newspaper on Wednesday, Ushakov defended continued contacts between Moscow and Washington, including by phone, and maintained they are needed to build trust between the two nations. He also said that neither side was interested in leaking the contents of the conversations. According to the presidential aide, the incident might point to infighting in Washington. “Do you remember the case of [former National Security Adviser] Michael Flynn? This case could be the same,” the official said.

Ushakov is being diplomatic here, of course. The US is ungovernable and this chaos will continue. Which brings us to this: 

The Navy is walking away from the Constellation-class frigate program to focus on new classes of warships the service can build faster, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced Tuesday on social media. Under the terms negotiated with shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, the Wisconsin shipyard will continue to build Constellation (FFG-62) and Congress (FFG-63) but will cancel the next four planned warships. “We are reshaping how the Navy builds its fleet. Today, I can announce the first public action is a strategic shift away from the Constellation-class frigate program,” reads the statement from Phelan. “The Navy and our industry partners have reached a comprehensive framework that terminates, for the Navy’s convenience, the last four ships of the class, which have not begun construction.” A senior defense official told reporters Tuesday that the cancellation of the ship program was part of the Navy’s latest effort to build and deliver new ship classes faster. “A key factor in this decision is the need to grow the fleet faster to meet tomorrow’s threats. This framework seeks to put the Navy on a path to more rapidly construct new classes of ships and deliver capabilities our war fighters need in greater numbers and faster,” the official said. In tandem, the wider Pentagon is retooling its acquisition system to emphasize speed. 

What you witness here is a bankruptcy of the whole acquisition and procurement policy not just in the US Navy, but US Armed Forces as a whole. For starters, it is inconceivable that the ship such as Constellation, carrying a rather timid air defense and strike packages--same ole', same ole' VLS with SM-6 and TLAMs, with subsonic Naval Strike Missile with the range of around 300 nautical miles, cost more than $ 1 billion dollars. 

It is a beautiful ship, but it is obsolete on arrival due to a new warfare paradigm driven by the ability to develop firing solution for long-range supersonic and hypersonic weapons 24/7. It is an anathema for the average US admiral and general to grasp a very simple truth. This, $100 million small ship:

Can sink in one salvo both Constellations, and it will have targeting and develop firing solution even before any of the modern US Navy ships can get into range. But here is the deal--for the price of a single Constellation Russia builds 10+ of these guys. Or, about three of these:

These ARE game-changers capable of sinking the whole CBG in a single salvo while staying way beyond the reach of anything CBG can launch back. But then again, unlike SM-6 and SPY-1, 2, 3 ...6, Poliment-Redut, known in its ground-base version as S-350 Vityaz is known for its outstanding real combat performance against every single stand-off weapon in NATO's arsenal. I guess, you get this simple math here, right? These are realities which the US military is simply incapable to face. And so, as they say:

“Sometimes, you’re just better off designing a new ship,” Navy’s former top acquisition executive Nickolas Guertin said at a conference in February. “Turns out modifying someone else’s design is a lot harder than it seems.”

Well, good luck spending another 10 + years designing a frigate while continuing with building unfit for combat LCS and fast becoming obsolete TLAM-carrying platforms such as good but insanely expensive and, as already stated--nearing obsolescence, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Late Admiral Rickover once stated that "The US Navy is used to traveling first class"--meaning the fleet of very large (and visually impressive) ships which today turned into a menagerie of very expensive white elephants good only for blowing up some third rate opposition from a safe distance. Read the comments to the USNI article I linked--they are very instructive. Always remember--it is COFM (Correlation Of Forces and Means) which is in the foundation of modern forces. 

Well, Evidently It Is Not A Circus...

 ... anymore. It is something else altogether. Ah, nah, still circus:

Not long after, Musk’s tension with Trump’s trade team devolved into blows, in an altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said Stephen K. Bannon, the influential right-wing podcaster and longtime political adviser to Donald Trump. In mid-April, Musk and Bessent had gone into the Oval Office to make their respective cases about their preferences for acting IRS commissioner. Trump decided to support Bessent’s choice. That disagreement was first reported by the New York Times. After Bessent and Musk exited the Oval Office and began walking down the hallway, the two men started to exchange insults, Bannon said he was told, adding that Bessent brought up Musk’s claims that he would uncover more than $1 trillion in wasteful and fraudulent government spending, which Musk had not succeeded at doing. “Scott said, ‘You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud,’” Bannon said in an interview. Musk then rammed his shoulder into Bessent’s rib cage “like a rugby player,” Bannon said, and Bessent hit him back. Multiple people stepped in to break up the scrum as the two men reached the national security adviser’s office, and Musk was shuffled out of the West Wing.

As stupid as Bessent is, he is not entirely incorrect in his description of Musk. He should have asked me (c) quoting Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. Meanwhile, our editorial staff obtained documentary of the scuffle. Don't be confused by marmots using Russian profanity. We are as confused as you are, wink, wink. 

Remember, I Warned ...

 ... about it. I warned for a long time that this is coming. This is two years ago:

It is a Western plane whether we like it or not. And that is a huge deal, because Chinaisation of this plane, if it ever commences, will be a torturous and prolonged process. If... So, each time I read or hear that C919 is a "competitor" to Boeing or Airbus, I cringe. Commercial aviation is an extremely complex industry which incorporates know-how only very few countries have and China is not there yet, and that is also a cold hard fact. Will China's commercial aerospace be sanctioned, thus disrupting C919? Certainly, possible. Chinese know that, and this is their vulnerability--a serious strategic one. I thought you might be interested. Especially against the background of China leaving CR-929 project because Russia is not going to share with her technologies for free and, as a result, Chinese COMAC Wide-Body (this is how it is called now) will be a larger version of... and you guessed it... COMAC 919--a Western made aircraft assembled in China.

Look again, what is under the wing of C-919. 

It is CFM Leap-1. It is 50-50 JV between Saffran and, you have guessed it, General Electric. Well, now it arrived, as NYT reports:

U.S. Pauses Exports of Airplane and Semiconductor Technology to China. President Trump has stopped some critical products and technologies made only in the United States from flowing to China, flexing the government’s power over global supply chains.

Namely "The Trump administration has suspended some sales to China of critical U.S. technologies, including those related to jet engines." Don't tell me I didn't warn. I rest my case. 

P.S. No, Russia is not going to sell her PD-14 to China, she needs them for REAL competitor to Boeing and Airbus--MC-21. 

The American Conservative's ...

... senior editor needs to take a few serious courses in actual history, policy and strategy--I omit here courses on operational art and operations, he will not get it--and try to write with at least a pretense of objectivity, when trying to portray Trump's sheer failure as some kind of "strategy" instead of kindergarten level hustling around SMO, trying to gain whatever could be portrayed as America's "victory" and DJT's "diplomatic triumph". I, of course, do not expect the author of this drivel to grasp the critical issue of COFM. 

Andrew Day posits:

Simply put, Washington doesn’t have big enough sticks to force Russia to stop the war—the “unipolar moment” truly is over. Fortunately, Trump has managed to engineer a large carrot that could help entice Moscow to make peace. In the opening weeks of the administration, the White House not only reestablished diplomatic contacts with the Kremlin but put on the table a grand U.S.-Russia rapprochement, which Putin seems to desire. In last week’s track II talks, the Russians conveyed a strong interest in better bilateral relations. Trump should continue to promote closer ties between Washington and Moscow but signal that failure to resolve the war in Ukraine would jeopardize this broader diplomatic project. He should also make clear—not only to Putin but to Russia hawks in Washington—that Moscow would get sanctions relief if it ended the war. If Trump, through wise deployment of carrots and sticks, manages to coax Putin to the negotiating table, he should use the peace talks not only to try resolving the current conflict but to probe Moscow’s intentions. This would require differentiating between Russian demands that arise from legitimate security concerns and those that bespeak nefarious designs. 

LOL. I like Andrew Day's insouciance and conviction that Moscow seeks:

1. Sanctions relief. No, make no mistake--this item is in the list of demands but Andrew Day should refer himself to this (barely a month ago): 

Пресс-секретарь российского лидера Дмитрий Песков призвал внимательно слушать президента России Владимира Путина в вопросе снятия антироссийских санкций. Об этом представитель Кремля сообщил в интервью журналисту ВГТРК Павлу Зарубину. «Вы знаете, если у вас возникают подобные вопросы, у меня один совет: слушайте внимательно Путина. Что сказал Путин, выступая на съезде РСПП? Никакие санкции не снимут. Санкции - это надолго, это постоянные меры по сдерживанию России», - подчеркнул политик.

Translation: The Russian leader's press secretary Dmitry Peskov called for listening carefully to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue of lifting anti-Russian sanctions. The Kremlin representative said this in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin. "You know, if you have such questions, I have one piece of advice: listen carefully to Putin. What did Putin say when he spoke at the RSPP congress? No sanctions will be lifted. Sanctions are for a long time, they are permanent measures to contain Russia," the politician emphasized.

Russians are not naïve and know about the United States orders of magnitude more than the US knows about Russia. If people at TAC think that Russians expect any lifting of sanctions, especially from Trump, I have a bridge to sell them.

2. Restoration of a diplomatic dialogue between Russia and the US is not some kind of a goodwill gesture or carrot--it has EVERYTHING to do with:

a) Necessity of the two nuclear superpowers to stay away from escalation;

b) Trump's understanding of a pitiful state of the US military and military-industrial base;

c) A dramatic loss of the arms race by the US.

These are the main factors, together with current administration's course on (futile) preserving Ukraine as a future place d'armes against Russia, which drove DJT into his "peace" rhetoric. In some sense, Trump is just the more entertaining and coherent version of Biden and in terms of any kind of rapprochement with Russia is driven by weakness, not sincere desire to stop the bloodshed. Russians are keenly aware of that. And when Day speaks about this:

As for demilitarization, the U.S. should be open to demands that Ukraine relinquish long-range missiles, but it should resist any calls for Kiev to give up air-defense systems, land mines, and other defensive munitions. Washington might also propose to have offensive weaponry positioned in southeastern Poland for release to Ukraine only in the event of future Russian aggression.

He should learn first that all of Ukraine's "long-range missiles" have been supplied by NATO, and he also should recall this:

«Что происходит сегодня в принципе тоже понятно. По всей линии боевого соприкосновения наши войска владеют стратегической инициативой. Есть все основания полагать... Я еще совсем недавно говорил, что мы их дожмем, но есть основания полагать, что мы их добьем», — сообщил российский лидер во время беседы с моряками подводной лодки «Архангельск».

Translation: "What is happening today is also clear in principle. Along the entire line of combat contact, our troops have the strategic initiative. There is every reason to believe... I said quite recently that we will put the squeeze on them, but there is reason to believe that we will finish them off," the Russian leader said during a conversation with the sailors of the Arkhangelsk submarine.

Unlike Trump, Putin doesn't do theatrics, doesn't make grandiose statements and doesn't sell BS packaged as "achievement" and TAC people are advised to learn what "strategic initiative" is and what it all means for the United States and the Trump's Administration. This may get them some dose of much needed reality of the US sustaining a historic humiliating defeat. Defeated do not get to dictate conditions.

Yes, Aaand?

Poor sods still do not understand what SMO is all about. This is because they do not understand war. 

Concerns are growing on whether Russia will be willing to compromise on anything when it comes to peace negotiations surrounding its war with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials have continued to reject US negotiating terms while demanding that Ukraine surrender territory that Russia does not occupy.

Evidently history is not a strong point of sewer creatures from London, otherwise they could have taken at least basic course in strategy and operations. Granted, not in UK whose military and its "academic" foundation are a joke. But, at this stage it is clear that Europe is facing its worst nightmare, while the US is looking for exit--the US simply has no resources left to continue with this war and this is the logic behind Trump Administration maneuvers. But yes, I think Ze is done and then ...   

In Related News ...

 ... water is wet, the fire is hot, and Trump Admin has no clue what is going on. Neither does Pentagon and CIA. 

Feb 3 (Reuters) - U.S. shipments of weapons into Ukraine were briefly paused in recent days before resuming over the weekend as the Trump administration debated its policy towards Kyiv, according to four people briefed on the matter. Shipments restarted after the White House pulled back on its initial assessment to stop all aid to Ukraine, two of the sources said. There are factions inside the administration that are at odds over the extent to which the U.S. should continue to aid Kyiv's war effort with weapons from U.S. stocks, said one of the people, a U.S. official.

How many times--it is all about the US trying to prove itself which it never was and could never be--a serious continental warfare power. I will repeat (again)--the Army which venerates Patton as a serious military leader--it is long overdue for studying real warfare. 

But That Is What So Good ...

 ... about Trump Admin. Daniel Larison may lament all these threats:

Rubio concluded his first foreign visit as Secretary of State with a not-so-veiled threat against Panama:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday warned Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino that Washington will "take measures necessary" if Panama does not immediately take steps to end what President Donald Trump sees as China's influence and control over the Panama Canal.

The Panama obsession is a good example of why making rivalry with China the core of U.S. foreign policy is so harmful. The rivalry creates incentives to exaggerate Chinese power and influence to make China seem more menacing than it really is. “Chinese control” of the canal has been invented out of thin air to serve the larger story that China hawks want to tell about Beijing’s ambitions. Trump and the China hawks are fighting shadows of their own creation, and in the process they are doing real harm to U.S. interests in this hemisphere.

But they are not "harmful", they are great because any pretense of morality, "democracy" and "human rights" has been finally dropped. All this nauseating moralizing of Washington is finally exposed for what it is--parasitic imperial aspirations, a geopolitical "realism" at its pinnacle. And this is healthy, because all this post WW II BS finally dissipates. For this we all should be thankful to DJT--he cleared the playing field of any smoke and mirrors, and we know what he wants. Pop-corn time, as well as schadenfreude, a feeling after Tucker Calrson explained to this cretin Pierce Morgan that, as one Russian observer put it, the old Euro "elites" can suck American cock because UK is irrelevant, and the US is now empire. Decrepit, impotent and pretentious but still stronger than London, who, together with Paris, Berlin and Rome, is nothing more than a touristy attraction. Meanwhile, a former UK Interior Minister Suella Braverman explains why UK is essentially over. 

Same applies to France and Germany. 

Two Of The Best American Senior Officers...

 ... describing what I was stressing for a very long time--Trump and his national security circle are a bunch of delusional hacks. As is Trump himself--an American exceptionalist and militarist, but his national security advisory corps is a bunch of amateurs in modern war. 

Sadly, neither of these two smart and courageous people are allowed anywhere near the levers of power in Washington. 

Absolutely Misplaced.

I am talking about professional criteria (which my today's video is about). 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world's largest and most powerful military. The news was met with bewilderment and worry among many in Washington as Trump passed on a number of established national security heavy-hitters and chose an Army National Guard major well known in conservative circles as a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend.” While some Republican lawmakers had a muted response to the announcement, others called his combat experience an asset or said he was “tremendously capable.” Hegseth's choice could bring sweeping changes to the military. He has made it clear on his show and in interviews that, like Trump, he is opposed to “woke” programs that promote equity and inclusion. He also has questioned the role of women in combat and advocated pardoning service members charged with war crimes.

His combat experience in Afghanistan is irrelevant within the framework of global balance of power and to "tame" Pentagon one needs a huge expertise in procurement and R&D, which automatically disqualifies Hegseth on this merit alone. It is all fine and dandy to command a company, but many people forget that USMA at West Point USED TO BE (not anymore) a good engineering school first and foremost. I'll give you a mental experiment... Take an aging fart like me and put me in charge of the staff of, say, coastal missile systems (Bastions), restore my clearance and give me a month or two in the formation, without unnecessary humbleness--I will be able to run it and provide for acceptable combat readiness. Get my aging ass to some missile corvette--same shit, after a month or two I will be able to command it or to become COS of the brigade of such ships. I will be able to do it because I have fundamental military-engineering background which is a MUST for such tasks. Hegseth has degree in... Politics. Now imagine this guy taking on utterly corrupt R&D and procurement policies of Washington. I don't think so. 

And then, of course, there is SMO, Russia and 21st century battlefield, which was utterly absent in Iraq and Afghanistan. But then again, Lisa Franchetti has degree in journalism and in business from the on-line college. She is CNO (Chief of Naval Operations)--Chester Nimitz and Elmo Zumwalt are spinning in their graves. Let me remind WHO was the guy behind stunning technological development and industry reorganization in Russian Armed Forces. Compare: 

Yury Borisov was born on 31 December 1956 in Vyshny Volochyok. He graduated from Kalinin Suvorov Military School [ru] in 1974 and from Radioelectronics Higher Command School in 1978. In 1980s he studied mathematics at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University from which he graduated in 1985. Borisov is married and has two children. For 20 years from 1978 to 1998 he was enlisted into the Armed Forces of both the Soviet Union and Russia. He was Federal Agency on Industry deputy head in October 2007 and became Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade in July 2008. He was a Military-Industrial Commissioner for Russia in March 2011 and as of 12 November 2012 under Presidential Decree, Borisov was promoted to Deputy Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation.

That's the caliber of people and their competencies one needs to change things. No additional comments are necessary...

I Can Tell You Upfront...

... that Trump's new national security advisor Mike Waltz who is described in these terms:

"Mike is the first Green Beret to have been elected to Congress, and previously served in the White House and Pentagon," Trump said in a statement announcing his latest cabinet pick. "Mike served in the Army Special Forces for 27 years where he was deployed multiple times in combat for which he was awarded four Bronze Stars, including two with Valor." "Mike retired as a Colonel, and is a nationally recognized leader in National Security, a bestselling author, and an expert on the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, and global terrorism," the statement added. "He serves as a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mike is a distinguished graduate with honors of the Virginia Military Institute. Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda, and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!"

Is not an expert "on the threats posed by China, Russia,  Iran and global terrorism" and especially on Russia, because there are about zero people for the least 20+ years in both House Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs Committees who have any clue about the world outside and the modern warfare. He cannot be an expert, considering his alleged support for a delusional and utterly obsolete concept of "Peace Through Strength" for the United States. Waltz worked for Donald Rumsfeld--the guy who failed miserably in his understanding of the warfare and applied geopolitics. TOE of the US Armed Forces is a testament to the views of these people, not that anyone else would have fared better by screwing US doctrinal development so profoundly. Somebody has to tell the guy that "Strength" based on TOE from 1990s is not strength.

I had a very tenuous hope for Trump calling on Colonel Douglas Macgregor for the position of National Security Adviser, well ... we all knew what was coming, didn't we. Waltz is a "specialist" in high intensity police operations in Afghanistan, wow ... Degree in "International Relations" from VMI kinda gets you some ideas. So, the "special forces" guy with zero understanding of technological and economic drivers of the modern war will be a classic US gung ho "advising" Trump. Well, looks like we exchanged one set of neocons for another. Ah, well ... the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Next in line is a chores boy for Adelson's family Marco Rubio ...

Yep, That's About Right...

Larry nails it. 

Trump (and his cabinet) are definitely culpable in what is going on today. The guy couldn't get a decent cabinet in two years, and when he appointed Bolton as NSA--forget it, it was over. Trump, most likely, is going to win elections. You think anything will change? No. It is going to be same ol', same ol', but wrapped into different rhetoric. Medvedev nailed it four days ago--the US is facing the defeat it could never have conceived. Consuming own fairy tales about "defeating Hitler" or "winning the Cold War" will do it to you. Now, the reckoning has come. What are you going to do? Go nuclear? Good luck with that...

START Is Dead.

START Treaty is dead, because of the US exceptionalism, I mean, because of US political class being exceptionally arrogant and exceptionally incompetent, if not outright dumb. Marshall Billingslea is your typical product of the US law "education" machine and political career within swamp. Serving as an aid to late Jesse Helms alone qualifies a man for a serious observation by experienced psychologist but that is only half the problem. The issue is larger and it is that realistically it is impossible to teach US upper power echelon anything because it makes shit up as it goes to experience a constant gratification from own aggrandizement, a perpetual orgasm, of sorts, and one does not negotiate with such people. So, this dude came up with the set of conditions for extension of START Treaty, which, everybody understand the United States wants dead and works hard for that. He spoke to Washington Examiner and declared:

New START is an issue that the Russians are seized upon,” he said. “It does nothing for the United States with respect to our concerns regarding China, and it does nothing for the United States with respect to our concerns regarding what Russia has been doing, which are a series of destabilizing activities outside of — and not constrained by — the treaty.

There is no need to debunk this obvious newspeak, but some retrospective is needed here--obviously the United States, at the peak of own, grossly talked up, unipolar moment in 2002 decided to quit 1972 ABM Treaty--one of the most important building blocks of the arms control system. But here is a clue, in 2002 Bush Jr. Admin thought itself to be very righteous and very competent--a defining characteristic of US body politic. They, and their in-house lawyers and corridor generals, thought that the end of history has arrived and US was well on its way to a complete "democratic" global dominance--a typical mode of thinking, or, rather lack thereof, by the whole highly concentrated cabal of all kinds of geopolitical, military, economic and what have you "experts" abusing their sinecures inside the Beltway think-tankdom. Well, it is not 2002 anymore and some hard cold military-technological realities begin to dawn even on all those career bureaucrats in, now, Trump Admin. 

The reason to a Billingslea's bloviation about START is not even China and preposterous desire to make her a party to this treaty, despite the fact that even if to consider a degree of misinformation  about the actual size of Chinese strategic nuclear arsenal emanating from Chinese themselves, China's arsenal still remains well below massive nuclear arsenals of Russia and US. But, obviously, nobody in Trump Administration ever heard of weight categories in boxing, power lifting and wrestling. The real, also well know, reason for this patent BS from US Department of State is this:

The two systems covered by the treaty are the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic missile stage, a maneuvering nuclear or conventional warhead delivery system. Three other new weapons include a new air-launched ICBM called Kinzhal; and the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped subsonic cruise missile. That new missile blew up during a test in August, killing several Russian arms developers and spreading radiation in the White Sea. The last new strategic weapon is a drone submarine armed with a large nuclear warhead capable of blowing up ports.

Here is the real deal. As I stated not for once, and even wrote a book on this issue, main concern is a dramatic shift in geopolitical power balance that Kinzhal and Burevestnik provide even merely in a conventional, non-nuclear that is, variants. Burevestnik (Petrel) is a weapon which assures that no one who makes a homicidal decision to unleash a global war, while sitting it out somewhere in Patagonia or in New Zealand, will feel safe from, as it is becoming known, Mach=6+ justice capable to wait for attack for days in the air. In general, this weapon is for cooling heads trying to save their asses in the Southern Hemisphere, in addition to its already wide range of purely military applications globally. Per Kinzhal--it was discussed so much and on so many occasions that I simply see no reason to concentrate again of the weapon which changed naval warfare forever. Wait for 3M22 Zircon getting to IOC by the end of this--start next year and you may confidently add this too to the list. The issue is a dramatic lag of the United States in hypersonic weaponry and anti-air and anti-missile defense. In other words, the US lost arms race in these and other key fields of military (or dual use) technology. There is simply nothing out there which can compete with something like S-400, not to speak of S-500, forget about Nudol, US has NO supersonic missile weapons, it certainly doesn't have any viable hypersonic technology and I can continue with this list for a long time. 

In one of the more remarkable demonstration of the depth to which US military-industrial complex fell in the last decades is the fact that the US Navy for years hasn't been able to come up with a viable design for a frigate and was forced to resort to an Italian (Finkantieri) design of what essentially is a FREMM class frigate. It is a nice ship and the US Navy made a choice in favor of this ship. These are unprecedented developments which can not obscure the fact, that even with the most of hulls and equipment of the American origin, this frigate follows in the wake of a technological and fighting doctrine catastrophe of a ship-class known as LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) known in US Navy as self-propelled 57-mm gun. If that wasn't enough, latest revelations about F-35 not being capable to fly super-sonic without damaging itself, only underscore a major clusterfvck that US technological "expertise" has become and underscores neurotic, delusional and arrogant statements from US political top, which was, most likely, briefed on a simple fact that the only default position for the US in a new world is to build as many nuclear ICBMs as possible and even this position is untenable, once one takes a look at the US economy.

As is often the case, under such circumstances US "elites" resort to lying and stealing, so much so that even Russia's Foreign Ministry today officially demanded from Trump Administration to stop lying about WW II (in Russian). Daniel Larison may lament the upcoming death of the START and Trump's China "diversion", but behind all this hustle in D.C. ranging from perpetual sanctions' war, to losing one war after another, to killing START to lying about WW II is a reaction of sore losers who desperately want to see and feel themselves important and powerful. Same as Barbara Jean Trenton from Twilight Zone Episode "Sixteen-millimeter Shrine", in which aging movie star still pretends to be a young starlet capable to play roles of young lover, forgetting that she lives not in 1934 but in 1959. I know, reality is a bitch and US political top has neither class, nor competence, nor education to understand that making grandiose demands and statements they increasingly look like clowns or Barbara Jean Trenton. But I am on record, for years now, that most of those people have no concept of causality and that every act has consequences.     

A Needed Take?

Recall what I wrote (on a number of occasions, I merely refer to the latest one) about this whole Trump thing in May:

I resigned myself completely--it was a process--to the fact that Donald Trump is a hollow BSer once John Bolton entered Trump's Admin as National Security Adviser. I started to suspect that Trump was not what he tried to portray himself while running for the office even earlier. There were some signs, especially when one considers well documented emergence of "Mad Dog" Mattis as an "adult in the room". If Mattis was considered an adult in the room, one could only imagine who such a room was filled with. 

Bernhard of Moon of Alabama today posted an excellent range (well, the range having only two possibilities) of interpretations on Donald Trump and his national security (insanity?) team's idiocy around Iran. He refers to Alastair Crooke's opinion too.  

Trump is the president. He hired those people and is responsible for what they do. But does he know what they do? There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies. Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is the real one:

The consensus on ‘no conflict’ unfortunately, may turn out to have been overly sanguine. This is not because Trump consciously desires war, but because the hawks surrounding him, particularly Bolton, are painting him into a corner – from which he must either back down, or double down, if Iran does not first capitulate.And here is the point: the main Trump misconception may be that he does believe that Iran wants, and ultimately, ‘will seek a deal’.

Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq:

Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley). And Bolton too, will represent Trump at the ‘security summit’ to be held later this month in Jerusalem with Russia and Israel. Yes, Bolton truly has all the reins in his hands: He is ‘Mr Iran’.

'Mr Anti-Iran' is a more precise moniker. Or one may just call him President Bolton.

It has to be understood very clearly that Bolton-Trump and Trump-Pompeo relations are symbiotic ones. If one recalls--Trump made his admiration for Bolton known even before Trump was considered a serious contender for the Oval Office. In the end, he DID hire Bolton. Both Trump and Bolton are frauds as statesmen: Bolton is a Beta-male and a coward who sublimates his complexes in aggressive rhetoric and behavior, this is not to speak of Bolton being an Israeli asset par-excellence.These are precisely the traits Trump recognizes in him because he is one himself. Recall his statement about his, Trump's, "military background" he received in a... boarding school for boys. Recall how Kevin Costner's character in undeservedly chastised The Postman, in the final battle with Will Patton's character, astutely notices how one fraud can recognize the other. This is exactly the situation. Trump is fool, but Bolton is merely an experienced bureaucrat, which testifies to the level of Trump's foolishness and incompetence. I doubt there is any Good Cop-Bad Cop dynamics there. 

The problem here is not with Trump, who by now paraded himself long enough as a person who is nothing more than NYC real estate shyster and one trick pony who ended up in Oval Office due to good reciting of speeches written for him by Stephen Miller. After all, one expects at least mediocre acting and diction from TV personality such as Trump. The issue is deeper--it is the fact that the person who formulates and drives US foreign policy, John Bolton that is, is himself a fraud who lacks, as did most US National Security Advisers, any serious background in what increasingly constitutes main drivers behind geopolitical balance. As Colonel Larry Wilkerson noted about his harsh encounter with John Bolton, Bolton stated "I do policy, you do war." How can anyone make policy without knowing war, especially against US dismal track record of both policy (so called) and military failures is beyond me, but it is what it is.  

So, Bolton, who is a coward and, hence, is obsessed with some kind of institutional violence which, in his opinion, may give him some relief from him understanding that he is a beta-male and a cuckold (literally) loser, and Pompeo who is a full blown Christian Zionist--they are essentially in charge of US foreign policy. They, plus, of course, as was stated not for once--Bibi. Phil Giraldi gives additional insight into Trump Administration's "foreign policy" cadres, so at issue here now is WHAT IS IT GOING TO BE? Most likely it will be repetition of April 2018 Syria's strike with "very smart missiles" (most of them intercepted). In the same time, considering an appalling lack of any expertise in the US top echelon of power and personalities who operate there--there is some, however insignificant now, chance that Trump could be manipulated (on the account of dick measuring contest) into more serious actions against Iran and then, well--good luck to those who are deployed in the Middle East. 

Trump Administration is the most Zionist, Israeli-first administration in the US history. It is a scale of corruption and real collusion with foreign power unprecedented in the existence of the American Republic, or, rather, whatever remains of it. There are many ways to explain how this happened, but as I stated in the previous post--top echelon simply has nobody better out there, period. US elites can not produce statesmen anymore, and even this mechanism which is in place in a shape of Ivy League universities teaching all kind of "humanities" crap, supposedly to future American "leadership", can only produce semi-literate doctrine-mongers who are only good for contriving false narratives and selling themselves out to a highest bidder, be that done on purpose or "accidentally".  

In related news, Russia issued a warning.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia told the United States on Tuesday to drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East and to cease actions that looked like a conscious attempt to provoke war with Iran.

I guess we'll see soon where it is all going, but I would have given up a lot to learn what Moscow and Tehran are actually discussing between them. Or are they?   

Colonel Lang Had It With Trump, And Other Business.

Colonel Lang tried to stay calm but even he had it with collection of maroons aka Trump Administration.  

Trumpy!  These stiffs are losers!  Losers!  They lost in Iraq!  Remember!  You say you like to win.  These guys are losers.  Keeping these losers will just drag you down!  You always dump losers like these.  Remember!  Where did you get these stiffs?  Who pushed them off on you?  Get rid of them losers too! Bolton torpedoed your deal with your friend Kim!  Remember.  Is he trying to torpedo your deal with China? You know that you  have to make some kind of deal with Russia and the great judomaster.  Is Bolton trying to screw that up ? The three stooges.  Ah, no, Pompey the Magnificent is missing from the group mug shot.   Trumpster! You should dump these guys, AND the crews who gave us the messes in Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, the Golan Heights, Kushner's deal of the century, and the coming good deal in Lebanon.Get some new ones.  You can't let little people losers drag you down.

I long ago simply resigned myself to the fact that nothing short of all out war (I mean within US proper) can change the situation with US elites consistently producing human and professional trash which then occupies top positions in American political structure. The level of degeneracy is simply off the scale and continues to break records. Look at the faces, BTW. 

Per Bolton, he is a very special case of uber-neocon and exceptionalist who, probably, given his not very large frame, was beaten in school without trying to fight back and now he is settling accounts with his pathetic cowardly self by trying to bully those, he thinks, can not hit back. There is a definite mental pathology there. I will omit discussing here other possibilities. As The Hill reports:

Michael McCarthy, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, likened the recent posturing by administration officials to being "in a position where they believe it’s time to get a win for Trump." "They’re doubling down, but they’re working on what doubling down means besides increasing sanctions pressure," McCarthy said. "We’re in a gray zone between the saber rattling and action, and I think we’re going to stay there for the foreseeable future." But inaction is unlikely to satisfy Bolton, Posner said, even if it sets up a showdown with Trump. Bolton will likely "find another reason for military intervention," he said. "If that happens, I think that Trump will back off because he knows that’s a losing proposition."

Patients truly are in charge of the asylum. So, will Trumpy kick these dangerous morons out or is he really content with lunatics running his national security and foreign policy, or, rather, lack thereof. How about dropping Bolton with Elliott Abrams with the SEAL team into Venezuelan jungles or at the Iranian shores--let them lead by example. 

Paul Craig Roberts penned an excellent piece:

Now white people in America are to be stripped of their history, because white history traumatizes preferred minorities. At George Washington High School in northern California an historic mural depicting the school’s namesake has been declared offensive.      

PCR explains eloquently what will come, I can too. It is worth reading and contemplating.  

Meanwhile Pepe Escobar explains some key facts about BRI (formerly known as OBOR).

Scores of nations across the Global South, as well as some aspiring to developed world status, have adopted the Chinese investment and development model over financing from Washington or Brussels for three very simple reasons: no strings attached, no one-size-fits-all straitjacket, and no interference in their internal affairs.

Ahh, here are some other news on this issue:

President Nikki Haley.

Anybody needs any further proof that the country becomes simply rudderless and is run, from legislative to executive, to fourth estate, by amateurs and ambitious ignoramuses? 

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An internal White House quarrel over the timing of new Russia sanctions played out in public when the new economic adviser suggested U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was suffering from "momentary confusion" and Haley retorted: "With all due respect, I don't get confused."

There is, of course, a whole hilarity element in all this with former waste management company accountant denying the obvious fact that she, basically, resides in a perpetual confused state but here is the issue: Donald Trump chose himself this cabal of freaks for his cabinet. No one, literally no one, pushed him to chose this aggressive deranged bimbo Haley for an important cabinet position, nor any one twisted Trump's hands in appointing a draft dodger and a war-monger to be his national security adviser. In fact, even Trump's enemies have serious allergy to Mr. Bolton whose only claim to anything national security related is his sitting on some arms limitations negotiations and trying to sabotage them. I will omit here discussing Mike Pompeo, but, generally, even if to consider undeniable sabotage of Trump Administration by the so called establishment (aka Deep State, Borg etc.) the fact is obvious--the whole American state machine is simply broken completely. Trump's Administration is just one of many symptoms of the increasing chaos. But in general, one reaps what one sows. So, no surprise here.