This Is Hilarious.

 How desperate one should be: 

Turkey’s Russian Missiles Could Defend Ukraine. A way to solve the dispute between Washington and Ankara and do poetic justice in the process.

Here is the guy who wrote this.

Mr. Paul Kolbe is the Director of the Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center. Paul served for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in a variety of foreign and domestic roles, including as Chief of Station, Chief/Central Eurasia Division, and Balkans Group Chief. His overseas assignments included operational and leadership roles in the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and Central Europe. He was a member of the Senior Intelligence Service and is a recipient of the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.

So, this might explain the level of "expertise" in the US "intelligence community" and also explain why the US cannot win its wars. I am sure Mr. Kolbe heard about OODA Loop and about situational awareness, after all he was in CIA and they train them to be "aware", right? One can only hope. In related news, Mr. Kolbe should take a basic course in the Air Defense, what it is and how it evolved over the years. Basic course in operations and physics would be nice too. Nah, I am being facetious.

P.S. You can listen to much of Kolbe's delirium for free--the player is above the article.

My, My, My...

The Wall Street Journal worries. To such a degree that it felt the need to write about Russia's "Checkmate" (presently also known as SU-75) and quote Rostec's big Honcho Sergey Chemezov. 

At Russia’s premier expo for military aircraft in July, Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected a prototype jet that is designed to take on more than enemy fighters. The lightweight stealth plane also is meant to cause geopolitical headaches for the U.S. The LTS Checkmate would be the world’s second single-engine fighter plane to incorporate the most sophisticated radar-evasion and command systems. The only other plane in this category, the F-35, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp. , is the most advanced plane in the U.S. arsenal. 

Chemezov flatly denies any geopolitical aspect to Checkmate, but he is just being polite--of course there is. While WSJ tries to put a positive spin on F-35 by making risible statements such as this:

The F-35 is in demand internationally, providing Washington a viable defense export that also helps advance U.S. security and diplomatic aims. Israel and Japan are among the 15 countries that have received the F-35 or reached agreements to buy it.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room cannot be ignored: F-35 which is a $100 million a pop combat failure loses outright on three (among very many) points:

1. It cannot fly properly, let alone supersonic, while you can bet your ass on Russian-made combat aircraft of any generation being able to fly, especially on the Izd. 30 engine with thrust vectoring. Do we need to go into discussing how Russian planes fly?

2. The issue of price. This is not even fair to compare. 

3. Let's drop this "Stealth" BS. Low or very low observability doesn't cloak you into "invisibility" bubble, especially against modern fused sensor suite on any modern combat aircraft, let alone modern AD systems. Turks can testify to it. 

So, yes, this Checkmate thing is designed to win market while providing a much better combat performance for a fraction of F-35 price. It is GEOPOLITICAL by default because it makes US clientele think twice about what they are buying from the US for their defense needs. Ask Germans, they acted geopolitically: 

Germany Doesn't Want the F-35 Stealth Fighter. The Bundestag made the announcement last week and comes as good news for the European multinational Airbus, which had affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Germans wanted to keep manufacturing on the Continent. Plus, Germans made it patently clear in 2019 that rumors of F-35 "stealth" were grossly exaggerated. 

Stealthy no more? A German radar vendor says it tracked the F-35 jet in 2018 — from a pony farm. In the illustrious history of the F-35 fighter jet, add a pony farm outside Berlin as the place where one company claims the plane’s stealth cover was blown, writes Sebastian Sprenger for C4ISR.com.

While there are huge question regarding Europe's ability to compete across the whole spectrum of requirements for the modern warfare with the United States nominally, what one cannot deny is the fact that Europe's problems lie outside the classic nation-state (or military-political block) warfare and they are systemic in nature. Russia is not going to blow Europe to smithereens where she sells her hydrocarbons and even without it--what is Europe's value for Russia? Russians have their own problems with migration, albeit nowhere near as acute as in Europe, so, for now, at least, Europe will stick to her guns, so to speak, and will continue with her own Typhoon program. Those who will not, like Netherlands or Italy, they will have their hands twisted into buying F-35. 

But in the end, F-35 is itself a pure geopolitical tool, and always was, when one considers the US "credit history" with competition on international weapons markets. Turkey's precedent with purchasing of S-400 was a massive blow to American confidence and now India is under unstoppable pressure from the US to reverse her decision and, incidentally, a $5 billion contract with Russia for S-400s. In general, S-400, same as any updated S-300 series and other Russian air defense systems and F-35 are not "compatible" because they expose F-35 for what it is, a failure, and this is verboten in American "book". This is where it all crosses into the pure geopolitics and cash, a lot of it. This is not unique for the United States to "condition" the use of own weapons. Let me remind you: 

This all is in the open. It always was. Now, when former Soviet and Russian submariners also begin to talk, things get really complicated with the reputation of the America's weapon systems and enablers. If there is a field in which the United States really dropped the ball--it is a field of combat aviation. F-35 is a living proof of it and even massive America's spin machine and perception management "technology" cannot hide the fact of the United States losing a competition where it always claimed a leadership. In this case the appearance of a fighter which merely works for a fraction of the price of F-35, let alone being a very good combat aircraft, which, knowing Russia's propensity for producing good planes consistently, is highly probable, becomes a major geopolitical concern for the United States, because a shitload of money and prestige is at stake here. 

And the United States, certainly, doesn't know how to lose gracefully. Can you imagine a media circus when SU-57 will be offered for export, and it will be. 

P.S. For WSJ--learn the meaning of the word "advanced" when applied to warfare. Over-engineering and useless features do not apply to what makes things advanced. Combat effectiveness  does.

Lavrov, Help.

You all know the meaning of this by now, now with a simple crossword, wink, wink. 

Wall Street Journal unleashed on unsuspecting "investors" (meaning a speculative capital which destroyed US economy) a marvel of an "analysis" which should be filed under the "No Shit, Duh!" title. 

The U.S. is barreling toward one of the greatest self-inflicted wounds in its history. This came into sharper focus last week when President Biden suspended oil leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), even as Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced production increases.Mr. Biden’s anti-carbon fusillade will have no effect on the climate as global demand for fossil fuels will continue to increase for decades no matter what the U.S. does. Meantime, Russia, China and Iran will take advantage of America’s astonishing fossil-fuel retreat.

I have news for WSJ's editorial board which, evidently, is packed with Captains, Majors and Generals Obvious--the United States couldn't compete with Russia in this field to start with. I clearly remember all these business "analysts" from all US MSM outlets, more than a year ago, having an acute and irrational outburst of schadenfreude expecting Russia's economy to collapse because of the oil war and oil prices being driven into the ground. I was flabbergasted by a complete lack of self-awareness of those "analysts", because it was clear from the git go that Russia will be just fine and it was the United States which would experience, which it did, a very rough awakening and facing a reality of energy markets where the US had a very weak hand. 

U.S. producers reduced investment during the pandemic as demand plunged. While prices have since recovered to a two-year high, a larger U.S. retrenchment driven by government and progressive investors is on the way. 

Let's start with two simple facts which were known since... forever:

1. US fracking was never economically viable. But "fossil" energy will be needed for a long time because "alternative energy" cannot provide even a small fraction of the growing demand. It simply can't in this technological paradigm, period. 

2. US "anthropogenic climate change" hoax is as American as baseball and apple pie--it is a result of the US being always vulnerable to paranoia and most radical anti-scientific ideas. 

It was very easy to predict where the US will progress under these circumstances as well as geopolitical consequences. Yes, guys, this is how competition works: I have what you need, you don't. It was always like that. I know, it is unpleasant to be on the receiving end but we all live with our own limitations and vulnerabilities and we make do as much as we can. Same applies to the nation-states. If those nation-states go bananas and become irrational like the EU which wants to turn "green" by 2050 and plunge hundreds of millions of people into economic misery--let them, let's see how long those cretins will survive before a raging hungry mob with pitch-forks (or AK-47s) will start hunting their asses. You can bet your ass on the fact that Russia and China will be watching this clusterfuck from a distance in total amusement. 

So, WSJ laments now that Putin is happy? Well, why not? Russians know how high a price is paid for ideological orthodoxies. West's ideological orthodoxies from institutionalizing a sodomy, sexual deviancy, obverse racism, cultural and moral relativism to pseudo sciences of gender, MMT and MMGW--hey, all ingredients are in place to see the whole goddamn thing implode with catastrophic consequences for Western people. Remarkably, WSJ helped to further this agenda, which, of course, its editorial board would deny. But facts are stubborn thing--WSJ is an utterly globalist rag on the service of the same cabal which for decades promoted crazy economic, geopolitical and moral ideas. So what's the problem? I don't see any. After all let's recall the name of this rag--Wall Street (mind you, not the Main Street) Journal.  And that in itself speaks volumes. 

Good Ol' Henry.

Dillon yesterday (thank you) dropped the link to Henry Kissinger's article in Wall Street Journal where Kissinger waxes geopolitical. For some reason Kissinger has reputation in US as a geopolitical thinker of scale, but then again Francis Fukuyama and Zbigniew Brzezinski also have the same reputation, which, in its turn, is an affront to the term "reputation", not to speak of the modern geopolitics as a combination of a broad spectrum of knowledge ranging from history, economics, international relations, geography, military, industry, technological development and some other funny things like theory of probability and other strictly math-physics related issues. We, of course, can all remember, among his achievements, his brilliant idea of "opening China" which resulted in the long run in stripping the US of its industrial might. In general, long term thinking is not a strong point among American geopolitical "thinkers" and Kissinger is an exhibit A of such a trait. Yet, good ol' 96 year old Henry, in his WSJ's piece on Covid-19 arrives to a funny conclusion:

The world’s democracies need to defend and sustain their Enlightenment values. A global retreat from balancing power with legitimacy will cause the social contract to disintegrate both domestically and internationally.

After I stopped laughing, I formulated a question: what ARE those Enlightenment values as Kissinger understands them? Last time I checked the main Enlightenment "value" which made combined West great was a rational thought. Everything else follows from it, including such a simulacra as man's freedom (whatever freedom is in each given historic age). The rest is up for never-ending philosophical debate on what those "values" truly are.  And here is the problem--modern West lost its ability to think and act rationally long time ago. In fact, Kissinger should know this very well--he was and still is in the midst of the decision making kitchen in the West which begins to increasingly look and feel like a psychiatric ward populated with people very many of who suffer from acute cases of sociopathic decease, while some are down right open psychopaths incapable of rational thought and even basic reasoning in principle. If Kissinger thinks that figures of Merkel, W, Obama, Mike Pompeo or Trump are representative of "Enlightenment values" then we certainly think about very different "values". 

But the next Kissinger's statement is altogether a wowser:    

Third, safeguard the principles of the liberal world order.  

My question is: did Kissinger actually study the history of "liberalism" and what it did both to the combined West and the world as a whole? This is what I wrote a year ago in my latest book:

Liberalism, in its different contemporary manifestations, such as globalist capitalism, also known as globalization, has a “stellar” record of using threats as a primary tool in international relations. Globalism is aggressive for a number of reasons ranging from purely economic interests to convictions of cultural superiority. These form a ballast for what goes on to become military aggression, easily resorted to because of the often complete inability to understand the practice (what really happens during warfare) and the consequences of the application of military power (what really happens as a result of that trauma and destruction) and accordingly an appreciation of how to achieve a global military balance precluding war.... There is no good life without peace and liberalism is not capable of defining that as a key component of a good life, due to liberalism and its scholarship living in a complete delusion about the predatory intentions driving its own economic and military (often grossly exaggerated) capability.

Even earlier than that, three years ago, I wrote:

Where does this leave us all on the globe in general and in the US in particular? There is no denying that the economic decline both in relative and absolute terms is a fact of life for the United States and the order it came to embody. This order is a globalist liberal vision—America’s crisis is a crisis of liberalism and of global financial capitalism. The utopian modern liberal orthodoxy (a euphemism for free trade) remains based on money and profit as a measure of everything. This doesn’t work anymore.

But forget about me, I wrote it in the times when the going was good and it seemed that everything will be fine. Well, it wasn't fine then already, in fact--it never was. And then, the man of a scale much larger than Kissinger ever was, and a geopolitical thinker orders of magnitude larger than him, stated:

The liberal ideology that has underpinned Western democracy for decades is “obsolete,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times published Friday.

So, Kissinger, using fuzzy platitudes doesn't want liberalism, or whatever passes today under this stupid term, as such to be preserved, he wants, behind this psychobabble of "geopolitical" doctrine-mongering, to preserve the world in which the United States is the only one force which sets up the rules. But this is this main issue with most American "geopolitical thinkers", Kissinger included--they still live in those halcyon days of America's self-proclaimed "exceptionalism" of early 1990s and they don't have required cognitive instruments to recognize the scale of the geopolitical balance's shift which happened since 2007. The world became much more complex and weapons evolved to the point of being unstoppable--a little fact they don't teach in political "science" courses. 

What will evolve in the aftermath of the Covid-19 and America's steady departure, due to both ideological and economic bankruptcy, from its self-anointed status of hegemon is a topic for a separate discussion, which will require non-stop application of the main Enlightenment Value of a rational thought and competent reasoning--the value long ago lost in deep dark recesses of the liberalism's mythology as an answer to humanity's real challenges in the XXI Century. The answer it is not and the emerging new world order may yet answer this challenge by creating a more just and more peaceful world, that task the combined West ultimately failed at.