LOL And The "Change Of Plans".

So, we get the "clue" now about the leaks which are most likely deliberate and the largest "clue" is CNN "report". 

Highly classified Pentagon documents leaked online in recent weeks have provided a rare window into how the US spies on allies and foes alike, deeply rattling US officials, who fear the revelations could jeopardize sensitive sources and compromise important foreign relationships. Some of the documents, which US officials say are authentic, expose the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies, including South Korea, Israel and Ukraine. Others reveal the degree to which the US has penetrated the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian mercenary organization Wagner Group, largely through intercepted communications and human sources, which could now be cut off or put in danger. Still others divulge key weaknesses in Ukrainian weaponry, air defense, and battalion sizes and readiness at a critical point in the war, as Ukrainian forces gear up to launch a counteroffensive against the Russians – and just as the US and Ukraine have begun to develop a more mutually trusting relationship over intelligence-sharing. Ukraine has already altered some of its military plans because of the leak, a source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN. 

There you have it. Two possibilities:

1. Pathetic attempt at trying to confuse Russia before some moves along the front, aka "counter-offensive"--a euphemism for the slaughter of the remaining forces of VSU;

2. A likely preparation of the "exit" for Biden Admin who is now "informed" that once this "counter-offensive" starts it may end for 404 somewhere west of Kiev. 

Yes, Washington needs the way out, because all of its plans re: Russia failed miserably and the US (and NATO as a whole) never had a chance to defeat Russia militarily--different leagues. 

Yet, some clowns in the US, namely the collection of ignorant propagandists from The Jamestown Foundation for some reason decided that they know things about Arctic. Hint: they don't. Nor do they understand modern geopolitics starting from their big honcho General Breedlove to the collection of the experts who wouldn't know shit from shinola. But still, in the desperate attempt to allay their severe butthurt they state this))

In a development with enormous consequences both for international trade and for Moscow’s control of its far-flung regions across the country’s northern third—places not linked to the center by roads or railways—the Russian Federation is rapidly losing its historical dominance over the Northern Sea Route to China and Turkey. Indeed, these two countries are now building icebreakers at record rates, as the Kremlin has had to delay, or even cancel, its plans for new Russian icebreakers due to budgetary shortfalls arising from President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, corruption and other problems in the Russian shipbuilding industry. Additionally, the industry is hampered by the competing demands of Russian admirals who want a new aircraft carrier rather than icebreakers and security officials who are more concerned with ensuring Moscow’s links to locations across the Russian North than with keeping the Northern Sea Route (NSR) open (Topwar.ru, November 20, 2020; Window on Eurasia, May 30, 2021). This development has caught many observers off guard, as they assumed that changes in climate, something that has reduced ice coverage in the Arctic, has reduced the importance of icebreakers as the key element of control for the NSR. But that assumption rests on a misconception about the nature of climate change.  

For starters--anyone who references such a fanboys' dumpster as Topwar should be immediately disqualified from expressing opinion on any technological matter, let alone Arctic. But, since Russia is "rapidly losing its historical dominance", one should simply ask the question to the authors of this drivel if they have a clue on what it takes to build this:

Russia has three of them already and as the United States Navy--a much more competent organization, unlike the collection of political "scientists" in The Jamestown Foundation--notes:

The nuclear-powered icebreakers Arktika and Sibir—the first two in a class of five—are fully operational and were accepted into Russia’s Rosatomflot fleet in late 2021 and early 2022. Both are escorting commercial cargo vessels in winter sea ice along the Northern Sea Route (NSR)—Russia’s National Arctic Waterway. These new icebreakers, the world’s largest and most powerful, each have two RITM-200 light-water reactors that produce pressurized water and steam for a turboelectric generating plant. The steam turbines drive two turbogenerators that produce electricity for three electric motors; the motors drive three shafts and four-bladed propellers. The system produces 80,000 maximum shaft horsepower, the most power on board any icebreaker, and the Arktika can break 9 feet of level sea ice at a continuous 1.5 to 2 knot speed, as reported by her designers. Few sea ice features will slow or stop this ship from continuous forward motion with such high available power and a large displacement of 33,530 deadweight tons. Also notable are the 569-foot length and 112-foot beam, which creates a wide track astern for ships under ice escort.

Now, can you imagine explaining to these morons what RITM-200 let alone RITM-400 are? I know, I know. So, if you don't have nuclear ice-breakers, especially the ones which will provide commercially viable speed of 12 knots in the ice of up to 3 meters thick--forget about commercial use of Arctic. Neither China nor, let alone, Turkey, are even in the same league with Russia. Especially against this vessel, which is being built at Zvezda:

And then, of course, there is this teeny-weeny "issue" of this pesky Russian Northern Fleet which operates things like this:

 

But I am sure that Turkey and China will catch up, right? After all, it is so easy, especially developing high altitude and polar navigation, those nuclear reactors... ah, wait... for some reason Russians build nuclear power stations both in Turkey and in China... ah, never mind, wink, wink;) This is you Monday primer.

Boy, Haven't I Heard This Tune Before?

LOL. Of course, Russia is a "threat". She has been since the United States decided that it is the force for everything good against everything bad and that the war it is when the United States bombs weak defenseless nations into the stone age and then changes those hapless countries into shitholes, while profiting from it. But that is not a real war. 

Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said Russia remains the most urgent and immediate threat to the homeland even as China captures the attention of defense policymakers. “Russia is the primary military threat to the homeland today. It is not China—it is Russia,” VanHerck told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md. VanHerck explained that while China is the “long-term existential threat” to America, Russia is the stronger warfighting threat today. “From a kinetic standpoint—submarines, bombers, cruise missiles, those kinds of capabilities—Russia is the primary military threat,” VanHerck said, calling Russia and China “equals in non-kinetic—cyber, space.” “They have to both be feared,” he added.

Russians are strange people, they just don't like to be democratized. Especially when stand-off weapons are involved and, with a typical Russian cunning and perfidy, arrived to a conclusion that if they are getting bombed and invaded, they might as well respond in kind and do bombing of their own. You know, as in rearrange stones in the lands of those who bomb Russia, and in doing so destroy forces which bomb Russia. Yes, I know, this is such a treachery on Russians' part. How could they refuse all those benefits of "democracy" and the general even concluded: 

“If your only option to prevent an attack on the homeland is to nuke them, you’re not in a good place,” he said. “We have to create other capabilities and options to create doubt in their mind about ever striking our homeland.”

Right. Because we all know that the only thing Russians sleep and dream about is how to strike Skid Row or Detroit... ah, wait, I believe it has been bombed already by someone.

Well, you get my drift, after all, who said that Robocop movies were fiction? Communities like these are popping up around America like mushrooms after the rain. 

On a more serious note, however, it is clear that the United States militarily is in a bind and is undergoing a severe tactical and operational cognitive dissonance spurred by the decades of "transformation" which resulted in deluding itself with some very special "American way of war", while in reality nothing in warfare changed in terms of its main objective since the times of Clausewitz' truism that the main object of war "is to compel the enemy to do our will". Russians are not that kind of people who are compelled to do anyone's will (as many greatest military leaders in human history learned the hard way), and if they refused to do so on the insistence of Napoleon and Hitler and their largest armies in history in their time, they certainly wouldn't do it on America's account. 

Russia is certainly not going to attack the United States but if the United States attacks Russia, yes, Russia has means to obliterate the United States in response, no matter what efforts the United States undertakes to prevent such a response. Basically, VanHerck's main grievance is this: he doesn't want to be bombed back while bombing others. I know. But it is what it is--American generals do not know what it means to lose their families as a result of war, that is why they have such a cavalier attitude towards war. Russia, however, makes them uncomfortable and they don't like it. 

Russian verb, which Putin uses, сдохнуть, sadly, does not directly translate into English and it is not "drop dead", this verb is used when one describes the death of an animal--human dies, animal сдыхает. The nearest term is to croak. These are subtleties of Russian language which many in the West cannot grasp. VanHerck also expressed his opinions on Arctic, but I heard this tune before too. Sure, looking at the Rosatom fleet today I really cannot see what investment in time and treasure will be required on the US side to catch up. No, really.  

Sometimes people just have to stick to doing what they do best. Russians certainly did--they make best weapons and ice-breakers. And a couple of other things which are beyond the narrow scope of this post.