Couldn't Miss This.

A superb piece, as it is usually the case, from Philip Giraldi in UNZ Review. Worth reading. The article resonates a lot with many points I make about the WW II and the way it is portrayed in US. 

Nazis on the Backlot 

Quote from the article:

"And it was certainly easy to forget war back in the United States, prosperous and untouched by the enemy. In Asia and Europe it is different and that is why there is a clear reluctance to follow Washington’s lead as global policeman. The war for many families is still alive. Even though the World War II generation is itself vanishing there remain numerous memorials and cemeteries as well as other powerful physical reminders of the suffering and destruction that war brought in every theater of that conflict.

All of which means that war, unlike for the rest of the world, is itself pretty much an abstraction for the vast majority of Americans who have not themselves been in the military since the draft ended in 1973....Americans see war as an endless series of patriotic bumper stickers with the United States invariably wearing the white hat and emerging victorious. Few consider that a kinetic experience can blow your brains out while the boots on the ground are attached to legs that lead up to torsos, heads and arms, all of which are vulnerable to small arms fire and Improvised Explosive Devices."

Financial Times: "Europe's Problem Is With Russia, Not Vladimir Putin"

Another salvo in anti-Russian rhetoric, this time from Financial Times. Anyone who wants to get acquainted with this russophobic drivel by Thomas Graham can do it here:

Russia is bad, like really really bad.... 

Mind you, you will have to register to read this rag's set of loony anti-Russian cliches and perversion of both Europe's and Russia's histories. Or you may go to another site, this time Bloomberg (not much of improvement here over FT), and try to see the summary there:

Russia is incredibly bad for Europe. 

 As I wrote not for once--the nominal West has committed a cultural suicide in Russia and it can not be helped. Indeed, the gap between Russia and West is that of the values and at this stage it cannot be bridged. It is also clear today for the majority of Russians, that West's hatred towards Russia is not just ideological and cultural--it is racial. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's get back some decades, namely to October of 1957 and Hans Morgenthau's Naval War College Spruance Lecture titled "Realism In International Politics". Here is what he says:

"I would say, and I have said many times before, that if the czars still reigned in Russia, that if Lenin had died of the measles at an early age, that if Stalin had never been heard of, but the power of the Soviet Union were exactly what it is today, the problem of Russia would be for us by and large what it is today. If the Russian armies stood exactly where they stand today, and if Russian technological development were what it is today, we would be by and large confronted with the same problems which confront us today." 

Naval War College Review, Winter 1998, Vol. LI, Sequence 361. 

Hey, at least this father (one of) of Realism tries to state it in not-racial terms, but, as I already said, Russians today overwhelmingly do understand that behind pompous western rhetoric about values lies deeper meaning. So much so, that people like Graham, as well as the large portion of Anglo-Saxon elites are ready to forgive Nazism and what it brought to the world, they also will and do support the most odious regimes. That is why Graham thinks that Nazi Germany was merely "defending" itself from those nasty untermensch Asiatic russkies. 

Looking at what, once called, "Western Civilization" represents today one cannot miss the intellectual, moral, social and economic decay. Western main stream media long ago turned into the sewer promoting the ideological agenda of sodomy, the political class stays firmly, together with its servile meek "academe", behind what Robert Reilly defined as de-Hellenization of the culture; open lies, obscenity, promotion of the deviancy of all kinds, breakdown in law and education, unrestricted illegal immigration, suffocating political correctness, reign of incompetence--these are today's defining features of what once was called Western Civilization. 

The West, which today resembles less and less a civilization, has some reasons for worry. Today, Russia, with all her problems (and those are big problems) and shortcomings, including those of the national character (I should know--I am Russian myself), represents what West lost and can not regain. In fact, today Russia represents what's left of once Western Civilization. The nominal West never wanted and would never accept Russia as part of what they perceived as Western Civilization, which was defined in 20th and 21st century in strictly Anglo-Saxon terms of political system (you know--"the democracy"), free trade orthodoxy, moral relativism and globalization, with eventual dissolution of the nation-states. But the truth is, that is not what Western Civilization is. As Roger Scraton brilliantly observed:

"The roots of Western Civilization lie in the religion of Israel, the culture of Greece, and the law of Rome, and the resulting synthesis has flourished and decayed in a thousand ways during two millennia that followed the death of Christ."       

Looking with sadness (I love Western culture, the real one, I am a part of it myself) at modern Western cloaca of multiculturalism and moral decadence one cannot fail to notice that values, which, once great, civilization represented, remained intact in Russia and those values are the ones which made the West and great culture it produced. It is also clear that those values are what today will be defined as truly conservative values--not to mistake for American faux-conservatism of neocon and evangelicals' variety. The whole idea, that those Russian untermensch "got it right" and ARE the last vestiges of Western Civilization drives western "elites" mad. That is why the stream of lies, omissions, perversions of history, other attacks on Russia and her people will only increase in western so called media. War, including the real one, is always a cultural act and it starts with dehumanization of the enemy. For West, Russia is the enemy, because it increasingly becomes a viable global alternative. The foundation of this alternative is the concept of a  Nation and that is why Europe's, as well as USA's, problem is with Russia, not Vladimir Putin.

 

Another "Bloodiest Battle"

As was promised in the Bloodiest Battle post, I did catch it. Here it is:

At this stage the only explanation that can be given to this blatant propaganda, and, believe me, in the documentary itself, some US 3rd Army's veterans DO TALK about the Battle of Arracourt as some kind of tank Armageddon, is complex of inferiority, which comes with self-proclaimed exceptionalism. Other than that, I can not possibly explain the stream of blatant lies, exaggerations in a face of irrefutable facts. Propaganda, of which these snippets of the TV programming are but a drop in the bucket of the immense effort in rewriting the history of WW II in US. 

The Battle of Arracourt was nothing more than a division force (in reality even weaker), week long, clash of Patton's 3rd Army elements with the elements of 5th Panzer Army, which resulted in about 100 tanks and self-propelled guns lost on both sides. An excellent narrative to all this Lorraine Campaign is given by superb US Army In WW II:

LORRAINE OVERVIEW 

How this all merited a special presentation is beyond me. As overview states the realities of what Patton was facing:


The German defenders were critical of, but grateful for, Patton's decision to a broad front of nine divisions spread out over 60 miles. In particular, they felt that the Americans made a grave error in not concentrating their three armored divisions into one corps for a knockout blow. The 3 panzer divisions in Lorraine were down to 13, 7, and 4 tanks respectively, a fact that Patton was well aware of, thanks to Ultra. On paper, there were 12 German divisions facing Third Army's 9, but in reality, the defenders possessed just 1 battalion for each 4 miles of front. Therefore, Patton's decision to tie his armored divisions to the infantry enabled the Germans to delay the Third Army with a thin screen and pull the bulk of their forces back into the Westwall.

But the real overview is the matter of me finally finishing my big job (it is almost done) and getting down to the realities of the Western Front. Needless to say, that looking at the realities of Kursk Battle makes any discussion about "largest tank to tank battle" at Arracourt an exercise in futility. But here, we have to get to a genius of an actor George C. Scott, his Oscar-winning portrayal of Patton, and to the first page of Ladislas Farago's 

 

Despicable A-holes (not all, though)

The behavior of Russian hockey players after losing to Canada 6-1 in IIHF 2015 World Championship final game in Prague is despicable. It is an example of disgrace and loss of any sports (and not only sports) honor.  It is also a disservice to their country.

The only thing I have to say here--what a bunch of sore losers! Disgusting!

Immortal Regiment

It has been three days since the end of celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Victory in Great Patriotic War in Russia. A lot has been already written about a magnificent parade and what happened after it. I decided to take several days to come to terms with what really happened. Here are some of my thoughts.

The parade was magnificent and so is the hysteria in Western media. In fact, it is enjoyable. In the culture dominated by shallow appearances, manipulation of perceptions, which somehow is called political "science" and "journalism" (one may even get Ph.D in these "fields") and with the lack of substance, Moscow's parade was a sight to behold precisely for its substance, not, however magnificent, appearance. I will omit here the obvious geopolitical impact of political leaders, representing about the half of the planet's population, being present on the Red Square--so much for "isolation"--I want to concentrate on other signs. 

1. "Armata". The bad news for West's "hawks" (most of them--chickenhawks, who never served a day in any armed forces) are next:

a) "Armata" platform and T-14 Armata Main Battle Tank is not about some appearances, albeit the tank and family of Kurganets and Armata-platform vehicles do look futuristic, but about what Russian Armed Forces were working on since mid-2000s--Net Centric Warfare (NCW). The NCW concept is a brain child of brilliant late American Admiral Cebrowski disclosed to the military world in late 1990s and it is evolving ever since. The idea of nodes, constituting a network, whose value is proportional to the number of nodes (Metcalf's Law) and their interactions, sensor and data fusion, issues of information superiority are immensely powerful ideas capable to define the outcome on the future battlefield. 

For those interested, a superb summary by Alberts, Garstka and Stein:

NETWORK CENTRIC WARFARE : Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority  

 Well, T-14 Armata is it. The tank has an unprecedented array of sensors, including AESA radar, which makes it possible to create a whole coverage over battlefield and be both a node and a command node fully integrated into the network. Tank is also capable of operating unmanned, as a drone. Throw in here all those other pesky things like the system of defense and countermeasures and you get the picture. It is the future. But Russia, is not supposed to be able to field more than several prototypes because its economy is "shredded to pieces" (c) and sanctions are about to destroy it?  Right? Wrong! 

b) During Putin's meeting with military-economic block in Sochi today it was revealed (drum roll) that Russian Armed Forces are financed fully and, in fact, the tempo of modernization only increased. 

Meeting in Sochi (in Russian--Ria.RU)  

 c) So, all those "analysts" who are going apoplectic at their, yet another, failure to predict anything (it will happen to you once you begin to trust Russian "liberal" sources and US NGOs in Russia), understand what is going on as much as I understand the rules of blernsball from Futurama. 

Obviously, not all of those US "Russia specialists" are dumb as f.cks (most are, however), Roger McDermot of US Army Staff College certainly recognized (within the wrong framework, though) what was going on long before T-14 rolled out to the Red Square.

Russian Perspective on Network-Centric Warfare

So, basically, Russia rolled out a completely NCW capable armored force and with it, Russia defined the future of the warfare as based in the combined arms operations by large formations. Remember COIN? Big continental powers are not defined by COIN capability, they are defined by the ability to sustain standing armies capable of large scale operations. Russia simply reclaimed its status, she also presented the best weapons available for the job of being independent and militarily mighty nations which will not take sh.t from anyone, including US and NATO. The hysteria in the West (and especially in US) ensued. Ah yes...T-14 and Armata-platform vehicles look...gorgeous and sexy. 

d) If the decision to resume production of TU-160s turns out to be a practical decision, and there are no reasons to believe otherwise so far, considering Russia's arsenal of cruise missiles this could be a very bad news for proponents of Prompt Global Strike since Kh-101 missile is a true stand off weapon which could be launched way beyond the reach of US interceptors. 

2. But it was the Immortal Regiment march of 12 million all over Russia (500 000 in Moscow alone) which did what no military technology is capable of. On May 9, all over Russia, spirits of Borodino and Stalingrad, Kursk and Battle of Moscow were present. Because, as Tolstoy stated in the greatest prose ever written:

"But all the general and soldiers of [Napoleon’s] army…experienced a similar feeling of terror before an enemy who, after losing half his men, stood as threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the Russians at Borodino…The direct consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow… and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid"(c)

Tolstoy, War And Peace.  

Russia finally found its spiritual pivot, and the totality of an immense Russian culture and history finally fused together in the midst of those millions of people who carried photos of their relatives who defeated Naziism. That, the historic memory of people, the immense shared historic experience, can not be erased and it will not be erased. That is the victory which the whole world, some with joy, others spewing bile, observed on May 9. And that was way more important than any parade or an advanced military technology, which are the derivatives of the national spirit, which finally found the way out. 

    

Victory Day

May 9th is approaching--it is a solemn day, it is also a day which honest, decent people around the world will remember forever. The day, when humanity's historic singularity ended. It ended in the ultimate destruction of Europe, especially its Eastern part, it also saw a horror of warfare in Asia. But it was the carnage of the Eastern Front which defies imagination. In the moment of rare clarity, Washington Post, today, published a piece which could have been a title of this post:

Don’t forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler 

Festivities in Moscow are coming and, of course, there will be Red Square military parade. The praises to Allies will also sound from the Presidential podium. This celebration, however, will be without Western Allies' stately presence. They are "offended" and "insulted", well it is their loss. In the end, the ultimate destruction of Wehrmacht, in battles without parallels in human history, happened on the Eastern Front. The meaning of that destruction was not what one of the Obama's "femme fatales", UN Ambassador   Samantha Power dared to cynically promote in her abhorring UN General Assembly speech, by quoting Tanya Savicheva's diary. The destruction of Nazi military machine was NOT about some "principles" Power implied. It was for survival of humanity and sanity, and the scale of this sacrifice by all those 27 million Soviet people will remain incomprehensible for her, no matter number of worthless Ivy League degrees in humanities she, or people who lit the current world on fire, accumulate and whom she so passionately serves by lying, will ever understand. 

But it is Victory Day in Russia and my intentions are simple: I praise the heroism and sacrifice of tens of millions Soviet people who demolished Nazism, I also praise and bow in gratitude to Western Allies, who did their duty heroically--we, Russians, always remembered. I will raise the toast today, also, for my three (yes, my grandma remarried) grandfathers-all three fought, one survived. The only one grandfather I knew and still love deeply. For every Russian it is always personal. So, with the Victory Day!

С Днём Победы!

       

This Is Beyond Low......

The US mass-media sewer continues to deliver. Business Insider did a "list" of "12 Most Absurd Communist Buildings Still Standing". The monument "Motherland Calls" on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd (Stalingrad) got listed as #9. Below is still the link to Australian edition of this cloaca of a media, trying to pretend that they are respected journalists. US edition of BI managed to take the monument off their "list" but we live in a truly global world and it is difficult to hide without leaving the tracks. 

The 12 most absurd Communist buildings still standing 

But here is the screenshot.

For those, who don't know, this magnificent monument was erected in 1967 to commemorate lives and heroism of those innumerable hundreds of thousands Soviet soldiers and citizens who dealt Hitler his catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad. More people died in 5 months in Stalingrad Battle than US lost in all of its wars throughout its whole history combined.  It, frankly, makes me sick that this, so called journalism, is now a golden standard in US--but it is.  I can not conceive some Russian media outlet calling Arlington Cemetery "bizarre" or "absurd".  It is not just the matter of respect for fallen others, it is also, and even primarily so, respect for oneself--the value which is unknown in US mainstream mass-media.