To pay a greatest respect to true America's and humanity's heroes--it is 50th Anniversary today of Apollo 11's Moon Landing. An incredible milestone and a magnificent achievement in the times when America did produce outstanding engineers (yes, Von Brown did become an American of sorts too) and romantics. We all remember "A giant leap...". This is for you, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Even "enemies" applauded you in admiration half-a-century ago.
The question here is not the fact that this whole "Stealth", or VLO (Very Low Observable), technologies are good only in the environment of a complete suppression of enemy's air defenses and air forces, which automatically implies third-fourth world armed forces, but the fact that somebody in Pentagon and Military-Industrial Complex still believed that F-35 was good for anything other than bombing barely armed with muskets backward aborigines into oblivion? OK, I got it, I write books on those topics but the issue here is not just myopia, or stupidity, or hubris, albeit these too play a major role in this doctrinal and operational disaster. Dmitry Orlov today wrote a superb piece on a subject which was discussed here and elsewhere not for once. Here is how Dmitry writes about it:
What knocked Russian analysis over with a feather is the fact that these
INDPOL experts (who, like the rest of the US DOD, love acronyms)
evaluate the US military-industrial complex from a… market-based
perspective! You see, the Russian military-industrial complex is fully
owned by the Russian government and works exclusively in its interests;
anything else would be considered treason. But the US
military-industrial complex is evaluated based on its… profitability!
According to INDPOL, it must not only produce products for the military
but also acquire market share in the global weapons trade and, perhaps
most importantly, maximize profitability for private investors. By this
standard, it is doing well: for 2017 the gross margin (EBITDA) for US
defense contractors ranged from 15 to 17%, and some
subcontractors—Transdigm, for example—managed to deliver no less than
42-45%. “Ah!” cry the Russian experts, “We’ve found the problem! The
Americans have legalized war profiteering!” (This, by the way, is but one of many instances of something called systemic corruption, which is rife in the US.)
Ahh, warmer now. You see, it is akin to introducing into the Theory of Operations such thing as, say, US Dollar Adjusted Exchange Rate. This USDAER factor will be calculated the next way: say Russia and the United States go to war (God forbids): In the wee hours of this war Russians shoot down, say, 6 F-35s, while the United States shoots down 6 SU-35s. That automatically makes the United States a winner in such a war because, American USDAER in this case will be counted as 6 F-35 x $100 million = $600 million, divided by 6 SU-35 x $50 million = $300 million. You see, that means that USDAER for the United States will be 600/300=2 which is very good rate, since it means a much larger cash flow for US military contractors (and capitalization of their companies) than it will be for Russians whose USDAER is merely 300/600=0.5. Losers! You see, no matters how you fight, the United States will always come on top because it will have much larger USDAER than any enemy US fights. The beauty and power of this USDAER model, of course, can only be unlocked with the application of Financial Utility Combat Knowledge Integral Translator (also known as FUCKIT), which is a natural logarithm of ratio of a number of Wall Street brokers to the number of days they spent in operational zones combined. But I don't want to disclose many details of it.
In fact, everything we know about warfare should be thrown out to the dumpster because all those Operational Theory and Strategy criteria are wrong! What kind of morons attend all those General Staff academies and colleges. Only Walls Street economists, all those magnificent MBAs and PH.Ds in Monetary Theory, know how to fight the war. $50 million-worth of hyper-sonic weapons are nothing against $20 billion-worth of Carrier Battle Group which they will destroy. Come on, look at the USDAER in this case: $20 billion/$ 50 million = 400! The exclamation Mark here does not imply Factorial. That's what I am talking about. But, of course, I am being facetious... and dumbfounded. To measure a military might of the state in profits is a new (no, I mean it), new, word in military art.
As famous Soviet movie masterpiece That Very Same Munchhausen foretold it 30 years ago: Me, to fight a war in this?! Don't you know that nobody fights today in single-breasted uniforms!
Don't you know that nobody fights today without... Stealth. Ahem. Yes, Leonid Bronevoy, our favorite Mueller, is (pains me to say was) as stellar as always in this unstoppable triumph of cinema and wit. Who would have thought that comic absurdity will become a reality 30 years later. But here it is. The more you lose the better (richer) you become. Another matter in all that, is the fact that the games are over and any wrong move may lead to a catastrophe in which all myths of US military omnipotence could be dispelled through disastrous loses and then...WHAT? I don't think anyone in US "elites" knows the answer.
I want to clear the air from the very start: Turkey knows what F-35 is and that is why she will "survive" cancellation of F-35 deliveries. F-35 for Turkey, who produced a number of parts for this aircraft, was primarily of industrial interest. So, all this contrived BS about security issues is just that, BS. Modern Air Defense complexes, such as S-400, even in their export version, can detect, track and shoot down all those VLO (Very Low Observability) targets such as F-35. The only "security issue" here for the United States was the fact that having "live" F-35 and S-400 simultaneously by the key member of NATO would have revealed publicly (in professional circles it is known well already) all massive faults with F-35 in general and ONLY-VLO-centric combat aircraft concept in particular.
There is a lot, as was expected, of butt-hurt right now. Such as this:
For starters: Patriot is NOT equivalent of the S-400 with S-400 being superior in its key performance characteristics. Secondly, I agree with Trump in a sense that "you can't do business like that" and this has nothing to do with Turkey but with the United States which is now in full economic warfare and political bullying with most of the world. The inevitable question thus--who in their mind would do business with the country which is ungovernable and both has no competitive systems to offer and may stop (or disable) their procurement any moment? Only spineless Europeans, maybe. India was explicit in basically telling the US to mind its own business re: India's $5 billion contract with Russia for S-400. Pakistan, India, many others, including Gulfies want S-400 and other Russian weapon systems. We know what the United States will do--she will try to sabotage any Russia's effort across the whole spectrum of international economic activity, be that Nord Stream-2 or arms trade. For Turkey, however, it seems, S-400 is not just military or, inevitably, geopolitical reorientation issue, with Ankara beginning to understand where her real interests lie. In the end, Turkey sees on the horizon the access to technology transfer not only for S-400 (its export version, of course) but eventually for export versions of SU-35, SU-57 and, inevitably, S-500 and who knows what else. So, there is a lot to be taken in at this moment but as I said many times, Russia has the ability and instruments for defense of larger Eurasia, plus, in Turkey's case, deliveries and deployment of S-400 boost Turkey's regional standing, including in disputes with Greece and Cyprus. It is enough to look at the map of the region to understand why S-400 changes Turkey's status in Eastern Mediterranean. As stated by Russian MoD (in Russian) the second gigantic An-124 will leave for Turkey with another set of S-400 equipment shortly, the balance, which is 120 missiles, will be delivered by the end of this Summer by sea-route. Second group of Turkish officers will start its training for S-400 this July in Russia. This comes to mind, inevitably;-))
Mueller says: you see how I turned you? In 5 minutes and no tricks.
I guess next step will be US sanctions against Russia's sovereign debt--this will accelerate Empire's decline greatly. Zugzwang is a bitch.
We knew this all along, didn't we? It is not just about personalities, however repulsive in his narcissism and lack of statesmanship Obama was. It is systemic, no matter who comes to power to the Oval Office--it will make no difference. No difference, whatsoever. What is known as US power (political) elite has been on the downward spiral for some time and, in some sense, the whole Epstein affair with serious pedophilia charges, not to mention an unspeakable slap on the wrist in which this well-connected pervert was let go ten years ago, is just one of many indications of a complete moral and cognitive decomposition of this so called "elite" which continues to provide one after another specimens of human depravity. Remarkably, as much as I always feel nauseated when seeing GOPers, it is impossible to hide the fact that Epstein's clients in their majority are mostly associated with putrid creatures from the so called "left", with Bill Clinton featuring prominently in the company of this pervert.
There were some attempts to even conceive a possibility of somehow "progressives" and "conservatives" getting together in their condemnation of this heinous crime (yeah, yeah, I know, Presumption of Innocence).
Doesn't it sound wonderful, warm and fuzzy, or too good to be true? It sure does, because, as much as most American elite "conservatives" are not really conservatives, what passes as "progressive" in the United States is PRIMARILY based on sexual deviancy, including implicit promotion of pedophilia by "intellectual class", and "environmental" agenda, period! Everything else is secondary. Those who think that actual conservatism (not a caricature it is known in the United States) has anything to discuss with the so called "progressives"--they unwittingly support this very "progressive" cause which, in its very many manifestations, is a realization of the worst kind of suppression of many millennia old natural, including biological, order of things and, in the end, elimination of normality as such--a future even Orwell would have had difficulty describing.
Of course, Pinkerton gets some flashes of common sense, when states that:
Most likely, a true solution will have “conservative” elements, as in
social and cultural norming, and “liberal” elements, as in higher taxes
on city slickers coupled with conscious economic development for the
proletarians and for the heartland. Only with these economic and
governmental changes can we be sure that it’s possible to have a nice
life in Anytown, safely far away from beguiling pleasuredomes.
Well, he puts it very crudely, but I see where he is at least trying to get it from. I will add, until nation, as in American nation, recognizes itself as a nation, as people who have common history, culture and mission, thus, inevitably producing this aforementioned healthy social and cultural norming--no amount of wishful thinking or social-economic doctrine-mongering will help. There is no United States without European-keen, white Christian, heterosexual folk, both with acutely developed sense of both masculinity and femininity, period. But this is precisely the state of the affairs which American "progressives" are fighting against; this is the state of the affairs which they must destroy be that by imposition of suffocating political correctness, the insanity of multi-gender and LGBT totalitarianism, or by criminal opening of the borders to anyone, who, in the end, will vote for the Democratic Party. You cannot negotiate with such people. In the end, WHO is going to negotiate? A cowardly, utterly corrupt, current GOPers and geriatric remnants of Holy Reaganites? Really? Ask how many of them are Mossad assets and are in the pockets of rich Israeli-firsters and Gulfies?
True "Left" economics, which seeks more just distribution (not re-distribution) of wealth, based on a fusion of economic models and types of property, cannot exist within cultural liberal paradigm of "privileged" minorities, be them racial or sexual ones, aided by massive grievance-generating machine--it is not going to last. Both economic and social normality can exist ONLY within cohesive nation and that, due to activity on both nominal sides (in reality it is the same) of American political spectrum, has been utterly destroyed. The mechanism of this destruction is rather simple and it comes down, in the end, to the, pardon my French, number of ass-holes populating unit-volume (density, that is) of political space in America. It goes without saying that such a density in the US reached deadly toxic levels, and Russiagate coup, Epstein's Affair, or the parade of POTUSes with the maturity levels of high school kids are just numerous partial manifestations of what one can characterize as the end of the rope. After all, who would be making any agreements with representatives of the system which is rotting and decomposing?
I would pause a little here. Yes and no. Here is Colonel Wilkerson who talks about both wealth (starts roughly at 14:00) and about other very important strategic and operational fact: overwhelming majority of weapons on hands today are among those who either support Trump openly or simply had it with system in general.
And here is the issue: my bets are on people with military backgrounds, who had first hand experience with military organization (standard manuals, combat manuals et al) and have operational and command experience in their conflict with American Social Justice Warriors (you know--"progressives") and other openly terrorist "progressive" organizations such as Antifa. At least ruined Portland started to do something about it.Is there any real left left in the US? And I don't mean this a-hole Bernie Sanders.
And here is my rephrasing of Tolstoy's conclusion to War and Peace: there are too many ass-holes in American politics today, very many of them being so called"progressives". This number must be reduced by all legal means today, and if American ass-holes can work together terrorizing majority of good, not ass-hole people, what's precluding those good people to work together? Nothing, except for the rotting corpse of GOP which had audacity to call itself "conservative". If not, all is lost and we do not want to live in the world which will come. And the guns will start speaking. UPDATE: 07/11/19
Oh goody, do they read me or is it one of those moments when, in Lenin's description of Revolutionary Situation, economic slogans transform into political ones? Evidently Catholic Conservative Michael Warren speaks in unison with Lenin and me, with both me and Warren certainly not being Marxists or "communists". Here is what Warren has to say today:
It is a very loaded statement. It is also not an incorrect one. It is also relevant to what I preach for years, decades really, that history of the so called "communism" in USSR was a conservative history--a transition from depravity and corruption of Russian Imperial "elites" to what resulted in the mutated nationalism of sorts in late 1930s and led to the defeat of Nazism, historically unprecedented restoration of the destroyed country and then breaking out into space. But that is a separate story--in USSR, as it is the case in Russia today, sexual perversion and deviancy are not looked at lightly. Nor are, in general, "liberal values" which are precisely designed to end up with the legitimization of pedophilia--a long held, and hidden, desire of Western "elites". Guess why such an obsession with, realistically, literary mediocrity of Nabokov's Lolita by Western moneyed and "intellectual" class. Who in their own mind, unless one is a forensic psychiatrist or detective, would be interested in such a topic, not to mention writing a book on it, not to mention a variety of Hollywood and, in general, Western cinematography artsy class making scores of Lolita movies? Each time I read Lolita, in both Russian and English, I felt an urgent desire to take a shower after reading this concoction. I guess, I am not "sophisticated" enough to recognize appeals of this type of "art". As Warren notes:
Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt
for our leaders when we discover that two presidents cavorted with
Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on minors. We should feel disgust at the mere possibility
that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be
furious that these injustices haven’t even come close to being properly
redressed. This is how revolutions are born. America is reaching the point
where, 200 years ago, a couple French peasants begin eyeing the
Bastille. The question is, can conservatives channel that outrage into
serious reform before it’s too late? Can we call out the fetid, decadent elites within our own ranks? Are we prepared to hold our own “faves” to account—even Trump himself? Alas, it’s only a matter of time until we find out.
In this, I, essentially an atheist, and a conservative Catholic, are speaking in the same voice.
I don't read Rod Dreher, nor do I care much what he has to say on any issue and, of course, I can never forget his cowardly smearing of Phil Giraldi after Phil's famous article on Jews for which Phil, who spends his life fighting debilitating influence of Israeli groups on US foreign policy, was banished from The American Conservative. I do not agree with everything Phil writes on the Jewish issue in the US but Dreher is nobody when it comes, however controversial it might be, to life-long service, sometimes very dangerous service, to the United States Phil Giraldi provided. So, in general, Dreher is not a person I would find pleasant to communicate, which is expected when talking to a "writer" without any serious education, profession (B.A. in Journalism is not an education) or experiences, which Dreher's writing proves beyond the shadow of a doubt. Yet, in a surprising move, Dreher posted in his blog at TAC this piece, or rather a letter to him:
The letter of some Marxist makes some crucial observations and they are dealing with Frankfurt School which is as Marxist as I am Chinese. So, I thought it may interest some of you in trying to figure out what real Marxism is and why it is good only as analytical tool and will never work as intended, inevitably morphing into economic fusionism, but it may also give some ideas of why most "cultural Marxists" would have been and would be beaten in Russia as post-modernist perverts and why many who would be kicking their asses would be those nasty Russian "communists" or Marxists. So, take a look...
2. Being Low Observable while boasting outstanding classic and modern, cutting edge, combat capabilities and performance beyond "Stealth" feature, such as SU-57 has, and having a flying embarrassment, aka F-35, built around primarily LO in radio diapason is not the same. Evidently Kofman does not recognize this crucial difference;
3. Kofman also fails to recognize the fact that in any potential NATO (USA)-Russia conflict, US "Stealth" aircraft would fly against Russia's Air Defense not against American one and here the capability abyss separating the two can not be larger. Kofman, as a "military analyst" should know that;
4. I omit here what I write non-stop about: modern air-defense signal processing and sensor fusion removes most, grossly overstated to start with, advantages of LO in a EW and sensor dense environment of the military peer. In the end, it is known fact that depending on the conditions even SU-35's Irbis radar "sees" F-22 at the ranges of up to 90 kilometers;
5. Finally, it is not a good practice for analyst to defer to the potential enemy, such as Russia, in terms of what she is doing and use it for propaganda, or self-medicating (most likely), purposes. In the end Israeli Air Force still cannot coherently explain what kind of bird damaged IAF's F-35 in Syria, same as why IAF prefers to launch at Syria (allegedly Iranian) targets from the international airspace.
Moreover, ignoring a dramatic difference between the use of air power in Russia and the United States, especially projected against the background of radical doctrinal differences, is hardly a competent idea, unless, of course, it is used for entertainment of amateurs. But then again, for that--there is a rich and vibrant field of Clancyesque military "literature", where such theses, as Kofman advances, belong.
