We should be hitting the Russians on the ground (and would be as needed with a NFZ). This is Russia's war. Putin demanded it. Apparently without his military knowing about it. He's not going to stop just because we don't oppose him today. He may look weak now, but let him win in Ukraine and see what happens. If nukes deter us now, what's different about the next country he invades? NATO? He's still got the nukes FFS. I call our current state "nuclear paralysis." Time to snap our of it. And BTW the time is right to smack Xi Dada with sweeping sanctions for his full-throated support of Putin's crimes (and for his own massive crimes).
They don't need a no-fly zone, they just need more rain... For a country as rich in natural resources as is Ukraine, you'd think they'd have better roads. They don't, the roads are about 30 feet wide, with (in the spring) mud on either side, lots of mud, slippery mud, and that's because the oligarchs who run Ukraine stole the money for the roads to buy mansions in Florida, commercial real estate in Cleveland, and large yachts - https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out So the tank columns are stalled because of crappy roads and blown bridges - "Ukrainians need to credit General Mud. That awesome 40 mile long convoy headed toward Kyiv from the Northwest has not moved for a week. A similar one coming down from the Northeast is making very slow progress. My guess is that it is the same story. The road is not that wide – maybe 30 feet. Narrower where bridges have been blown. They cannot operate in the mud alongside the roads. The roads have almost certainly been mined, blown up, blocked by rubble and so on.
The surprise has been that Ukraine has not attacked these convoys. Let me repeat my wild surmise from five days ago. They may not need to.
Thousands of troops are stuck and cannot move. They need to eat. They need water. Just keeping them battle ready is going to be tough. Meanwhile, they cannot help but interact with the local people. They do not shoot every civilian they see." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/a-quiet-sunday-morning-general-mud March 6, Mr Seibert lives in Kiev. "From what my friend describes here, the Kyiv-Chop Highway is now blocked. The Russians cannot use it. To surround Kyiv, the Russians would have to bring significant forces from the north, through Makariv, and cross the highway and continue south. According to my friend, Makariv is now in Ukrainian hands.
The partly destroyed Russian column my friend describes is by no means unique. There is also the 40-mile-long Russian column that is stuck around 18 km. northwest of Kyiv. This column was also stopped by a blown bridge, aided by Ukrainian territorial defense forces hitting the vehicles both in front and in the rear of the column. They cannot go off the road, as they’ll get stuck in the mud. Apparently, there are around 40,000 soldiers in the column. They were only given 3 days of rations. The prospect that the Russian Army can surround Kyiv seems to become dimmer by the day." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/robert-homans-36-preparations-casting More: "Troop morale is terrible. My friend Gary in London says that the soldiers from that 40 mile column that has been stalled for a week are now sleeping in the woods off by the side of the road because they see their armor as a deathtrap. They don't want to be in it when it explodes.
The attacks that were supposed to happen simply haven't happened. A general officer and a couple of battalion commanders have been killed. It is unusual in war for high-ranking officers to die. In Vietnam it could well have been fragging by disenchanted troops." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-from-kyiv-blessed-silence
Once those columns run out of diesel fuel and food, they're junk. Fuel trucks won't get anywhere close, and food might be difficult, as might water...
You really seem convinced that (1) Russians don't know how to deal with mud during warfare, and (2) mud is the only explanation for somebody's no doubt uninpeachable observation that 40 miles of a Russian convey is stuck somewhere. (1) is utterly laughable, (2) is wishful thinking, as in the narrative about reality is more important than reality itself, a now common mindset that has infected most of western society.
And after those 2 assumptions, it's off to the races with your fantastical explanations. Remind me not to read your newsletter.
Don't read my newsletter, then. I'm just passing on the observations of a couple of people who live in Kyiv, about 10 miles from where those Russian tanks are stuck in the mud... And apparently you don't do a good job of reading, either, because those observations were plainly stated above.
Thank you for this. I note your reference to the AVG— the American Volunteer Group— better known and remembered as the legendary Flying Tigers of World War II. What would you think of an AVG updated for 2022? As I'm sure you know, Americans set up an export company back in 1941 to handle the sale of U.S.-built fighter aircraft to Nationalist China at the same time a bunch of hotshot American pilots suddenly resigned their commissions to become "instructors" employed in China by the export company. I believe they did eventually train a handful of Chinese pilots, but their main job was flying against and wreaking havoc on Japan's air forces. Would that scheme be feasible (or advisable) today? The Russians would, of course, easily see through the export company subterfuge— as, I'm sure, Imperial Japan did— but what could/would they do about it? (One big difference, of course: Japan did not have nukes.) Separate question: what do you think of the apparent plan by the U.S. to have Poland (and other former Eastern Bloc countries?) supply MiGs to Ukraine?
Sure thing, dude, the first US pilot to get shot down over the Russian lines... What could they do? Use your imagination. I'd hope the response would be Beltway-targeted. Perhaps US national security would be better served if A-10s shot up the Beltway instead, this would cut out a link in the chain...
It's a good idea. If the administration ever breaks out of groupthink and nuclear paralysis, they should implement. If you're looking for a "blob," it's one of inaction, not too much action.
IO ramping up even more. The core operator appears to be The Atlantic Council, who best I know are a CIA front. Also DoState types. It fits such a crowd to promote impetuosity, irrationality, chaos, suffering, disorder.
It is notable, IMO, that their counterparts in Ukraine -- Soros' Zelensky et al, guys whose ancestors fought with the Wehrmacht against the Red Army -- promote the same irrationality and sorrow in consequence, free of concern for the welfare of their countrymen. Here we call them Lefties. Russians call them Nazis, with great historical accuracy. I prefer the term Fascists, or, Euro-American Fascists. Russians have broken their back, finally, in an unexpected place and unforeseen manner. WW II is over.
CIA / Atlantic Council and their claque of corporations are willing to conquer and loot Russia to the very last European and especially the very last Ukrainian, free of concern for their countrymen, Russians, or Ukrainians.
Bin Salman al Saud was quoted yesterday to this effect: We don’t have the right to lecture you in America. The same goes the other way. I say, Amen to that.
So a whole passel of academic-thinktank/ex-State/ex-Pentagon types managed to find a grand total of TWO retired flag ranks to sign on so they would continue to get invited to the good parties in DC.
I am non-impressed.
A contested no-fly zone is also known by the three letter term "War", and any idiot who thinks the only thing Vlad the Invader would do is send his VKS pilots in two at a time to get shot down, and not launch some of those cruise missiles or even manned strikes at the air bases which the no-fly-CAP is staging from in Poland and Romania and Germany, is delusional.
And the guy who gets to write the ROE rule covering "If you get painted/locked on/launched at by an S-400/S-500 located on the other side of the border in Russia" will need a pay raise.
An idiotic suggestion made by people who have never been on the receiving end of enemy fire. Imposing a NFZ over the Ukraine would require hundreds, if not thousands of aircraft. It would require shooting down dozens of Russian planes, bombing anti air missile sites, and possibly bombing Russian air bases. This will result in our pilots being killed, Russian attacks on NATO bases and the general creation of a European-wide war. The fact that these people are supposed to be from elite think tanks and institutions does not speak well of their organizations.
As you point out, there is no way that The Powers That Be can fail to understand what they are ACTUALLY calling for. So, we must assume that they DO know full well.
World leaders are not weak, nor stupid. They didn't get into their positions of power by being either one of those things. They simply want different things than sane people want. They are psychopaths. They have their agenda, they are executing their agenda, and their agenda is psychopathy for personal aggrandizement.
Look at any criminal organization: MS-13, the Italian mafia, the Irish mob, the Japanese yakuza, the Chinese triads, pick your favorite, and then realize that the ruling class around the world is just one more world-wide organized crime syndicate.
MS-13 happily beheads innocents in order to make a point to rivals and increase their power. It's business, nothing personal. Same with the Biden Crime Family, the Xi Crime Family, the Trudeau Crime Family, the Putin Crime Family, the Zelensky Crime Family. A lot of the national political families have decided a world war would be helpful to their personal standing, so they are trying to whip one up.
This isn't weakness, this isn't stupidity, this is simply another business deal by our elites.
To be very clear: NATO’s primary job at this point is to avoid global thermonuclear annihilation. Sacrifice Ukraine upon the altar of preserving the species.
I fear we are about to learn the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
Aircraft to Poland for Ukraine is equally ill-advised.
We should be hitting the Russians on the ground (and would be as needed with a NFZ). This is Russia's war. Putin demanded it. Apparently without his military knowing about it. He's not going to stop just because we don't oppose him today. He may look weak now, but let him win in Ukraine and see what happens. If nukes deter us now, what's different about the next country he invades? NATO? He's still got the nukes FFS. I call our current state "nuclear paralysis." Time to snap our of it. And BTW the time is right to smack Xi Dada with sweeping sanctions for his full-throated support of Putin's crimes (and for his own massive crimes).
"We should be hitting the Russians on the ground . . ."
Who's "we", kemo sabe?
They don't need a no-fly zone, they just need more rain... For a country as rich in natural resources as is Ukraine, you'd think they'd have better roads. They don't, the roads are about 30 feet wide, with (in the spring) mud on either side, lots of mud, slippery mud, and that's because the oligarchs who run Ukraine stole the money for the roads to buy mansions in Florida, commercial real estate in Cleveland, and large yachts - https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out So the tank columns are stalled because of crappy roads and blown bridges - "Ukrainians need to credit General Mud. That awesome 40 mile long convoy headed toward Kyiv from the Northwest has not moved for a week. A similar one coming down from the Northeast is making very slow progress. My guess is that it is the same story. The road is not that wide – maybe 30 feet. Narrower where bridges have been blown. They cannot operate in the mud alongside the roads. The roads have almost certainly been mined, blown up, blocked by rubble and so on.
The surprise has been that Ukraine has not attacked these convoys. Let me repeat my wild surmise from five days ago. They may not need to.
Thousands of troops are stuck and cannot move. They need to eat. They need water. Just keeping them battle ready is going to be tough. Meanwhile, they cannot help but interact with the local people. They do not shoot every civilian they see." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/a-quiet-sunday-morning-general-mud March 6, Mr Seibert lives in Kiev. "From what my friend describes here, the Kyiv-Chop Highway is now blocked. The Russians cannot use it. To surround Kyiv, the Russians would have to bring significant forces from the north, through Makariv, and cross the highway and continue south. According to my friend, Makariv is now in Ukrainian hands.
The partly destroyed Russian column my friend describes is by no means unique. There is also the 40-mile-long Russian column that is stuck around 18 km. northwest of Kyiv. This column was also stopped by a blown bridge, aided by Ukrainian territorial defense forces hitting the vehicles both in front and in the rear of the column. They cannot go off the road, as they’ll get stuck in the mud. Apparently, there are around 40,000 soldiers in the column. They were only given 3 days of rations. The prospect that the Russian Army can surround Kyiv seems to become dimmer by the day." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/robert-homans-36-preparations-casting More: "Troop morale is terrible. My friend Gary in London says that the soldiers from that 40 mile column that has been stalled for a week are now sleeping in the woods off by the side of the road because they see their armor as a deathtrap. They don't want to be in it when it explodes.
The attacks that were supposed to happen simply haven't happened. A general officer and a couple of battalion commanders have been killed. It is unusual in war for high-ranking officers to die. In Vietnam it could well have been fragging by disenchanted troops." https://grahamseibert.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-from-kyiv-blessed-silence
Once those columns run out of diesel fuel and food, they're junk. Fuel trucks won't get anywhere close, and food might be difficult, as might water...
You really seem convinced that (1) Russians don't know how to deal with mud during warfare, and (2) mud is the only explanation for somebody's no doubt uninpeachable observation that 40 miles of a Russian convey is stuck somewhere. (1) is utterly laughable, (2) is wishful thinking, as in the narrative about reality is more important than reality itself, a now common mindset that has infected most of western society.
And after those 2 assumptions, it's off to the races with your fantastical explanations. Remind me not to read your newsletter.
Don't read my newsletter, then. I'm just passing on the observations of a couple of people who live in Kyiv, about 10 miles from where those Russian tanks are stuck in the mud... And apparently you don't do a good job of reading, either, because those observations were plainly stated above.
It's even worse than you thought typographically with repition (bad enough in every other aspect)
1. Anders Aslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum
2. Stephen Blank, Senior Fellow/Foreign Policy Research Institute
3. Gen. (Ret.) Philip Breedlove, Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe
4. Ian Brzezinski, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
5. Orest Deychakiwsky, Former Policy Adviser, U.S. Helsinki Commission
6. Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
4. Paula Dobriansky, Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
5. Eric S. Edelman, Former Under Secretary of Defense
6. Evelyn Farkas, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia
7. Daniel Fried, Former Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Ambassador to Poland
Lord have mercy!
Thank you for this. I note your reference to the AVG— the American Volunteer Group— better known and remembered as the legendary Flying Tigers of World War II. What would you think of an AVG updated for 2022? As I'm sure you know, Americans set up an export company back in 1941 to handle the sale of U.S.-built fighter aircraft to Nationalist China at the same time a bunch of hotshot American pilots suddenly resigned their commissions to become "instructors" employed in China by the export company. I believe they did eventually train a handful of Chinese pilots, but their main job was flying against and wreaking havoc on Japan's air forces. Would that scheme be feasible (or advisable) today? The Russians would, of course, easily see through the export company subterfuge— as, I'm sure, Imperial Japan did— but what could/would they do about it? (One big difference, of course: Japan did not have nukes.) Separate question: what do you think of the apparent plan by the U.S. to have Poland (and other former Eastern Bloc countries?) supply MiGs to Ukraine?
Sure thing, dude, the first US pilot to get shot down over the Russian lines... What could they do? Use your imagination. I'd hope the response would be Beltway-targeted. Perhaps US national security would be better served if A-10s shot up the Beltway instead, this would cut out a link in the chain...
It's a good idea. If the administration ever breaks out of groupthink and nuclear paralysis, they should implement. If you're looking for a "blob," it's one of inaction, not too much action.
Peer to peer virtue signals are much more important to much of the chattering class than being honest brokers of information or knowledge.
IO ramping up even more. The core operator appears to be The Atlantic Council, who best I know are a CIA front. Also DoState types. It fits such a crowd to promote impetuosity, irrationality, chaos, suffering, disorder.
It is notable, IMO, that their counterparts in Ukraine -- Soros' Zelensky et al, guys whose ancestors fought with the Wehrmacht against the Red Army -- promote the same irrationality and sorrow in consequence, free of concern for the welfare of their countrymen. Here we call them Lefties. Russians call them Nazis, with great historical accuracy. I prefer the term Fascists, or, Euro-American Fascists. Russians have broken their back, finally, in an unexpected place and unforeseen manner. WW II is over.
CIA / Atlantic Council and their claque of corporations are willing to conquer and loot Russia to the very last European and especially the very last Ukrainian, free of concern for their countrymen, Russians, or Ukrainians.
Bin Salman al Saud was quoted yesterday to this effect: We don’t have the right to lecture you in America. The same goes the other way. I say, Amen to that.
So a whole passel of academic-thinktank/ex-State/ex-Pentagon types managed to find a grand total of TWO retired flag ranks to sign on so they would continue to get invited to the good parties in DC.
I am non-impressed.
A contested no-fly zone is also known by the three letter term "War", and any idiot who thinks the only thing Vlad the Invader would do is send his VKS pilots in two at a time to get shot down, and not launch some of those cruise missiles or even manned strikes at the air bases which the no-fly-CAP is staging from in Poland and Romania and Germany, is delusional.
And the guy who gets to write the ROE rule covering "If you get painted/locked on/launched at by an S-400/S-500 located on the other side of the border in Russia" will need a pay raise.
An idiotic suggestion made by people who have never been on the receiving end of enemy fire. Imposing a NFZ over the Ukraine would require hundreds, if not thousands of aircraft. It would require shooting down dozens of Russian planes, bombing anti air missile sites, and possibly bombing Russian air bases. This will result in our pilots being killed, Russian attacks on NATO bases and the general creation of a European-wide war. The fact that these people are supposed to be from elite think tanks and institutions does not speak well of their organizations.
As you point out, there is no way that The Powers That Be can fail to understand what they are ACTUALLY calling for. So, we must assume that they DO know full well.
World leaders are not weak, nor stupid. They didn't get into their positions of power by being either one of those things. They simply want different things than sane people want. They are psychopaths. They have their agenda, they are executing their agenda, and their agenda is psychopathy for personal aggrandizement.
Look at any criminal organization: MS-13, the Italian mafia, the Irish mob, the Japanese yakuza, the Chinese triads, pick your favorite, and then realize that the ruling class around the world is just one more world-wide organized crime syndicate.
MS-13 happily beheads innocents in order to make a point to rivals and increase their power. It's business, nothing personal. Same with the Biden Crime Family, the Xi Crime Family, the Trudeau Crime Family, the Putin Crime Family, the Zelensky Crime Family. A lot of the national political families have decided a world war would be helpful to their personal standing, so they are trying to whip one up.
This isn't weakness, this isn't stupidity, this is simply another business deal by our elites.
There's your Deep State, like a shadow govt waiting in the wings to cheer on Biden administration to WW III.
"There are retired USAF General Officers on this list. They know this."
Do they? Or are the members of the Fighter Mafia who don't know jack about the A-10, and don't want to?
Genuinely curious as to why John Bolton did not sign onto this.
lol
To be very clear: NATO’s primary job at this point is to avoid global thermonuclear annihilation. Sacrifice Ukraine upon the altar of preserving the species.
I fear we are about to learn the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
To be clear - the US has a single geopolitical goal at this point: avoid global thermonuclear annihilation.
Sacrifice non-NATO states upon the altar of preserving our species, of need be.
I fear we may soon learn the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
In any case, please tell me JSOC has a plan to secure Russian nukes if the country implodes (sans global holocaust.