And tonight comes word that the U.S. has signed off on E.Europe NATO members delivering fighter aircraft to Ukraine. What could possibly go wrong?
If that pans out, look to your hole cards, kids. Now we find out if the Russian high command, military and civilian, loves Putin more than Russia, and more than life itself.
"How did WWIII start?"
"Well, first, 75M people all pretended contrary to all apparent reality that a functional drooling idiot was legally elected to the US presidency. And then, in due time, gravity worked..."
Brinksmanship can work, with an Eisenhower or Reagan, or even a Kennedy, or a Nixon.
With Rain Man, not so much.
What could go wrong? Lessee. Going one way, cities full of Democrat diversity get nuked and the whole "Russia question" gets resolved, permanently. Going the other way - if you take Dugin's work seriously, and if Putin takes it seriously, and the past couple weeks added on to the previous seven years indicate that there's a good chance he does - then you get forcibly imposed Russian hegemony over Europe, which they've beeng grasping at for the past couple centuries.
ReplyDeleteSend 'em the planes.
Hell, give a bunch of British and French commando teams unscheduled paid vacations for a few months too while you're at it. I'm sure they'll find something productive to do with their time.
What the Ukrainians are doing right now exemplifies everything the United States of America is supposed to be about. It's 1775 only vastly more so. We don't have to do their fighting for them - but for those of us who actually ARE Americans, who actually hold true to everything this country is supposed to be, we can damn well cheer them on and stack the deck for them however we can. And for those who insist on making excuses for Puting, may posterity forget you were our countrymen.
Have read anything the founding fathers wrote. Screw Ukraine, no foreign entanglements no empire
DeleteIn an alternate universe, WRSA is providing detailed, carefully sourced, in-depth analysis of Ukrainian tactics - successful and unsuccessful, on the battlefield and in the infosphere - to illustrate what it means for a rag-tag, ill-equipped, unprepared band of freedom fighters to take on a materially vastly more powerful but ideologically bankrupt opponent engaging in unprovoked aggression, and how that applies to the American situation. And ridiculing Putin apologists everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHow'd that guy get so far from his roots?
Ah shit.
ReplyDeleteThis what happens when we let those assholes get away with stealing an election. I'm as guilty as anyone. Shoulda climbed a tower with a rifle.
BG
Not going to happen, Poland has already called Blinken a liar...Anybody flying planes into UKraine for military use can be labeled a combatant and his country demolished...
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And August will be a hungry month . . . the wheat that isn't planted now won't be eaten.
ReplyDeletePoland doesn't seem to be very interested in this thus far and wisely so. The US may cozen are allies into or just push them into it which is bad.
ReplyDeleteIt may not go nuclear but gas, oil, fertilizer and food prices will. Yikes.
Hope to see legit video of aerial combat if that does happen.
ReplyDeleteI hope theyngot a good price for Europe. She's old but a classic.
ReplyDeleteThe Poles are echoing Sir Hugh Dowding -- https://www.battleofbritain1940.net/document-7.html -- reserving their air power for the home defense should it come. As to aerial combat I would suggest watching this vid -- https://twitter.com/i/status/1500032433911209984 -- then ask yourself 'do you want to be a chopper pilot?' The technology has reached the point that airspace below 1000msl may be no place for manned combat aircraft.
ReplyDeleteTo the UA people, tip o the hat. May your minutemen prevail. To the RU leadership you have maybe three weeks tops till your logistic quagmire becomes unsolvable then what? To my government, WTF were you thinking, if you did at all? The same thought process that got you into this tar baby will not get you out of it. A saying about repeats and idiots come to mind.
Wait..wha??? rag tag... 1775...??? In the race for corrupt states, I'd say it's Ukraine in the lead.
ReplyDeleteTell ya what, take a look at NATO from the end of the Soviet Union, which ostensibly was formed to stop SOVIET aggression, to now. Note also the REPEATED warnings, pleas, whatevs that Putin has made about the red line.
Get back to me if you've shaken the cobwebs out.
Smallpox.
ReplyDeleteIm sure the Russians have developed a new, far more lethal, antibiotic-resistant version, and Putin is probably derailed enough to use it.
At the very least, if I were in charge (which, thankfully for the rest of the world, Im not), Id snatch a few of those POW conscripts and do a deep dive blood-draw to see what they've been vaccinated against. Then plan accordingly.
If NATO does directly provide combat aircraft (and possibly airfields) to Ukraine, it will prove that Russia was right to be paranoid about NATO's threat to Russia. It's an escalation that only helps Russian resolve. Besides, how are they going to get those planes into Ukraine? Send them on easily bombed trains? Fly them through Russia's local air supremacy, threatening direct combat?
ReplyDeleteJohn Wilder hit it on the head. Michael Yon's PanFamWar is playing out LIVE on the worlds stage.
ReplyDeletePandemic Famine War for the few that might not have had read Yon's PanFamWar reports over the past two years or so.
Major Food, Fertilizer and Energy sources are bring fucked with so OUR Hard On against Russia can be fapped.
EUROPE, clearly aside from lip flapping THEY are quite aware of what this DISTRACTION WAR of the USA is already doing to them.
Going to GET HUNGRY around the American Dinner tables. IN Reality that all we care aside from Cheering on our side of the Military Version of Football.
Everybody knows how important Truckers are to our economy, Everything is going to RISE in Price and Lower in Availability as Fuel costs SOAR.
Oh, SO WHAT! Lets Set our World AFLAME and Have Ukraine Fight Russia. Popcorn anybody?
What could go wrong? ANS: UKR Air Force Su-27 jets near Kiev were shot down by Russian S400 from Belarus — 150KM away; setting a world record. (?) During first days of invasion, one of these were seen on TV as the large sky explosion.
ReplyDeleteFighter vs Fighter combat is now almost obsolete with next generation SAM's 400/500, they can pull 20G and fly at Mach 14.
Our corrupt political and managerial class started this war.
ReplyDeletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245343
Aesop, I know you don't care for Karl's commentary on things medical. But I think he's 100% correct about this Russian/Ukrainian dust up.
Anyone who either advocates our involvement in this war or volunteers to fight in it is not defending American freedom or similar such thing. Instead, you advocating and fighting for globalized special interests, ones that generally do not respect American freedom (e.g. Schwab's WEF).
Unprovoked? Seems to me that the US, CIA, NATO, George Soros, Klaus Schwab et al, have done a pretty good job at provoking the Russians into this mess. Are the Russians the bad guys, yes. Are the Ukrainians the bad guys, yes, Is the US a bad guy, yes. So who are the good guys? There aren’t any.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Putin started this war.
ReplyDeleteBut he was chivvied into doing it in no small part by Poopypants' minions, who needed to wag the dog and get a lot of bad-for-Biden news off the front pages. They've succeeded wildly at that.
@MM,
Suggest you research Hungary 19586, Berlin and E. Germany 1961, Czechoslovakia 1968, Poland 1980, and then get back to us on how many countries NATO invaded at the head of a column of tanks, from 1946-5 minutes ago.
You're talking out of your ass. The Soviet Union collapsed. Shit happens.
Russia's "legitimate security interests" stop at its own borders. They do not get to dictate to free countries what they will and won't do. That includes Ukraine.
Someone on the streets of Kyiv nailed that today, in so many words:
"It's like an ex-husband. You want to get away, but they keep stalking you and they won't leave you alone."
Russia had their chance with Ukraine until 1990. They fucked the Ukrainians over so hard for the last century, that republic left the minute they had the chance, and never looked back.
What's becoming painfully clear is that the one horrendous mistake Ukraine made was giving up their nuclear weapons when the SU collapsed, and trusting promises to respect and defend their territorial integrity made by both Russia and NATO. If they had nukes now, Vlad would be sucking his thumb, and fucking off right back to Moscow, or it'd be a smoking hole in the steppes.
No one who wants to disarm you ever has your best interests at heart.
True even when we're talking ICBMs and nuclear warheads.
Truer words were never spoken.
ReplyDeleteNever give up your nukes. Never give up your guns. NEVER GET OFF THE BOAT.
aj
"Hell, give a bunch of British and French commando teams unscheduled paid vacations for a few months too while you're at it. I'm sure they'll find something productive to do with their time."
ReplyDeleteThey haven't got months. They're done now but most just don't see it. It was always such.
"Russia's "legitimate security interests" stop at its own borders. They do not get to dictate to free countries what they will and won't do. That includes Ukraine."
ReplyDeleteWell, we'll see about that in the next week or so. Not that I like it but I'm not counting the heavyweight out in the first round or two of boxing with a bantamweight. A tough bantamweight but still the flimsier of the two.
I'm very suspicious of these premature "just you wait and see" victory dances on the stripper pole.
I mean Putin keeps a stripper pole in one of the nightclub rooms in his main palace residence.
Aesop I'd like your opinion on this Posting.
ReplyDeleteI checked his facts and aside from a few minor ones addressed and corrected in the comments His comments are reasonable.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3801878
I'd add follow the money, China owns Biden and most of the Deep State otherwise General Milley would never have been CALLING his Chinese Peers to let them know if "Trump wanted to DO something". He would have "Retired" one way or the other.
All that to say China has the MOST to gain from a Cage Match between the US and Russia. Both competitors badly damaged and China gets the Russian lands and resources.
We Be SO SCREWED.
The criminals in power LOVE the current arrangement where ALL the blame is heaped on senile demented Pedo Joe while THEY make ALL the decisions. Biden is responsible for none of this. He's a puppet. Willing during his brief periods of lucidity but still just a puppet. The egocentric pricks who are dragging us into WWIII are unelected, unaccountable and for the most part UNKNOWN. They operate in the shadows working diligently to destroy America. Getting rid of Biden won't change a thing. Getting rid of ALL elected politicians won't solve much. Because the true power brokers are NOT in office. They OWN the politicians.
ReplyDeleteOur government, so far, is resisting the pressure and denies that giving up the MiG planes will ever happen. But there is a huge amount of pressure coming from your administration, from neocons, and from US-owned media and other American assets in Poland. Not sure how long they'll manage to hold.
ReplyDeletewojtek
@GVDL,
ReplyDeleteThe Ukrainians seem no such defeatists. That certainly gets a rather hefty vote in the discussion. You cannot conquer a people that will not be subjugated. Examples abound.
I'm telling you nothing you don't already know when I point out that the Soviet Army, at the peak of the Cold War era, that invaded airweight Afghanistan in 1979, was several multiples of the strength of the starved, atrophied, and half-assed Russian Army that bumbled into Ukraine last week. The Afghans of 1979 were featherweights by comparison.
And yet, with naught in outside help but a few crates of Stinger missiles, that same mighty Soviet Army left a few years later after suffering a Vietnam-sized debacle, bled white, with its tail between its legs, just in time to see their entire nation crumble into the dustbin of history for the second time in a century.
The army that invaded is but a shadow of that, and the Ukrainians all the fiercer, and much better off, than the ragtag Afghans of 1979. Putin has constraints on what he can send, because subjugating his entire empire, while guarding the door to Mongolia, keeping the 'stans in line, and propping up dictators like Assad requires a ponderous percentage.
He has no endless ranks of tanks anymore, nor of bombs, rockets, missiles, nor even gasoline, and is even worse at supplying his troops with those things now than he was 40 years ago. His adventure in Ukraine has a time limit, and every day he shells without victory is another day closer to exhaustion, and death in detail, nibbled to death by 40M people who will settle for nothing but blood as recompense for the rape of their country, yet again, by the Russian behemoth.
Time is not on Russia's side, and even if they won a temporal "victory" it would be a mouthful of ashes, endless partisan warfare, and a conga-line of caskets coming back to Russia until they throw in the towel. They have two choices now: departure, and perennial pariah status, albeit with their skins; or escalation to world-shaking levels. Both of these mean Putin can virtually be assured of getting a Makarov retirement plan one fine morning at the conference table with his minions. Megalomaniacs always go a leap too far. Putin has stepped off the cliff. All we await now is the moment when he descends to the puff of dust at the bottom.
@wojtek,
ReplyDelete1) Last I looked, Putin was providing the lion's share of pressure for that.
2) Biden is not "our" administration. he was inflicted on America, not elected by them.
3) I suspect Poland will reluctantly bow to the pressure. After that, the crystal ball gets hazy. Mainly from bright flashes and fallout clouds.
4) The answer is relatively simple: Sell Ukraine the planes, for €1 apiece. Repaint them with Ukr. markings, and have Ukrainian pilots fly them in, knowing they are fair game from the moment they cross the border. Wash your hands of them at that point, and let events determine what they will.
@Michael,
ReplyDeleteDeninger (as usual, unfortunately) omits key facts whenever it suits him.
He forgets to mention that Russia absolved itself of all Ukrainian territory in 1990, and in return for Ukraine giving up all the nukes, agreed to respect its territorial integrity and sovereignty forever.
They've attacked and conquered large chunks of Ukraine twice already, and should have been spanked and thrashed soundly then. But Obozo/Biden.
This didn't happen in a vacuum, and Putin has only himself and 1000 years of history to blame for why Ukraine would probably have nuked Moscow by now, had they the means, and would be well within their rights to have done so.
When Deninger mentions all that too, give a holler.
{cf. lying by omission}
Aesop about lying by omission did you forget that the US and NATO were ALSO in that Agreement with the former USSR folks?
ReplyDeleteSeems the USA was GREATLY interested in removing those nukes from Ukraine. Something about a Megatons to Megawatts program?
But I do give you credit that you accept this military adventure by Idiots in power is likely to end in bright flashes, dead electronics and dying people all about.
Or as you so sagely said "Check your hole cards" in the high stakes' poker game of Nuclear Brinkmanship.
I've forgotten nothing. So, when did the US send tanks into Russia?
ReplyDeleteWhatzat? Never happened? So now you know who the chief villain is.
@Aesop
ReplyDeletePutin is the reason why all this is happening. But when it comes to plane deliveries, he is certainly providing pressure, however in the opposite direction. Russians shooting at and shelling nuclear power plants is always accompanied by reminders that any "intervention" will be met with a reaction. The dozen or so nuclear power plants in the Ukraine gives him various options short of using his last resort assets (esp. that he now must be thinking about the actual readiness of his nuke forces - after all he saw so far he'd be really really stupid if he didn't).
Now, I agree that your admin (let's not split hair in 4 about who we like and who we don't) and its industrial-military-intelligence complex will probably win. Or would you prefer I say your industrial-military-intelligence complex and its administration? Either way, pressure is enormous and works on all levels right now.
One thing that might save us is US reluctance to help. Apparently we asked for a possibility of deliveries of new F-16 and were told there is no such option, as everything that will be produced in the near future is going to Taiwan. (Then again, if that's the case then those bright flashes might be clearly visible for everyone on the planet.) This info had a bit of a chilling effect but was buried by media almost immediately.
So we'll see I guess. Personally I am hoping that the idea dies soon, as there are few airports left in Ukraine where these airplanes could operate from. Ruski is taking them out slowly but surely and they are getting closer and closer to our border. Zytomierz and Winnica recently. Next will be Lwow. Then that's pretty much it.
We're getting flooded with refugees now (1.2 million as of yesterday - at least that much on the roads leading to Poland, probably many millions more seriously considering it). Giant mushroom clouds are the last thing we need.
wojtek
"I've forgotten nothing. So, when did the US send tanks into Russia?
ReplyDeleteWhatzat? Never happened? So now you know who the chief villain is."
who's good or bad is irrelevant. what is relevant is fucking around in someone's neighborhood without regard to consequence. who here is willing to pay for that?
"Willing" is also irrelevant. You do what you do, and you get what you get.
ReplyDeleteYou're acting like this is unilateral. It isn't.
The Russians placed their bets, we've placed ours, and the ball's gonna drop where it does.