Category Archives: War

Bakhmut, Strategic Or Not, Is Falling, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on March 6, 2023 | 1 comment

Bakhmut is at the conjunction of three major train lines and four major roads. Although official propaganda downgrades its importance now that Ukraine is about to lose it, the city has obvious strategic value. From Moon of Alabama at moonofalabama.org:

‘Western’ media can not decide if Bakhmut is a strategic city or has little strategic value. They claim both is the case.

Bakhmut is of course of strategic value. It is covering the crossing of three major train lines and four major roads (M-03, M-32, T-13-02, T-05-13). As such it is the linchpin of the whole Donbas region. Besides that it also has some valuable mineral mines.


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That is why the Ukrainian government has send ten thousands of its troops to fight and die for that city.

People who claim otherwise are simply coping.

Some examples:

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A Massive Global Restructuring is Underway… Here’s What it Means for Europe, by Chris MacIntosh

Posted on March 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

How long before Hungary leaves the EU and NATO? Will any other nation follow? From Chris MacIntosh at internationalman.com:

Massive Global Restructuring

Several shifts in alliances and bifurcations are happening right now which are going under the radar.

Hungary out of the EU?

We’ve long said that Hungary was going to leave the EU. It is just a question of time.

The daily news announced that “hundreds of high-ranking military officers sacked in Hungary”. From the article:

Multiple Hungarian media outlets reported that Hungary’s defense minister sacked hundreds of high-ranking military officers. The people concerned have two months to leave and will get 70 percent of their current salaries as a pension-like allowance even if they continue to work. The minister says the move served the rejuvenation and modernisation of the army. The opposition believes the government fired pro-NATO officers.

To be clear, I don’t know if this is true. But as with most things, you piece together multiple bits of information and a picture forms providing probabilities. It is with these probabilities that we begin to price outcomes and assets accordingly. Where most probable outcomes coincide with cheap or expensive asset classes is where we find asymmetry.

So what we do know is that Hungary has been against the Ukraine war from the get go.

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NBC Reporter Goes to Crimea, Shocks Viewers by Telling The Truth, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 6, 2023 | 1 comment

Imagine a reporter reporting the news the old-fashioned way: from where it actually happens. From Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge via lewrockwell.com

Mainstream media correspondents for major US networks rarely, if ever, report from inside Crimea and certainly are nowhere near Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine. However, this week NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons went to Sevastopol, surrounded by a significant Russian military presence given it is home to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, and in a live segment admitted that it’s not at all realistic Zelensky and Ukrainian forces can ever hope to take Crimea.

This is especially as the “the people there… view themselves as Russian.” Simmons noted that “This is the closest that any US news crew has got to the Russian Black Sea Fleet in many many years.” He explained that “Vladimir Putin will be determined to defend that port – to not have it take it away from him – he may well do pretty much anything to try to achieve that.”

“It is a very, very dangerous standoff.. it’s hard to see how you reach a negotiation over that. There’s military absolutely everywhere, it is a military town,” he continued, before saying…

“When for example Victoria Nuland talks about that at the very least we [the US] want Crimea to be demilitarized, I find myself standing there and wondering, how on earth does that happen?”

Ukrainian officials and pro-Kyiv media pundits are said to be outraged at the segment, given it repeatedly and bluntly referenced that Crimeans see themselves as Russians. Even a separate write-up filed days earlier from inside Crimea and posted to NBC’s website included the following:

This is not Russia, according to Kyiv, its Western allies and the United Nations. It was annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, with the U.N. calling on Russia to return to its “internationally recognized borders.” And following Moscow’s broader invasion launched a year ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed Ukraine will take Crimea back.

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China’s Turn, by Mike Whitney

Posted on March 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

The U.S. may go to war to prevent the Chinese economy’s emergence as the world’s largest. From Mike Whitney at unz.com:

Ukraine is the first flashpoint in a great power struggle between the United States and China. After years of shifting its industries to low-wage locations around the world, the US finds itself steadliy losing market-share to a faster-growing and more resourceful China. By most estimates, China’s economy will overtake the United States by 2035 at which point, Beijing will be in a much better position to shape international trade relations in a way that promotes its own interests. With growth, comes power, and that rule will certainly apply to China as well. China has emerged as an industrial powerhouse that sits at the very epicenter of the most populous and fastest growing region in the world. It is for that reason that the United States has initiated a series of provocations on the island of Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The US has abandoned all hope of prevailing over China through conventional free market competition. Instead, the US plans to engage China militarily in a desperate attempt to drain its resources, garner broader support for economic sanctions and isolate isolate China from its regional trading partners. It is a risky and disruptive plan that could backfire spectacularly, but Washington is moving forward regardless. US foreign policy mandarins and their globalist allies will not accept an outcome in which China is the world’s biggest and most powerful economy. This is from an article at China Macro Economy:

Although the pace of China’s economic rise has slowed in recent years, it appears on track to end the United States’ lengthy run as the world’s largest economy by around 2035, according to the latest projection by economists at Goldman Sachs.

The new estimate is 10 years later than the investment bank had predicted in 2011. But economists Kevin Daly and Tadas Gedminas said that potential growth in China still remains significantly higher than in the US.

“China has already closed most of the gap with US GDP,” they said in a report published on Tuesday, adding that China’s gross domestic product has risen from 12 per cent of the US’ in 2000 to a little under 80 per cent.

China’s annual economic growth will be around 4 per cent from 2024 to 2029, compared with 1.9 per cent in the US, according to the report, which projects what the global economy will look like through 2075….

The US dollar’s exceptional strength over the past 10 years is another reason for the 10-year revision in when China’s economy will become No 1, Daly added… But the US dollar’s strength versus the Chinese yuan is likely to diminish over the coming decade, providing more ground for China to overtake the US, according to the report.

The report also projected that the weight of global GDP will shift more towards Asia over the next 30 years, and that the world’s five largest economies in 2050 will be China, the United States, India, Indonesia and Germany.” (“China GDP to surpass US around 2035, years later than previously expected, Goldman Sachs predicts”, China Macro Economy)

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How This US Lie Will Likely Lead to War, by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Posted on March 2, 2023 | 1 comment

The Nordstream sabotage may lead the U.S. not only into war with Russia, but also into a war with Germany, an ally of the U.S. From Dr. Joseph Mercola at theburningplatform.com:

Story at-a-glance

  • September 26, 2022, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — Russian pipelines that deliver natural gas from Russia to Europe underneath the Baltic Sea — were blown up
  • Months before the sabotage, President Biden publicly announced that “if Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Undersecretary Victoria Nuland also delivered a near-identical message, saying, “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”
  • February 8, 2023, legendary investigative journalist Seymore Hersh published a shocking article based on whistleblower testimony claiming the sabotage was carried out by U.S. Navy divers during BALTOPS 22, a NATO exercise that took place in the Baltic Sea in June 2022. Three months later, the planted explosives were remotely detonated, destroying the two pipelines
  • According to the whistleblower, Norway was in on the plan, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz OK’d the operation
  • According to Hersh, the “why” behind Biden’s decision to blow up the pipelines was threefold. First, it would massively impact Russia’s economy. Second, eliminating Germany’s and Western Europe’s ability to buy low-cost gas from Russia would force them to buy U.S. gas. And third, he feared Europe would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with money and weapons if they were reliant on Russian gas

September 26, 2022, massive leaks were detected in two Russian pipelines — Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — that deliver natural gas from Russia to Europe underneath the Baltic Sea. Within a couple of days, several countries, including Russia, agreed the leaks were the result of intentional sabotage.

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Posted in Crime, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Horseshit, Intelligence, Military, War

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US Ambassador To China: “We’re The Leader” Of The Indo-Pacific, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on March 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

There are probably a few Asians that don’t cotton to the U.S. ambassador’s claim. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington’s top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran.

Toward the end of the hour-long discussion, Burns made the very interesting comment that Beijing must accept that the United States is “the leader” in the region and isn’t going anywhere.

“From my perspective sitting here in China looking out at the Indo-Pacific, our American position is stronger than it was five or ten years ago,” Burns said, citing the strength of US alliances, its private sector and its research institutions and big tech companies.

“And I do think that the Chinese now understand that the United States is staying in this region — we’re the leader in this region in many ways,” Burns added emphatically.

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Washington Post Lets Hersh’s Dangerous Cat Out of the Bag, by Ray McGovern

Posted on March 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Seymour Hersh’s story was just too big to ignore. From Ray McGovern at antiwar.com:

Bombshell No. 1: Seymour Hersh’s Feb. 8 report that President Joe Biden authorized the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines built to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe.

Bombshell No. 2: The Washington Post today ended the Establishment media embargo on Hersh’s damning report, mentioning its findings and even including a link to his article.

The Post’s article by Karen DeYoung, no rogue reporter, bore the headline, “Russia, blaming US sabotage, calls for UN probe of Nord Stream.” DeYoung reported on the UN Security Council meeting yesterday at which Russia called for a special United Nations commission to investigate the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream undersea pipelines. DeYoung also noted that Professor Jeffrey Sachs and I gave short briefings at the beginning of the Security Council session.

Here’s an edited summary account by the UN of our testimony at the Security Council session:

SACHS: As the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines on 26 September 2022 constitutes an act of international terrorism and represents a threat to peace, it is the Council’s responsibility to take up the question of who might have carried out the act, help bring the perpetrator to justice, pursue compensation for the damaged parties and prevent such actions from recurring in the future. Countries need full confidence that their infrastructure will not be destroyed by third parties.

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SCOTT RITTER: Reimagining Arms Control After Ukraine

Posted on March 1, 2023 | 1 comment

It’s hard to imagine reinstating arms control with Russia, when the Russians justifiably believe the U.S. Government wouldn’t observe an agreement to save its life. From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:

Having used arms control to gain unilateral advantage over Russia, the cost to the U.S. and NATO in getting Moscow back to the negotiating table will be high.

Checking out the rise and fall of nuclear warheads over the years of the nuclear arms race at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota, 2017. (Wayne Hsieh, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

U.S.-Russian arms control is in a state of extreme distress.

The U.S. withdrawal from the foundational Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 undid the functional and theoretical premise of mutually assured destruction (MAD) that provided logical equilibrium to the fundamentals of nuclear deterrence theory.

Similarly, the Trump administration’s precipitous termination of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019 attacked both elements of the “trust but verify” maxim that governed issues of compliance verification that made arms control viable in the first place.

The last remaining arms control agreement that places limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of both the U.S. and Russia is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Signed in 2010, and extended for five years in 2021, the treaty will expire in 2026. It places restrictions on the number of deployed nuclear warheads each side is permitted to have (1,550), as well as vehicles (missiles, bombers, submarines) to deliver these warheads (700).

Equally important to the numerical caps is the compliance verification regime mandated by the treaty, which includes the right of each side to conduct up to 18 on-site inspections per year. Up to 10 of these inspections can be done at operational bases where nuclear delivery systems are based. Inspectors there can visually confirm the presence of nuclear warheads by randomly selecting missiles for inspection. 

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Ukraine: The Tunnel at the End of the Light, by Robert Freeman

Posted on March 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

You almost have to post this one just for the title, but the article itself is excellent as well. From Robert Freeman at consortiumnews.com:

The U.S. abused its providential anointment as the exceptional nation, writes Robert Freeman. That abuse has been recognized, called out and is now being acted against by most of the other nations of the world.  

Jan. 16, 2017: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden traveling to Kiev. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)

“Light at the end of the tunnel” was an iconic phrase used by the warmongers who kept the U.S. in Vietnam long after the War had been lost.

The implication was that insiders could see through the fog of war and know that things were getting better. It was a lie.

In January 1966, long before the military height of the war, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told President Lyndon Johnson that the U.S. had a one-out-of-three chance of winning on the battlefield.

But Johnson, like Eisenhower and Kennedy before him, and Nixon after him, didn’t want to be the first American president to lose a war. So, he ginned up a simplistic lie and “soldiered on.” 

The lie was blown by the Tet Offensive in January 1968. More than 100 U.S. military installations were attacked in a simultaneous nationwide assault that stunned the U.S.

The broadcaster, Walter Cronkite, then “the most trusted man in America,” bellowed on national television, “I thought we were supposed to be winning this damned thing.” It was the beginning of the end of the U.S.’ murderous and failed occupation. 

We’re now facing another light-and-tunnel event, this time in Ukraine. Only now, it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s the tunnel at the end of the light. What do we mean by that? 

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The Phone Call, by William Gudal

Posted on March 1, 2023 | 1 comment

It would take about 30 seconds to make the world a lot better place than it is now. From SLL contributor William Gudal:

Somewhere in the Ukraine the phone rings:

“Hello, Volodymyr here”

“Hi Mr. President, Joe Biden speaking”

“So good to hear from you. It’s been days”

“It’s over”

“We have a poor connection”

“Volo, so you do not misunderstand, no more money, nor more armaments. We stand ready to help you with the transition to neutrality.”

“But . . . “

“It will all work out, Bye”

One phone call lasting less than one minute changes the world for the next 25 years. The carnage stops. The world economy abruptly changes. NATO goes home and resumes its customary barracks role, training for phantom aggression that will never come. Russia rightfully retains its warm water port on the Black Sea. The US is forced to deal with an economic competitor on a more level playing field. The danger of nuclear catastrophe lessens. Sino- Russian dialogue adjusts to a diminished likelihood of US invasion. Inexpensive energy returns to Europe. The madness of the US neocon/neo liberal dream of dismantling Russia is deferred to another day. The altar boys of Europe gain some self-respect. Money is reallocated to a frighteningly long list of US domestic needs. Germany avoids being suckered once again into a war not of its making.

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