I’m wondering what advice Americans are dispensing to Ukrainians. If I were one of these advisors, I guess it would go something like this:
“Alright boys, we’ve given you everything we can. Now drive your column into that minefield as far as you can until the HMBVs in front blow up leaving everyone stuck to get taken out by a KA-52 hovering maybe 10 kilometers east. Don’t worry, you’ll never see the Vikhir heading your way and they carry 20 per chopper. The Russians will probably spray your path with new mines so don’t bother heading back either. Best of luck to ya!“
Americans can offer all sorts of useful advice and insights on how to fight off an Islamic insurgency and operate our stuff. When it comes to fighting a massive land war against the modern Russian military on the Eurasian steppe, I’m quite frankly incredulous we’ve got much to provide.
Honestly, it’s laughable that Americans could show up in Ukraine and tell them how to conduct this particular conflict any better than they already knew how to do it. They’re the ones who know the land, the language, and how to optimally-operate Soviet equipment. Oh yeah, and Ukrainian senior officers were trained with their Russian counterparts.
So, if anybody would be the experts on going to war in Ukraine against the Russians, it’s the Ukrainians. The notion we could stroll in and figure things out for them is rather demeaning and from what I’ve heard, it tends to be poorly received.
The reality is that we forced them into a nightmare they’d never have embarked on for a set of practical reasons such as it’s impossible to win. It’s not because they’re stupid or ignorant about how a modern war is conducted. We overthrew their elected government with a color revolution and replaced it with a cokehead comedian funded by a corrupt oligarch in order to deliberately instigate a civil war for the purpose of sucking the Russians in. This was to be cited as a justification for sanctions to collapse their economy.
How does a column of armored vehicles cobbled together from multiple countries navigate an enormous minefield under enemy fire control? The answer is that you don’t bother to do this suicide trip. That’s one of the primary reasons why the Russians don’t appear to have made much progress in terms of kilometers westward. They’d rather have the Ukrainians come to them in the Donbass so they can conduct these one-sided slaughters. Ukraine is the most mined and fortified zone on the planet and they had one of the world’s best air defense grids as well. An army can’t just blitzkrieg through it like Iraq. Duh.
American officers don’t really seem to comprehend the situation from this angle. That’s understandable from the perspective that they’re taught awful misinformation and the fact that we’ve never fought an opponent like Russia under these conditions. Twenty years ago, I’d have assumed they’d at least recognize the latter set of circumstances in assessing what transpires.
Instead, they look at the mileage instead of the butcher’s tally and conclude the Russians could never match us. I recently had a conversation with an ex South African mercenary who raised the irritating “well, if they’re winning why aren’t they gaining much ground”? talking point we hear endlessly in U.S. discourse. When I explained how they’re conducting a slaughter from a safe distance because the territory will be acquired once this is finished rather than taking mass casualties in headlong offensives, he quickly realized that made sense.
My former American comrades? I’d just piss them off because they’re the experts, so I don’t bother. Besides, a rightwing-domestic-extremist-White supremacist-Christian fundamentalist-Satanic-panic conspiracy theorist like myself is enemy #1 of the U.S. military at this point. I’m sure if Joe Biden could order an airstrike on my house, it would be a smoldering ruin by now.
The truth about the Russia situation is the sort of irritant that receives a mental wall reaction. It would be like wasting your time throwing a tennis ball against concrete hoping it will stick. Recognizing that telling the truth about certain things to certain people will piss them off rather than acquaint them with reality is important for maintaining personal relationships. Our content is niche for a reason. If you’re hoping some truth revolution will fix this country, I don’t know what to say.
Americans have never confronted an enemy with overwhelming firepower calling in artillery and airstrikes on them while being monitored in real time by drones and satellites. Apparently, even Russian lieutenants can call in bombardments directly. This makes sense because the sheer volume is probably far too high to be constantly approved by a rear HQ. Everything about this conflict is alien to the American experience which seems totally lost on guys with advanced military degrees.
It’s not feasible to defeat Russia in a massive land conflict on its border and if it were possible, they’d keep dialing up the force until things went nuclear. Their doctrine prescribes nuclear weapons under such circumstances, which they keep trying to remind everyone. A rational mind with a cursory familiarity on these matters would draw this conclusion in about one second. They recently deployed tactical nukes to Belarus in an attempt to deter an escalation after this counter offensive fails. An officer during the Cold War era would’ve looked at you like you’re nuts for asserting that conflict on the Russian border is a feasible proposition.
Any history buff would realize it didn’t work out so well for the Mongols, the Poles, the French, the Swedes, the Crimean Khanate, the Turks, the Germans, or the Japs in 1939. This is the list I can come up with off the top of my head while I should be getting work done, perhaps there’s more. Even if they’re initially losing, which they’re not this time around, they turn the tide because they’re competent, tenacious soldiers and Russia is vast.
I’ve had the Taiwan issue described to me as strategic challenge that the U.S. military is working on solving. There seems to be no awareness that the island has had a peaceful and productive relationship with the mainland for decades or that China has no desire for a conflict. It’s grappling with a set of existential domestic problems and the current furor was provoked entirely by the U.S., but we’re the good guys somehow and that couldn’t possibly explain what’s going on.
I’ve been told there are American soldiers seen all over the island these days, which was unthinkable since the Vietnam War. Apparently, they’re saying they’re not soldiers (which is laughable). An American serviceman is instantly recognizable in civilian clothes anywhere in the world. I can spot them in a second wherever I go. I’m sure Chinese agents are following these guys everywhere.
The correct way to approach a conflict between Russia and Ukraine or China and Taiwan is to avoid one in the first place, by recognizing that the United States can’t control the entire world, and that powerful countries have legitimate interests on their own doorsteps. There isn’t a military solution to either question. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall listening to this ignorant idiocy. Meanwhile, I’ve been told by the experts that a war would solve our problems in both instances.
I’m not questioning the technical competency of American career officers, their ability to lead a unit, their courage, or denigrating anyone’s military service in general. What I’m saying is that I don’t hear anything from them that suggests they’re interfacing with reality when it comes to our capabilities vis-a-vis Russia and China. Consequently, we’re heading into war with both thinking we’ll teach them a lesson. What happens to a carrier when it’s struck by a hypersonic missile? We’ve never seen this before, but both have made enormous investments in developing ones that can.
I’ve speculated before that, emotionally, us not being the good guys or some all-conquering force can be hard to accept. So, they don’t, even though we keep failing at these foreign adventures. Nobody wants to feel like he’s doing a career which is counterproductive for his nation or that he could be sent to die because our military is led by sycophantic four stars in service to incompetent lunatics who cook up schemes because nobody is willing to tell them the truth. It doesn’t feel good to have leaders who lie to you all the time and make incredibly stupid assertions, so perhaps they cope by blocking reality out of their mind. I’ve noticed they really revere World War 2, which strikes me as a head-in-the-sand type reaction.
I’m the sort of man to whom things just are what they are, so I don’t try to perform some subconscious exercise to make myself feel better about any of it. Below is the Commander-in-Chief of the American war machine. It just is what it is, macabre and hilarious all at the same time. According to Joe, trannies are the “bravest” Americans.
I’m not sure what fighting the Taliban across the mountains of Afghanistan qualifies you as, but it ain’t being the “bravest.” You’d think a guy awarded a combat decoration would be ranked braver than somebody who dresses up like a demonic woman. Collectively, we deserve the nukes. I’m sure there were some good people in Sodom and Gomorrah as well.
On a more serious note, I’ve never written anything alarming for this publication, but I must say that I suspect an escalation that gets thousands of American servicemen killed is right around the corner. We can’t sustain a significant conflict for long, so what happens after that is either nuclear winter or a humiliation that re-frames the U.S. military in the Western mind. Domestic anarchy from supply chain disruption is also something to consider. I intend to become a jon boat marauder. Feel free to join me, but I won’t tolerate anyone in my outfit who shows mercy.
An incident we didn’t intend to happen could easily occur. There’s also the fact that we’re losing big time and so something reckless might be attempted to halt Russian progress in order to freeze the conflict and salvage the narrative after this counter offensive culminates in disaster. The American Empire is directly responsible for the combat in Ukraine and we’re not going to back off, either. It’s not unreasonable to infer something could happen from this angle alone.
The kind of thinking that could lead to worse unpleasantry pervades the U.S. military. It’s actually a common view that we could just go in and wipe the Russians out in Ukraine if that’s what the situation demanded because they’re applying this framework:
- Russians are incompetent.
- Russians use junk.
- Russians are cowards.
- Russian motives are nefarious.
- Russia is falling apart like the 1990s.
- We’re the good guys.
- We’re the experts.
- Our stuff is the very best.
- Across the globe, America is loved and Russia despised.
- Putin, a despotic leader, is in a highly tenuous position.
Fortunately, the field grade officers I know aren’t in a position to be making such strategic blunders. Then again, I don’t hear anything different from somebody like General Petraeus, either. He’s supposedly one of America’s foremost experts even though his predictions keep turning out horribly wrong.
Rep. Adam Kinzingner (LTC, pilot) said we could go in and crush the Russians in a day or two. Did anyone tell him we only took out half of Serbia’s AA network and they shot down a stealth fighter with old Soviet equipment? Is he aware that Soviet weapons played a key role in the loss of nearly 10,000 aircraft in Vietnam? He flew a KC-135, does he think NATO aircraft refueling over Ukraine (they’d have to do that to bomb Russians in Donbass) will be immune to Russian interceptors?
How are AWACs going to fly close enough to feed them targeting information for missiles? Perhaps they think we’ll take out the Black Sea fleet overnight and then the Turks will allow us to sail carrier battle groups in to get the job done. I really don’t know, but like I said I’ve never had the technical feasibility of defeating Russia in Ukraine explained to me.
How many Kalibers sea skimming at Mach 3 is a destroyer going to block? How will they even locate the Club-K versions disguised as shipping containers which can be stationed anywhere? Maybe they think we’ll storm Crimean beaches with MEUs of literal retards Uncle Sam is now training and cowardly Russian conscripts will surrender to them in tears. All I can do is speculate, really.
I’m ranting like this because the apparent ignorance really blows my mind. It’s as if they assume some magic aura protects our wunderwaffen. It’s all quite insane but not in the context of forced injections or allowing blacks to loot America while trannies are feted at the White House by a senile president installed through blatant fraud, as his leading opponent is arrested on bogus charges. I think Americans need to adjust their normalcy bias. Crazy is the new normal, folks.
There’s nothing a disgruntled keyboard warrior like myself can do to stop it from running its nightmarish course. I’m going to finish the work I should be doing right now and then pour myself a stiff drink. Maybe I’ll do that first. We must each cope with the madness as best we can lest it swallow our hearts and minds.
I’m proud to officially announce my candidacy for the office of Dogcatcher.
Tom, the Yankee Empire military couldn’t even beat a bunch of redneck goat-herders in Afghanistan, (although they did successfully bomb a few wedding parties and some kids gathering firewood from time to time.) Of course, the war profiteers (Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, GE, General Dynamics, et al) don’t want Uncle Sam to WIN anything…they just want him to stir up crap all around the globe – to keep billions coming into their coffers – via us taxpayers. It’s all a big racket, just as Smedley Butler wrote. I just hope they don’t poke the bear one time too many.
This is a great article and I enjoyed the videos provided. I know that none of the U.S. zogbots, even the galvanized scalawags from The South, would hesitate for a second to kill any of us White Southerners if or when ordered to do so. Therefore, I won’t pretend to care if or when they get slaughtered by Russia or China and if they are taken p.o.w. I won’t pay one cent for their return.
It really does sicken me that America is determined to fight Russian down to the last Ukrainian! Both Ukraine and Russia have negative birthrates so regardless of who wins both nations will be decimated for decades. Does the peppermint empire have no shame? I do not blame Vladimir Putin for this.I blame Neoconservatives such as Victoria Nuland! Imagine if the Southland Confederation was a reality. Imagine what Russia would do if we offered them a 99 year lease on a warm water port. Yankeedom lose their minds! As you know ports freeze solid in Russian except for Archangel. Get off the USS Titanic before she drags you to the bottom with her or conversely gets you vaporized in a nuclear exchange with Russia.The United Soviets (sorry, I mean the United States.I keep getting the terms confused.)is hell bent on blowing the world apart to avoid a multi-polar world or a world in which Federal Reserve notes are no longer the world’s reserve currency.
> “When I explained how they’re conducting a slaughter from a safe distance because the territory will be acquired once this is finished rather than taking mass casualties in headlong offensives, he quickly realized that made sense. My former American comrades? I’d just piss them off because they’re the experts, so I don’t bother.”
If anyone was wondering how to differentiate between a stupid person and an ignorant person, this is it. The former SA mercenary was merely ignorant, whereas the “experts” detailed in the next paragraph are stupid
This ties into Christianity and the sin of pride– the former had a wrong opinion, but he did not have an excessive amount of pride, so he was able to come to the truth when it was explained to him
> “What happens to a carrier when it’s struck by a hypersonic missile?”
The answer to this is the same as my previous quote-reply: those with pride will continue in their folly while those without the sin of pride will realize the USA isn’t the unstoppable juggernaut it was even 20yrs ago
> “so what happens after that is either nuclear winter or a humiliation that re-frames the U.S. military in the Western mind.”
Thankfully, nuclear winter probably isn’t a real thing. The “experts” predicted that after Saddam blew up the Kuwaiti oil wells in Desert Storm that the particulate matter would blot out enough of the sun to cause a regional famine in India which would lead to millions of deaths via starvation. In fact, all the smoke in the atmosphere washed out after about two weeks and had little noticable effect on even regional temperatures
As an aside, Mr. Shackelford should be writing for The American Conservative
That’s flattering, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole.
I suggested before, for Tom to write on the Substack.