Dear friends,

I just received an email from  Larchmonter 445 who is raising a very important question.  With his permission, I have decided to share my reply with all of you.

Kind regards,

The Saker
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QUESTION:

Ukraine is becoming an American/NATO platform with no viable economy, a thoroughly corrupt junta-criminal government.  It has lost most characteristics of a state. We know its economy is no longer functioning. It is on economic life-support.

Q: What in history does this colonization most remind you and what does it present as a permanent platform for the projection of US hegemony right next to Russia?

In the context of US cruise missiles into Poland and 100 US tanks into Latvia, also right on the Russian border, how do you interpret these developments?
Add, Canadian military police running the police in Kiev (security apparatus hardening, in my view) and 1000 US military advisers on the ground with Ukie troops, and inside the command and control of their military, I see this as the two proxy armies facing off behind a mere mask.  Do you see the ‘boots on the ground’ as sacrifices the Hegemon is prepared to make (for surely the Russians don’t care who’s inside the battle zone they must dominant or they will be defeated)?

I interpret all the latest hardening of NATO surrounding the Russian border with Eastern Europe and the buildup internally (take over of the Ukie government in fact) as ominous and imminent to a shooting war to forever scar the Russian Federation as a menace to world stability.

The militia is paper thin mask over Russian military. Everyone understands that Russia cannot allow defeat or loss of ground.   The Ukies, a proxy army of cannon fodder value, a mask over NATO and US mercenary contractors and some regular “advisers”.

The opposite side does not bear any such burden of ‘loss’. If the Ukies lose and refuse to fight anymore, Russia will be demonized and the battle for more military conflict will shift to some other hot zone. Therefore, the Hegemon cannot be defeated by defeat in Ukraine.

For your answer I hope you stick just to the military threat, the military challenge, the strategic values of moves and counter-moves.  I think this situation is a changed scenario, and has upped the existential threat to Russia. But without military analysis, I don’t know if what I see is what I think I see.

Larchmonter 445


REPLY:

Military planners like to have options and contingency plans available for as many situations as possible.  It just does not look good for a Chairman of the JCS to tell the President “no Sir, we never envisioned that situation”.  In order to avoid that, the military will practice and plan for a lot of situation the vast majority of which will never happen.

Just recently, right at the end of the WWII, Anglo powers had at least THREE plans to wage war on the USSR: Operation Dropshot, Plan Totality and Operation Unthinkable.  Here is some basic reminder of Wikipedia about what these operations were about:

Operation Dropshot: included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85% of the Soviet Union’s industrial potential at a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.

Plan Totality: earmarked 20 Soviet cities for obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuybyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Leningrad, Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi, Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, and Yaroslavl.

Operation Unthinkable: assumed a surprise attack by up to 47 British and American divisions in the area of Dresden, in the middle of Soviet lines.This represented almost a half of roughly 100 divisions (ca. 2.5 million men) available to the British, American and Canadian headquarters at that time. (…) The majority of any offensive operation would have been undertaken by American and British forces, as well as Polish forces and up to 100,000 German Wehrmacht soldiers. 

I am not making these things up, you can look it up for yourself on Wikipedia and elsewhere.  This is the Anglo idea of how you deal with “Russian allies”: you stab them in the back with a surprise nuclear attack, you obliterate most of their cities and you launch the Nazi Wehrmacht against them.

With “allies” like these, who needs enemies?!

Still, it did not happen.  Oh, not because these “beacons of democracy” had any scruples, but for far more mundane reasons: in all three cases the risks were considered far too great and the chances of success too little.  Now here is the good news: some 70 years later the chances of victory against Russia are even far smaller and the risks quite literally infinitely bigger.

First, in 1945 a surprise attack was theoretically possible. Today it is categorically impossible.  Second, in 1945 the Anglos had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Today Russia actually enjoys a superiority in the quality and quantity of nuclear weapons.  Third, while in 1945 the Soviets could not strike at the US “homeland” itself, now Russia can destroy every single major city in the USA.  The only thing which has not changed is this: just as in 1945 the Soviet military could have made minced meat out of Anglo forces so the modern Russian military is far more powerful and NATO forces in Europe.

On three occasions this year I have tried to explain why the US/NATO does not have a military option in the Ukraine (see Ukraine SITREP March 11, 13:50 EST (and some debunking); Remembering the important lessons of the Cold War and Thinking the unthinkable) and I will not repeat it all here again.  I will just point you to the US preparations for Desert Shield and Desert Storm which saw a massive US and allied move of equipment and forces into the KSA which lasted many months before the attack on Iraq could take place.  Moving a few air wings around or sending tanks to Latvia is nowhere near the kind of massive effort which would be needed to prepare for an attack on Russia.

Furthermore, in modern warfare the US does not need the Ukraine (or even Europe) to project its power.  In fact, getting closer to Russia is actually dangerous for US forces and systems which are quite capable of striking Russia from afar, unless of course you are seriously considering a US Army ground offensive in the Ukraine which the US/NATO are currently unable to execute due to a huge shortage of forces for such a major operation.

Also, keep in mind that all these “NATO” armies are more or less a joke. If you really want to be serious to threaten Russia only the US really has the means to do so, the rest of the NATO ‘alliance’ is primarily a political one.  The Poles and Estonians can “play NATO” all they want, but they are no more relevant than the Netherlands or Italy (less in fact).

We all saw what the US/NATO airpower can do in the best possible conditions in Kosovo: nothing.  And that is going against 1970 Russian air defenses.  You can imagine what the same airpower would do against modern 2014 Russian Air Defenses.  Same thing for air-to-air: it is one thing to fly against early export version of the MiG-29 and quite another to take on SU-35s and MiG-31BMs (or even SU-27s modernized to SM1/SM2 standards).  And keep in mind that NATO has extremely weak and old air defenses.  Once the Russian Air Force begins striking NATO ground forces with SU-34s escorted by SU-35 it will get very ugly very fast, at least for NATO.  Russia also has the advantage in artillery, in tactical ballistic and cruise missiles, in anti-tank weapons, in airborne tactical cruise missiles and many other aspects of warfare.  But most importantly,  I also firmly believe that the single most important part of any military – the foot-solider – is far more capable and way tougher in the Russian military then in any NATO country.   True, the US/NATO still have superior communications, including battlefield communications and generally better reconnaissance capabilities, but that would not be enough to tip the balance.

But even if we give the US/NATO the advantage in every single assumption, we know that official Russian military doctrine clearly states in if the Russian conventional forces are not sufficient to protect Russia, tactical nuclear forces would be used.  So it is hard to imagine what kind of “victory” US/NATO forces would try to achieve.

For all these reasons I do not believe that a US/NATO attack on Russia will happen.

The move of military forces which is being observed in various locations in Europe and the USA serve a very different purpose: to show in “political terms” that the US and NATO are “serious” and “determined” to “protect” their “European allies” even against a completely imaginary “Russian threat”.  Even the NATO “spearhead forces” is really a joke.  A costly PR trick, nothing more.

The real risk is that the US/NATO will wage war on Russia, but via the Ukraine.  A lot of observers in Russia and the Ukraine are now saying that “the US is ready to fight the Russians down to the last Ukrainian solider” and that is sadly quite true.

The widely expected post-elections Ukrainian attack did not happen.  Probably due to a combination of factors including elections in the Ukraine, the Russian re-opening of the Voentorg and the fact that Ukrainian commanders have made the judgment that they need more time for preparation.  Still, if by some miracle the Nazi regime in Kiev survives until the Spring, a resumption of combat operations is most likely.  At which point the US would use its total control of the Nazi junta to start a real war between Russia and the Ukraine which, of course, the Ukraine could not win, but which would be a disaster for both Russia and the Ukraine and which would justify an even more rabid russophobia in the EU, especially following the inevitable Russian victory.

The best defense which Russia has against such a scenario would be to strengthen Novorussia enough to resist the Ukrainian attack while using all her covert power to try to trigger an popular revolt against the regime.  We are, after all, talking about sending Ukrainian soldiers into a war they cannot win to be massacred en masse by a infinitely superior Russian military.  We always come to the same conclusion: at the end of the day, the Ukrainian people have to decide for themselves if they want to live in a Nazi failed state or if they want to die for the AngloZionist Empire.

As for Russia, the threat for her is not military.  Not from the US, not from NATO, not from the EU or the Ukrainian military.  In fact, Putin specifically stated that the Russian Armed Forces were sufficient to protect Russia from any conceivable attack.  And he is right.  For Russia, the threat is first and foremost the internal “5th colum” the “Atlantic Integrationists” inside the regime, especially in and near the Medvedev government who are in a prefect position to sabotage the “Eurasian Sovereignist” political course of Putin and his supporters and who have a vested interest in preventing the much needed reform of the Russian economy in order to create popular discontent against Putin.

Truly, it is the Ukraine and the EU who are most at risk from the current trend.  They are the sacrificial lambs of an AngloZionist Empire gone insane in its arrogance and hypocrisy.  If the AngloZionists succeed in triggering a Russian-Ukrainian war the Ukrainians will, of course, lose it while western Europe will become completely subjugated to the USA for many years to come under the pretext of protecting Europe form a completely fictional “Russian threat”. Considering how totally subservient to Washington EU politicians are and the total control the US is having over the Nazi junta, the only hope is for a late and miraculous wakeup of the European or Ukrainian people.  I am not holding my breath, even if hope dies last.

The Saker