News Dump Sunday: Warmongering Edition
Does this guy sound too enthusiastic?
The war in Ukraine is a prelude to greater military challenges to the US in the near future, and America is losing its competitive edge in nuclear weapons capabilities, US Strategic Command head Admiral Charles Richard warned in a speech at the Naval Submarine League's 2022 Annual Symposium & Industry Update on Wednesday, the US Defense Department reported.
"This Ukraine crisis that we're in right now, this is just the warmup," said Richard. "The big one is coming. And it isn't going to be very long before we're going to get tested in ways that we haven't been tested in a long time."
"As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking," he said. "It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are."
Because there's always a reason to fight a war
As Vladimir Putin pursues his illegal war on Ukraine, he avoids inconvenient truths from Russia’s Soviet past. Among them, Russia has been holding U.S. territory since 1924.
Only once in its history has the U.S. ceded control of its territory to a hostile power. That was to the marauding forces of another Vladimir—Lenin—and it’s the saga of America’s lost Arctic islands. They remain under Russian control, and the U.S. should demand them back.
...
In the decades that followed, American and Russian publications recognized U.S. sovereignty over Wrangel. In 1921 the island saw its first party of permanent settlers. Three years later, on Aug. 20, 1924, the Soviet gunboat Red October arrived with a company of Red Army infantry. Taking the 14 American settlers prisoner, the Red October transferred them to captivity in the Russian port of Vladivostok, where they remained for years. At the time, the settlement was owned by Lomen Brothers, a Nome, Alaska, reindeer and trapping company, which along with the state of Alaska maintains its claim to this day.Roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, Wrangel is no barren Arctic wasteland. Aside from its Russian military base, the island features the world’s highest density of polar bear dens and Pacific walruses, more than 400 species of plants and 100 species of migratory birds, many endangered. It was home to the world’s last woolly mammoths, prehistoric creatures that survived there until a few thousand years ago. Indications are that what lies underground at Wrangel could be no less valuable, including potentially large quantities of oil, gas and other minerals.
Because it worked so well in Syria
On October 28th, a Ukrainian drone attack damaged the Russian Black Sea fleet’s flagship vessel in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Moscow immediately blamed Britain for assisting and orchestrating the strike, as well as blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines – the worst acts of industrial sabotage in recent memory.
The British Ministry of Defense issued a blustery denial in response, branding the accusations “false claims of an epic scale.” Whoever was behind those specific attacks, suspicions of a British hidden hand in the destruction are not unfounded. The Grayzone has obtained leaked documents detailing British military-intelligence operatives inking an agreement with the Security Service of Ukraine’s Odessa branch, to create and train a secret Ukrainian partisan terror army.
Their plans called for the secret army to conduct sabotage and reconnaissance operations targeting Crimea on behalf of the Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) – precisely the kind of attacks witnessed in past weeks.
Along with several other countries, the EU is now hoping that Azerbaijan, a relatively small country sandwiched between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, will become an important alternative to Russian energy. EU Chancellor Ursula Von der Leyen has billed Azerbaijan as a “reliable, trustworthy… [and] crucial energy partner” that could double its gas exports to the EU in a mere “few years” as Europe tries to swiftly diversify away from Russian energy.But experts say that there are major problems with betting big on Azerbaijan. The country currently doesn’t have the supply or capacity to fulfill what it said it could deliver. And in an effort to distance itself from one autocratic regime, Europe is running into the arms of another—a strategy that could backfire given the post-Soviet state’s traditionally close ties with Russia.
...The EU’s deal with Azerbaijan actually offers “zero relief” to EU citizens “this winter or the next… and probably not the one after that either, ” Bowden said. It mostly serves as a move to show EU citizens that policymakers are “doing something,” he said.
US officials have reportedly warned the Ukrainian government in private that it needs to signal an openness to negotiating with Russia.
Officials in Washington have warned that “Ukraine fatigue” among allies could worsen if Kyiv continues to be closed to negotiations, the Washington Post reported. US officials told the paper that Ukraine’s position on negotiations with Russia is wearing thin among allies who are worried about the economic effects of a protracted war.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Ukraine is only prepared to enter negotiations with Russia if its troops leave all parts of Ukraine, including Crimea and the eastern areas of the Donbas, de facto controlled by Russia since 2014, and if those Russians who have committed crimes in Ukraine face trial.
Zelenskiy also made clear that he would not hold negotiations with the current Russian leadership. Last month, he signed a decree specifying that Ukraine would only negotiate with a Russian president who has succeeded Vladimir Putin.
Comments
Tons of propaganda.
Tons of quotes.
Nothing of what gjohnsit really thinks.
Spill the beans. Say something relevant or shall I?
There are few things more dangerous to the common individual than a rabid animal and my country is full of them.
Our countries leadership, the so-called united states, left and right, is nothing more than a pack of elite, rabid, sociopathic nut jobs.
Enjoy the ride. Exit left or right upon chosen demarcation.
Thanks as always gjohn.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Bah, ever since JFK imagined up a "missile gap"
some bozo - usually with General or Admiral in front of his name - says we're going to all die if we don't make more bombs or guns or tanks or whatever their branch will get more of if we borrow more money to give to the arms manufacturers. Invisible submarines anyone?
On to Biden since 1973
Richard is nuts
Just about everything he says is incoherent nonsense. He mixes apples and oranges all the time. He's been jealous of the Indo-Pacific Command initiatives which are also misguided and has tried to remain relevant by getting his name in the news whenever possible. China was never "deterred" by US nuclear weapons. It's intervention in the Korean conflict demonstrated that. Their development of a nuclear deterrent force is just that to deter the United States which appears to be the perennial aggressive bully.
At some point in certain venues the US will not be able to engage China militarily in a conventional war without suffering huge losses if not outright defeat. Some believe the same is true with respect to Russia in the European theater. The fact that both countries have serious nuclear capabilities to deter the US is complicating the US tactical nuclear warfare option strategies rendering them impractical, if not just an easier entre to general nuclear war. Thus, General Richard has a difficult time remaining relevant or orienting himself to the new reality. In fact, he has to "disperse" his bomber leg of the strategic triad in the eastern theater, which is irrelevant now as a strategic force. He still dreams of attacking North Korea with this otherwise obsolete leg of the triad. Similarly, conventional ICBM forces are approaching obsolescence.
No nuclear force is going to deter Russia or China from defending their military redlines with conventional forces. One of the serious problems with US nuclear weapons theory is that generals and other misguided "experts" believe there is a first mover advantage, both in so called "limited nuclear strikes," and strategic first strike strategies.
語必忠信 行必正直
Another serious problem
Is that Chinese military doctrine (supposedly) *also* believes in that "first mover advantage".
Of course, they could be right. One of the most (but not only) plausible scenarios for the PRC to move to "re"-take Taiwan is that they would launch a sudden, overwhelming first strike. This would, of necessity, target not only Taiwan but US territory (Guam, Northern Marianas) and US assets on Japanese territory but also Japanese defense forces.
Might well work if the US doesn't have the resources or the will to strike back.
What Americans mostly fail to understand is that China is *already* at war with the US and has been for a while - it's just a non or pre-kinetic form of warfare that (since, as usual, people tend to think in terms of re-fighting the last war) in not recognized for what it is.
Robert Spalding (General USAF, Ret.) who knows more than a little about China is under no such illusion:
Most of the anti-Chinese hype
about killing pets came from the following report:
Be careful with sources that paint with an overly broad brush when it comes to reports from China by the US media. The Hudson Institute is a neoconservative think tank that receives funding from the US arms industries, the Taiwanese government, Charles Koch Institute and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among many right-wing donors.
General Robert Spalding works at the Hudson Institute:
General Robert Spalding has written four anti-China books:
It is only a matter of time
until Russia and China hold their noses, form an alliance-of-convenience, and mutually push the button to get rid of the thorn in their sides that is *us*. They can sort out their differences later.
Assuming, of course, that the button pushing doesn't happen because of human or electrical/mechanical failure, prior to that. We are way too close to the edge, and I don't see anyone on the horizon who seems the least bit inclined towards backing up away from it. I think that the Owners have become convinced that they can and will win, and I believe that to be a fatal misconception on their part...
Of course, that tends to happen if you listen to/believe the generals and majors.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-JeQduJ0f8 width:400 height:300]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Ctz8W04uk width:400 height:300]
Pride goeth before the plasma. No smiley.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
US government cranking up the war propaganda
Brian Berletic effectively debunks Frontline PBS war reports of Russian massacres of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.
....
Here's PBS' hit piece on China:
Here's a typical "wet market" in NYC. BTW, NYC has the second largest "wet" fish market in the world.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Dg6AdidaI]
Sound enough advice
Except that in this case, Robert Spalding is painting with a fine and detailed and very specific brush.
Which he is able to do not only due to being bright and articulate, but also to his having lived and studied in China, speaking and reading Chinese and having study of Chinese matters been the main focus of nearly twenty years of his military career.
To put it more succinctly, he knows what the hell he is talking about. And as far as I can tell he has not appeared at all or even been reported on mainstream US media - unlike any number of ex-military and alphabet agency Deep State shills.
Are you contending that the Chinese leadership does NOT consider itself at war with the US?
Spalding makes a pretty compelling case that it IS - the basis for the doctrine is clearly laid out in a 1999 article titled 'Unrestricted War' by two (then) colonels in the PLA - both of whom have risen to very high positions there since. In his most recent book, Spalding covers how that doctrine has come to be further developed and implemented since.
An excerpt from Spalding's 2022 book "War Without Rules: China's Playbook for Global Domination"(most of the first chapter is a free read at Amazon):
Hate to link to Amazon, but:
https://www.amazon.com/War-Without-Rules-Playbook-Domination/dp/05933310...
Note that if Spalding is correct and the Chinese do regard themselves at war with the US, any belief to the contrary is very much to China's (leadership's) advantage. Failing to recognize the threat does no more to counter it than does a firm conviction that those guys in on the corner with the expensive athletic shoes are not going to try and carjack you. If that is their actual intention.
"I used to think, "Somebody should do something about that". Then I realized I am somebody."
- Lily Tomlin
@Blue Republic I'm not impressed
...with Spalding's background. I believe he represents one of those Americans who didn't learn anything about a country while stationed there for a short period and fancies himself an expert on their affairs and politics. It doesn't work that way. I find his observations illusory and fanciful. His credentials are almost exclusively technical, and leave a lot to be desired in an adviser on war and peace. There are always opportunities to be exploited in the US "yellow peril" market.
惑世誣民 혹세무민
語必忠信 行必正直