Authored by Pepe Escobar,
Somewhere in her private pantheon, Pallas Athena, Goddess of Geopolitics, is immensely enjoying the show.
No one ever lost money capitalizing on the unlimited nonsense spewed out by the collective deer-caught-in-the-headlights also known as Western mainstream media – complete with showering Person of the Year awards on a megalomaniac, cocaine-fueled lousy actor impersonating a warlord.
The non-stop trashy parade of Western military analysts is now “assessing” that the first targets of an incoming, joint Russia-Belarus attack on the 404 black hole formerly known as Ukraine will be Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, and why not throw Kiev in the mix straight out of a second axis.
The Russian General Staff is attentively monitoring all the action and may even follow the advice of such “analysts”.
And then there’s outright panic, as the Ministry of Defense announced that the Strategic Missile Forces have loaded two Yars ICBMs into their intended silos. Cue to widespread shrieks of horror of the “Russia Readies Nuclear Missile Capable Of Striking Deep Into US” variety.
Some facts though never change. Number One is NATO as a figment of the collective West’s – extremely impaired – imagination. If push ever came to shove – as Straussian/neo-con armchair warriors hope and pray – Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”.
That, of course, would require a massive Russian mobilization. As it stands, Russia may look feeble in a few quarters as they activated at best 100,000 troops against possibly 1 million Ukrainian troops. It’s as if Moscow was not exactly seduced by the idea of “winning” – which may be the case, in a quite twisted way.
Even now, Moscow has not mobilized enough troops to occupy Ukraine – which, in theory, would be imperative to completely “denazify” the Kiev racket. The operative concept though is “in theory”. Moscow in fact is busy demonstrating a completely new theory – irrespective of the fact that a few exalted souls have been peddling that Putin should be replaced by the FSB’s Alexander Bortnikov.
“There will be nothing left of the enemy”
With its array of hypersonic missiles, Russia can knock out all NATO bridges, ports, airports as well as power stations, oil and natural gas storage, Rotterdam oil and natural gas installations, in a matter of a few hours. All energy production equipment across NATOstan would be destroyed. Europe would be shut off from natural resources. A dazed and confused Empire would be unable to move troops, any troops, to Europe.
And still provocations run unabated. The recent attack by Tu-141 Ukrainian drones against Engels-2 airbase was blamed by Moscow on Kiev – which predictably denied all responsibility. Yet what really mattered was Moscow’s strategic messaging to US/NATO, with Putin flirting with the notion that sooner or later the response may be up a serious notch in case US/NATO weaponry supplied to Kiev is used to strike deep into sensitive Russian Federation territory.
The current Russian doctrine even allows Moscow to respond with nuclear strikes; after all Engels-2 airbase is home to nuclear-capable bombers, prime strategic assets.
The drones were certainly launched by infiltrated agents inside Russian territory. If they had originated from outside Russia, and interpreted as nuclear missiles, that could have triggered the launch against NATOstan of hundreds of Russian nuclear missiles.
Putin himself made it – ominously – quite clear at the Eurasia Economic Council summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a week ago:
“I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal of a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles are in the air (…) It is impossible to stop them (…) There will be nothing left of the enemy, because it is impossible to intercept a hundred missiles. This, of course, is a deterrent – a serious deterrent.”
Not, of course, to the stupidity-corroded Straussian-neocon gang who are actually running American foreign “policy”.
It’s no wonder reliable Russian intel sources established that the missiles that hit Engels-2 were locally launched, though the Kiev regime desired it to be believed otherwise.
And that turns the whole charade into a Dadaist farce – with a dazed and confused Empire still bound to a maniac in Kiev who still believes that the Ukrainian S-300 that hit Poland came from Russia. Cue to the whole world – and not only Washington – as hostage to a “Person of the Year” maniac with the – virtual – power of provoking a worldwide nuclear war.
Red Napoleon in da house
Meanwhile, on the ground, Russia has gone Deep Operations Strategy, big time. In several spots along the extensive frontline, they attack the points that are most likely to draw out poor Ukrainian reserves hiding in the second line of defense. When reserves come out through barren, muddy lands and terrible roads to the rescue of frontline units, entire battalions are massacred.
Russians never go deep into the third line – where command and control may be located. What’s in play is attrition warfare under Deep Operations Strategy, straight out of the playbook of the legendary “Red Napoleon”, Field Marshall Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Russia saves soldiers, personnel and equipment. The whole thing works wonders in difficult terrain where vehicles get bogged down in rainy roads. This rinse and repeat tactic, day in day out, for months on end has led to (at least) 400,000 Ukrainian casualties. Call it the epitome of Attritional Warfare.
Historians will relish that the whole scenario resembles the Battle of Agincourt – where wave after wave of French Knights (playing the role of present day Ukrainians, and Polish/NATO mercenaries) kept running uphill against English archers and knights who just stood still and let them come, hitting the second line again and again.
The difference, of course, is that Russians are employing attritional warfare tactics day after day for six months now, while Agincourt was just one battle in a single day. By the time this meat grinder is over an entire generation of Ukrainians and Poles will have gone to meet their maker.
The collective West’s myth of a Ukrainian “victory” against the Russian war of attrition does not even qualify as cosmic delusion. It’s a lousy, lethal joke. The only way out would be to sit down at the negotiating table, now, before the hammer (the next Russian offensive) comes down on the anvil (the existing frontline).
But NATO, of course, as Stultifying Stoltenberg keeps reminding the world, does not do negotiations.
Which, in a sense, may be a blessing, as NATO may end up breaking up in myriad pieces, totally humiliated on the ground despite all its elaborate warmongering plans.
Andrei Martyanov has been peerless tracking the collective West’s complete economic, moral, intellectual – and most of all military – degradation, everything drenched in lies, lousy P.R. twists and “stupefying incompetence across the board.”
All this while Russia prepares “for yet another ‘defeat’, like retaking all of Donbass and then… Who knows what then. A quick win for Russia would be a loss because NATO would still exist. No, Russia has to pace this so as it sucks in NATO into the grinder.”
Somewhere in her private pantheon, Pallas Athena, Goddess of Geopolitics, is immensely enjoying the show. Oh, wait; she’s actually reincarnated, and her name is Maria Zakharova.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/19/2022 – 02:00
