Back in the days when I was one of the British state’s more efficient functionaries, I spoke with British officers who had been in Russia during the Yeltsin period, when they had been able to get up close and effectively inventory the Russian armed forces. (For those who don’t know, I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, I was British Ambassador in Tashkent, and I was taught to be fluent in both Polish and Russian, which included living in St Petersburg as a language student while Ambassador designate).
What we (as I was then a cog in this machine) found was that the strength of the Soviet Union’s Red Army had been massively exaggerated in all our intelligence estimates, on which defence strategy had been based for decades. We had over-estimated the numbers, the mobility and above all the capability of Soviet weapons systems. Much of it was barely functional; the problems with both quality and maintenance were not just the product of the disintegration of the Soviet system, they evidently went back decades.
One interesting thing – and I recall discussing this with a British Brigadier General at the Polish exercise area in Drawsko – was that years of military planning had involved scenarios which revolved around successive defensive lines in Western Europe and eschewed any kind of counter-attacking strategy. That conversation had started because, when the British Army first started exercising on the former Warsaw pact training area at Drawsko, we had to strengthen bridges in Eastern Germany and Western Poland in order to get our tanks there.
We were musing that this had never been considered a problem in cold war strategy, because it was presumed our tanks would never go forward. We now knew they could have, which was interesting the analysts.
The truth, of course, was that it had always been in the interest of MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, of their American counterparts, and of all their NATO counterparts, massively to exaggerate the strength of the Red Army. Because the greater the perceived enemy, the more we needed to throw money at MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, their American counterparts, and at all their NATO counterparts.
Nothing has changed. Exaggerating the strength of the nominated enemy is still very much in their interest.
It is also, of course, massively in the interest of the arms industry. This is the classic operation of the military industrial complex, which does not just need an enemy, it needs a massive, terrifying, ultra-powerful enemy. Or why would you and I keep feeding the military industrial complex huge sums of money?
We see this operating today. The war profiteers have already made billions from the war in Ukraine. Look at this surge in defence stocks.
The German chancellor has already announced $200 billion of extra defence spending. The market expects to see similar boosts, totalling trillions of dollars across NATO, of money into the arms manufacturers and dealers, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yet this is an irrational response. What the Russian invasion of Ukraine has actually revealed is the limitations of Russian power. Those limitations consist both of the capacity of its armed forces, and the desire of its people to be a part of European civilisation, not to destroy European civilisation.
You can pretty well stand inside Russia and throw stones into Kharkiv, where Russian is an everyday language (and locals call the place Kharkov), yet Russia has not yet managed to subdue it. Yet we are supposed to be terrified that the mighty Russian army could roll across Western Europe and its tanks could fight their way through Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and London? It is plainly an utter nonsense (I address nuclear war later, a quite different proposition).
It says something very interesting about mass psychology that our political and media classes are able to convince the population, both that Russia is an incredible threat to us in our homes, and that the gallant Ukrainians can hold the Russians off. The western political and media class, almost universally, are managing both to crow that Russia is militarily weak, and to claim that we need to throw yet more money at the military industrial complex. As nicely observed by Moon of Alabama.
There are however, even in “respectable” media, a few voices pointing out that what is happening in Ukraine shows NATO defence spending to be already disproportionate. I was very surprised to read this eminently sensible article in Newsweek:
In the longer term, the recognition of Russian military weakness represents a fundamental challenge to U.S. strategy, spending priorities and even its firm hold on the world. It questions Washington’s obsession with a supposed “peer” adversary and the U.S. emphasis on a larger military and ever-increasing defense spending to deal with Russia. Changing the narrative on the Russian military also fundamentally challenges NATO and its European members. Though there might be heightened awareness and even fear of Moscow’s willingness to resort to extreme and even reckless behavior, the reality is that there doesn’t need to be increased defense spending or a renewal of European ground forces….
For Washington, this display of Russian military weakness should be comforting in terms of Moscow’s true military threat to Europe. At the same time though, it exposes the need for a different national security strategy, one that doesn’t imagine Russia as a military equal, and one that doesn’t push Vladimir Putin’s back against a wall.
This war in Ukraine should represent such a moment of epiphany in western political thought.
According to the Russians themselves, Russian military spending is just 5% of NATO military spending. That is about right.
Total NATO spending is over 1 trillion dollars a year. Russian defence spending in 2019 was $65.1 billion a year, just higher than the UK. So nominally Russian spending is a little over 6% of NATO spending a year. Of course, purchasing power in the defence industry makes nominal calculations not entirely helpful. Here is a short link from an excellent discussion from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute of the factors that might make Russian real resources put into defence greater than the nominal total:
Nonetheless, there are strong indications that military goods and services cost less in Russia than in the USA or most of Europe and, therefore, that Russian military spending has a higher purchasing power. For example, unlike the USA and other large European states, Russia still relies on conscription. In addition, Russian career soldiers have lower salaries: for example, in 2019 a Russian lieutenant colonel received approximately $1330 per month, whereas a (lower-ranked) captain in the British Army received more than $4000 monthly. Adequate data to make a similar comparison of the cost of acquiring military equipment is not available.
Converting Russian military expenditure using GDP-based PPP rates (based on data from the International Monetary Fund) gives spending of $166 billion in 2019 (instead of $65.1 billion using market exchange rates). This is still less than one-quarter of US spending of $732 billion. A similar calculation gives Chinese military spending of over $500 billion (instead of $261 billion using market exchange rates).
I would argue that while paying and feeding troops may be indeed be much cheaper in Russia, military hardware costs are much dependent on metals, processors and other internationally traded commodities and an overall comparison to the simple relative cost of living PPP index for Russia is not appropriate. But even using the general IMF PPP calculator, Russian defence spending is, at the very most, 12% of NATO spending.
The idea that NATO has to spend more to match the threat to NATO of Russia is plainly a nonsense.
So those of us who have always opposed NATO’s militarism, NATO’s involvement in illegal wars and NATO’s massive propaganda operation aimed at boosting the funds fed in to the arms manufacturers, the security services and the military, should welcome the opportunity for growing understanding that a large portion of this defence expenditure is not necessary.
The Russian economy is about the size of the Spanish economy. Russian defence spending is, at the highest, 12% of NATO defence spending. Russia is not the great threat to Western Europe. The limit of Russian power has been shown up in its inability quickly to defeat Ukraine, a militarily third rate European power.
But a large section of the western left – including many regular readers of this blog – is not shouting this out. A section of the western left chooses to boost the propaganda of western arms manufacturers by talking up Russian power, claiming the Russian military is massively capable, putting a good gloss on the performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, and insisting that Putin is a strategic genius.
That “left” narrative is music to the ears of NATO and the military industrial complex. So how has the left been manoeuvred into the position of being the amplifiers of the argument of their natural enemies?
The answer, strangely enough, is not intellectual but emotional.
It is rather lonely being a dissident voice in the West, arguing against the consensus of the media and political elite. Even where that political elite completely screws up, as in the invasion of Iraq, where they launched an illegal war, caused the deaths of millions of people, destroyed the infrastructure of a country, yet still lost the war, there are no deleterious consequences for the political elite.
The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine. It has done nothing effective about western crimes in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of civilians died.
This level of injustice is hard to stomach. There is a natural yearning for an alternative, for a good power in the world to match the bad power in the world, and to give at least some hope of justice or balance. Thus many on the left have come to idolise Vladimir Putin as the balance to outweigh and thwart the corrupt, warmongering, neo-imperialist Western states.
Syria gave some comfort to this viewpoint. In the war for hegemony that the West has waged all over the Middle East, the contradictions of allying with a country as anathematical to supposed Western values as Saudi Arabia reached their apotheosis. The American-led West was providing arms, finance and logistical and air support to ISIS and closely allied jihadist groups in an effort to overthrow the Assad regime. The western sponsored civil war had already caused devastation and huge refugee flows. Had the western backed jihadists succeeded, the results would have been unthinkable.
Putin saved the world from that, by a small but timely Russian military intervention, and I for one am glad he did. I say that as absolutely no fan of the Assad regime.
So I can sympathise with those who see Putin as the answer to their desire for the West to be counterbalanced. The problem is it is unrealistic. Russia is just not that strong. It has an economy the size of Spain or another second tier Western European state. Any military intervention by Russia that seriously crosses the West is ultimately dependent on nuclear brinkmanship.
The more fundamental point is that Putin is no more a “good guy” than Western leaders. Russia is a massively kleptocratic state where the gap between the extremely wealthy and the exploited general populace is every bit as big as the gap in the West, and until recently was inarguably much bigger. The human rights situation in Russia is poor. In fact in both those respects, the West is moving increasingly to looking like Russia, which is a very bad thing.
Putin’s Russia is no kind of socialist model.
Putin’s image as the strong man of Eurasia is boosted out of all proportion by those on the right who benefit from portraying a powerful enemy: and by those on the left who yearn for a powerful friend. This is the universal boosting of Putin. But in real life he is a much smaller figure, controlling a waning power of very limited resources. He has just made his largest miscalculation. In the last hour the UN General Assembly has condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine. The UN General Assembly is a forum where the US and its allies can normally muster between 2 and 12 votes. They had 141. Russia mustered 5, the kind of position the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands frequently find themselves in. That is the extent of Putin’s diplomatic blunder.
History teaches us it is a huge mistake to attack Russia. The Russian people have an enormous capacity for wartime resilience when attacked. But the plain truth is NATO has never attacked Russia, and though I intensely dislike NATO’s pushing of weapons systems closer to Russia, NATO doctrine has never included plans to initiate war with Russia.
Just as I have frequently stated Russia has never had any intent to attack the UK; to persuade the population otherwise is the everyday job of the military industrial complex.
But the Russian military industrial complex is just as powerful within Russia as the western military industrial complex is here, and the Russian people are just as exploited by their elites as we are in the West. On either side, the offices of heads of government are not the right place to search for the good guys. Everybody gets lied into war.
It is of course a truism that Russian security concerns were made neuralgic by the ever tightening encroachment of NATO and its missiles. It is a valid point. But it is an equally valid point that NATO has never attacked Russia and none of those missiles has ever been fired at Russia. The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.
We are now in a position where only a severe Russian military setback can reduce the political momentum for more arms spending, more militarism and more censorship of dissenting opinion in the west – and yet many on the left are hoping for a Russian victory. That despite the fact that not only is Putin’s attack on Ukraine illegal, it is an aggressive war with precisely the same spurious justification as the US-led destruction of Iraq; pre-emptive disarmament to prevent possible attack.
To make matters worse, Putin’s attack is popularly seen as justification of the appalling Russophobia that has formed a fundamental part of the Establishment political narrative in recent years. Putin has appeared to justify years of lies by Russophobes.
I first became fully aware of the untruth of the mainstream Russophobic narrative when it was claimed that Wikileaks had published the Clinton material on the rigging of the primaries against Bernie Sanders, in collaboration with Russia. I knew that was definitely untrue. We then saw an expansion of this narrative, including aspects of the official Skripal story that made no sense whatsoever.
As a result of the invasion of Ukraine, popular opinion holds as validated any lunatic suggestion of evil Russian influence ever to emerge from the disorganised brain of Carole Cadwalladr. “Putin has invaded Ukraine. I told you he fixed the 2016 election” is not a proposition that holds up to a millisecond of logical analysis, but logical analysis is the first casualty of war.
Finally, a couple of thoughts on nuclear weapons. Putin has put his nuclear forces at some kind of initial alert level. In a rational world, this would lead to an increased demand for genuine attempts at nuclear disarmament negotiations, but again I fear that is not in the interest of the elites who control governments. NATO’s insistence on pushing missile systems ever closer to a nuclear-armed Russia and continually ratcheting up Russia’s fear of aggressive encirclement, will make it extremely unlikely that Russia will have any interest in disarmament. Which is so obvious, it proves NATO has absolutely no interest in disarmament either.
I have said much which is highly critical of Russia, and rightly so because Russia had started an illegal war. But that in no way reduces the very large amount of blame that attaches to NATO for its absurd militarism and territorial triumphalism, and the complete lack of interest NATO has shown towards finding a less confrontational approach to Russia.
NATO does not defend the interests of the people of Europe. It embodies the interests of the global elite, who benefit from feeding the military industrial complex. NATO is an instrument of the military and the weapons manufacturers. To exist, it needs an enemy. NATO’s role will always be to secure its own existence and its controllers’ cashflow, by creating enemies.
The only good guys in this are the common people of Ukraine, and the unfortunate conscripts in the Russian army. Let us all pray, hope or think on them tonight.
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About an hour ago I went on to RTs website to quickly check something out (and then closed the page), but I just tried to go on there again (three times), and it’s a Page Not Found number now!
Looks like the vampires are REALLY going for the jugular!
It comes and goes today.
It’s available currently through a VPN based in Yokohama.
Sorry, can I do this?
https://www.rt.com/russia/551081-grushko-risk-nato-confrontation/
Alternatively, a Wayback snapshot can be found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20220303104718/https://www.rt.com/russia/551081-grushko-risk-nato-confrontation/
Moscow warns of NATO-Russia confrontation
Russian officials have long warned about the US-led military bloc’s proximity to its borders
Moscow warns of NATO-Russia confrontation
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Joe Giddens
NATO and Russia could go head-to-head in a full-blown clash, one of the country’s senior officials has warned, amid a growing standoff with the US and its allies in Europe over Moscow’s military attack against Ukraine.
Speaking as part of an appearance on Rossiya-24 TV channel on Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko set out his view on whether there’s a threat of a direct conflict with the 30-state military bloc.
“Risks undoubtedly, arise. And, of course, we are extremely concerned about an arms supply program [to Ukraine],” he explained. “Everything in this situation is very dangerous.”
According to Grushko, “there are no guarantees that incidents will not occur,” and there are no assurances that they “may not also escalate in an absolutely unnecessary direction.”
I am much against the taking down of rt.com. We should have a right to listen to Putinist propaganda if we wish. It was working yesterday. Today it isn’t.
Our World in Data produced figures this week that supports the arguments here. https://ourworldindata.org/ukraine-war.
In nutshell. 2020 figures.
@ Crispa do you know how much of the US military budget goes on military things and how much gets pissed up the wall on corp-0-rat golf courses etc?
I confess that I find this analysis a bit baffling. Although it is true that there has not (yet) been a missile fired by NATO into Russia, this does not need to happen, all that needs to happens is for NATO to be present in that territory after which the ‘nuclear deterrent’ will be operational. Moreover it is surprising to claim that NATO is a purely defensive organization. The Balkan war was the first of a series of NATO interventions outside the defensive sphere and then came Libya, where Russia and China were tricked into allowing NATO to carry out a no-fly zone which turned into a full scale bombing campaign and regime change and leading Libya to be a failed state. Moreover NATO was also involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and probably also elsewhere. The clever thing about being a member of NATO is that you can commit to individual adventures but when you get into trouble you can call on article five. An example has been Turkey’s action in Syria and maybe to a certain extent also that of the US and UK presence in Syria.
There is a very long historical context to this and the complexity of the situation does not allow for simplistic answers and this applies to both sides of the divide. The bottom line at present however is that there is no willingness on the side of the West to negotiate or at least to recognize some of the concerns of the other side despite numerous attempts at making Russia’s voice heard. To claim that this is Putin’s whim and war is just trivializing the whole very serious problem whereby both the Ukrainian and the Russian people will suffer, and the oligarchs will continue to prosper.
Where do I say NATO is purely a defensive organisation? I say NATO has no intention of attacking Russia. That is not the same thing at all.
The evidence does not support that claim Craig.
The Balkens, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Somalia. Where those economy crippling sanctions are applied they have been followed by attacking those countries. There is no reason on the basis of the evidence that officially designated enemies will not face the same outcomes at some point when advantage is deemed appropriate.
Either directly or by threat to achieve the stated policy break up, regime change and plunder of Eurasia.
You seem to a have a blind spot on this reality.
Right Ron and one could add that Nato or US might install missile system in Ukraine in the future, that would also be an obvious threat.
Best is of course if Nato/Russia or rather US/Russia could sit down and agree and create an agreement how to create the best security for each party regarding the Nato/Russian border, just like Russia proposed last years, not to mention last weeks prior to the war.
Yes, economic war has a nasty habit of turning into military war.
Putin is being demonised in the Western media in exactly the same way that Sadam and Gaddafi were prior to the invasion of their countries. These sanctions are a precursor to an attack on Russia and a looting of her resources. It is extremely naive to think otherwise.
Much as I support some things Craig writes about, I find the statement “NATO has no intention of attacking Russia” to be naive beyond belief.
I am not an economist but I wonder how valid is the measurement of a nation’s ‘prowess’ through GDP and relative expenditure in armament are. The Russian Federation is a vast country the largest on earth with huge infrastructure and natural resources covering many time zones. These are assets that cannot directly be compared and to say that RFs GDP is equivalent to that of Spain is a huge misrepresentation. I bet you that non of those ‘rich’ EU nations that dominates the markets will be able to operate the vast railway and road networks that the Russian government covers.
«The Russian Federation is a vast country the largest on earth with huge infrastructure and natural resources covering many time zones. These are assets that cannot directly be compared and»
Should we therefore be afraid of the military aggression plans from the Zaire, Brazil, Indonesia, Canada, India, Australia?
«to say that RFs GDP is equivalent to that of Spain is a huge misrepresentation»
The ability to wage war depends on the ability to fund war operations and to staff the armed forces, that is on GDP and population size, not on vastness, infrastructure and natural resources as such. In 2016 and in 1941 the UK and France and Russian were defeated by Germany, and the UK and France had to surrender to the USA, because they had run out of funds, and in 1918 and 1945 Germany had to surrender to the USA because they had run out of people (and in part of funds).
For another illuminating example consider Japan in 1941: they were in control of a vast pan-pacific empire with large natural resources (except oil) and significant infrastructure, but they started a war with the certainty of being defeated because their GDP was 1/5th of that of the USA (and they had only 2 years of oil reserves).
Following the cats comment above, how much madder can it get? Valery Gergiev was fired from his post as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for failing to criticize the Russian action. Across Europe and the US, Russian artists have been told to speak out against Putin.
He didn’t speak in support. He simply refused to comment.
Wang Shui
Russian and Belarusian Paralympians have now been banned from the Beijing games. When was the last time that ever happened to a Western team, despite all the millions killed by US military action oiver the past seventy years?
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/paralympics/ipc-backtracks-bans-russia-belarus-from-beijing-1.6371077
Wang Shui
The US is unable to win by law or by force . They are finished, financially bankrupt morally bankrupt legally bankrupt.. Let the US die. Time for a requiem, Dies irae, dies illa. When every truth will be revealed.
Nobody in Europe us going to let this corpse of a country dictate to us from the mausoleum of US power.
“The limit of Russian power has been shown up in its inability quickly to defeat Ukraine, a militarily third rate European power.”
Sheesh, it’s only been a week.
Even Operation Desert Storm took five weeks, as did the 2003 invasion, and on both occasions the Americans were *not* holding back on the use of massive, overwhelming firepower.
Quite the reverse.
Yet if you were to ask anyone in the West they’d agree that the Americans wiped the floor with the Iraqi armed forces, and in double-quick time.
They didn’t have to contend with Storm Troopers in Iraq!
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/star-wars-or-ukraine-fake-war-footage-infiltrates-even-mainstream-media/
It’s hard not to laugh but seriously.
I understand that the latest rumour, sorry, I mean Official Narrative information, being prepared is that Darth Vader is Ukrainian CIC.
One has to ask how such a clip slipped passed editors, even in their eagerness to paint a particular picture. I don’t suspect if they had realised that it would have passed but it displays the emptiness in the media surrounding the whole Ukraine conflict.
I suspect the storm troopers were meant to be russian soldiers not Ukranian but I can’t translate so not sure.
As the diversity of views is welcome here, and, as most part of commentors have strange ideas about Russians and Ukrainians, and, as even greater part of the commentors haven’t followed the events before, and, as you europeans only take it seriously when a word comes from a man with gun or from an emotionally moving picture. I’ll try to say it in the way that you understand how it feels for me.
My one son is going to do cruel thing on my another son, so I ask my man to please interfere. While the whole of West jumping and screaming and bringing more guns.
They are my young boys, on both sides, they need ceasefire and wise advice. Everything else we will talk about and settle in the peaceful way.
We can do it, we try and we succeed; we did it earlier, we have experience.
When I see the reaction of the West, I wish we were divided by thick wall from you, mad greedy monkeys with nukes. Ignorant, non-negotiable.
—
I’m very sorry if it hurts you, I hope I’ll see an opportunity to change my mind. So far, it is as stated.
When I see the reaction of the West, I wish we were divided by thick wall from you, mad greedy monkeys with nukes. Ignorant, non-negotiable.
A lot of people in the West also now see Russians as mad with nukes and not willing to negotiate. As both sides get more entrenched the possibilities for the use of nukes at some point increases frighteningly in my humble opinion.
And that’s why proper talks are needed at once, if it is not already too late.
Russia’s negotiating position is roughly “Let us remove the government of Ukraine and replace it with a puppet, and dismantle the Ukrainian army, or there’s nothing to talk about”. If your negotiating partner says he’ll settle for nothing less than capitulation, then I don’t see talks going very far.
Jimmeh
Mr Lavrov has indicated Russia’s frustration at previous negotiations with Western leaders, including Minsk, have always been ignored. Jhelensky is just a here today, gone tomorrow, opportunist comedian, looking for attention from the big boys. If he dared to disobey the US for a second , he would be brushed off like a fly.
Russia’s negotiating position is ‘ until the West is prepared to negotiate with us in earnest, we will carry on dismantling anything that threatens us.’
No point in talking with puppets or war hawks like Nuland, robots like Macron, clowns like BoJo or new boys like Schloss.
The fact that the US electoral system has disappeared the man who would have talked with Russia, Donald Trump, is a hard pill for the US to swallow. The great shortage of talent in Western governments is a self- inflicted injury caused by rigging elections. Nothing wrong with Democracy , except that it no longer is allowed to give the people their say.
Funnily enough that precisely what the West did in 2014.
It would certainly be useful if people did not shoot themselves in the foot, as is the case here, by being totally inconsistent and selective in both the facts and the principles.
Like shooting fish out of a barrel. And this is yet another example of why our society is going to hell in a handcart. The inability of too many people to think critically for themselves, preferring instead to rely on parrotting Official Narratives which do not stand up to objective reality.
The Russians only asked that Ukraine does not become part of nato, thats all.
Because if part of nato , America has the right to put nukes next to Russia.
but that is just what ukraine refused. finland is neutral, so it is possible.
and if america would not have infiltrated the ukraine and organised a coup, then the population would not have ben so polarised.
Tatyana, here is the voice of a US gentleman living in Ukraine, he holds the view that the Ukrainian president has made a mistake handing out arms to civilians, this is causing anarchy he claims. Criminal gangs are now fighting one another…
https://twitter.com/JDPlatinumINVST/status/1498418936932622337
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the whole point of giving guns to grannies is to create more “innocent” civilian casualties.
«the Ukrainian president has made a mistake handing out arms to civilians, this is causing anarchy he claims. Criminal gangs are now fighting one another…»
Such marvelous optimism: an alternative explanation is that distributing war weapons to random groups was *designed* to cause anarchy, as the “sponsors” of Zelensky reckon that the Russian Federation will win, and it would be in their interests to make a russian occupied Ukraine an ungovernable quagmire failed state like Somalia.
Thank you Tatyana.
That needed to be said. Over and over.
Firstly, if Craig had read the statement from Putin, he would have noted the Russian military strategy is to destroy the military infrastructure of Ukraine, denazify it and prevent it from both joining NATO and acquiring nuclear weapons.
On the first point, it has destroyed most of the the airfields, attack planes and helicopters etc.
The second point is that most of the Nazi battalions are in the Donbas and are surrounded which applies to Kiev and a number of other major cities. They have not, repeat not employed the strategy used by the US and NATO to reduce the cities to a pile of rubble as they have done in IRAQ, Libya, Serbia.
Lessons learnt from Syria have been applied here, namely, minimise civilian casualties by allowing a corridor for them to escape and the military to surrender giving guarantees of safety.
NATO has not intervened, despite their puppet Zelensky pleading for help, because it’s in no position to fight the Russian Federation as outlined in detail by Scott Ritter.
Although the US has spent far far more than the Russian Federation on armaments, many of the more expensive weapons of it is useless. Eg the most expensive fighter ever developed the F35, which kept crashing, or the Royal Navy with a brand new aircraft carrier with no planes or destroyers that couldn’t operate in certain weather conditions.
Meanwhile, the Russian military have developed very sophisticated weapons which NATO has no defense against. The main driver in the West for military spending is how much profit the private corporations plus shareholders
can make in Russia it’s functionality plus effectiveness.
Andrei Martyanov, an expert in Russian and naval issues has written many books about this subject in great detail. Well worth reading, in order to bring people into the modern day situation of the Russian Military equipment!
Let’s not forget the Russian military are not giving the highest priority, as the latest MI6 chief stated to Transgender and Gay plus Lesbian Rights, in the defense of the Russian Federation.
In addition, it is noticeable how much the situation has deteriorated for the Western backed puppet when they are now employing Goebbels tactics of using a Volkssturm which means allowing any male of the age of puberty to enlist, releasing convicted criminals to fight and dishing out 30,000 + weapons and 10,000,000+ rounds of ammunition.
No wonder Putin called the West an “ empire of lies” an Lavarov stating the war in Ukraine is “ not a Hollywood script” but it becomes a problem when the Western governments, media, military start to believe there own propaganda!
Lavrov has given a press conference, taking and answering questions. “Watch Live : Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holds press conference in Moscow” on DW News. If someone could post link please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CcSCKeLOGg
DW News
3.52M subscribers
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks in an interview with Russian and foreign media in Moscow.
Wang Shui
Thank you so.much for providing that link , and Wikikettle for telling us about it. What a star Mr Lavrov is , compared to the idiocy of the Skripal lies about novichok when BoJo was Foreign Minister. I kiss your forehead Mr Lavrov for your quiet repudiation of Western lies and propaganda, live..
Thank you, Wang Shui, also – Sergey Lavrov presents some insight and dispels some Western gaslighting. Gaslighting mostly uses arrogance, contempt and disdain to damage a reputation and/or manipulate a view despite hard evidence to the contrary.
It was fantastic to see the mad Kathy Newman of Channel 4 News taking a good beating. Прекрасно, Mr Lavrov!
Andrei Martyanov:
You can read his daily thoughts here.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Stimulating!
Gaslighting!!
Exactly so. Craig seems to have missed the important points Putin made in his speech on the 22nd February…
“Many Ukrainian airfields are located near our borders. NATO tactical aviation stationed here, including carriers of high-precision weapons, will be able to hit our territory to a depth of up to the Volgograd-Kazan-Samara-Astrakhan border. The deployment of radar reconnaissance equipment on the territory of Ukraine will allow NATO to tightly control the airspace of Russia up to the Urals.
Finally, after the United States broke the Treaty on Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, the Pentagon is already openly developing a number of ground-based strike weapons, including ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets at a distance of up to 5.5 thousand kilometers. If such systems are deployed in Ukraine, they will be able to hit objects throughout the European territory of Russia, as well as beyond the Urals. The flight time to Moscow of Tomahawk cruise missiles will be less than 35 minutes, ballistic missiles from the Kharkov area – 7-8 minutes, and hypersonic strike aircraft – 4-5 minutes. It’s called, right, “knife to the throat.” And I have no doubt that they expect to implement these plans in the same way as they have repeatedly done in past years, expanding NATO to the east, promoting military infrastructure and equipment to the Russian borders, completely ignoring our concerns, protests and warnings. Sorry, they just spit on them and did whatever they wanted, whatever they saw fit.”
Full speech. https://vk.com/@580896205-putins-speech-prior-to-recognizing-donbass-republics
Curious. Until 1991 or so, the West greatly overestimated Russian strength (or pretended to do so). Today, Mr Murray – along with the rest of the Western establishment – underestimates Russian strength. No matter what the facts, they always find a way to be wrong.
Two important misconceptions underlie all Western thinking about Russia. First, that military power is proportional to money spent. There is hardly any connection at all. As Mr Murray observes, Russia spends less than one-tenth as much on defence as the USA does on offence (it doesn’t need any defence). Yet Russia has greater military power where it counts. This leads to the second misconception: that Russia’s or China’s military strength is commensurable with the West’s. That is utterly wrong, because Russia and China aim only to defend themselves and their allies, whereas the USA (and to some extent their poodles) like to imagine they can “project power” everywhere in the world.
Russian military technology has left the USA’s in the dust. The US Navy, which once ruled the seas, is now not capable of fighting Russia or China (or both combined, which would likely be the case). Any NATO ships that threaten Russia, China, or probably Iran, would simply be sunk. They have no defence. Likewise, NATO aircraft and missiles are inferior, and could not survive against Russian air defences. That means that the US army could not even come to grips with the Russians, as it would be destroyed before it could even reach the theatre of war.
Lavrov claims US set up two chemical/biological weapons labs in Ukraine and the world has to ask why ?
The same reason they set them up in Georgia and the same reason they render captives to other nations to be tortured. It’s to escape public scrutiny and to enable them to carry out acts that are illegal in the USA. The same reason they have people spying on their citizens at RAF Croughton in the UK.
When a nation hides activities it knows are illegal, you know they are totally corrupt. And, all the five eyes regimes do exactly the same – western democracy. The stench is overpowering.
FYI:
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/02/24/us-bioweapons-labs-in-ukraine-what-will-russia-find-in-the-labs/
This might be of interest:
US Biolabs In Ukraine – Look Targeted By Russian Missiles? (24 Feb 2022) – Rense: Alt News
Sixteen, actually. Maybe more. Since 2005 none of them has published a single scientific paper – it’s all top secret. Paid for by the Pentagon.
Probably just humanitarian research to help people fight against diseases, don’t you think? That would be why they were set up in Ukraine (and Georgia and Azerbaijan and Armenia and Kazakhstan…) See any common factor in those nations?
I am agog at your depth of knowledge of Russian military technology.
Great to read this fine informed, independent analysis. However in noting “the universal boosting of Putin” you somehow overlooked his longest-standing and most bullish British supporters, the high priests of our serious liberal Centre ….
Sir Tony Blair: “Forget the people of Ukraine and side with Putin”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/23/tony-blair-ukraine-putin-_n_5196236.html
Lord Peter Mandelson: “Putin taking Russia in the right direction”
https://skwawkbox.org/2022/02/24/mandelsons-putin-links-make-mockery-of-starmers-self-righteousness-on-russia/
One wonders whether this defiant fealty to Putin will now put the great men’s membership of the Labour Party in jeopardy, especially under the ultra-principled, zero-tolerance leadership of Sir Keir Starmer. Although maybe Sir Keir doesn’t know about it, because for some strange reason it hasn’t been reported at all in the witchfinding British war media.
Also worth noting in this regard that contrary to conventional wisdom about the Far Left being Putin lovers Corbyn has opposed Putin loudly on every issue from Day One — Chechnya, buying British politicians, etc. Some were also scratching their heads during Corbyn’s leadership about why if he is such a puppet of Putin the Kremlin was funnelling all the bribes to the Tories and officially endorsing them against Corbyn during a British General Election campaign.
https://mobile.twitter.com/alexnunns/status/1497669198688014339
Again all strangely overlooked by our uber patriot, witchfinding media.
” contrary to conventional wisdom about the Far Left being Putin lovers Corbyn has opposed Putin loudly on every issue from Day One “
Corbyn is not far left.
Who’s Alex Nunns?
I think its interesting that Ukraine call on mercenaries from all over the world to come fight russians. Are Ukraine dependent on outside soldiers? It looks like Ukraine trying to drag in the whole world to fight for them.
Ukraine Wants IDF Soldiers to Battle Russians
Embassy in Tel Aviv urges locals of Ukrainian descent to sign up for the fight to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/ukraine-wants-idf-soldiers-to-battle-russians/
Japanese volunteers on their way
https://japantoday.com/category/national/70-japanese-answer-ukraine%27s-calls-to-arms-against-russia
I agree entirely with Mr Murray’s analysis of how the elites beggar us all by creating false enemies in order to justify ludicrous levels of ‘defence’ spending – munitions which are used on the poor outgunned people who inevitably form their targets. Well – they have to get rid of old inventory – and if this can secure an oil-field or two – so much the better.
And despite being on the left – very much on the left for all my 68 years – I also have no difficulty in describing Putin as a low-rent gangster installed in power by the plundering oligarchs – and did so in Mr Murray’s previous posts.
But what is this?
WikiSpooks Reports:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/WEF/Global_Leaders_for_Tomorrow/1993
“In 1992/1993, the WEF launched a new community, the Global Leaders for Tomorrow (GLTs), composed of 200 young leaders from business, politics, academia, the arts and the media, all of them under 43 years of age, and, as the WEF claims, “well established through their achievements and positions of influence”[2]. This claim is simply not true, as the selection is extraordinary prescient, given that many of these people were totally unknown at the time. Angela Merkel, for example, was a nobody from the former East Germany incorporated into united Germany in 1991.”
“From the G8 summit in 2007. Next to President GW Bush are Young Global Leaders 1992/93 who now have become leaders of their countries: José Barroso, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin (suspected member, see note) and Tony Blair.”
“In 2017 Klaus Schwab claimed that Vladimir Putin was a member of the program,[7] something he repeated in a 2019 talk with Carlos Alvarado Quesada. This presumably happened during his St. Petersburg years in the 1990s[8]. This is not confirmed from other sources. In January 2021, Putin presented a keynote address at the World Economic Forum, where he recalled how he first met Schwab in 1992 and since then had regularly attended events organised by the WEF.[9][10] The WEF removed their page of Putin following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[11]“
Who precisely is Putin working for?
Why are his actions today clearly playing into the hands of the international gangsters represented by NATO?
In fact (and I understand from Craig from this phrase is used by the the so-called security services – the elites’ little helpers and enforcers):
Cui Bono?
Certainly not the benighted ordinary people of Russia – or of any ordinary people at all!
john, I agree it is rather extraordinary to see hints of these associations, although what to make of it takes me into realms of mind-boggling speculation.
Cui bono?
Well the benighted ordinary people of Russia seem to be better off under Putin than they were under Yeltsin. Perhaps he entered the WEF as a trojan horse for the Chinese Communist Party.
Or perhaps he actually IS working for the owners/sponsors/hidden hands of the WEF?
Or maybe he’s just had enough of having NATO tanks on his lawn!
“Who precisely is Putin working for?”
Most probably not the people who got him where he is today, who must be very disappointed, if what you say is true. A study of history shows that he would be far from being the first to do this.
I agree with almost all of this, and I am glad that you gave credit for Putin in Syria, and contrasted his actions with NATO which gives the lie to the “brutal dictator” meme. Thank you 🙂
Putin’s supporters argue that until recently he had only deployed a fraction of his forces in Ukraine and had been very sparing of heavy weapons, in the mistaken belief that he would meet little opposition and wanted to cause as little damage as possible. That seems to have changed. Credible people suggest that his new generation of hypersonic weapons (eg Kalibar) are a game changer and that he could devastate any city on earth if he chose, without going nuclear. I think the jury is still out on his capacity to cause kinetic damage.
But it is his soft power that is most astonishing. Syria was a horrible mess of Israel, US, Saudi, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Shia, Sunni, Christians, Arabs, Jews, Kurds, Persians… the leaders of every one of these groups has made a pilgrimage to Moscow. Washington, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Ankara not so much. To me, this speaks volumes.
A reasoned overview of the realities from Mr Murray.
The Americans seem to have herded, on cue, the European sheep, Scot.gov included, into the Nato fold.
The EU has never looked more a tool of corporatist American interests.
The prospect of a brave new world where the WEF, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and the rest of the spawn of the globalist anglosphere, now saturated in sentimental Woke «values», pull the puppet strings will leave many eager for the perfection of interplanetary space flight.
Russia-hate, a virus more virulent and more life threatening than «Covid» ever was.
Have a good day GCHQ and friends.
Argument that NATO has never attacked Russia therefore no need to worry reminded me an old joke:
Phone rings in the police office. Police officer answers.
“Help”, one yells, “someone is trying to kill me.”
Officer replies:
“Call us when you are killed, then we’ll send investigation.”
The sanctions and isolation is nothing but a declaration of war now against Russia, west just keeps on pushing harder and harder for no reason now. This is terrible.
Some headlines from today:
Germany to ship more weapons to Ukraine – reports
F1 chiefs terminate Russian Grand Prix contract
London Stock Exchange bars Russian firms from trading
Lithuania stops importation of Russian LNG
EU agrees crypto measures against Russia
and so on
Of course all these measures just give proof to Putin that the west cannot be trusted and seek regime change.
It is because Western leaders are appalled by war and militarism and invading other people’s countries. They had hoped such things belonged to the distant past and were unthinkable in the 21st century.
Sarge
It could also be a preparation for war against Russia by the west considering how incredibly weak Russia will become after all these sanction and isolation tactics.
You keep coming out with this line on the basis of absolutely no evidence. Terminating the F1 contract is really going to bring Russia to its knees, and that goes for the rest of the sanctions. Russia doesn’t give a shit about isolation or sanctions and is on record as saying so, nor is there any evidence to the contrary.
Ha Ha, good one.
I really hope you’re joking, Sarge.
“…west just keeps on pushing harder and harder for no reason now”.
There are really good reasons, actually.
France! Oh, thank you! Premier of France calls for negotiations! Putin talks to Macron.
I hope so much that brave lady journalist’s video helped to shift the world.
Also, yesterday France detained 14 Legionnaires who intended to go to Ukraine.
“If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
— Desmond Tutu
Really wish Liz ‘tank girl’ Truss would button it, as she seems to have nothing constructive to say.
Despite the protestations of Putin’s supporters here that he was driven to invade Ukraine by the duplicitous Ukrainian government both directing Nazis to commit war crimes against the honest ethnic Russians in the Donbas and plotting with NATO to bomb Russia, and assuming Russia military is much better equipped than Craig realises, the invasion of Ukraine still does not make sense.
It is not going to restore the old USSR. All it achieves is the occupation of a country of around 40m angry repressed Ukrainians fighting a guerilla war (equipped by the west) and leaves Russia a pariah on the world stage, cut off from access to Western technology and resources, financial as well as military. The guerilla war in Ukraine will tie down large numbers of Russian military and resources and leave Putin even less able to invade any NATO country he feels threatened by — as they will now be supplied with even more US weaponry.
Seen from the UK, there was no indication NATO planned to attack Russia. Their main function seemed to me, as Craig says, to provide an outlet for arms sales. Military bases and depots in former USSR countries seemed to be established in Eastern Europe chiefly to keep the sales of arms going and to calm local fears of being subject to Russian attack ( The latter with good cause it now seems.)
I can understand occupying the Donbas to protect the ethnic Russians there from attack by local Nazis but invading, and occupying Ukraine, which Putin will now need to do, seems a reckless waste of Russian resources and squandering of external relations. Neither the Ukraine nor NATO had threatened war or invasion against Russia. Why would they. It makes no sense. What does Russia actually achieve by occupying the Ukraine.?
Putin will not occupy Ukraine. He will weed out the nazis and those western-sponsored idiots who want to provoke war with Russia, and walk away. Ukraine’s biggest trade partner is Russia and it will prosper if it expands that trade, and through Russia’s close trade ties with China.
What stevelancs says, with the proviso that he will probably occupy the south coast, which is mostly supportive of him.
Mrs.Pau! You’ve just parroted all the talking points from the western propaganda. You should apply for Cathy Newman job. A bit more study before posting would be productive.
“the invasion of Ukraine still does not make sense.”
Don’t forget “the white man speaks with two tongues” 😉
While some Nato leaders have assured Putin that Nato membership isn’t on the agenda and even vetoed Nato membership since 2008, others have been busily rearming Ukraine to prepare its armed forces for the fight against Russia. While the Ukrainian army was in a desolate state in 2014, when Putin pulled of the Crimean coup with hardly any casualties, Western military experts are now boasting that they have armed Ukraine to give the Russians a good fight, to the point that the war will cost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lives. The Russians know that it would be even more costly in 10 years time. At which point Nato will just present Russia with the fait accompli of full Nato membership for Ukraine, claiming that they never promised not the accept Ukraine, just like the claim today that they never promised Gorbachev that Nato will not expand one inch East of the river Elbe in 1991.
There are small groups of Nazis in many countries, but Ukraine made it their national idea, moreover, targeting the Russians in the first place.
Among many quite obvious evidence, this article gives more detail. It’s in Russian, hope you can google-translate it
https://ria.ru/20220303/denatsifikatsiya-1776127798.html
[ Mod: An English translation is available here. ]
The strange manner of doing war, unusual for invasions, made me think – can it be that we’re watching a staged performance? If the case is NATO in Ukraine, Putin might have made a deal with Biden.
Russia’s new weapon may give us advantage, so they may ‘agreed’ on show with eliminated bases and all military, kick away Nazis.
The US profits from European sanctions, like Starlink is going to be a monopoly without OneWeb. Perhaps, Herr Scholz is played too into supporting Nazis and ridiculing genocide. So, he is kicked off and someone more negotiable takes place and the NordStream2 starts. Everyone is happy.
+ if I were a party in such a ‘deal’ I’d suggest to have fun along. Watch whose side Israel is supporting 🙂
Normally, Israelis are smart guys, as a state they tried be neutral till the end. But, they tend to make surprising ties on their ethnics. I mean ‘Ukrainian squad’ Nuland, Blinken, Sherman, Zelensky and a couple of Ukrainian oligarchs. I’m sure Israel as a state was asked by Putin on its involvement, to which most probably he was given a firm NO. But, I guess an operation like this needed some support of some Israel agencies.
Now they’ve chosen the side and it may have lost the Golan heights, as a part of the bigger deal.
—
Just speculating.
By the way, this would have a positive impact on society, creating more healthy approach to anti-Semitism, which is already weaponized 🙂
Another of my positive scenarios: in case Europe keeps its arrogant approach, we just apply to China to be part of them 🙂 New language to learn and I really love hanfu clothes. People are lovely. Speed railway from the Pacific to the Black Sea, among friendly people.
“The strange manner of doing war, unusual for invasions, made me think – can it be that we’re watching a staged performance?”
Well it would make sense if the prime reason for the existence of NATO is to provide a market for the US arms industry. This war will destroy a huge amount of their products with a minimum of loss of life. From the point of view of the US MIC, what’s not to like? If Russia can re-neutralise Ukraine and retreat its forces back to Russian soil, Putin gets a boost at home and the Russian MIC gets to replace all the munitions used in the war. Biden gets a boost from making those damn’ Russkies to get the hell out of Ukraine, everyone is happy except those who were the collateral damage and their relatives.
Another problematic aspect of some of the argument in this piece is the use of old cold war political labels based on a simplistic dichotomy which is no longer of any relevance to where we are now as compared to where we used to be.
(Apart from the one in which a whole society is reduced down to a single individual in the same way a whole Political Movement & Party in the UK was reduced down to a single individual).
Paul Craig Roberts – who served under Reagan and sat on The Committee of the Present Danger – has been scathing of the hubris of the West. Arguing that if the RF had come to the Americans with these concerns during the Soviet Era they would have taken them seriously and acted appropriately. And the evidence exists that this would have been the case. Such evidence being the, albeit silent (at least in the West), quid pro quo of withdrawing US missiles in Turkey which had been the driver of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Hardly of the ‘left.’
But, as another expert, Scott Ritter (among others) observes, the diplomatic and strategic caliber of personnel across the US and Western Establishment Elite, including its military leadership cadre, is so poor these days as to be unrecoverable.
Even Robert Bridge, who blocked me on Twitter a few years back for providing evidence which disproved something he wrote, and who now, as I understand is based in Moscow, seems also to be placed on “The Left” in this model.
Which is reminiscent of the recent list put about across social media of people on the “left” and the “right” who had been on the Joe Rogan podcasting shows which had Tulsi Gabbard and Russel Brand as ‘right wingers.’
These categorisations no longer have any meaning and are useless for any kind of realistic analysis. They are simply interchangeable dog whistles for different gangs in different situations to suit an Official Narrative concenience. How often does one hear the term ‘Looney Left’ or similar these days when consuming media fed information about civil protests or demonstrations?
The Official Narrative has switched 180 degrees and most protest at present is labelled ‘Far Right’ rather than ‘Looney Left.’ In Canada a protest involving communities as diverse as Sikhs, Indigenous peoples and other Black and Ethnic groups as well as Caucasians was successfully labelled as ‘racist’ and ‘Right Wing’ by the Official Narrative.
What should be worrying people like Craig is the legal precedent set here of freezing the bank accounts of not only people directly involved in those protests but also of small donors to the Crowdfunding of that protest.
If you don’t have a functioning bank account you can’t get paid your wage as its a term and condition of your employment (read the small print of the employment contract) or pay your bills – local taxes, energy, fuel, utilities, everything. If you are self employed you cannot invoice for work carried out or obtain materials necessary to earn a living. It becomes impossible to pay your mortgage or rent, feed your children, put clothes on your back.
This is very effectively outlawing anyone who dissents from whatever the Official Narrative is on any particular issue. Making it impossible to satisfy the most basic of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
At this point it would be useful to ask the question, by way of comparison, as to whether or not any civil protesters arrested in the RF have faced the same action which effectively outlaws them from being able to live except within whatever black economy may or may not exist here in the West or elsewhere?
On the matter of “Official Narratives” another example concerns the recent successful legal action in Scotland by women from opposite ends of the Party Political spectrum who have decided to work together on the basis of being biological/real women rather than than some now defunct and meaningless political label.
Something which is not a one off as an institutionally captured self-referencing Official Left has committed seppuku by isolating and alienating a large swathe of people across its entire base from the Reality Based Community in its rejection of Class and Material Politics in pursuit of the narcissism of an individualistic atomisation of people via the self-id cult. Salami slicing people into ever smaller and smaller group silos in the name of unity supported institutionally and organisationally by the Establishment from the WEF down to the local Girl Guides Group.
Starmer’s war on the left, which has emptied the British Labor Party of activists, is mirrored and has been complemented by many in that same so called ‘left’ driving out people with decades of knowledge, experience and expertise.
These simplistic dog whistle labels are no longer of any analytical use in the present context.
The notion that “war” started last week does not stand scrutiny. Kinetic war may have commenced but economic and cultural war has been going on for some time. Whatever the outcome in Ukraine the issue before us is not about Ukraine. Its about what Alfred W McCoy, in his recent tome “To Govern The Globe’, describes as World Orders. An old one is coming to an end and a new one is emerging.
It has accelerated in the past few years as the warning given in one the videos doing the rounds – Professor John J Mearsheimer’s 2015 Chicago talk (can be found on the grousebeater blog) – that the West is playing a losing hand by driving the Countries of Eurasia and the Global South together has been ignored in a massive globally strategic blunder by an incompetent, arrogant and ignorant Western elite publicly signalling and demonstrating its intent of doing to the rest of the world what Rome did to Carthage.
In that real world reality which now exists sanctions are now a two way street. Gazprom has already recovered its NS2 investment. It matters little in the UK that none of its gas is sourced from Eurasia as the blowback impact of those sanctions sees spot market prices at record highs which will be smashed should NS1 be turned off. $2,226 per 1,000 cubic meters, or $213 per megawatt-hour in household terms is eye watering stuff. Particularly when it is self imposed.
And the inevitable counter sanctions – from switching off NS1 and other pipelines to other markets (China, Pakistan, India etc) through to confiscation of Western assets in the RF and the ‘liberation of US technology patents’ to name a few – have not yet occurred.
Pepe Escobar made perhaps the most pertinent observation so far in the first of these two videos – https://thesaker.is/has-putin-miscalculated-with-pepe-escobar-part-1-2/
“”We are already living in a separated world. It is going to be NATOstan on one side and Eurasian development and integration on the other side
And people are going to have to choose their camp its as simple as that.
And a lot of people who are dissatisfied in the West? They will probably migrate somewhere in Eurasia to restart their lives, restart their careers, or even start their careers.
Or, if they are prisoners of conscience in the West, considering there’s only one narrative in the West, and if you don’t follow it you are criminalised all over the place. People are going to start moving all points East.”
That final observation about being criminalised/outlawed in the West if you do not follow the narrative has been going on for some time. Assange, Salmond, Craig here are just three examples of different aspects and levels of the same approach. Others include, but are not limited to, those such as Miller, Forstater, Stock, Linham, Claudia Clare and unknown other GC/Reality based views similarly sanctioned – along with thousands of LP members sanctioned for not buying the manufactured AS narrative and Canadian protest supporters with their permanently frozen bank accounts – are now joined by Russian composers, dancers, paralympians, etc .
Each iteration example turning the screw a little tighter. We will be hanging Russian monkeys at this rate. Its happened before. Right now ‘Cancel Culture’ is yesterday’s method. Today the west is freezing bank accounts of civil protestors and their supporters – even if that support is $50. Tomorrow? Well, we’ve been there before.
And that’s what Escobar is highlighting. What Craig has experienced recently, among others, is not the end of the type of methods employed against dissenters by a hysterical and hubristic Establishment which has lost the plot and is intent on imposing its own Official Narrative on everyone else to the extent that nothing less than that Official Narrative enthusiastically coming out of everyone else’s mouth (as anything else is deemed unacceptable dissent) will be tolerated.
I’d put what money you’ve got in someone else’s name Craig, before its confiscated. Either that or take Escobar’s advice by moving East.
I have wondered in the light of Trump’s recent remarks on USA TV and his purported friendship with Putin if, ironically, this situation would have been avoided had he been still in office. That American foreign policy would revert to one of hostility to Russia under a Biden regime was quite predictable. Blinken set his pitch the moment he was appointed.
The official trigger is pulled by POTUS. The machine creeps forward regardless of who POTUS is and who is in power nominatively.
In spite of having been impeached over Ukraine, Trump never missed a weapons delivery to the Ukraine. Just like firecrackers are made to be lit, weapons are made to be fired.
You fall prey of the mental model that the war just started. We all know it’s been going on for years. At least since 2014.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”
― Henry Kissinger
It’s unpopular to say so, but it most likely would not have happened if Trump had had a 2nd term. Putin started to prepare the invasion in early 2021 after Biden took office. Trump wasn’t a president of peace, far from it, however, his distaste for Nato and Ukraine and his liking for Putin would have made Ukraine’s Nato membership impossible. There would have been no need for Putin to attack. As much as I hated Trump, a 2nd term would have been a disaster for US imperialism, but it would also have been a disaster for the climate.
One more person on your list of “cancelled” persons: https://twitter.com/SDonziger
Lest anyone think some of this to overly pessimistic:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/the-real-backdrop-nobody-will-discuss/
“However, it certainly appears that world leaders are deliberately pushing us into World War III. In Slovakia, it’s now a crime to express any “acceptance of support” of the Russian actions or of their leaders, and special police commandos are hunting down people who do so in public offline or online. The punishment is 10-25 years in prison or up to a maximum of life. The Czech Republic is adopting the same law, but the punishment will be 1 to 3 years in prison. This is obviously inviting war, for this is ending any discussion or negotiation.”
https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagandy-hrozi-az-dozivotie/
https://tn.nova.cz/zpravodajstvi/clanek/455893-za-podporu-rusku-hrozi-vezeni-po
Nice to see they are keeping their understanding of “liberal values” up to date. Meet today’s liberals – yesterday’s fascists.
Ron, my understanding is that Trudeau and Freeland did a 180° with the freezing of trucker donors bank accounts after it started a bank run. Word is it was the banks that warned him that he’d be responsible for crashing the Canadian economy very quickly.
I’d tried to give you an interesting link but the moderators here cant handle a link to a reliable investment site.
As frequently the case when reading Craig, I find the article both super-interesting and somewhat infuriating.
The main conclusion is key and super-important. NATO, in its quest for a meta-enemy to align against and drive massive investment, has propped Russia well beyond its might. NATO past – and even more, future – spending are entirely out of proportion with Russia’s capabilities and spend. No contest. And that point is critical to promote.
The infuriating parts (to me) are first in the line of argumentation, and then in the lack of future projection.
W/r to line of argumentation, Craig continues to channel the silly talking points according to which Russia is unexpectedly being held back by Ukrainian forces. No, given they have gone in deliberately soft, and with an approach of not shelling out resistance first with artillery, it is expected to take time. That has nothing to do with their capabilities but with their tactics. That point from Craig is mistaken and also unneeded.
More importantly, the lack of future projection. We should expect a pivot from Russia to China in short order. The question is whether NATO wants to “clean shop” with Russia first (whatever that means, there are voices in the US calling for regime change). Or whether the primary goal as alignment of the puppet states in Europe (starting with UK, Germany, France). That is obviously now fully achieved.
Regardless, we are going to see over the next 5 or 10 years or so a massive shift away from the European theater to the Asian theater. As far as I am concerned, this will be the official bookmark to the 5000 year old European and Middle East centric era. It’s been in the works for 100 years but the need the US and the militaro-industrial complex has for an enemy somewhat their size to justify further growth leaves no choice for the effective realignment to happen now. Russia is but a preparatory exercise.
” No, given they have gone in deliberately soft, and with an approach of not shelling out resistance first with artillery, “
Mariupol now under a state of siege, nothing getting in or out: no power, no water, no food and under constant shelling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60601235
Tactics tend to evolve over time and I would not be surprised if they got harsher as troops see some of their comrades fall.
That said, do you believe the BBC to report in a neutral manner what is really happening?
How is it different from Fallujah, Mosul, Raqqa, etc.? All these places were reduced to rubble by the same countries that now feign concern about civilians trapped in a war zone. Patrick Cockburn of The Independent had some good reporting on these Western-destroyed cities. I do hope Mariupol won’t be reduced to rubble and anybody who wants to can leave.
There are two humanitarian corridors that have been organised by the Russian army and the Donetsk People’s Republic militia leading out of the city to allow civilians to leave before the fighting starts. The big problem though is that Ukrainian forces are holding many civilians, in some cases perhaps entire neighbourhoods or groups of people with something in common (like factory workers, or teachers with children), hostage in buildings they have laced with mines and explosives.
The tactics the Ukrainians are using are eerily reminiscent of the tactics used by ISIS and other jihadist forces in Syria, especially in the way ISIS used civilians as human shields and put them in harm’s way to slow down Syrian government forces and their allies in liberating Aleppo and East Ghouta. The Ukrainians must have been taught this by, ahem, “military advisors” just as ISIS and their pals were.
I would also suggest following Stolz Untermenschen for information on how Russian forces and DPR militia go about liberating Mariupol.
Do you have a reliable source for that?
The BBC is hardly a ‘reliable source’.
Nothing going out ? Are civilians being held as human shields? What about the HUNDRED THOUSAND Greeks??
What are they doing there anyway?
” I also have no difficulty in describing Putin as a low-rent gangster installed in power by the plundering oligarchs..”
— John O’Dowd
But is there any evidence of this?
There is an enormous amount of evidence that Putin has been a force for the good in Russia. Since he came to power the terrible conditions, established by ‘western’ advisors and deliberately encouraged by a US state intent, then as now, on breaking the country up and taking over its resources, have been reversed. Where millions were unemployed, starving, left for months without wages being paid, their savings and pensions reduced to nothing, unprotected from sickness and caught up in a society crumbling thanks to corruption and violence, now the situation is dramatically improved.
And largely because Putin, routinely depicted as a corrupt thug, is actually the opposite. The motives behind the long campaign, which has always had semi-official status in the west to tag Putin as a kleptocrat and oligarch are obvious enough: since coming to power he has been the oligarchs’ worst enemy, taxing them, regulating their business, cutting them down to size. At the same time the notorious corruption within and beyond government has been attacked. These outcomes are the very opposite of what both the oligarchs and their western sponsors (almost all of them wallow in Wall St and the City) wanted. In particular they are, as we see today by the obsessive defamations of the man in charge, horrifying to the neo-cons and the proponents of US hegemony. The last thing they want is a revived Russia protecting China’s historically vulnerable western and northern flanks.
The campaign against Putin has been going on for almost two decades. He has been accused of murdering opponents but the accusations appear to be without foundation- the evidence against him is Novichok thin and self contradictory, whereas the reality is that Putin has many and virulent opponents whose lives have never been threatened. The truth is that the number of violent deaths in Russia which reached record numbers during the Yeltsin-Clinton years has decreased enormously. Mr Navalny, for example, who was allegedly chased all over Europe by professional assassins working for the Russian state appears to be safest in its custody, whether in hospital or, serving apparently well founded charges for fraudulent and corrupt business dealings, in prison.
And then there is the matter of the President’s wealth, not the US but the Russian President. The corrupt dealings of the Biden family are so obvious that not even media silence can cover them up. But while Putin is routinely revealed, in headlines, to be rich beyond imagination there is never any evidence that this is the case. On the contrary he has been the enemy of the rich like Khodorkosky, still routinely referred to in the media as a dissident democrat, who stole billions from Russia- who must have been personally responsible for the impoverishment and suffering, not to say deaths, of thousands of Russians.
What happened in Russia in the 1990s is a tragedy of historical proportions and it was entirely attributable to the machinations of a relative handful of intellectuals and politicians behind ‘shock therapy.’ History will record that VV Putin both rescued his country from a time of terrible troubles and led it back into a position in which its immense resources-human as well as otherwise- could be deployed for the benefit of all. It is hard, looking back on Russia’s history to find a leader of comparable stature.
On the international stage there is a very good chance that Russia’s current sacrifices will lead to a long overdue breaking up of US dreams of hegemony, which have been productive of almost every war and the deaths of tens of millions, since 1945. There is only one end to this mad campaign directed by Washington- it will either end in a stinging defeat for imperialism or it will lead quickly to that dystopia which has been one of the dominant themes of literature during the last century.
The hopes of all decent people rest with the Russian campaign. The sooner it is successful the better for humanity.
The Panama Papers revealed that Putin’s inner circle amassed huge wealth though deals he arranged and that he took the opportunity to enrich himself. He’s been very clever at hiding this money but it’s around $200 billion. He has a $100 million yacht which slipped out of Hamburg in early February to avoid being impounded.
All really decent people want the killing to stop.
This is silly. I don’t doubt he treats himself in a preferred manner, but the $200 billion statement has been debunked. Besides, it’s irrelevant.
Once again, what are your sources? Extreme claims require extreme justification.
From what I have seen of Mr Putin, he would have no use for billions or a yacht. He works too hard to have any time for them.
An American woman who was in St Petersburg in the early 1990s told how she made an appointment to talk to a municipal official and found herself in Mr Putin’s office. She said that he was the only Russian official she had ever dealt with who was strictly honest and by-the-book.
The accusations you level against Mr Putin are really unoriginal. They come from the same drawer as the accusations against every political leader whom the West wishes to destroy.
Where do you find things like that? Last century fiction.
You must understand better modern financial system and possible fraud schemes, before citing outdated inventions of someone obviously demented.
Also, helps to realise why the disconnect from SWIFT insures true independence 😉
Force for good is subjective.
There are objective elements to consider. He was democratically elected, even after due consideration of the caveats of the process. He is popular in his country. Probably more popular than most Western leaders. Of course he is also a populist. It’s generally worded as a negative term, but does not have to be.
He’s spearheaded a rebuild of the country after 2 dramatic periods (Stalinian style planning and Capitalistic style plundering). As someone who’s experienced it first hand, the standards of living as well as the sense of normalcy in living have progressed dramatically under him. And so has what I’d call pride.
It is also very obvious that territorial expansion has not been a goal of his. Sustaining scope and influence, yes. But there is absolutely no evidence of intent on territorial expansion or rebuilding the USSR. Even the recent events in Kazhakstan are about influence, not annexation.
For the Western media to portray him as a madman is insulting, idiotic, and of course most importantly part of the manipulation.
“Khodorkosky, still routinely referred to in the media as a dissident democrat, stole billions from Russia- and must have been personally responsible for the impoverishment and suffering, not to say deaths, of thousands of Russians”
Predictably given the stage by the Guardian today, declaring the invasion to be “a crime against the Russian people”. “It is time to stop pulling punches” on sanctions, he says. “It gives me no pleasure to write this, because I know innocent Russians will pay a price.”
Ordinary Russians as ever at the forefront of his mind.
Putin also seems to be a lot more competent, economically than the Western leaders, with their countries running up huge debts proportional to their GDP. This, https://txtify.it/www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/15/putin-close-winning-ukraine/ is worth reading, if only becasue it appeared in the Telegraph, a paper not noted for printing pro-Russian propaganda. It debunks the myth of Russian economic fragility so beloved of many people and shows the futility of the sanctions regime. Incidentally in this statement, it gives a reason for why the banker-run regimes of the West hate Putin, “Mr Putin’s tight ship is a striking contrast to the prodigal socio-economic systems of the West, where money rains from helicopters and fiscal dominance prevails. “He is extremely conservative and rails against the dangers of debt,” said Chris Weafer from Macro-Advisory in Moscow.”
There are alot talk about mercenaries from abroad coming to support Ukraine, perhaps that is Nato’s next move, sending in these groups under Nato proxy command? Gladio anyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
China’s position, among other things, mentions abandonment of the Cold War rhetoric.
Squonk in the above discussion says that the West’s view on us is the same as we see them. I suggest to compare:
‘Mad monkeys with nukes’ won’t talk to us, never
VS
‘Mad monkeys with nukes’ don’t talk to us, but we try again
See the difference
Mad monkeys with nukes on ‘special alert’. Where do they fit in?
Please, don’t undermine my point. I addressed it to Squonk, when you’re taking it out of context.
Nontheless, I’m happy to answer yours, too.
We warn when we’re on ‘special alert’. Also we do many warning before we are on ‘special alert’.
The problem is that our concerns are dismissed.
Very fair. Also, it is surprising to me that with nuclear capable silos in Poland and in the Baltic countries, Russia’s nuclear dissuasion force has not been on special alert for years.
This “special alert” business: the translation I saw first was “moved to a special mode”. Perhaps you can clarify for people who don’t know Russian, what he said/meant?
Nobody seems to know what “special alert” or “special mode” means. So if Russia has issued a warning, perhaps it would have been better if the warning hadn’t been in code. As things stand, it just looks like muttering threats about nuclear war, which is pretty reprehensible.
If you could give me the source, I’d be able to express the sense in the best of ay I can
I think they just mean to prime the rockets, to put into a state of readiness.
@Tatyana, I can’t reply to your post; I don’t know what causes the [reply] button to get swirtched off for some posts.
I think this is the speech in which he says he’s ordered his “deterrent forces” to a “special alert mode”.
https://imgur.com/Vqn5AuA
But I watched the whole of Putin’s Security Council meeting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/feb/22/speak-plainly-putin-tense-exchange-spy-chief-ukraine-video
“With the suggestion of Nikolai Patrushev [secretario del Consejo de Seguridad] that we could give our western partners one last chance (…) to present them with this option to force Kiev to choose peace and implement the Minsk agreement. In the worst case, we have to make a decision that we are discussing,” Naryshkin began.
“What do you mean by ‘worst case scenario? Are you suggesting that we start a negotiation?’ Putin with a half smile.
At the wake-up call, the security chief couldn’t help but hesitate, while the russian president He kept insisting: “Speak, speak, speak clearly”.
With a stabbing gaze straight at Naryshkin, the russian president he tapped the table with his fingers.
Is there another way of interpreting this meeting than Putin making clear the only answer he wanted to hear was, “No more negotiations. Now we act” ?
Ah yes, The Guardian – that world-famous exemplar of truth, honesty and fairness.
I watched the entirety on RT with their translation. Seems accurate to me. Replays are available. And he wasn’t the only one looking uncomfortable.
Yah. Fairly typical Western “analysis”.
If Mr Putin encourages an open discussion and listens to everyone expound their views, he is weak and indecisive.
If he rapidly takes the obvious decision, he is an overbearing undemocratic dictator.
Heads we win, tails you lose.
Ah so invading Ukraine was the “obvious decision”. Glad you’ve made that clear.
When I watched that meeting as transmitted I knew with near 100% certainty an invasion was coming and further talks ruled out, even if I’d been unsure before. That was my personal interpretation not based on any media reporting of said meeting. Just the translation provided by RT.
And that’s what happened.
Of course, no. Are you Russian to be so sure to imply the opposite? You better stop reading your paper, it is illiterate and also pre-cures material for you to be painted in a special way.
Rubbish. Written in the best style of my grandfa’s cartoons journal Krokodil. Evil capitalists, soulless military machine of NATO and good boys of working class.
I bet the editor knows who buys it, because he himself is one of that.
Did you watch the entire meeting? I did. Maybe things got lost in translation but to me it looked like Putin making sure everyone knew what answer he wanted if they had any doubts before hand.
So you better clarify from the start that it’s your impression, and your paper supports it.
Not my paper. Had a lot of respect for it many years ago but that doesn’t mean it is always wrong today. Given that the meeting was pre-recorded and certain moments not edited out, I assume Putin wanted to make clear that he was in charge. Which of course he is.
The Guardian just happened to be one of the first links that popped up with that segment I was referring to.
And you think, of course, that someone in a similar position (say head of CIA) would have dared making such a recommendation to Biden: “let’s give them a chance, let’s de-escalate in Ukraine, let’s work on Minsk”?
Yes, I would hope so and if not then as usual two wrongs don’t make a right.
So you watched one Security Council meeting. Did you see all the others where Putin and his chiefs or Russian Foreign Ministry diplomats discussed negotiating with Kiev before? Did you see the meetings they had after they tried negotiating with Kiev to discuss the results of their attempts to negotiate with Kiev?
You need to know the wider context in which this exchange between Putin and Naryshkin took place. Watching one Security Council meeting is not enough.
There’s an interesting write-up about it in the Moscow Times, explaining the background to each person’s demeanour. This is the bit about Naryshkin:
“Just ask Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who seems to have been the designated scapegoat of the gathering. He can probably feel relieved that, unlike Blofeld, Putin has not yet installed a piranha tank for his meeting.
He has been a good soldier throughout the crisis, pushing the official line publicly much more actively than Patrushev or Bortnikov. Yet unlike them, Naryshkin was never in Putin’s inner circle, and he was treated to a demeaning and needless demonstration of the boss’s power. He was, to be sure, much less suave than his usual public persona, standing at the podium when called on like a schoolboy singled out by the principal.
When he said he “will support” recognition of the pseudo-states, Putin tetchily pressed him: “will support, or do support? Tell me straight, Sergei Evgenievich.” When a clearly flustered Naryshkin, then said he supported “bringing them into Russia,” the president at once put him in his place again: “that’s not what we are discussing! Do you support recognising their independence?”
When the personal is political
The difference between cronies and staff could not have been made plainer by the way Putin bullied him on national television. In the past, we have seen oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska and governors publicly dressed down, but this is one of the most senior figures within the government, the head of one of the intelligence services, and one of the fabled siloviki who are meant to represent Putin’s trusted henchmen.
All this actually has political relevance. One of the key reasons to believe that Putin would hold back from dramatic and potentially self-destructive escalation in Ukraine was precisely that he must appreciate the costs and the risks. If this meeting is anything to go by — and we have no reason to believe it is not representative — then this is not a man who is interested in alternative perspectives and open discussion.”
I was appalled that Lavro was personally threatened at todays press conference. Our grip on every aspect of our war on Russia now includes Russia having to rely of Western media to report to the world what Russia wants to say from Moscow. I was thus relieved that DW News broadcast the whole of the press conference without editing. Cathy Newman of Channel 4 personally held Lavrov responsible for the killings and in a very cynical way named a lady who had been killed. Never have the western media named the civilians killed in all their wars, not one Palestinian, not one Yemenis, not one civilian from Donbass over eight years, not the names of those hearded into a building and burnt alive in Odessa. Lavrov did everything humanly possible to plead his countries case and seek a new security order for all of Europe and enable Ukraine to be sovereign to no avail. He reported that many of his counterparts in diplomatic missions had been threatened with sanctions, and their families threatened. As Bolton had threatened the former Director of the OPCS, saying he knew where his family was ! What is Russia to do ? The west has in its control the votes of the countries of the world, control of international organisations, banks, charities and ngo’s funded to the tune of billions. On nearly every news outlet you have an ignorant presenter reading from a script passed around with that days talking points. Then they bring on a so called expert from a funded think tank to underline the talking points. Lavro remarked on what journalism should be and to what depths it had sunk. I have been very depressed at the killings in Ukraine and have to reminding myself at the ongoing unreported killings in wars else where which Cathy Newman and her ilk are blind, dumb and deaf to. I can see no good outcome with such domination that we in the West poses, determined to overthrow the government in Russia whos only resort left is its own force of arms and they will fight. We in the West are cowards, we are scared to fight Russia and use proxies. The events will however escalate into an incident which will involve direct conflict between US UK France and Russia which could and highly likely turn nuclear. We just couldn’t accept peace and coexistence on our Operation Barbaroso 2.
Germany commits €100 billion to defence spending NOT “The German chancellor has already announced $200 billion of extra defence spending.” Guess you miss that handy pulpit you had on Russia Today
Germany doesn’t really need to spend anything on “defence”. The USA pumps it full to the gunwales with tanks, missiles, aircraft, artillery, etc. Besides which, Germany has no one against whom to defend, now that France, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Poland are all relatively peaceful. (Note: all of those have invaded Germany in the past).
No, the USA pumps it full against payment.
The US has been trying for years to weaken Germany’s economy (and the rest of the EU’s) by getting it to spend money on armaments (bought from whom, I wonder) and now it has succeeded. Germany is beaten. This is all as much about reducing the EU to the same status as the UK in relation to America as it is about cracking Russia open to looting and pillage.
Well that was the last part of Lord Ismay’s famous saying about NATO.
No matter what happens, Nato by its own vile actions has set the wheels in motion of the coming great divide in an economic sense which could see the Dollar knocked off its perch as the global currency, and Europe will remain in the clutches of the US agenda for years to come.
A similar argument is explained in detail in the recent Pepe Escobar essay (on the Cradle or Saker) referring extensively to Michael Hudson (article from 28 Feb on his home page.) To me, the decline of the monetary system based on USD seems inevitable — the question is when it will really speed up.
This goes well with Craig’s argument — thanks for the excellent reasoning — that the MICIMATT tries to pull out as much money as possible and run. IMHO, it has some similarities with the pharma stunt we had for the last two years.
Meanwhile in the real world,
here is an example of behavior that happens every day and is totally acceptable to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UN, EU (Eg. The West):
https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-pictures-february-2022/34941
Maybe, this is why the West thinks it is acceptable to support Ukrainian Nazis ?
Sorry to hear you’ve not been well Craig. You have your own appeal to worry about, not well and a potential nuclear war to report on FFS ! Take time out Craig, be with your family and get better. We will support your fight to appeal your case.
Do you think any Russian billionaire oligarchs who have been enriching British society and Parliamentary political party members for some considerable time now, if you can believe what is spouted as news now and shenanigans to be stopped and investigated, will take kindly to being suddenly summarily robbed of their accumulated wealth and deprived of their illiquid assets? Or do you think they will contemplate arranging for appropriate personalised revenge to be exacted upon those with a leading responsibility and thoroughly worthy of the sanction?
You can get RT intermittently on.
https://www.rt.com/on-air/rt-player/
SA.
RT of which I cannot watch on my tv, has moved it contents to here if you want to watch it.
https://rumble.com/c/RTNews
It is claimed that RT has been taken off UK news channels by EU sanctions against Russia affecting transmitter points in Luxembourg and France.
I’ve long thought that the nodding and excited puppet who reads North Korea’s news was more watchable than much on RT. How many actually watch RT anyway?
Sadly, censorship is a dog whistle that gets those on the Clapham omnibus sieg heiling furiously.
Did the dulcet “Germany calling, Germany calling” cause as much damage as the V rockets and bombs? I’ve often wondered how close Lord Haw-Haw came to clinching a German victory…_
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60584092