"Defeating either side militarily was never the aim."
I don't get why this is so hard to understand. As soon as someone says "failed counter offensive" I know to ignore them. How did the counter offensive fail? Tons of young untrained Ukrainian men got sacrificed to blow up expensive tanks. Sounds like exactly what Washington wants.
This not war may last several more years. It doesn't matter how unpopular it is. Everyone seemed to forget the US- instigated war in Syria which is now 12 years old.
i just don't get the logic of this theory - if the ukrainian counteroffensive worked as intended, it would have resulted in the encirclement and mass destruction/surrender of a bunch of russian troops and armor. what does washington gain from doing it this way vs. the way that kills more russians?
You always have to start with the question: "What are the goals of party X?". The goals of the US oligarchy are for the most part:
1. Get first dibs for selling Europe oil (and other industries) as opposed to independent-minded Russian oligarchs doing so.
2. Funnel as much money to US military contractors as possible.
Territorial gains or soldiers dead/wounded don't matter at all, as long as the conflict can be kept going. Keeping the conflict going as long as possible feeds into goal 2.
You also need to ask yourself: "Why did every US media outlet hype up Ukraine's counteroffensive?", "Wouldn't a surprise attack be more effective?", "Why would you announce a counteroffensive like this?". Also remember, that the US/UK scuttled a peace deal when Zelenski wanted to sign one. Why did they do this?
Quite simply Ukraine wasn't wasting weapons fast enough. The indent of hyping up a "great counteroffensive" was to force Ukraine to have to do one so they could burn through their weapons and order new ones. As Michael Hudson says: "US arms are not for winning wars, but for getting blown up."
Therefore the counteroffensive did not "fail", it was great at satisfying goal 2 by facilitating a fresh round of arms orders. All the US initiated wars become forever wars for this reason. Military contractors don't want to let go of their money printer.
see this is my point - the oligarchy doesn't have a set of coherent goals, the oligarchy is comprised of different groups with competing goals and US foreign policy is the outcome of that competition. we aren't playing 8D chess, we are different groups taking turns on the steering wheel and each group wants to veer in a wildly different direction.
While "the oligarchy" is a fuzzy concept, their goals aren't that complicated and the groups/factions that make up it aren't really pulling the steering wheel in very different directions. What do you think each individual oligarch wants? For the vast majority I would say the goal is to make more money.
All the people with money can easily make more money by keeping the Ukraine war going for as long as possible. Therefore, the war will continue for as long as possible.
After Ivan IV the Terrible destroyed Novgorod, Russia was left without the ability for foreign trade because the Hanseatic league, Poland and Sweden were charging exorbitant taxes. A major mistake by the tsar.
Enter the English and Muscovy trading company. Ivan IV had to grant a trade monopoly and exorbitant advantages to the English in order to trade with Europe and acquire goods and technology (weaponry, construction, ship-building). Everything that Russia used to get through Novgorod.
The relationship with the company was very much to the benefit of the English but it was indispensable for Russia. Satisfying Anglo greed and trying to escape from it prompted Russia to expand south towards the Black and Caspian seas and the east towards China and the Pacific. Long-term positives but one century and half of submission to the English.
England did not like the moves to shake off the monopoly and advantages of its trading company and has harboured long-term hostility against Russia in its great game. Of course the hostility would wane during the periods of Russian submissiveness. Echoes from the past resonating until today and for a while in the future.
Dec 4, 2023·edited Dec 4, 2023Liked by Rurik Skywalker
I think we will all agree that the US intel thought that Kiev would fall very quickly. So the idea of taking back the Donbass and the Crimea was never on the radar until the Russian military and intel failures revealed how ill prepared Russia for the SMO. So the US's response was formulated after the start of the action . So what was their goal once they realised that Ukraine was not only surviving but doing well in the field? There must have been many long meetings working out a strategy and maybe , just maybe for once an actual end game for the conflict. I beleive their goal was to prolong the war and give Russia as much pain as possible before conceding. The limiting of the capability of Ukraine was deliberate as the American Jews wanted a limited conflict , they wanted just enough power to create a stalemate and that is what they have created. That the offensive failed was completely predictable as we have seen that heavily dug in defensive lines are almost impossible to break and Russia had the time over last winter to set up those lines. The flooding of the South West areas also restricted the offensive's effectiveness. So now I think that Langley is willing to move on to other projects. Losing territory to Russia will certainly look like a loss for Ukraine and the West but the SMO was never about taking territory , right? If we go with the stated claims about the goals of the SMO then Russia certainly lost but the general opinion will be that the US was the loser. So massive amounts of spin will be unleashed on all sides once the deal is announced , Zanon will be crowing about the Russian victory for a long time but I think most Russians will just be puzzling for a longtime about the entire bloody wasted affair. The Ukranians have finally secured their entry into Europe so they have had a win as nobody ever expected them to take back Crimea , that was a complete pipe dream. So a lose/lose , win/win for both sides depending on where your prejudices fall. Let the spin begin.
Iran has come out of this affair with a much enhanced military reputation. Israel must be getting very nervous about their capabilities. They have definitely seized the initiative in the new modes of warfare. I expect that they will be formulating some means to use the West to damage the Iranians but the worm is turning against Israel as far as public support goes. Jews will continue to formulate and prosecute the wars of the present and the future as they try to regain the initiative in Israel and the rest of the world. Keeping control of the world capital flows is most likely their key concern. The situation with the Islamification of Europe over the long term must be a major concern also. They must beleive they can still maintain control there even when Muslims will be be a sizeable majority . They have control over some Muslim countries in their own back yard , Egypt and Jordan for example and strong influence in many others so maybe they can pull off the control of the EU as well but I imagine Jews on the ground in Europe will be very nervous and suffer some casualties. So I imagine that some action to weaken Iran will be on the cards in the future. Israel's nuclear capability is still their trump card against the Iranians but to actually use it would have damning consequences for them so the state of conventional forces must still be a major worry for them.
I do subscribe to Hersh's blog, and I confess to thinking immediately of Rolo and his analysis of Russian surrender when I read that Russia was negotiating the entrance of Ukraine into NATO.
As an American, I'm pretty indifferent as to whether Donbass and the other Ukrainian provinces are part of Ukraine, or Russia or autonomous. Of course they have to be safe and peaceful and the citizens of Russian origin have to be able to maintain their identity.
One of my primary concerns is the stability of the region. It seems obvious that Ukraine membership in NATO is profoundly destabilizing. It's a dire threat to Russia and puts relations on a hair-trigger. An agreement to limit Ukraine military to defensive only isn't worth the paper. The Ukrainians will obviously push the boundaries of the agreement, possibly ignore it altogether. Who would the guarantors be? The US? Germany? Turkey? The same ones who ignored the Minsk Agreements. Russia's only recourse would be to either acquiesce or to take some military action. But, as a member of NATO, an attack on Ukraine would likely bring in the NATO militaries, and we're off to WWIII. In short, NATO membership for Ukraine is a potent tripwire for a general war quite likely to go nuclear.
eh russia has shared a border with the NATO baltics for 30 years and, through its puppet Belarus, Poland. no tripwire or nuclear war there despite similar issues. any NATO accession document is going to concide with an agreement to not contest the current borders militarily. i see more geopolitical risk in what's happening now, where ukraine is negotiating a series of one-off bilateral security guarantees with NATO member-states.
All I can say is that the issue of Ukraine entering NATO has already served as a tripwire that went off. In other words, the prospect of the Ukraine in NATO already impelled Russia to invade Ukraine. In the meantime, both Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. The trashing of the Minsk Agreements shows that any "agreement" isn't worth the paper to print it. Once the new NATO members start building "defensive" launchers that can easily be converted to offensive, I don't see any alternative but for Russia to put itself on a hair trigger, particularly if a crisis is developing. I'm not an expert and I'm not prescribing. It just seems that a country surrounded by hostile countries that may or may not have nuclear warheads at the ready and pointed at you would exist on full alert.
Yeah the deal before Putin invaded was that Ukraine stays out of NATO, and he gets to keep Crimea and his frozen conflict. Putin tore up that deal when he invaded. Finland and Sweden stayed out of NATO until now bc Putin has demonstrated he will eat any country outside of NATO he can get his hands on. Pretending that Russia has legitimate nuclear fears in that context is silly.
Huh? The deal was the Minsk accords, the red line was NATO membership for Ukraine, and Putin tried multiple times to get a commitment by Ukraine and the Minsk guarantors that Ukraine would not be brought into NATO. He could not get such a commitment.
"Finland and Sweden stayed out of NATO until now bc Putin has demonstrated he will eat any country outside of NATO he can get his hands on"
This doesn't make sense. If Putin demonstrated that he would eat up any non-NATO country, that would be a reason for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Finland in particular was allowed to remain independent by the USSR after its defeat in WWII, on the condition that Finland would be neutral. Finland has broken that treaty unilaterally. I know of no provocations by Russia towards Finland. Do you?
Kissinger said that negotiations (official) should begin in autumn and I never doubted it. The most beloved lizard in world said so, so it must be true. I just hoped he didn't die before he could save Putin's ass. Now it is a little awkward, he stills manages the situation from the grave.
i think you have it wrong on the west orchestrating the war precisely. people's analysis tends to fall off when they look at the other. you give excellent analysis on internal political factions within russia and the demands putin must meet to keep all of his stakeholders happy and putin in charge.
the US system is even more polyarchical - assume the slav observer is correct and all the dissent and argument within congress is a charade - within the federal government, state, defense, CIA, and the proliferation of other intelligence agencies all have competing views and priorities on issue. we for sure have a foreign policy "blob" that tends towards intervention (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/06/biden-foreign-policy-blob-00030443), but there is a decent ideological range between idealists and realists within the blob and fierce in-blob competition for the scarce number of jobs that actually have power and influence.
the CIA really did estimate that afghanistan would take 6 months to a year to collapse and ukraine would be beaten in 3 days. The CIA is prestige-obsessed and has been on the back foot since the war on terror, where first it had to abandon embassy circuit cocktail parties to provide on-ground targeting assistance GWOT which is way less fun, then it blew its credibility on Iraqi WMDs. then the obama-era leaks fucked up a bunch of their successful operations. they need all the public wins they can get so the odds of them creating a bunch of deliberately wrong analysis 2 decades after Iraq is not likely. so that means there is (or was) a pessimist wing in the government that thought it was better to not stake US credibility on supporting Ukraine. mearsheimer was the voice of that faction in the early part of the war but he got discredited by Ukraine's will to resist, and nobody else wanted to take up that mantle in public. but there is open disagreement in congress - congress is why more $$ is not coming down the pike now. congressional republicans are unable to govern themselves and so a minority of the Orbanite/Konfederacjia Q-wing of the republican party, like 20-30 congressmen, are effectively blocking ukraine aid. if the CIA could make congressional republicans stage this dysfunction as theater they could also have engineered the destruction of the Russian forces in Ukraine and be done by now.
This may be a good time to remember three famous statements by good ol' Henry Kissinger of recent memory.
The first is that 'military men are dumb stupid animals whose lives are sacrificed to advance the foreign policy objectives of their countries.'
The second is that 'it may be dangerous to be a foe of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal.'
(He could have said exactly the same of Russia, as Strelkov et al and those dead Donbass leaders might testify.)
The third is his quip about the Jews, 'its the behaviour of the 90% which gets the rest a bad name'.
I'm not sure we can accept the rumours from the American 'Deep State' as evidence of more than their desire to threaten Zelensky, 'freeze the conflict' and move on. It may not reflect reality.
I think Putin would also like to 'move on', although the conflict has proven an excellent training ground for his forces, and a test-bed for new equipment, and has dispelled the mystique of American technical superiority. Russia can afford (economically, militarily and politically) to keep on slowly grinding the Ukrainian forces. 2023 has been the year of the destruction of any Ukrainian capacity to make large scale offensive actions. 2024 may be the year that sees the destruction of their defensive capacity. They can't even kidnap enough people off the streets to replace their losses, and it looks as if the vast plans for new defence lines everywhere are technically impossible and little more than Zelensky's pipe-dreams. I suspect his announcement of a shift to defence was forced upon him by the situation and his army, and he seeks to take credit for it. Can Ukraine and Zelensky survive through 2024?
Their morale is already crumbling. The recent capture by the Russians of a very strong position in the south of Avdeeka is an example of the fact that strong fortresses may more often be taken as a result of betrayal or collapse of morale amongst the defenders than by assault. Its a bad omen for long-lasting defence elsewhere, all the more so in a few more months when they have to abandon the rest of Avdeeka.
The Americans would love to 'get ahead of the curve' and salvage rhat they can now, then declare victory and forget Ukraine as they have Afghanistan. The Russians don't need to co-operate, and by now Putin and his men may be sufficiently annoyed to be willing to continue just to spite the Americans. I think lots of Russian soldiers would love to capture or destroy some Abrams tanks and shoot down some F-16s.
There is a possible move left for Zelensky which might get both the Russians and the Americans off his back, if he could manage it. That would be for him to once again demonstrate his political flexibility. He could change masters from America to Russia. Putin would probably let him continue as President of Ukraine if he switched from persecuting philo-Russian Ukrainians to persecuting the anti-Russians.
He could blame the Americans and British for the whole mess. They tricked Ukraine into this conflict, their equipment was inadequate in quantity and quality, their military advice was unsound, they prevented peace on easy terms (and they stopped bribing him enough); they can be blamed for all the death and destruction. The people who need a hate-figure can switch from blaming Russia to blaming the West. Once again the Americans could achieve the opposite of their intentions, turning friends into enemies.
Could he get away with it? Much would depend on the attitude of the locally influential Schlomos,
who control those terribly anti-semitic 'Nazis', who never do anything their masters don't want. If assured of continued security to prey upon the locals, (and cessation of Russian bombing of their assets), why wouldn't they bend with the wind? After all, Heavenly Jerusalem, which was advanced by killing eastern Ukrainians, could also be served by killing those to the west.
Putin would achieve his objectives of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and keeping the areas he has captured, ending the shelling of Donetsk (if anyone important cares about that). He could declare that the military and Nazi threats from Ukraine have been ended and that Russia no longer needs to bother about internal squabbles in Ukraine. He would have strengthened his military (and the tech sector of the economy) and their approval of him, and would have the satisfaction of having successfully given the Americans a poke in the eye. He is stuffing the mouths of his influential local Schlomos with gold to prevent their opposition. (See John Helmer's recent article for that.)
However, it may be too soon for that. More months, (possibly another year) of defeat and demoralization and lack of supplies and money will probably be required to bring Ukraine to readiness for such a move.
This rumour may be just an American attempt to preempt that situation, and keep Ukraine anti-Russian, whoever is nominally in charge. If the Russians just display some of the patience and cunning for which they are renowned, just continuing their slow grind they are likely to achieve a satisfactory result without needing to completely destroy the Ukrainian military or occupy the whole country.
Maybe Zalushny appreciates this. He may not be a Caesar in waiting. Perhaps the 'fierce clashes' along the line of contact may become more shadow-boxing, until Ukrainian capacity rots sufficiently for a political change to be possible. After all, Ukraine with a new orientation would still have a (smaller) army, and why should not he continue to be in charge of it?
"Defeating either side militarily was never the aim."
I don't get why this is so hard to understand. As soon as someone says "failed counter offensive" I know to ignore them. How did the counter offensive fail? Tons of young untrained Ukrainian men got sacrificed to blow up expensive tanks. Sounds like exactly what Washington wants.
This not war may last several more years. It doesn't matter how unpopular it is. Everyone seemed to forget the US- instigated war in Syria which is now 12 years old.
i just don't get the logic of this theory - if the ukrainian counteroffensive worked as intended, it would have resulted in the encirclement and mass destruction/surrender of a bunch of russian troops and armor. what does washington gain from doing it this way vs. the way that kills more russians?
You always have to start with the question: "What are the goals of party X?". The goals of the US oligarchy are for the most part:
1. Get first dibs for selling Europe oil (and other industries) as opposed to independent-minded Russian oligarchs doing so.
2. Funnel as much money to US military contractors as possible.
Territorial gains or soldiers dead/wounded don't matter at all, as long as the conflict can be kept going. Keeping the conflict going as long as possible feeds into goal 2.
You also need to ask yourself: "Why did every US media outlet hype up Ukraine's counteroffensive?", "Wouldn't a surprise attack be more effective?", "Why would you announce a counteroffensive like this?". Also remember, that the US/UK scuttled a peace deal when Zelenski wanted to sign one. Why did they do this?
Quite simply Ukraine wasn't wasting weapons fast enough. The indent of hyping up a "great counteroffensive" was to force Ukraine to have to do one so they could burn through their weapons and order new ones. As Michael Hudson says: "US arms are not for winning wars, but for getting blown up."
Therefore the counteroffensive did not "fail", it was great at satisfying goal 2 by facilitating a fresh round of arms orders. All the US initiated wars become forever wars for this reason. Military contractors don't want to let go of their money printer.
see this is my point - the oligarchy doesn't have a set of coherent goals, the oligarchy is comprised of different groups with competing goals and US foreign policy is the outcome of that competition. we aren't playing 8D chess, we are different groups taking turns on the steering wheel and each group wants to veer in a wildly different direction.
While "the oligarchy" is a fuzzy concept, their goals aren't that complicated and the groups/factions that make up it aren't really pulling the steering wheel in very different directions. What do you think each individual oligarch wants? For the vast majority I would say the goal is to make more money.
All the people with money can easily make more money by keeping the Ukraine war going for as long as possible. Therefore, the war will continue for as long as possible.
Anglo-russian history time.
After Ivan IV the Terrible destroyed Novgorod, Russia was left without the ability for foreign trade because the Hanseatic league, Poland and Sweden were charging exorbitant taxes. A major mistake by the tsar.
Enter the English and Muscovy trading company. Ivan IV had to grant a trade monopoly and exorbitant advantages to the English in order to trade with Europe and acquire goods and technology (weaponry, construction, ship-building). Everything that Russia used to get through Novgorod.
A very incomplete historical overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscovy_Company
The relationship with the company was very much to the benefit of the English but it was indispensable for Russia. Satisfying Anglo greed and trying to escape from it prompted Russia to expand south towards the Black and Caspian seas and the east towards China and the Pacific. Long-term positives but one century and half of submission to the English.
England did not like the moves to shake off the monopoly and advantages of its trading company and has harboured long-term hostility against Russia in its great game. Of course the hostility would wane during the periods of Russian submissiveness. Echoes from the past resonating until today and for a while in the future.
Thanks for the history lesson! 🍦
This excellent albeit brief.
I think we will all agree that the US intel thought that Kiev would fall very quickly. So the idea of taking back the Donbass and the Crimea was never on the radar until the Russian military and intel failures revealed how ill prepared Russia for the SMO. So the US's response was formulated after the start of the action . So what was their goal once they realised that Ukraine was not only surviving but doing well in the field? There must have been many long meetings working out a strategy and maybe , just maybe for once an actual end game for the conflict. I beleive their goal was to prolong the war and give Russia as much pain as possible before conceding. The limiting of the capability of Ukraine was deliberate as the American Jews wanted a limited conflict , they wanted just enough power to create a stalemate and that is what they have created. That the offensive failed was completely predictable as we have seen that heavily dug in defensive lines are almost impossible to break and Russia had the time over last winter to set up those lines. The flooding of the South West areas also restricted the offensive's effectiveness. So now I think that Langley is willing to move on to other projects. Losing territory to Russia will certainly look like a loss for Ukraine and the West but the SMO was never about taking territory , right? If we go with the stated claims about the goals of the SMO then Russia certainly lost but the general opinion will be that the US was the loser. So massive amounts of spin will be unleashed on all sides once the deal is announced , Zanon will be crowing about the Russian victory for a long time but I think most Russians will just be puzzling for a longtime about the entire bloody wasted affair. The Ukranians have finally secured their entry into Europe so they have had a win as nobody ever expected them to take back Crimea , that was a complete pipe dream. So a lose/lose , win/win for both sides depending on where your prejudices fall. Let the spin begin.
Iran has come out of this affair with a much enhanced military reputation. Israel must be getting very nervous about their capabilities. They have definitely seized the initiative in the new modes of warfare. I expect that they will be formulating some means to use the West to damage the Iranians but the worm is turning against Israel as far as public support goes. Jews will continue to formulate and prosecute the wars of the present and the future as they try to regain the initiative in Israel and the rest of the world. Keeping control of the world capital flows is most likely their key concern. The situation with the Islamification of Europe over the long term must be a major concern also. They must beleive they can still maintain control there even when Muslims will be be a sizeable majority . They have control over some Muslim countries in their own back yard , Egypt and Jordan for example and strong influence in many others so maybe they can pull off the control of the EU as well but I imagine Jews on the ground in Europe will be very nervous and suffer some casualties. So I imagine that some action to weaken Iran will be on the cards in the future. Israel's nuclear capability is still their trump card against the Iranians but to actually use it would have damning consequences for them so the state of conventional forces must still be a major worry for them.
I do subscribe to Hersh's blog, and I confess to thinking immediately of Rolo and his analysis of Russian surrender when I read that Russia was negotiating the entrance of Ukraine into NATO.
As an American, I'm pretty indifferent as to whether Donbass and the other Ukrainian provinces are part of Ukraine, or Russia or autonomous. Of course they have to be safe and peaceful and the citizens of Russian origin have to be able to maintain their identity.
One of my primary concerns is the stability of the region. It seems obvious that Ukraine membership in NATO is profoundly destabilizing. It's a dire threat to Russia and puts relations on a hair-trigger. An agreement to limit Ukraine military to defensive only isn't worth the paper. The Ukrainians will obviously push the boundaries of the agreement, possibly ignore it altogether. Who would the guarantors be? The US? Germany? Turkey? The same ones who ignored the Minsk Agreements. Russia's only recourse would be to either acquiesce or to take some military action. But, as a member of NATO, an attack on Ukraine would likely bring in the NATO militaries, and we're off to WWIII. In short, NATO membership for Ukraine is a potent tripwire for a general war quite likely to go nuclear.
eh russia has shared a border with the NATO baltics for 30 years and, through its puppet Belarus, Poland. no tripwire or nuclear war there despite similar issues. any NATO accession document is going to concide with an agreement to not contest the current borders militarily. i see more geopolitical risk in what's happening now, where ukraine is negotiating a series of one-off bilateral security guarantees with NATO member-states.
All I can say is that the issue of Ukraine entering NATO has already served as a tripwire that went off. In other words, the prospect of the Ukraine in NATO already impelled Russia to invade Ukraine. In the meantime, both Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. The trashing of the Minsk Agreements shows that any "agreement" isn't worth the paper to print it. Once the new NATO members start building "defensive" launchers that can easily be converted to offensive, I don't see any alternative but for Russia to put itself on a hair trigger, particularly if a crisis is developing. I'm not an expert and I'm not prescribing. It just seems that a country surrounded by hostile countries that may or may not have nuclear warheads at the ready and pointed at you would exist on full alert.
Yeah the deal before Putin invaded was that Ukraine stays out of NATO, and he gets to keep Crimea and his frozen conflict. Putin tore up that deal when he invaded. Finland and Sweden stayed out of NATO until now bc Putin has demonstrated he will eat any country outside of NATO he can get his hands on. Pretending that Russia has legitimate nuclear fears in that context is silly.
"Putin tore up that deal when he invaded"
Huh? The deal was the Minsk accords, the red line was NATO membership for Ukraine, and Putin tried multiple times to get a commitment by Ukraine and the Minsk guarantors that Ukraine would not be brought into NATO. He could not get such a commitment.
"Finland and Sweden stayed out of NATO until now bc Putin has demonstrated he will eat any country outside of NATO he can get his hands on"
This doesn't make sense. If Putin demonstrated that he would eat up any non-NATO country, that would be a reason for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Finland in particular was allowed to remain independent by the USSR after its defeat in WWII, on the condition that Finland would be neutral. Finland has broken that treaty unilaterally. I know of no provocations by Russia towards Finland. Do you?
Kissinger said that negotiations (official) should begin in autumn and I never doubted it. The most beloved lizard in world said so, so it must be true. I just hoped he didn't die before he could save Putin's ass. Now it is a little awkward, he stills manages the situation from the grave.
i think you have it wrong on the west orchestrating the war precisely. people's analysis tends to fall off when they look at the other. you give excellent analysis on internal political factions within russia and the demands putin must meet to keep all of his stakeholders happy and putin in charge.
the US system is even more polyarchical - assume the slav observer is correct and all the dissent and argument within congress is a charade - within the federal government, state, defense, CIA, and the proliferation of other intelligence agencies all have competing views and priorities on issue. we for sure have a foreign policy "blob" that tends towards intervention (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/06/biden-foreign-policy-blob-00030443), but there is a decent ideological range between idealists and realists within the blob and fierce in-blob competition for the scarce number of jobs that actually have power and influence.
the CIA really did estimate that afghanistan would take 6 months to a year to collapse and ukraine would be beaten in 3 days. The CIA is prestige-obsessed and has been on the back foot since the war on terror, where first it had to abandon embassy circuit cocktail parties to provide on-ground targeting assistance GWOT which is way less fun, then it blew its credibility on Iraqi WMDs. then the obama-era leaks fucked up a bunch of their successful operations. they need all the public wins they can get so the odds of them creating a bunch of deliberately wrong analysis 2 decades after Iraq is not likely. so that means there is (or was) a pessimist wing in the government that thought it was better to not stake US credibility on supporting Ukraine. mearsheimer was the voice of that faction in the early part of the war but he got discredited by Ukraine's will to resist, and nobody else wanted to take up that mantle in public. but there is open disagreement in congress - congress is why more $$ is not coming down the pike now. congressional republicans are unable to govern themselves and so a minority of the Orbanite/Konfederacjia Q-wing of the republican party, like 20-30 congressmen, are effectively blocking ukraine aid. if the CIA could make congressional republicans stage this dysfunction as theater they could also have engineered the destruction of the Russian forces in Ukraine and be done by now.
Internal politics of everywhere is competing oligarchic cliques all the way down.
This may be a good time to remember three famous statements by good ol' Henry Kissinger of recent memory.
The first is that 'military men are dumb stupid animals whose lives are sacrificed to advance the foreign policy objectives of their countries.'
The second is that 'it may be dangerous to be a foe of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal.'
(He could have said exactly the same of Russia, as Strelkov et al and those dead Donbass leaders might testify.)
The third is his quip about the Jews, 'its the behaviour of the 90% which gets the rest a bad name'.
I'm not sure we can accept the rumours from the American 'Deep State' as evidence of more than their desire to threaten Zelensky, 'freeze the conflict' and move on. It may not reflect reality.
I think Putin would also like to 'move on', although the conflict has proven an excellent training ground for his forces, and a test-bed for new equipment, and has dispelled the mystique of American technical superiority. Russia can afford (economically, militarily and politically) to keep on slowly grinding the Ukrainian forces. 2023 has been the year of the destruction of any Ukrainian capacity to make large scale offensive actions. 2024 may be the year that sees the destruction of their defensive capacity. They can't even kidnap enough people off the streets to replace their losses, and it looks as if the vast plans for new defence lines everywhere are technically impossible and little more than Zelensky's pipe-dreams. I suspect his announcement of a shift to defence was forced upon him by the situation and his army, and he seeks to take credit for it. Can Ukraine and Zelensky survive through 2024?
Their morale is already crumbling. The recent capture by the Russians of a very strong position in the south of Avdeeka is an example of the fact that strong fortresses may more often be taken as a result of betrayal or collapse of morale amongst the defenders than by assault. Its a bad omen for long-lasting defence elsewhere, all the more so in a few more months when they have to abandon the rest of Avdeeka.
The Americans would love to 'get ahead of the curve' and salvage rhat they can now, then declare victory and forget Ukraine as they have Afghanistan. The Russians don't need to co-operate, and by now Putin and his men may be sufficiently annoyed to be willing to continue just to spite the Americans. I think lots of Russian soldiers would love to capture or destroy some Abrams tanks and shoot down some F-16s.
There is a possible move left for Zelensky which might get both the Russians and the Americans off his back, if he could manage it. That would be for him to once again demonstrate his political flexibility. He could change masters from America to Russia. Putin would probably let him continue as President of Ukraine if he switched from persecuting philo-Russian Ukrainians to persecuting the anti-Russians.
He could blame the Americans and British for the whole mess. They tricked Ukraine into this conflict, their equipment was inadequate in quantity and quality, their military advice was unsound, they prevented peace on easy terms (and they stopped bribing him enough); they can be blamed for all the death and destruction. The people who need a hate-figure can switch from blaming Russia to blaming the West. Once again the Americans could achieve the opposite of their intentions, turning friends into enemies.
Could he get away with it? Much would depend on the attitude of the locally influential Schlomos,
who control those terribly anti-semitic 'Nazis', who never do anything their masters don't want. If assured of continued security to prey upon the locals, (and cessation of Russian bombing of their assets), why wouldn't they bend with the wind? After all, Heavenly Jerusalem, which was advanced by killing eastern Ukrainians, could also be served by killing those to the west.
Putin would achieve his objectives of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and keeping the areas he has captured, ending the shelling of Donetsk (if anyone important cares about that). He could declare that the military and Nazi threats from Ukraine have been ended and that Russia no longer needs to bother about internal squabbles in Ukraine. He would have strengthened his military (and the tech sector of the economy) and their approval of him, and would have the satisfaction of having successfully given the Americans a poke in the eye. He is stuffing the mouths of his influential local Schlomos with gold to prevent their opposition. (See John Helmer's recent article for that.)
However, it may be too soon for that. More months, (possibly another year) of defeat and demoralization and lack of supplies and money will probably be required to bring Ukraine to readiness for such a move.
This rumour may be just an American attempt to preempt that situation, and keep Ukraine anti-Russian, whoever is nominally in charge. If the Russians just display some of the patience and cunning for which they are renowned, just continuing their slow grind they are likely to achieve a satisfactory result without needing to completely destroy the Ukrainian military or occupy the whole country.
Maybe Zalushny appreciates this. He may not be a Caesar in waiting. Perhaps the 'fierce clashes' along the line of contact may become more shadow-boxing, until Ukrainian capacity rots sufficiently for a political change to be possible. After all, Ukraine with a new orientation would still have a (smaller) army, and why should not he continue to be in charge of it?
Yeah, rub it in. It still hurts, btw. FCUK.