tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62967374900168449722024-03-15T18:12:03.145-07:00Land DestroyerLand Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comBlogger2511125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-18416308303817396342024-03-06T19:40:00.000-08:002024-03-10T04:47:23.666-07:00Ukraine’s Manpower Crisis: No Amount of Money or Aid Can Solve It<p><b>March 5, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/03/05/ukraines-manpower-crisis-no-amount-of-money-or-aid-can-solve-it/">Brian Berletic - NEO</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Both Ukraine and its Western supporters are raising the alarm over Ukraine’s military manpower shortage and the difficult decisions facing the Ukrainian government in resolving it, if it can be resolved. Ukraine’s manpower crisis represents a growing problem that no amount of Western financial or military aid can remedy, and may represent a point of weakness nothing short of NATO resignation or intervention can address.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9LuLsmOUFYo?si=j8HYzW0GDmzy8TxR" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukrainian publications like the Kyiv Independent in its <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/move-to-expand-mobilization-brings-ukrainian-society-face-to-face-with-immense-pressure-of-war/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, <em>“Ukraine struggles to ramp up mobilization as Russia’s war enters 3rd year,”</em> and Western publications like the Washington Post in its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/ukraine-soldiers-shortage-infantry-russia/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, <em>“Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers,”</em> explain how a shortage of soldiers is accelerating the strain on Ukraine’s remaining forces, compounding their difficulties along the line of contact. The articles also note the difficulty of additional mobilizations, which would require calling up segments of the population previously exempted from military service, and the social and political divisions such a mobilization would create.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>One of Many Growing Problems </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">With the conflict in Ukraine entering its third year, Ukraine and its Western sponsors are increasingly admitting to shortcomings in terms of their support for Ukraine. This includes shipments of both arms and ammunition. While the collective West’s media insists these shortcomings are the result of political deadlock in the US Congress over funding, these shortcomings are the result of deeper problems much more difficult to address.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A US Department of Defense National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) <a href="https://www.businessdefense.gov/NDIS.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> not only admits that the US military industrial base is incapable of producing the amount of arms and ammunition Ukraine requires on the battlefield, but that <a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/15/fatal-flaws-undermine-americas-defense-industrial-base/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">systemic problems</a> will prevent the US from doing so anytime in the foreseeable future.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US Department of Defense also recently admitted that it failed to create a sustainment strategy for US weapon systems sent to Ukraine, including the Patriot air defense system, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the Stryker armored vehicle, and the M1 Abrams main battle tank. Without such a strategy, the <a href="https://www.dodig.mil/In-the-Spotlight/Article/3681630/press-release-evaluation-of-sustainment-strategies-for-the-patriot-air-defense/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a> admitted, <em>“the Ukrainians would not be capable of maintaining these weapon systems.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Together, these factors constitute significant obstacles for Ukraine and its Western sponsors as the current conflict grinds on, the additional manpower crisis complicates matters even further.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The Challenge of Building Brigades </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite recent claims from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine has only lost 31,000 soldiers since February 2022 (the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/ukraine-war-toll-zelensky.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reports</a> US officials placing the number closer to 70,000 and Russia’s Ministry of Defense <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1752183" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">places</a> the number at 444,000), urgent efforts to mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers, as reported <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-military-asks-additional-450000-500000-people-be-mobilised-zelenskiy-2023-12-19/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">by Reuters</a>, betray the true scope of Ukrainian losses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine’s losses are so extensive that its problems go far beyond just mobilizing enough soldiers to maintain troop levels along the line of contact. Ukraine must reconstitute entire military units up to the brigade level.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Building or rebuilding brigades of around 4,000 soldiers each began in 2022 and continued into 2023 ahead of Ukraine’s failed summer-fall offensive. According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/who-are-forces-involved-ukraines-counteroffensive-2023-06-19/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Reuters</a>, up to 9 brigades were trained and armed by NATO for the offensive, all of them subsequently suffering catastrophic losses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The brigades performed poorly during the 2023 offensive due primarily to the short period of training both individual soldiers received and the short period of time the individual brigades had to train for combined arms operations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">To successfully build a brigade, Ukraine would need to properly train individual soldiers for entry-level positions such as infantry, artillery, armor, and other supporting roles. They would also need to properly train these soldiers as part of the individual units they would be assigned to in order to build unit cohesion. These units would then need to train to work together as a brigade in combined arms warfare in which infantry, armor, artillery, and other types of units coordinate together on the battlefield.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Basic training alone can take 2–3 months. Additional training for supporting roles can take anywhere from a few months to an entire year to complete. Even when this training is complete, newly trained soldiers usually benefit from a period of on-the-job training with experienced soldiers in existing units led by experienced non-commissioned officers (NCOs) or officers.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Another aspect often overlooked is the training and experience required from these NCOs and officers. Their training can take over a year or more to complete and the experience that makes fire team leaders as well as platoon, company, battalion, and brigade commanders effective on the battlefield takes even longer to acquire.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should be remembered that the US along with the rest of NATO spent from 2014 to 2022 training tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops at all levels of Ukraine’s armed forces, including officer training and brigade-level combined arms training, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3020390/defense-officials-hold-media-brief-on-the-training-of-ukrainian-military/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> the US Department of Defense. Despite this, Ukraine’s military was unprepared to fight Russian forces when Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) began in February 2022.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While these NATO-trained Ukrainian forces managed to draw out the conflict and raise the costs for Russia of addressing its national security concerns along its border with Ukraine, by doing so, Ukraine itself is paying a much higher cost in terms of economic damage, loss of life, the loss of territory, and the decimation of its armed forces in the process.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">If the US and the rest of NATO were unable to build forces sufficient to fight and defeat Russian forces under ideal conditions over the course of 8 years, it is unlikely the collective West can do so in the middle of an intense, large-scale conflict that is demonstrably eliminating what trained military manpower and equipment Ukraine has left.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Efforts to reconstitute trained military manpower since the beginning of the SMO have focused on providing thousands of Ukrainian conscripts and volunteers to abbreviated training courses across Europe before sending them back to Ukraine to face combat. These abbreviated training courses are incapable of producing properly trained soldiers to fight effectively on the battlefield, leading to greater losses and thus a greater need for additional soldiers. The more soldiers Ukraine needs, the more abbreviated training becomes, the less effective that training is, and the more subsequent losses Ukraine suffers on the battlefield. This constitutes a vicious cycle Ukraine and its Western sponsors are incapable of escaping, except through either ending or expanding the conflict.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This may be why some Western leaders have resorted to escalatory statements regarding NATO intervention more directly into the conflict, perhaps believing NATO manpower and equipment can overcome Russian forces in a manner Ukrainian forces currently cannot.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It may be that some Western leaders believe NATO forces creating a buffer zone in western Ukraine might provide the Ukrainian population added impetus to further mobilize and fight in the east. While this might free up additional troops and make available additional manpower, it still will not solve the problem of properly training these forces, nor the problem of properly arming and equipping them.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Whether or not NATO intervention could achieve either of these goals, such courses of action would raise the threat of escalation and even the prospect of nuclear war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The fact that NATO is considering such escalatory measures reflects the mindset beginning to take shape within Washington, London, and Brussels at this stage of the conflict. NATO leaders must ask themselves whether they are genuinely confident escalation at this juncture can resolve the problems created by their own poor planning and preparation until now, or whether subsequent escalation will compound these problems further.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-32598813075305052002024-03-06T19:39:00.000-08:002024-03-06T19:39:01.228-08:00Washington’s True Fear of China: An Obstacle to American Hegemony<p><b>February 28, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/28/washingtons-true-fear-of-china-an-obstacle-to-american-hegemony/">Brian Berletic - NEO</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A recent op-ed appearing in Foreign Affairs</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/taiwan-catastrophe" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">titled</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">,</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><em style="text-align: justify;">“The Taiwan Catastrophe,”</em><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">helps paint a clear picture of US motivations behind its growing confrontation with China and the increasingly unrealistic nature of Washington’s desired outcome.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bZtKQRMDu5M?si=LPViSujam0fmm5L_" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The premise of the op-ed is built on a now declassified top-secret <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v07/d86" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">memo</a> by US General Douglas MacArthur in 1950 describing Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” essential not to protect the continental United States, but to preserve US primacy over Asia-Pacific thousands of miles from US shores.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">By retaining Taiwan and the US military presence it was a part of which included (and still includes) Japan and the Philippines, General MacArthur noted US forces could<em> “interdict”</em> the ability of regional powers (then the Soviet Union, now clearly China) to <em>“exploit the natural resources of East and Southeast Asia.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The ability to contain China, this enables, remains Washington’s primary motivation to this day for maintaining a US military presence across East and Southeast Asia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Containing China, Not Defending America </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">National Defense Strategy</a> (NDS) designates <em>“out-competing China”</em> as Washington’s top priority. The US NDS complains that China <em>“harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US NDS never mentions the “international order” China seeks to displace is one that had previously occupied Chinese territory before the World Wars, stationed thousands of troops on the shores of its island province of Taiwan until 1979, and continues to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-expand-troop-presence-in-taiwan-for-training-against-china-threat-62198a83" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">place US troops</a> on Taiwan despite recognizing the island province as Chinese territory from 1979 onward under Washington’s “<a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/joint-communique-between-united-states-and-china" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">One China” policy</a>.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The same US NDS claims the US seeks to <em>“promote a free and open Indo-Pacific,”</em> and more specifically, <em>“open access to the South China Sea.”</em> The report even points out that <em>“nearly two-thirds of global maritime trade and a quarter of all global trade”</em> pass through the South China Sea, while implying China threatens this trade.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, the US government and US corporations, including from across America’s arms industry, fund foreign policy think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) which publish analysis like a 2017 <a href="https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> titled, “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?” It admits the vast majority of trade passing through the South China Sea comes from and is going to China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The report even admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>China’s reliance on the South China Sea leaves it vulnerable to maritime trade disruptions. In 2003, then-President Hu Jintao drew attention to the potential threat posed by “certain major powers” aiming to control the Strait of Malacca, and highlighted the need for China to adopt new strategies to address this concern. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Clearly, China has no intention of disrupting its own trade in the South China Sea. In reality, just as US General MacArthur pointed out in 1950, the US military presence in the region today is there not to protect maritime trade, but specifically to<em> “interdict”</em> it.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>“Defending Democracy” = Maintaining US Client Regimes </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Just as the US creates the illusion of protecting maritime trade as a smokescreen for in fact preparing specifically to interdict it, the US also uses other smokescreens to justify its continuous interference within and along China’s borders. This includes the island province of Taiwan itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Foreign Affairs op-ed claims that the US is <em>“defending democracy.”</em> Yet, the political administration on Taiwan and the policies it implements are not the product of democratic self-determination, but instead are determined on the other side of the planet in Washington.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Policies like provoking Beijing, hindering trade between Taiwan and the rest of China, and channeling public funds into US weapons instead of economic development and infrastructure all demonstrably serve US interests explicitly at the expense of the local population’s own best interests.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US seeks to maintain its presence in the Asia-Pacific not to defend a process of self-determination in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, or the Philippines, but instead to maintain America’s political capture and control over each.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Controlling the Future of Semiconductors </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The authors of the Foreign Affairs op-ed, perhaps suspecting their “defending democracy” narrative would be unconvincing, also claimed that the US must prevent China from controlling the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. The premise, upon stripping away the aurthor’s political rhetoric, lays out the bare bones of imperialism; a resource is important to the US, and thus the US must control it, even if it is thousands of miles beyond its shores.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The argument and planning by the US regarding the control of semiconductor production is fundamentally flawed. While Taiwan and the collective West hold many advantages over China in terms of semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing today, these advantages are based on historical factors that are no longer relevant. Today, the largest industrial base on Earth is located in China, not the United States. China, not the United States, produces by far more graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, all relevant to advancing all stages of semiconductor production.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Controlling Taiwan and imposing strict sanctions and export controls, not only will fail to prevent China from assuming leadership in semiconductor production, it will spur China to make the investments necessary to do it sooner and more decisively.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Ensuring American “Access” to and Control Over the Asia-Pacific </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the Foreign Affairs op-ed briefly attempts to convince readers that Taiwan’s full reunification with the rest of China would trigger a chain reaction of Chinese conquests across the region, it abruptly shifts to fears of Beijing having the power to <em>“complicate U.S. access to East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean – the littoral of the most populous, economically active part of the world.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Just as with Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, because the <em>“Indo-Pacific”</em> is the most populous and economically active part of the world, the US must, for some reason, have<em> “access” </em>to it – part of a wider sense of American entitlement to do what Washington wants, anywhere it wants regardless of how far from US shores it may be or how it impacts the peace, stability, sovereignty, and independence of all others involved.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Another fear expressed in the op-ed stemmed from the prospect of Asia reducing its reliance on the US dollar as a reserve currency. The op-ed never explains why Asia’s best interests are served by maintaining a reserve currency controlled by interests on the other side of the planet.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The True Fear: China as an Obstacle to US Primacy </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The op-ed then surprisingly cites the United States itself as an example of why readers should fear the rise of China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The authors say:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>America’s own history shows how achieving regional preeminence facilitates global power projection. Only by dominating the Western Hemisphere in the nineteenth century was the United States able to become a global superpower in the twentieth.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Then with little self-awareness the op-ed claims:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>It is impossible to predict precisely how China might act as a global power, but decades of data suggest it would take a far less benign approach than the United States.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The authors claim this <em>“data” </em>includes China’s presence in the South China Sea and a general <em>“massive military buildup.” </em>The authors never explain how these two examples represent an approach <em>“less benign”</em> than American foreign policy.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In the 21st century alone, the US invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The latter resulted in over a million deaths, predicated on deliberate fabrications regarding Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In 2011, the US intervened militarily in Libya to overthrow the government in Tripoli. In 2014, the US invaded Syria, occupying the nation’s source of energy and food. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/MFsFOS5Odno?si=EFUG5T6Mjw8edqSp&t=849" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">the words of</a> then-US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Dana Stroul, this was done as <em>“leverage for affecting the overall political process for the broader Syrian conflict,”</em> and as a means of withholding the reconstruction of Syria, admitting the US-sponsored conflict transformed much of the country into <em>“rubble.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The ongoing conflict in Ukraine today is a result of US regime change in 2014, removing an elected government determined to maintain neutrality, and replacing it with a client regime eager to serve as US proxies in war with Russia. The US is also enabling Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, Palestine and is launching missile and air strikes at targets across Yemen.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Foreign Affairs op-ed provides a case study in cognitive dissonance. Its authors warn of a future surrendered to an abusive superpower using its military to menace nations worldwide, acknowledging but never condemning the existing superpower (the United States) already demonstrably doing as much.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington’s true fear is not that China is building an international order threatening to subjugate nations worldwide, but is building an international order undermining America’s ability to continue coercing and controlling the globe.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The op-ed warns:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>China alone commands an economy meaningfully larger than that of all its Asian neighbors combined, India included. China’s navy, meanwhile, boasts firepower second only to that of the U.S. Navy. And it is relatively concentrated: imagine if the entire U.S. naval fleet primarily operated in an arc from New York to New Orleans.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Yet, China was able to achieve all of this since the turn of the century without employing any of the methods of extraterritorial military aggression the US used to achieve its own regional and then global preeminence.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">By pointing out that China’s military power is <em>“relatively concentrated,”</em> the authors are admitting, unlike America’s global-spanning military presence, China’s military is postured solely to defend Chinese territory. Such a military posture could only be perceived as a danger to those seeking to threaten Chinese territory (including Taiwan).</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China’s rise across the region is not marked by invasions and networks of military bases, but by high-speed rail lines, ports, power plants, factories, and roadways. Its influence around the globe is not maintained by aircraft carrier strike groups engaged in modern gunboat diplomacy, but by fleets of container ships engaged in international trade.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Whereas Washington maintains global preeminence by bombing, China challenges it through building.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">For example, in Southeast Asia where China’s high-speed rail network extends beyond its own borders, Chinese engineers literally had to disarm unexploded US ordnance dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War, before laying tracks finally connecting the impoverished land-locked country to the rest of the region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Quite clearly, China’s approach is not similar to that of the US, but fundamentally better – so much so that the US is wholly incapable of competing against it.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Toward that end, op-eds like those found in Foreign Affairs, reflecting sentiments widely held across Washington, London, and Brussels, strain to make a case for why the world should continue under a US-led international order built on conquest and coercion, instead of an alternative international order favored by China built on cooperation and mutual benefit. Because it is an irrational argument to make, the use of fear is central in making Washington’s case.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The irony is, in order to create sufficient fear of what China may do in the future, the authors must tap into what the US has already done – or in other words – they must accuse China of becoming in fiction, what the US has already become in reality.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-82468251156116889522024-03-06T19:36:00.000-08:002024-03-06T19:36:47.033-08:00Wikileaks Reveals Alexei Navalny’s US Funding as Washington Exploits His Death<p><b>February 24, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/24/wikileaks-reveals-alexei-navalnys-us-funding-as-washington-exploits-his-death/">Brian Berletic - NEO</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">News of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison very quickly spread across the Western media, while condemnation of Russia over his death emanated from behind the podiums of Western leaders. Before any investigation could possibly be mounted, the collective West concluded that the Russian state was responsible for Navalny’s death.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0uRXkw3_0BE?si=TSGBkv27XSLWh6TN" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><div class="single-post-content" style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;">The disproportionate concern US President Joe Biden showed for a Russian citizen dying in a Russian prison versus President Biden’s silence over the death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in a Ukrainian prison, raises questions over the motivation behind this “concern.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Far beyond hypocrisy, the US and its allies are less concerned about Navalny’s death than they are about how it can be leveraged to advance their foreign policy objectives vis-à-vis Russia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The New York Times, in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/world/europe/biden-putin-navalny.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Navalny’s Death Raises Tensions Between U.S. and Russia,” would claim:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>President Biden blamed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia personally on Friday for the reported death of the imprisoned Russian dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, and cited the case in pressing House Republicans to approve military aid to Ukraine in its war with Moscow.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the process of exploiting Navalny’s death, not only are the circumstances surrounding it being distorted, so too are the events of Navalny’s life.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Many news articles ran with headlines like CNN’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/17/europe/putin-navalny-existential-threat-analysis-intl/index.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, <em>“Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny, the opposition leader whose name he dared not mention,”</em> the BBC’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16057045" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, <em>“Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most vociferous Putin critic,”</em> or Al Jazeera’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/obit-navalny-putins-archenemy-and-anti-corruption-champion" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, <em>“Alexey Navalny: An archenemy Putin wouldn’t name and Kremlin couldn’t scare.”</em> These articles all contain different variations of virtually the same narrative that Navalny was a prominent opposition figure, a successful politician, and an “existential” threat to the current Russian administration.</p><p>Yet, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite being active in Russia, Navalny’s largest support base was actually located in Washington, D.C. And it is the Western media itself that has revealed this.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Even with Al Jazeera’s recent article attempting to convince readers Navalny was the <em>“archenemy”</em> of the Russian government, further down in the article it admits:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Only 19 percent of Russians approved of Navalny’s work and 56 percent disapproved of what he did, according to a February 2021 survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center polling organisation.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">How does an opposition figure with only a 19% approval rating in any way threaten a government whose leader, President Vladimir Putin, enjoys an <a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">approval rating</a> over 80%?</p><p>Some may question the polling data, after all, the Levada Center producing both numbers is based in Moscow. However, the Levada Center is actually funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED*), according to the NED’s own <a href="https://www.ned.org/democracy-story/russia-polling-for-democracy-the-yuri-levada-analytical-center/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">website</a>.</p><p>The US NED* funds political opposition groups around the globe with the ultimate objective of achieving regime change in targeted countries and producing resulting client regimes that pursue US interests, even at the cost of the targeted country’s own interests.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We know this because the Western media admitted this as well.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The Guardian in a 2004 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” in regard to street protests in Ukraine admitted:<p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>…the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.</em></p><p><em>Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milošević at the ballot box.</em></p><p><em>Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.</em></p><p><em>Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in Central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">The article admits that the US government used the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, both subsidiaries of the NED*, to organize this political interference.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If the US government was funding organizations all along Russia’s borders, the next question is: Who was the US government funding inside Russia itself?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The answer is Alexei Navalny and the network of political opposition surrounding him. The many <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/alexei-navalny-obituary" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">obituaries</a> published recently across the Western media list the names of political organizations Navalny founded, including “Democratic Alternative” or “DA!”</p><p>US diplomatic cables, made available by Julian Assange and his Wikileaks project, revealed “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy.</p><p>In a November 2006 <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06MOSCOW12709_a.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">cable</a> titled, “A Guide to Russian Political Youth Groups: Part 1 of 2,” it’s admitted that:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">“Democratic Alternative,” founded by Navalny, headed by Gaydar, was funded by the US government through the NED*, and was part of opposition networks the US was setting up to do in Russia what the Western media admits the US already did in neighboring Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">“Part 2 of 2” of the US diplomatic <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06MOSCOW12717_a.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">cable</a> would even mention Russian government efforts to <em>“hasten to irrelevancy” </em>opposition groups, including NED*-funded “Democratic Alternative,” because Moscow was <em>“intent on avoiding the orange- and rose-colored revolutions of its neighbors,”</em> in reference to the US government regime change operations in Ukraine and Georgia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Western media itself admits that Alexei Navalny founded “Democratic Alternative.” US cables admit “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the NED*. The Western media itself admits the US government funded organizations like this to implement regime change inside targeted countries – in this case Russia.</p><p>Alexei Navalny was aiding in Russia what the US government had already done in Georgia in 2003, leading eventually to NATO-trained troops attacking Russia in 2008, and did again in Ukraine in 2014, leading to NATO-armed and trained forces killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians along Russia’s borders and threatening to attack Crimea following a 2014 referendum resulting in its return to Russia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Another key element of the West’s attempts to exploit Navalny’s death is an effort to depict him as a pro-democracy, progressive liberal activist, when in reality – and again – according to the Western media itself – he was nothing of the sort.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, this is admitted even by US government-funded media like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In their 2021 <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/navalny-failure-to-renounce-nationalist-past-support/31122014.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Navalny’s Failure To Renounce His Nationalist Past May Be Straining His Support,” they admit:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>On February 23, the prominent NGO Amnesty International withdrew Navalny from its list of “prisoners of conscience,” a designation reserved for people imprisoned for who they are or what they believe. Amnesty said Navalny, who is in prison on what he and his supporters call trumped-up charges aimed at silencing him, fell short of its criteria because of past statements the rights watchdog perceived as reaching the “threshold of advocacy of hatred.”</em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Much of the attention focuses on Navalny’s unabashed endorsement of nationalist causes in the late 2000s, including his appearances at the Russian March, an annual event that gathers ultranationalists of all stripes in Moscow but has dwindled in size in recent years. In response, the liberal Yabloko party expelled Navalny from its ranks, but under the banner of a new group called the National Russian Liberation Movement in 2007 he released YouTube videos describing himself as a “certified nationalist” and advancing thinly veiled xenophobia.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">And by <em>“ultranationalists,”</em> the US government-funded media organization means Neo-Nazis.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>This</em> is the very unflattering reality of Navalny’s politics and “activism,” a reality the Western media previously admitted, and a reality the same Western media is now trying to paper over.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The true story of Navalny’s political life was one of unpopular and unsuccessful foreign-funded sedition using toxic ideologies incompatible to the values the West claims it represents. Following Navalny’s death, his US sponsors are attempting to wring out any remaining value Navalny might serve in advancing the US policy of encroaching upon, encircling, and eventually overthrowing the current Russian government – a policy not of “freedom and democracy,” but one of violence, interference, and subjugation.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Only by papering over the truth, can the collective West hope to successfully use Navalny’s death to depict Russia as a threat to the civilized world. By exposing who Navalny really was in life, the West’s attempts to exploit him in death can instead serve as a warning against US foreign policy as the real threat to the civilized world.</p><p>*-is banned in Russia</p><p><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>.</em></strong></p><div><strong><em><br /></em></strong></div></div>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-42892391397867118362024-03-06T19:34:00.000-08:002024-03-06T19:34:41.955-08:00Russia’s “Aggressive Attrition” Cracks Fortress Avdeevka<p><b>February 20, 2024 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/20/russias-aggressive-attrition-cracks-fortress-avdeevka/">Brian Berletic - NEO</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The term “aggressive attrition,” coined by geopolitical analyst Alexander Mercouris, can be described as a strategy of deliberately and aggressively creating strategic and political dilemmas compelling an adversary to commit large amounts of manpower, equipment, and ammunition to well-prepared areas of operation.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0lOwji0kqks?si=ikb5N3AI7ZKCKCL9" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia has employed this strategy successfully across the line of contact in Ukraine over the course of its Special Military Operation (SMO) following its beginning in February 2022.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The strategy is part of a long-term process of degrading Ukrainian military capabilities, fulfilling the “demilitarization” component of the SMO’s stated objectives.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia is successfully achieving this by leveraging its large advantage in military industrial production, creating larger amounts of long-range fire capabilities than Ukraine can field, and using it to target and degrade Ukrainian defenses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukrainian forces are compelled to either suffer significant losses by maintaining these defenses, or withdraw. For mainly political reasons, Ukraine has consistently decided to hold defenses long after Russian forces have created effective areas of operation in which aggressive attrition unfolds.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Aggressive Attrition Cracks Fortress Avdeevka </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The most recent example of this is the Donetsk city of Avdeevka where Ukrainian forces constructed formidable defenses built up since 2014. Russian infantry, armor, and artillery have faced-off against Ukrainian forces there since the SMO began, but as Russian military capabilities grew in quantity and quality, these Ukrainian defenses were no longer viable.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite the extensive network of trenches, bunkers, tunnels, and the use of multi-storey concrete residential buildings as well as a large industrial zone to the north of the city, Ukrainian forces began suffering unsustainable losses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">When Ukrainian forces were finally ordered to fully withdraw, <a href="https://youtu.be/E6Ll1lxcs3U?si=JnaWyGtaVm8Xsiyw" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_index="0" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">the BBC</a><span style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://savefrom.net/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FE6Ll1lxcs3U%3Fsi%3DJnaWyGtaVm8Xsiyw&utm_source=yabrowser&utm_medium=extensions&utm_campaign=link_modifier" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_is_link="1" style="background-image: url("data:image/gif;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat; border: none; color: #14397f; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 16px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; width: 16px;" target="_blank" title="Get a direct link"></a></span> reported Russian forces outgunned their Ukrainian counterparts 10:1.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Russia did this by leveraging its greater number of infantry and armor, as well as its larger volumes of artillery fire. This includes 122 and 152 mm artillery pieces, as well as a variety of multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) ranging from unguided area effect systems like the BM-21 Grad to satellite-guided rocket systems like the Tornado-S, Russia’s equivalent to the US-made HIMARS and M270 MLRSs.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">While Ukraine has attempted to offset its growing disadvantage in artillery fire through the use of first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drones, according to Ukrainian forces themselves, Russia enjoyed at least a 2:1 advantage in this capability in and around Avdeevka. In addition to FPV drones, Russia employs longer range kamikaze drones including the Lancet with a range up to 40 km, making it an effective counter-battery (anti-artillery) capability.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia is using other long-range fire capabilities Ukraine does not possess an equivalent to, like the Iskander short-range ballistic missile complex with a range of 500 km, further than the US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) which has a range of approximately 300 km.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Russia is also leveraging its advantage in military aviation and the use of a growing assortment of glide bombs ranging from 250 to 1,500 kg, released at ranges outside what remains of Ukraine’s mobile air defense systems along the line of contact.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The larger of the glide bombs have a destructive capacity far exceeding that of artillery shells and even rockets and missiles, capable of penetrating bunkers and leveling even the largest concrete buildings being used as cover.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">To defend against glide bombs, Ukraine has attempted to move its less-mobile, longer-range air defense systems (Patriot, NASAMS, IRIS-T) dangerously close to the line of contact. This allows for random and infrequent “ambushes” along the line of contact, but is insufficient to provide actual air defense <em>for</em> the line of contact.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">This is because Ukraine faces a critical shortage of long-range air defense systems. Over the past 2 years, Russia’s significant and growing military industrial output has enabled a steady cadence of long-range cruise missile and kamikaze drone strikes on targets all across Ukraine, exhausting Ukraine’s supply of air defense interceptors. This long-range strike campaign has also targeted and destroyed Ukraine’s air defense systems themselves.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Because the collective West’s military industrial base is incapable of sufficiently replacing both interceptors and the systems launching them, Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace in general has been significantly reduced. This also means there are far too few long-range air defense systems to provide along the entire line of contact to defend against glide bombs.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>A Four-Dimensional Strategy </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Western analysts have limited their study of the ongoing conflict to the three dimensions of the here-and-now. They classify battlefield achievements only by territorial gains. Because relatively little territory is changing hands, Western analysts have concluded the conflict is a “stalemate.” They also conclude Russia lacks sufficient offensive potential to break the stalemate, based solely on the lack of large-scale Russian offensive operations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Yet, Russia’s success in Avdeevka contradicts this claim and demonstrates the impact aggressive attrition is having along the rest of the line of contact.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">There are many different achievements possible on and off a battlefield, many of which can ultimately shape the outcome of any ongoing conflict far beyond territorial gains or losses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia’s military industrial base, already far ahead of the collective West, continues to grow in both the quantity of weapons and ammunition produced, and the types of capabilities being fielded, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">The Guardian</a> recently admitted. On the battlefield, over the past two years, Russia has patiently and systematically depleted Ukrainian military capabilities to critical levels.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It is clear, especially after the decisive defeat of Ukraine’s 2023 offensive, that Russia launching its own offensive into likewise well-prepared minefields protected by long-range artillery, and an array of armor and anti-tank weapons would be strategically unwise. Reducing these capabilities now, shapes the battlefield for offensive operations later.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia’s strategy consists of multiple distinctively different stages spanning a period of time. It also consists of smaller operations using aggressive attrition along the line of contact at specific locations like Avdeevka, contributing toward an accumulative cycle of aggressive attrition against Ukrainian forces in general. Local collapses in Ukraine’s fighting capacity are contributing to a much greater, overall reduction in Ukrainian military capabilities.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Inevitably, this process will result in <em>“disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace,”</em> as warned in the RAND Corporation’s 2019 <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a>, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” regarding the dangers of Washington providing lethal aid to Ukraine and provoking a large-scale conflict with Russia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">And if this is the dilemma the US and its allies find themselves in waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, a similar dilemma on a vastly greater scale awaits US foreign policymakers in regard to the war they seek to provoke with China. Unfortunately, US foreign policy circles are so absorbed by their pursuit of US primacy, they have failed to understand how unachievable it is in the first place.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-73744012630619805882024-02-18T17:27:00.000-08:002024-02-18T17:27:53.846-08:00Fatal Flaws Undermine America’s Defense Industrial Base<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><b>February 19, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/15/fatal-flaws-undermine-americas-defense-industrial-base/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - The first-ever US Department of Defense</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.businessdefense.gov/NDIS.html" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">National Defense Industrial Strategy</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">(NDIS) confirms what many analysts have concluded in regard to the unsustainable nature of Washington’s global-spanning foreign policy objectives and its defense industrial base’s (DIB) inability to achieve them.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wrlMFFXmbxQ?si=9G3Gi0nBgzYJHx_g" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><div class="single-post-content" style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;">The report lays out a multitude of problems plaguing the US DIB including a lack of surge capacity, inadequate workforce, off-shore downstream suppliers, as well as insufficient “demand signals” to motivate private industry partners to produce what’s needed, in the quantities needed, when it is needed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, the majority of the problems identified by the report involved private industry and its unwillingness to meet national security requirements because they were not profitable.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For example, the report attempts to explain why many companies across the US DIB lack advanced manufacturing capabilities, claiming:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Many elements of the traditional DIB have yet to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies, as they struggle to develop business cases for needed capital investment.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">In other words, while adopting advanced manufacturing technologies would fulfill the purpose of the US Department of Defense, it is not profitable for private industry to do so.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Despite virtually all the problems the report identifies stemming from private industry’s disproportionate influence over the US DIB, the report never identifies private industry <em>itself</em> as a problem.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If private industry and its prioritization of profits is the central problem inhibiting the DIB from fulfilling its purpose, the obvious solution is nationalizing the DIB by replacing private industry with state-owned enterprises. This allows the government to prioritize purpose over profits. Yet in the United States and across Europe, the so-called “military industrial complex” has grown to such proportions that it is no longer subordinated to the government and national interests, but rather the government and national interests are subordinated to it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>US Defense Industrial Strategy Built on a Flawed Premise </strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Beyond private industry’s hold on the US DIB, the very premise the NDIS is built on is fundamentally flawed, deeply rooted in private industry’s profit-driven prioritization.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The report claims:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">The purpose of this National Defense Industrial Strategy is to drive development of an industrial ecosystem that provides a sustained competitive advantage to the United States over its adversaries.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">The notion of the United States perpetually expanding its wealth and power across the globe, unrivaled by its so-called “adversaries” is unrealistic.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">China alone has a population 4-5 times greater than the US. China’s population is, in fact, larger than that of the G7 combined. China has a larger industrial base, economy, and education system than the US. China’s education system not only produces millions more graduates each year in essential fields like science, technology, and engineering than the US, the proportion of such graduates is higher in China than in the US.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">China alone possesses the means to maintain a competitive advantage over the United States now and well into the foreseeable future. The US, attempting to draw up a strategy to maintain an advantage over China (not to mention over the rest of the world) regardless of these realities, borders on delusion.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Yet for 60 pages, US policymakers attempt to lay out a strategy to do just that.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span></span></strong></p><a name='more'></a><strong>Not Just China, But Also Russia </strong><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">While China is repeatedly mentioned as America’s “pacing challenge,” the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is perhaps the most acute example of a shifting balance of global power.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Despite a combined population, GDP, and military budget many times greater than Russia’s, the collective West is incapable of matching Russian production of even relatively simple munitions like artillery shells, let alone more complex systems like tanks, aircraft, and precision-guided missiles.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">While the US and its allies appear to have every conceivable advantage over Russia on paper, the collective West has organized itself as a profit-driven rather than purpose-driven society.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In Russia, the defense industry exists to serve national security. While one might believe this goes without saying, across the collective West, the defense industry, like all other industries in the West, exists solely to maximize profits.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To best serve national security, the defense industry is required to maintain substantial surge capacity – meaning additional, unused factory space, machines, and labor on standby if and when large surges in production are required in relatively short periods of time. Across the West, in order to maximize profits, surge capacity has been ruthlessly slashed, deemed economically inefficient. Only rare exceptions exist, such as US 155 mm artillery shell production.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">While the West’s defense industry remains the most profitable on Earth, its ability to actually churn out arms and ammunition in the quantities and quality required for large-scale conflict is clearly compromised by its maximization of profits.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The result is evident today as the West struggles to expand production of arms and ammunition for its Ukrainian proxies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The NDIS report would note:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Prior to the invasion, weapon procurements for some of the in-demand systems were driven by annual training requirements and ongoing combat operations. This modest demand, along with recent market dynamics, drove companies to divest excess capacity due to cost. This meant that any increased production requirements would require an increase in workforce hours in existing facilities—commonly referred to as “surge” capacity. These, in turn, were limited further by similar down-stream considerations of workforce, facility, and supply chain limitations.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Costs are most certainly a consideration across any defense industry, but costs cannot be the primary consideration.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A central element of Russia’s defense industry is Rostec, a massive state-owned enterprise under which hundreds of companies related to national industrial needs including defense are organized. Rostec is profitable. However, the industrial concerns organized under Rostec serve purposes related to Russia’s national interests first and foremost, be it national health, infrastructure or security.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Because Russia’s defense industry is purpose-driven, it produced military equipment because it was necessary, not because it was profitable. As a result, Russia possessed huge stockpiles of ammunition and equipment ahead of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022. In addition to this, Russia maintained large amounts of surge capacity enabling production rates of everything from artillery shells to armored vehicles to expand quickly over the past 2 years.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Only relatively recently have Western analysts acknowledged this.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The New York Times in its September 2023 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>,<em> “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say,” </em>admits Russian arms production of not only missiles, but also armored vehicles and artillery shells have exceeded prewar levels. The article estimates that Russia is producing at least seven times more ammunition than the US and its Western allies combined.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Despite this, Western analysts now claim Russian production will “plateau” as the limits of surge capacity are reached and new facilities and sources of raw materials are required.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in a February 2024 <a href="https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Russian Military Objectives and Capacity in Ukraine Through 2024,” regarding ammunition production would claim:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>…the Russian MoD does not believe it can significantly raise production in subsequent years, unless new factories are set up and raw material extraction is invested in with a lead time beyond five years.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">But because Russia’s industrial base is purpose-driven rather than profit-driven, additional facilities are already being built despite the longer-term economic inefficiency of doing so.</p><p>US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in a November 2023 <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ramping-up-war-production/32658857.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, <em>“Satellite Images Suggest Russia Is Ramping Up Production Capacity For Its War Against Ukraine,”</em> reported that Russia was not only expanding production at existing facilities but was also developing new factories producing warplanes, combat helicopters, military drones, and guided munitions.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>US “Solutions” Fall Far Short</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The 2023 NDIS cites the expansion of 155 mm artillery shell production as a demonstration of the US DIB’s ability to “scale rapidly.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The report claims:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>In response, the DoD has invested in expanding existing production facilities in Scranton, Pennsylvania and broke ground on a new production facility in Mesquite, Texas to respond to the higher demand signal. In addition to these investments made in December 2022, the U.S. Army awarded contracts worth $1.5 billion in September 2023* to meet its goal of delivering more than 80,000 projectiles per month by the end of FY2025.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">However, this was only possible because the US Army owns the facilities producing artillery shells. Increased rates of shell production were made possible through existing surge capacity deliberately set up by the US Army years before the Russian SMO began. This foresight in planning, unfortunately for the United States, is a rare exception to the rule and cannot be applied across the rest of US and European arms production.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The West’s profit-driven policies have created problems for the US DIB well downstream of production lines for arms and ammunition. This includes America’s decades of off-shoring production to maximize profits by taking advantage of cheaper labor overseas. Many raw materials and components used across the US DIB today come from overseas including from “adversarial” nations.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The NDIS report lamented:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Over the last decade, the DoD has struggled to curtail adversarial sourcing and burnish the integrity of defense supply chains. Despite these efforts, dependence on adversarial sources of supply has grown. DoD continues to lack a comprehensive effort for mitigating supply chain risk. </em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Profit-driven policies have also hurt the workforce. Decades of off-shoring US manufacturing saw America transition to a primarily service-based economy. This was reflected across education as well, where vocational skills were not only neglected, they were stigmatized.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The NDIS report would explain that:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The labor market lacks the required number of skilled workers to meet defense production demand while driving innovation at all levels. This shortfall is becoming exacerbated as baby boomers retire, and younger generations show less interest in manufacturing and engineering careers.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Beyond this problem, profit-driven policies have made education in the United States inaccessible. The desire to profit from providing education has usurped the actual purpose of providing education in the first place – the creation of human resources required to run a functioning, prosperous society. Degrees and training courses in the United States require loans that can take a lifetime to pay off.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A lack of interest in skilled labor and the inaccessibility of education in the United States has resulted in a skewed workforce relative to the rest of the world. The number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates in the US, for example, is comparable to Russia despite Russia having less than half the total population of the US. In 2016 there were 568,000 STEM graduates in the US for Russia’s 561,000, according to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/02/02/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates-infographic/?sh=6da9452d268a" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Forbes</a>. China produced over 4.7 million graduates that same year.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">US economic fundamentals altogether have created a skewed society and correspondingly skewed DIB that is struggling to match that of nations smaller in terms of population and GDP. But even if the US did address these fundamental problems, the fact remains that China alone, saying nothing of the BRIC alliance it is a part of, has both solid fundamentals and simply possesses a larger population, economy, and industrial base.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The premise upon which US foreign policy is based is unrealistic. The fundamentals of US economic power are fatally flawed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The very notion of the US maintaining a competitive edge over the rest of the world is only realistic if the rest of the world is suffering from significant internal and/or regional instability.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is precisely why the US has invested so heavily over the decades in political interference, political capture, and even regional conflict around the globe. However, the disparity between the US and the rest of the world in terms of economic power, industrial strength, and military might be diminishing faster than the US can impose its “international order” upon it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A reemerging Russia alone has exceeded the US in terms of military industrial production. China is surpassing the United States across a much wider multitude of metrics. As long as the US pursues unsustainable policies based on an unrealistic premise, it will not only find itself surpassed by a growing number of nations, it will find itself isolated and unstable.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The difference between nations the US calls “adversaries” and the US itself, is the difference between a farmer who cultivates his land in a sustainable, purposeful way, and a predator who mindlessly consumes all in its path until there is nothing left to consume, thus jeopardizing its own self-preservation.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At a time between now and then, more rational circles of interest may displace those currently driving US economic and foreign policies, and transform the US into a nation pursuing power proportional to its means and invested in working together <em>with</em> the other nations of the world, rather than attempting to impose itself upon them.</p><p> </p><p><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong style="text-align: justify;"><em>.</em></strong></p><div><strong><em><br /></em></strong></div></div>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-80536542952977503832024-02-08T22:35:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:35:39.064-08:00Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs: Why This New Munition Can't Help Ukraine<b>February 9, 2024</b> (<a href="https://youtu.be/-O6ErVqCVIw?si=J70vPWPvvqK-ygl2">The New Atlas</a>) - US Announces Transfer of Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs to Ukraine (Again)...<div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-O6ErVqCVIw?si=l10XHlZ7onsIKadx" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /></div><br />- GLSDBs were announced in late 2022 and expected to arrive in Ukraine some time in 2023 however this announcement suggests they are only just now arriving in Ukraine; <br /><br />- Russia has already claimed to have intercepted GLSDBs transferred to Ukraine before this most recent announcement; <br /><br />- The Western media admits Russia has had success both jamming and intercepting similar munitions transferred to Ukraine including guided rockets fired by HIMARS and JDAM guided bombs; <br /><br />- GLSDBs are manufactured by joining relatively plentiful bombs and rockets, however, the process of joining the components together limits the number of GLSDBs that can be produced at any given time; <br /><br />- Like other munitions provided to Ukraine, GLSDBs will face both quantitative and qualitative limitations falling far short of Russian equivalents; <br /><br /><br /><b>References: </b><br /><br />Reuters - Ukraine's new 100-mile bomb from Boeing is ready, sources say (January 31, 2024): <br /><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraines-new-100-mile-bomb-boeing-is-ready-sources-say-2024-01-30/">https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraines-new-100-mile-bomb-boeing-is-ready-sources-say-2024-01-30/</a><br />Reuters - Exclusive: U.S. weighs sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine (November 28, 2022): <br /><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/100-mile-strike-weapon-weighed-ukraine-arms-makers-wrestle-with-demand-sources-2022-11-28/">https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/100-mile-strike-weapon-weighed-ukraine-arms-makers-wrestle-with-demand-sources-2022-11-28/</a><br />CNN - Russia’s jamming of US-provided rocket systems complicates Ukraine’s war effort (May 2023): <br /><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html</a><br />Reuters - Russia intercepts five HIMARS, JDAM bomb, 37 drones over Ukraine in last 24 hours (October 2023):<br /><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-intercepts-five-himars-jdam-bomb-37-drones-over-ukraine-last-24-hours-2023-10-01/">https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-intercepts-five-himars-jdam-bomb-37-drones-over-ukraine-last-24-hours-2023-10-01/</a><br />Business Insider - Russia is jamming 'sophisticated' US weapons being used in Ukraine, making them useless, report says (August 2023):<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-disable-sophisticated-us-missiles-used-ukraine-gps-useless-report-2023-8">https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-disable-sophisticated-us-missiles-used-ukraine-gps-useless-report-2023-8</a><br />Reuters - Russia says it intercepted GLSDB smart bomb in Ukraine for first time (March 2023): <br /><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-intercepted-glsdb-smart-bomb-ukraine-first-time-2023-03-28/">https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-intercepted-glsdb-smart-bomb-ukraine-first-time-2023-03-28/</a><br /></div>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-24456258578753135802024-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:32:41.610-08:00US Bombing Spree Won't Reverse Decline of US Primacy in Middle East<p><b> February 6, 2024</b> (<a href="https://youtu.be/iPoYzPu2e6E?si=M31fOeZrX8jv7z10">The New Atlas</a>) - Update on US military operations in the Middle East…</p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iPoYzPu2e6E?si=oqWKWHSxTT91GNYn" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></p><br /><br />- US retaliates for deadly attack on US bases in the region by targeting Iranian-linked infrastructure and formations in Iraq and Syria; <br /><br /><br />- The US base was allegedly hit by a drone and despite attempts to depict it as a “lucky hit,” it demonstrates how vulnerable US troops occupying the region have become; <br /><br /><br />- US air defenses are insufficient in terms of quantity and quality to protect US bases from a growing number of missiles and drones; <br /><br /><br />- While the US insists it is not seeking conflict in the region, its sole purpose in the region is to violently overthrow the Syrian and Iranian governments and coerce the rest of the region to advance US interests at the cost of their own interests and sovereignty;<br /><br /><br />- US Department of Defense officials have admitted that in Syria the US is deliberately withholding the nation’s own energy and agricultural resources to use economic recovery and reconstruction as “leverage” over Syria and its allies; <br /><br /><br />References: <br /><br />Voice of America - US Begins Retaliation for Deadly Drone Attack on Its Soldiers (February 2, 2024): <br /><a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-begins-retaliation-for-deadly-drone-attack-on-its-soldiers-/7468958.html">https://www.voanews.com/a/us-begins-retaliation-for-deadly-drone-attack-on-its-soldiers-/7468958.html</a><br />New Yorker - The Redirection (2007): <br /><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection</a><br />New York Times - Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria (2017):<br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html</a><br />CSIS - Syria in the Gray Zone (October 31, 2019): <br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/MFsFOS5Odno?si=EFUG5T6Mjw8edqSp&t=849">https://www.youtube.com/live/MFsFOS5Odno?si=EFUG5T6Mjw8edqSp&t=849</a><br />US Department of Defense - Dana Stroul, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East:<br /><a href="https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/2539910/dana-stroul/">https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/2539910/dana-stroul/</a><br />Popular Mechanics - A Drone Attack Devastated U.S. Troops in Their Sleep. Is This the New Normal? (January 29, 2024):<br /><a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a46573324/drone-attack-us-troops-tower-22/">https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a46573324/drone-attack-us-troops-tower-22/</a><br />Washington Post - <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/01/29/jordan-drone-attack-us-confusion/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/01/29/jordan-drone-attack-us-confusion/</a><br />Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-11428113625755552952024-02-08T22:11:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:12:09.252-08:00Ukraine’s Black Sea “Victory” is a Distraction<p><b>February 5, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/02/05/ukraines-black-sea-victory-is-a-distraction/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine has invested heavily in carrying out complex operations to strike at targets across Crimea including Russian naval vessels, ports, as well as striking at civilian infrastructure including the Crimean Bridge. According to Kiev, this is all part of a strategy meant to first isolate the peninsula, then seize it from Russia.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xjvEI6U80SI?si=9z_zCzXwLcBhKDJf" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Western media, for its part, has invested heavily in convincing the world that Ukraine is “winning” in the Black Sea, and is building on these victories not only toward seizing Crimea but also toward defeating Russia altogether.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In reality, Ukraine’s operations in the Black Sea are a distraction away from Ukraine’s growing crisis amid what is fundamentally a land war, a crisis that if left unaddressed will inevitably lead to Ukraine’s defeat.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>A Heavy Investment </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine’s desire to isolate and seize Crimea has manifested itself as a long-term long-range strike campaign using everything from naval and aerial drones, to the most sophisticated and capable long-range strike capabilities transferred by the West to Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Air-launched cruise missiles fired by what remains of Ukraine’s air force have targeted ports, military bases, and civilian infrastructure across the peninsula. Ukrainian warplanes are sometimes targeted and destroyed while launching salvos of air-launched cruise missiles, reducing even further Ukraine’s combat power. The salvos of missiles are met with Russia’s formidable air and missile defenses as well as electronic warfare capabilities, resulting in the loss of the vast majority of the munitions.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The remaining missiles, along with an equally sparse number of drones able to bypass Russian defenses have destroyed naval vessels, damaged buildings and infrastructure, including in one attack, damaging the Crimean Bridge. However, these successes are few and far between, occurring about once every 2–3 months.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The long-term campaign has nonetheless forced Russia to relocate the majority of its Black Sea Fleet further east along the coast of mainland Russia. This relocation in and of itself has been billed as a major victory for Ukraine in the Black Sea.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, as recently as late last year, Ukraine itself <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/russian-submarine-kalibr-missile-carrier-144600614.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">warned</a> of a persisting danger from the Black Sea Fleet and its use of Kalibr cruise missiles. With a range of up to 2,500 km, Kalibr cruise missiles can hit any target anywhere in Ukraine, even from the Black Sea Fleet’s new location.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Despite Ukraine’s occasional success in targeting Russian naval vessels, the vast majority of the Black Sea Fleet remains intact and continues to play a supporting role in Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO), a military operation primarily taking place on land.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Another aspect of Ukraine’s Black Sea “victory,” is the supposed opening of shipping corridors.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While it is true that Ukrainian shipping has resumed from levels close to zero following the opening phase of the SMO, it remains at a fraction of pre-war levels, according to <a href="https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/impacts-of-russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-on-the-shipping-and-shipbuilding-markets-4f925e43/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">an article</a> published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in November 2023. Considering the damage the protracted conflict has caused Ukraine’s economy, even if shipping were to return to pre-war levels as a more recent Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ukraines-black-sea-grain-export-success-tested-by-red-sea-crisis-2024-01-24/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> claims, it is unlikely to even help sustain Ukraine’s economy, let alone aid in economic recovery.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The premise that Ukraine has reopened the Black Sea despite Russia’s best efforts to blockade Ukrainian shipping is highly flawed. Analysts may assign many reasons as to why Russia is not stopping renewed Ukrainian shipping, but an inability to militarily do so is not among them. If semi-irregular forces in Yemen are capable of significantly disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, Russia’s much more advanced anti-shipping capabilities which include long-range anti-shipping missiles and diesel-electric attack submarines are more than capable of significantly disrupting shipping in the Black Sea.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite Western governments and the Western media claiming the term “Special Military Operation” is a euphemism for full-scale invasion, Russia has demonstrated significant restraint, including in terms of escalation in the Black Sea.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">What is left, after separating headlines from actual strategic success, is an expensive Ukrainian and NATO investment for what amounts to a series of public relations victories. While Russia finds itself embarrassed by the necessity to relocate the Black Sea Fleet, the fleet’s role in launching cruise missiles continues uninterrupted. While Russia sought to block Ukrainian shipping through the Black Sea, primarily as a means of blocking arms shipments, considering the depletion of Western arms stockpiles, there is little left to send regardless of how it arrives in Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The fundamental problems Ukraine faces, in terms of arms, ammunition, and trained manpower, cannot be overcome by an expensive investment in generating headlines in the Black Sea. All such headlines serve as distractions from Ukraine’s fundamental problems.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Ukraine Wins Headlines at Sea as it Loses the War on Land </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Hill in a January 17, 2024 <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4414486-the-black-sea-is-now-the-center-of-gravity-for-the-ukraine-war/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “The Black Sea is now the center of gravity for the Ukraine War,” would claim:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>While Ukraine may have failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough on land in 2023, the war at sea was a resounding success. Ukraine was able to inflict major punishment on the Russian Black Sea Fleet thanks to a relentless sea and air campaign, using a combination of sea drones and British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, forcing the Russians to retreat into their naval bastion in Sevastopol. After the recent destruction of the Novocherkassk landing ship in late December, British Defense Minister Grant Shapps lauded the success of this campaign by announcing that Russia has lost 20 percent of its Black Sea Fleet in just the past four months.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Here, the Western media admits that Ukraine’s 2023 offensive was decisively defeated by Russian defenses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article then explains:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The next step in the Black Sea is for the West to help Kyiv target Crimea — illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 — and sever Russia’s logistical lifeline to its forces operating in southern Ukraine.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article claims that this logistical lifeline consists of the Crimean Bridge and the landbridge connecting Crimea to the rest of Russia via Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Donetsk. The ultimate goal of isolating Crimea is to eventually force Russia to <em>“rethink its posture there,”</em> The Hill reported.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Forcing the Black Sea Fleet to relocate is unrelated to achieving any of these objectives. The means by which Ukraine has achieved this “victory,” infrequent drone and missile attacks, are otherwise incapable of isolating Crimea or forcing Russia to rethink its posture on the peninsula.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Even if Ukrainian missiles and drones succeeded in destroying the Crimean Bridge, the landbridge would remain very much intact. As Ukraine’s 2023 offensive demonstrated, cutting the landbridge is beyond Ukraine’s capabilities. But even if a future Ukrainian offensive somehow did sever the landbridge, Crimea would <em>still</em> not be isolated.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">This is because Crimea hosts a number of airports and airfields, as well as a number of major ports capable of moving millions of people and millions of tons of cargo to and from the rest of Russia. In fact, it was this network of air and seaports that allowed Russia to sustain the economy and Russian military presence on the peninsula from 2014-2018 as the Crimean Bridge was under construction and long before the landbridge was established in 2022.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thus, to actually isolate Crimea, not only would Ukraine have to cut the landbridge and destroy the Crimean Bridge, but Ukraine would also be required to disrupt operations at the multiple airports and seaports scattered across Crimea for an extended period of time. This would require launching attacks with hundreds of missiles and drones each month at a rate not only large enough to overwhelm Russian air defenses and electronic warfare capabilities, but also to inflict more damage on the targeted logistical infrastructure than Russia could repair in between attacks.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Nowhere across the collective West do enough missiles and drones exist, or will exist in the foreseeable future, to achieve a campaign of this tempo. No where among even the most fantastical discussions regarding the expansion of Western military industrial production are plans to produce missiles and drones in the quantities required to achieve this tempo. This reality, regarding the disruption of logistics across the Crimean Peninsula alone, exposes a much greater problem for Ukraine, the necessity (and absolute inability) to disrupt logistics connecting Russia’s massive military industrial base to the battlefield in Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia’s ability to generate more trained manpower, weapons, and ammunition than both Ukraine and its Western sponsors has resulted in a war of attrition Ukraine and the collective West cannot win.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia’s strategy of avoiding costly breakthrough offensives while building up its combat potential, all while destroying Ukrainian manpower and equipment faster than it can be replaced, has an accumulative effect. This effect will result in the eventual collapse of Ukraine’s fighting capacity, all while Russian fighting capacity continues to expand. What is written off as a “stalemate” by Western analysts because of a current lack of “forward motion” by Russian forces, is actually a deliberate choice by Russian commanders to increase the tactical and strategic advantages Russian forces have on the battlefield ahead of any potential future offensive. Each day this “stalemate” persists, Russia’s prospects, relative to Ukraine, improve.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Nothing about Ukraine’s “successes” in the Black Sea address this fundamental problem and the inevitable outcome it leads to. Ukrainian “successes” simply distract attention away from this inevitability, but cannot prevent it. Russia’s “inaction” in response to these Ukrainian “successes” interpreted as “weakness,” may instead be interpreted as indifference, recognizing that time is on Russia’s side and winning public relations battles is far less important than winning the actual war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-6583479516594094982024-02-08T22:10:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:14:02.604-08:00US Withdrawal from Syria and Iraq: The Worst-Case Scenario<p><b>January 29, 2024 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/29/us-withdrawal-from-syria-and-iraq-the-worst-case-scenario/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Rumors and announcements have swirled recently regarding the presence of US troops in Syria and Iraq, and the prospect of at least a drawdown of troops taking place in one or both locations. This follows escalating violence between local militias and US forces, who have traded missiles and airstrikes amid the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza and a resulting decline in regional security.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8D_4TCUuWuw?si=FUGiEKtJY5GbqI90" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the Pentagon was quick to deny claims that US forces might withdraw from Syria, CNN in a January 25, 2024 <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/24/politics/us-military-iraq-talks-future/index.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “US and Iraqi governments expected to start talks on future of US military presence in the country,” would note that discussions would <em>“focus on whether and when it will be feasible to end the US military presence in Iraq.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A similar process took place preceding the eventual withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in Central Asia, completed in August 2021.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The withdrawal from Afghanistan was interpreted at the time as a symptom of waning US power, and while that may be a contributing factor, other analysts feared it was merely a means of freeing up US resources to expand conflict elsewhere.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This fear was confirmed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-a-press-availability-27/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">a press conference</a> in December 2022, in which he admitted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>When it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine, if we were still in Afghanistan, it would have, I think, made much more complicated the support that we’ve been able to give and that others have been able to give Ukraine to resist and push back against the Russian aggression.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should be noted that the US had been deliberately drawing Russia into a wider conflict in Ukraine for years leading up to Russia’s Special Military Operation. The RAND Corporation in a September 2019 policy <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a> titled, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” would include an entire chapter titled, <em>“Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine,”</em> explaining that:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The following month, under the Trump administration, the US would begin supplying Ukraine lethal aid in the form of Javelin anti-tank missiles, ABC News would <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-approves-sale-anti-tank-weapons-ukraine/story?id=65989898" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a>. It was clearly the beginning of a policy meant to draw Russia in and draw as much<em> “blood and treasure”</em> from Russia as possible. It was at this time a withdrawal from Afghanistan was under serious consideration. It would begin under the Trump administration and finally be fully implemented under the subsequent Biden administration.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The withdrawal, in hindsight, was a clear prerequisite for freeing up the resources required for the upcoming US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><span></span></strong></p><a name='more'></a><strong>Withdrawal from Iraq and Syria Equals More, Not Less War</strong><p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It is thus troubling to consider similar policy papers to RAND Corporation’s 2019 <em>“Extending Russia,”</em> exist and lay out options for likewise drawing Iran into a large-scale war with US-backed regime change as the ultimate objective.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Such papers specifically lay out the necessary prerequisites for doing so, and note the US occupation of Iraq as an obstruction for these planned provocations designed to draw Iran into wider war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Among the many provocations laid out in the 2009 Brooking Institution’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a>, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran,” is the use of Israel as a proxy to attack and draw Iran into a war the US can wade into after hostilities begin.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">In Chapter 5 titled, <em>“LEAVE IT TO BIBI Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,”</em> the Brookings Institution’s authors explain that in order for Israeli warplanes to strike Iran, they must overfly either US allies or nations occupied by US forces themselves, implicating the US in the strikes and negating the primary benefit of this option,<em> “distancing the United States from culpability.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The paper notes:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>As the occupying power in Iraq, the United States is responsible for defending Iraqi airspace. The alternatives via Turkish airspace (over 2,200 kilometers) or Saudi airspace (over 2,400 kilometers) would also put the attack force into the skies of U.S. allies equipped with American-supplied air defenses and fighter aircraft. In the case of Turkey, an Israeli overflight would be further complicated by the fact that Turkey is a NATO ally that the United States has a commitment to defend, and it hosts a large, joint Turkish-American airbase along the most likely route of attack.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The paper also notes:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>From the American perspective, this negates the whole point of the option—distancing the United States from culpability—and it could jeopardize American efforts in Iraq, thus making it a possible nonstarter for Washington.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">An obvious solution exists to this problem, not only have US troops leave Iraq, but leave Iraq on apparently bad terms with Baghdad. Even if withdrawal is still underway when Israeli warplanes cross Iraqi airspace, Washington can attempt to convince the world that it was in the process of leaving the region, and this was a decision made by Israel, and Israel alone.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Recent attempts by the US to appear to urge restraint from Israel in its operations in Gaza, are likewise meant to grant Washington plausible deniability regarding Israel’s escalating provocations across the entire region where Israeli forces are not only invading and planning a long-term occupation of Gaza, but are also carrying out airstrikes in Lebanon and Syria, with Iran the next logical target for Israeli provocations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Another important consideration regarding a US withdrawal from either Syria or Iraq (or both) is the removal of isolated, vulnerable US bases that would be quickly targeted and destroyed should war be provoked with Iran.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">And while a US withdrawal would make Israeli provocations more convincing in an attempt to trigger a wider war with Iran and also remove vulnerable US troops from the line of fire if such efforts succeed, a US withdrawal or drawdown from the Middle East could also be done simply to free up additional resources for Washington’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, or perhaps for ongoing efforts to provoke war with China in the Asia-Pacific region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Like the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is tempting to assume the US is on the backfoot and in retreat, but recent events have made it clear that if the US is withdrawing forces from one long-standing conflict, it is only to free up resources for an even larger and more dangerous one.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Only time will tell what Washington’s true motives may be, however considering the likely motives of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in freeing up resources for the much more dangerous proxy war in Ukraine, caution should be exercised in analyzing US hints at similar withdrawals from the Middle East.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-57271334159405043712024-02-08T22:08:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:13:18.132-08:00Why Russia is Winning the Drone War in Ukraine<p><b>January 24, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/24/why-russia-is-winning-the-drone-war-in-ukraine/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine is losing the drone war. This isn’t a claim made by the Russian Ministry of Defense or by Russian state media, but rather the headline of</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraine-losing-drone-war-eric-schmidt" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">an article</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">appearing in Foreign Affairs magazine, written by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt who now heads a</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.scsp.ai/about/who-we-are/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">think tank</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">, the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), advising the US government regarding artificial intelligence and other emerging technology.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qWC-48Y_gmQ?si=1PFKGlFE7WjBRVkL" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article titled,<em> “Ukraine is Losing the Drone War – How Kyiv Can Close the Innovation Gap With Russia,”</em> makes a wide range of claims, from repeating unlikely narratives regarding astronomically high Russian losses, to admissions regarding Russia’s many and multiplying advantages over both Ukraine and its Western supporters. Schmidt’s narrative is contradictory, and the article ultimately fails to deliver a coherent explanation as to how Ukraine can actually<em> “close the innovation gap with Russia.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It is a mystery as to why Schmidt is even writing this article in the first place, not being a journalist or a politician, but rather a leader of the US high-tech industry. But the article demonstrates how even at the highest levels of political and industrial leadership in the US, there lies a fundamental misunderstanding of not only the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but of the fundamental premise upon which all American foreign policy is built.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Why Ukraine is Losing the Drone War, and will Continue Losing</strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Schmidt’s article lays out a distorted account of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, following familiar narratives found across the collective West’s media. This includes the notion that Ukraine initially<em> “held the upper hand in drone warfare” </em>and had managed to keep <em>“Russian forces on the back foot.”</em> Such conclusions are drawn by focusing solely on the trading of territory, and in particular, on Ukraine’s Kharkov and Kherson offensives in 2022.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, because the Ukraine conflict is fundamentally a war of attrition, the true measure of Ukraine’s success or failure is measured in the loss of manpower and equipment versus its ability to regenerate forces, replace equipment, and replenish ammunition stockpiles. In all of these regards, Ukraine has been losing the war from the moment it began – some may even look back in hindsight and conclude the war was lost <em>before</em> it even began.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The collective West for decades developed a large, for-profit military industrial base. It focused on maximizing profits through the production of high-cost systems built in relatively small quantities, while eliminating extra manufacturing capacity for large-scale production that rarely if ever was necessary to sustain the West’s “small wars” following the collapse of the Soviet Union.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Russia, on the other hand, inherited the Soviet Union’s massive military industrial base, maintained certain aspects of it, modernized and expanded others, preparing for large-scale, high-intensity, protracted warfare within or along its borders.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">From 2008, when US-armed and trained Georgian forces <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58T4MO/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">attacked Russian troops</a> in the South Caucasus region, Moscow began preparing for a conflict by proxy with NATO it considered inevitable. From 2014, following the US overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government, it was almost certain that conflict by proxy with NATO would be fought in Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">From that point onward, Russia began building up the military industrial base required to fight and win a large-scale proxy war against a NATO-armed and trained Ukraine. Because Russia’s military industrial base consists of a large network of state-owned enterprises, a preference for purpose over profits prevailed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Today, this fundamental reality is reflected in virtually every aspect of the fighting in Ukraine, from Russia’s advantage in quantity regarding low-tech artillery shells, to more advanced systems like main battle tanks, cruise missiles, and warplanes that both outnumber and outperform their NATO counterparts, to – perhaps especially – drones of all kinds.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Schmidt’s article admits that Russia is not only outproducing Ukraine in terms of drones, placing the number of drones produced monthly to around 100,000, but also admits Russia possesses drones Ukraine has no equivalent of. Schmidt singled out the Orlan reconnaissance drone and the Lancet kamikaze drone in particular.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine, however, has been provided with a large variety of drones produced across the collective West. It began the conflict with a number of much more sophisticated Bayraktar TB-2 drones manufactured by Türkiye. While these drones are formidable weapons, they are inappropriate for the battlefield in Ukraine, where they face Russia’s extensive integrated air defense network and Russia’s extensive array of electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Should drones equivalent to the Orlan and Lancet exist in sufficient numbers to provide to Ukraine, the inability to overcome Russia’s advantages in both air defenses and EW would still impair their use.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Schmidt, in fact, notes Russia’s EW capabilities as “superior,” capable of jamming and spoofing signals between Ukrainian drones and their operators. While Ukraine has been provided with EW capabilities as well, the collective West is admittedly years behind Russia in this field of expertise.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">At one point, the article admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Most Western-supplied weapons have fared poorly against Russia’s antiaircraft systems and electronic attacks. When missiles and attack drones are aimed at Russian sites, they are often spoofed or shot down. U.S. weapons in particular can often be thwarted via GPS jamming.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While Schmidt spends the rest of the article discussing <em>“winning the drone war,”</em> he never actually articulates a coherent strategy in doing so.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">He claims, <em>“Ukraine will need to secure additional Western ammunition supplies,”</em> without acknowledging the fact that such supplies do not exist, and will not any time in the foreseeable future because the production capacity to manufacture them in sufficient quantities does not exist.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Schmidt continues, suggesting, <em>“Ukraine also needs antiaircraft and attack missiles to strike fast-moving airborne targets.”</em> Just as with artillery shells, antiaircraft missiles were in short supply even before the conflict began in Ukraine, and have only dwindled further. If producing low-tech artillery shells in greater quantities will take the West years to do, producing more complex missile interceptors will take even longer.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Schmidt claims that, <em>“Ukrainian startups are working around the clock to develop advanced drones that can resist spoofing and jamming.”</em> Yet, this ignores the fact that many more Russians with far greater resources are working around the clock to develop better means of spoofing and jamming.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ultimately, Schmidt’s “solution” to Ukraine’s losing drone war (and losing the war in general) is for <em>“Kyiv’s allies”</em> to sustain<em> “financial and technical support.”</em> He never explains how this can be done in a way matching or exceeding Russia’s own efforts to constantly expand its military industrial output in both quantity and quality. Russia began with and continues to maintain a headstart over Ukraine and its Western backers. Simply suggesting Ukraine needs more of everything doesn’t address the shortcomings that created these disadvantages in the first place, nor suggest any way of solving them.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Schmidt’s stated objective in the article is <em>“neutralizing the advantages that Russia has gained.” </em>The only actual way to achieve this would be to build a military industrial base capable of matching or exceeding Russia’s ability to research and develop new technology, and then mass produce and place this technology on the battlefield.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">It would require the creation of massive state-owned enterprises able to subordinate profit to purpose, the creation of an education system able to supply a steady stream of the necessary human resources this expanded industry would require, and the ability to source raw materials and components from adjacent, likewise state-owned enterprises.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">It would take years for the United States to complete such a transformation – years Ukraine doesn’t have. It would also require the political will to do so in the first place, which simply does not and will never exist because of the systemic composition of American political and industrial power.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>America’s Tenuous Grasp on Reality, its Worst Enemy </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Eric Schmidt has a close relationship with both the leading edge of high-tech American industry and the US government itself. His think tank, SCSP, says on its official website that its purpose is:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>To make recommendations to strengthen America’s long-term competitiveness as artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies are reshaping our national security, economy, and society. We want to ensure that America is positioned and organized to win the techno-economic competition between now and 2030, the critical window for shaping the future.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">SCSP sees 2025-2030 as a critical window in which the US must establish a clear lead over its “rivals” Russia and China. SCSP admits that the <em>“margin for error is shrinking.”<br /></em><br />Yet, Schmidt’s admission to Russia’s success in Ukraine and the advantages it holds over not only Ukraine but its Western supporters as well, seems to suggest that this critical window may have already closed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The very premise that the United States can maintain techno-economic primacy over both Russia and China (and the rest of the world) is fundamentally flawed. All else built upon this flawed premise will find itself drifting further and further from the realm of practically, and is reflected in a growing detachment from reality many Western leaders in politics and industry seem to exhibit, including Schmidt.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China alone has a larger population than the collective West. Its higher education system is larger than the United States’, graduating millions more each year in critical fields related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. China’s industrial base dwarfs the collective West’s, and continues to expand, while the West continues to overextend itself and contract.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Given these fundamental realities, how exactly would the United States still somehow match or exceed China’s technological development unless one assumes “Americans” are simply “better” than the Chinese, and despite all of China’s fundamental and growing advantages over the United States, will still somehow fall short?</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">These same assumptions have been prevalent throughout commentary and analysis focused on the conflict in Ukraine. These assumptions have consistently been proven wrong, with disastrous consequences. Russia’s many fundamental advantages on the battlefield ahead of the vaunted 2023 Ukrainian offensive unequivocally guaranteed the offensive would fail. Yet, “intangible” factors were added into an equation assuming Western supremacy and Russian inferiority, to skew projections of the offensive’s success in Ukraine’s favor.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A similar formula is being applied to US competition with Russia and China, ignoring fundamental realities and applying “intangible” assumptions of Western superiority to sidestep the reality that China will irreversibly surpass not just the US, but the collective West.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This reality demands the US reevaluate its position and role within international relations, and begin a transition from a hegemon, into a constructive, cooperative partner with Russia, China, and the emerging multipolar world. But just as battlefield fundamentals in Ukraine ahead of the 2023 offensive demanded Kiev negotiate an end to the war in Russia’s favor, only to be ignored at catastrophic costs, these increasingly clear geopolitical fundamentals will be ignored by the political and industrial leadership of the West, by those like Schmidt, at catastrophic costs to the collective West.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It will be the multipolar world and the restraint and patience it has exhibited as well as the political maturity it exercises in developing and implementing policies, that attempt to temper and manage these costs, both for the sake of global peace and stability, but also and most ironically, for the sake of the collective West itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-83975177394794625182024-02-08T22:07:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:14:47.653-08:00US-British Attacks on Yemen a Portent for Wider War<p><b>January 16, 2024</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/16/us-british-attacks-on-yemen-a-portent-for-wider-war/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In the opening weeks of 2024, the US and British unilaterally launched several large-scale missile and air strikes on targets in territory held by Ansar Allah (referred to as the “Houthis” across the Western media) in Yemen.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Jgg03bBp7A?si=t0JAt2AD8yHuWMtB" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The strikes follow a campaign of missile strikes and boardings conducted by Ansar Allah against commercial shipping destined to and from Israel in response to Israel’s ongoing punitive operations in Gaza.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the stated purpose of the US-British strikes are to protect commercial shipping, hostility of any kind in the Red Sea is likely to prompt international shipping companies to continue seeking out and using alternative routes until fighting of any kind subsides.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Indeed, according to <a href="https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/12/red-sea-trade-route-still-months-away-from-safety-says-maersk-boss" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Euronews Business</a>, despite the US-British strikes on Ansar Allah, the CEO of Maersk, responsible for one-fifth of global maritime shipping, believes safely transiting the Red Sea is still months away.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite the political posturing that accompanied these attacks, strategically, they will do little to impact Ansar Allah’s fighting capacity. The political movement possesses a formidable military organization that has weathered years of full-scale war waged against it by a Saudi-led Arab coalition, backed by both the US and UK.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Not only did the US and UK encourage Saudi Arabia to sustain an air and ground war against Yemen, both Western nations contributed directly to Saudi Arabia’s war efforts.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The New York Times in a 2018 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/us/politics/green-berets-saudi-yemen-border-houthi.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Army Special Forces Secretly Help Saudis Combat Threat From Yemen Rebels” admitted that US special forces were operating, at a minimum, along the Saudi-Yemeni border, assisting Saudi Arabia’s armed forces in choosing targets.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The same article admits that the US was also lending assistance related to <em>“aircraft refueling, logistics and general intelligence sharing.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Guardian in a 2019 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/18/the-saudis-couldnt-do-it-without-us-the-uks-true-role-in-yemens-deadly-war" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “‘The Saudis couldn’t do it without us’: the UK’s true role in Yemen’s deadly war,” admitted to the scope of support provided by the UK to Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen. It included supplying weapons and munitions, thousands of maintenance contractors, pilot training, and even sending British troops to fight alongside Saudi soldiers <em>in</em> Yemen itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The scale of both Saudi Arabia’s own war on Yemen and the scale of US and British assistance to Saudi Arabia, including through the use of thousands of contractors and hundreds of soldiers on the ground, dwarfs the current missile and air strikes conducted by the US and British from the Red Sea. Even if the US and British significantly expanded their current missile and air strike campaign, it would still pale in comparison to the war that has been waged against Yemen in recent years.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Clearly then, the current US-British strikes on Yemen hold little prospect of deterring Ansar Allah, so why is the US and British carrying out these strikes anyway?</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Washington’s True Motives for Striking Yemen </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">CNN in an <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/11/politics/us-strikes-houthis-yemen/index.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “US and UK carry out strikes against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen,” would claim:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>For weeks, the US had sought to avoid direct strikes on Yemen because of the risk of escalation in a region already simmering with tension as the Israel-Hamas war continues, but the ongoing Houthi attacks on international shipping compelled the coalition to act.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Yet, because the strikes only ensure shipping in the Red Sea remains obstructed and because the strikes themselves have little hope of impacting Ansar Allah strategically, the only other explanation as to why the US launched them was to specifically raise <em>“the risk of escalation in the region.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ansar Allah’s ally, Iran, has been the target of US-sponsored regime change operations for decades. Entire policy papers have been written by US government and corporate-funded think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and its 2009 <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a>, “Which Path to Persia?,” detailing options to achieve regime change including through deliberate attempts to draw Iran into a war by both covert action within Iran, and through attacks on Iran’s network of regional allies.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Brookings paper admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)”</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Preceding the US-British missile and air strikes on Yemen, the US has carried out strikes on Iranian allies across the region, including in Syria and Iraq. Israel, with US-backing, has also carried out attacks across the region on Iranian allies, specifically on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">There was also recently a terrorist bombing inside of Iran, likely carried out by one of several terrorist organizations sponsored by the US to carry out just such attacks, as per the Brookings paper’s own suggestion regarding<em> “ratcheting up cover regime change efforts inside Iran.” </em>It should be noted that elsewhere in the Brookings paper the option of using known terrorist groups to carry out US-backed “insurgency” is afforded an entire chapter <em>(Chapter 7, Inspiring an Insurgency – Supporting Iranian Minority and Opposition Groups). </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Together, this constitutes a strategy of attempting to degrade Iranian allies in the region ahead of a wider conflict, and as a means of provoking and thus drawing Iran itself into that wider conflict.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">So far, Iran has exhibited tremendous patience. Iran, as both Russia and China who face similar US policies of encirclement and containment, knows time works in its favor. Iranian patience has already served Tehran well. It has afforded it the ability to diplomatically resolve tensions between itself and Saudi Arabia through Chinese mediation. It has also allowed Iran to continue building up not only its own military capabilities, but those across its network of allies in the region, leading to a gradual shift in the balance of power in Tehran’s favor.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington realizes this. This time next year, if events continue to unfold as they have in recent years, Iran will only be stronger and the US more isolated in the region. The US faced a similar problem of waning primacy in Europe, using its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia as a means of reasserting itself over Europe. Washington likely imagines it can use a similar strategy to reassert itself over the Middle East while using a regional conflict to collectively weaken and thus subordinate the nations therein.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Only time will tell if the US is as “successful” in the Middle East as it was in Europe. Already many factors are working against the US, but from Washington’s perspective, it isn’t paying the price for any of these conflicts – the regions these conflicts are fought in are paying that price. As long as Washington is absolved from any direct cost in such a foreign policy, it will continue pursuing it until it is finally and fully denied the means to continue doing so.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-25181484870759797592024-02-08T22:06:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:15:35.049-08:00Why Ukraine’s 2024 Strategy Will Fail<p><b>January 9, 2024 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/09/why-ukraines-2024-strategy-will-fail/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">New Year’s 2024 saw Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announce a new strategy toward winning its war with Russia.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OICQE1vIqz0?si=dA-gj-ZDiM9eF9Dd" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The Economist, which published its <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/01/01/a-new-years-interview-with-volodymr-zelensky" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">interview</a> with President Zelensky on January 1, 2024 would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Mr Zelensky gives little away about what Ukraine can achieve in 2024, saying that leaks before last summer’s counter-offensive helped Russia prepare its defences. But if he has a message, it is that Crimea and the connected battle in the Black Sea will become the war’s centre of gravity. Isolating Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, and degrading Russia’s military capabilities there, “is extremely important for us, because it is the way for us to reduce the number of attacks from that region,” he says.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Economist would elaborate, claiming that by destroying ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and evicting Russia from a <em>“naval base that Russia has held for the past 240 years,” </em>referring to Sevastopol Naval Base, would be a<em> “huge embarrassment for Mr. Putin.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article also explains that President Zelensky requires additional weapons and assistance from Ukraine’s Western sponsors, including long-range stealth cruise missiles (specifically the German-made air-launched Taurus) to destroy the Crimean Bridge (also referred to as the Kerch Bridge).</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, the article never explains how a <em>“huge embarrassment for Mr. Putin”</em> would in any way shift the conflict strategically in Ukraine’s favor. The article does mention that the large-scale mobilization of both Ukrainian society and the Western World in February 2022 <em>“is not present today” </em>and <em>“that needs to change,”</em> hinting toward waning Western and Ukrainian resolve.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article concludes by noting President Zelensky remains convinced<em> “Ukraine cannot turn back from its plan to defeat Russia,”</em> despite never actually articulating a sound plan that could actually defeat Russia, before inferring that Ukraine’s Western sponsors no longer share President Zelensky’s confidence.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Ukraine Cannot “Isolate” Crimea </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">President Zelensky’s strategy of “isolating” Crimea and degrading Russian military capabilities based there is irrational and unrealistic, especially considering the stated means by which Ukraine would supposedly achieve this strategic objective.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Ukrainian government, military, and their Western supporters have consistently stated that Crimea could be isolated and even captured if Ukraine could succeed in both destroying the Crimean Bridge and cutting the landbridge connecting Crimea to the rest of Russia via Kherson, Zaporozhiya, and the Donbass.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, this ignores the reality that Crimea joined the Russian Federation following a referendum in 2014, while the Crimean Bridge was completed in 2018, the rail bridge in 2019, and the landbridge established only in 2022. This means that Russia was able to supply both the civilian population and its military bases on the peninsula for several years without <em>either</em>.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Should Ukraine succeed in destroying the Crimean Bridge and in cutting the landbridge, Crimea itself would still be able to move people, goods, weapons, and ammunition back and forth to the rest of Russia via a number of seaports and airports which are capable of moving millions of tons of cargo and millions of people each year.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The Kerch Port alone on its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221013012833/https:/crimeaports.ru/en/affiliates/kerch-trading-port" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">official website</a> claims up to 3 million tons of cargo can be processed at its facilities. The port is also capable of receiving ferries carrying both passengers and vehicles. Crimea’s Simferopol International Airport, according to its <a href="https://invest-in-crimea.ru/en/istorii-uspeha/simferopol-international-airport-largest-private-investment-project-history-crimea" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">official website</a>, is capable of moving 6.5 million people a year. Additionally, there are numerous other airports and seaports across Crimea capable of handling large amounts of cargo and people.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">To put these numbers into a military perspective, it should be noted that Russia’s other success story of using solely sea and air to supply a major military operation, its intervention in Syria at the request of Damascus, <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/report/russian-military%E2%80%99s-lessons-learned-syria" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, involved approximately 200,000 tons of cargo moved in the first 5 months (or extrapolated over 1 year, just short of half a million tons).</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Russia possesses an overabundance of logistical capability to sustain an equal or greater military operation on the Crimean Peninsula. Even if several ports and airports were temporarily disrupted by Ukrainian strikes, Russia would possess more than enough facilities and capacity to move all the equipment, manpower, and ammunition necessary to successfully defend Crimea from Ukrainian offensive operations.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The summer-fall 2023 Ukrainian offensive, carried out on a scale Ukraine and its NATO sponsors are incapable of replicating, demonstrated just how effective Russian defenses are even at the end of much longer logistics chains.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong>Ukraine Doesn’t Have the Weapons Needed and Never Will </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Current Ukrainian attempts to strike at Crimea itself depend heavily on air-launched cruise missiles like the UK-made Storm Shadow, the French SCALP, and what are claimed to be Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles used in the land attack role. Large numbers of drones are also employed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A recent attack targeting the port facilities at Feodosia, as reported on by US government-funded media platform Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in its <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-crimea-russian-ship-destroyed-novocherkassk/32747629.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Ukrainian Air Force Claims Destruction Of Russian Ship In Crimea; Moscow Confirms Missile Strike,” involved Ukrainian military aviation firing multiple air-launched cruise missiles resulting in the sinking of a sole Russian naval landing ship. The port itself, which hosts a large number of military and commercial vessels, remained unscathed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">According to the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221012072818/https:/crimeaports.ru/en/affiliates/feodossian-trading-port" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">official website</a> of Feodosia Port, it is capable of processing up to 2 million tons of cargo a year.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In order to strike that single ship, Ukraine was required to launch multiple aircraft which in turn fired multiple air-launched cruise missiles because of the certainty that at least some of them would be intercepted by Russian air and missile defense systems.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In order to disrupt Crimea logistically, Ukraine would be required to carry out massive missile and drone strikes on all sea and airports across the peninsula, and do so regularly. Because Ukraine’s Western sponsors lack the military industrial capacity to produce larger numbers of cruise missiles, and because Ukraine is incapable of launching larger volleys per attack because of limitations of its air and ground launch capabilities, Ukraine will never have the ability to carry out attacks on a scale large enough to significantly disrupt operations at even a single port in Crimea, let alone disrupt logistics across the entire peninsula.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thus, “isolating” Crimea is militarily impossible for Ukraine into the foreseeable future.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>A Strategy to Convince the Western World to Keep Fighting (and Paying)</strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">President Zelensky’s strategy is therefore clearly not to isolate Crimea, but to convince the Ukrainian population and the global public that it is possible anyway. This is done in order for Kiev to justify the continued mobilization and loss of large numbers of Ukrainian men along the front, while it allows Ukraine’s Western sponsors to continue justifying the immense and growing cost in money and material spent on the proxy war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">While defeating Russia clearly isn’t possible, the continuation of the conflict does still fulfill one of the objectives laid out by the US government and corporate-funded RAND Corporation in its 2019 <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a>, “Extending Russia.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In the paper under a chapter titled, “Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” it explains:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">President Zelensky and his Western backers’ 2024 strategy is then clearly to continue carrying out high-profile public relations “victories” in the hopes of justifying the costs of the conflict in blood and treasure for the West, but through propaganda and media spin, convince the Russian public and/or elements within the Russian government that the price of continuing to fight is too high and to begin opposing the ongoing conflict and even possibly attempt to remove the current government overseeing Russia’s military operations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Whether this strategy will be successful or not remains to be seen. It seems much more likely that attacks on Crimea, Belgorod across the border from Ukraine, or even Ukrainian attacks deep within Russian territory (all of which have been ongoing) will do little more than further galvanize the Russian public behind Moscow and the Russian military, and strengthen the resolve of the Russian nation to see this conflict through to the end.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Similar “strategies” of increasing the cost of Russian military operations in the hopes of turning the public against the Russian government were employed during Russia’s military intervention in Syria from 2015 onward. Russia’s military operations were nonetheless exceedingly successful and Russia’s military remains in Syria to this day, having strengthened both Syria and Russia’s position in the region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Rather than a matter of which narrative prevails, the logistical realities on the battlefield will eventually make it impossible for the US and its allies to sustain this proxy war, forcing them to either cut their losses over Ukraine, or risk dangerous escalation by intervening more directly. Which choice they choose, only time will tell. In the meantime, Washington and Kiev’s commitment to unachievable objectives in 2024 means that this year will be the most difficult for Ukraine yet.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em> “New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-54812655943755296232024-02-08T22:04:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:16:29.082-08:00Thailand’s Kra Land Bridge (Might) Reshape Asia<p><b>December 26, 2023 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/12/26/thailands-kra-land-bridge-might-reshape-asia/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thailand’s government has put together a serious proposal to build a land bridge across the Thai Kra Isthmus connecting ports on either side, providing an alternative for maritime shipping transiting the Malacca Strait, saving several days of travel in the process.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cxz8euISWTU?si=aU4wIdMtKi02zI4W" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The project, if completed, would transform Asia’s economic and even security architecture. The land bridge, along with the still-under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway, would solidify Thailand’s role as a regional logistics hub connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, and also moving freight and people from across Southeast Asia to and from China and the rest of Eurasia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The development would seriously undermine US economic and military dominance over the region, prompting Western commentators to disingenuously condemn the project as damaging and dangerous in a bid to generate opposition to it.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The Kra Canal and Land Bridge: Old Ideas, New Impetus </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The idea of creating a Panama or Suez-style canal across Thailand’s southern Kra Isthmus isn’t new. It has been proposed in many different forms over the years, with feasibility studies conducted periodically. Because of the difficulty of building a canal, the idea of building a land bridge instead has not only been proposed, but Thailand’s Highway 44 completed in 2003 was built as the first stage of a much more ambitious land bridge infrastructure project.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Highway 44 was constructed with a particularly large median to accommodate the future construction of rail tracks and pipelines. Ports on either side of the isthmus also have yet to be built. While the project remains incomplete, the roadway serves the dual purpose of connecting other forms of traffic crossing the isthmus.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Under the previous Thai administration of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a new feasibility study was conducted along with the drafting of proposals. More recently, the current administration of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin formally proposed the construction of a fully functioning land bridge during the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco, United States.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In his <a href="https://www.thaigov.go.th/news/contents/details/74669" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a> at the summit, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin discussed the growing congestion through the Malacca Strait and the need for alternative routes. He described the land bridge as<em> “an additional important route to support transportation and an important option for resolving the problems of the Malacca Strait. This will be a cheaper, faster, and safer route.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The land bridge will reduce travel time by between 3 and 14 days, depending on the particular origin and destination of cargo.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Thai prime minister’s statement also made it clear that the land bridge would not serve as a replacement for routes passing through the Malacca Strait, but rather as an alternative to existing routes, capable of moving up to 23% of the shipping currently passing through the Malacca Strait.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The new proposal, stretching from Ranong on the west coast to Chumphon on the east coast, would be constructed almost 150km north of the existing Highway 44 route.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In October, the Bangkok Post would report in an <a href="https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2666694/china-interested-in-thai-landbridge-project" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “China interested in Thai landbridge project,” that:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>China Harbour Engineering Co (CHEC) is interested in a proposed 1-trillion-baht landbridge project that will link the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, according to the government. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Thai prime minister had been in Beijing at the time attending the Belt and Road Forum.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">According to the same article, the current Thai administration will promote the project to investors between November 2023 to January 2024. Land expropriation would then take place between 2025 and 2026 with the project scheduled for completion by 2030.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Obstacles and Western Opposition </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The land bridge would clearly benefit Thailand through the creation of jobs, the building of dual-use infrastructure, and development that would take place adjacent to the project.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">More importantly, the land bridge would signify a leap forward for both commerce across Asia and between Asia and the rest of the world. It would create an alternative route that would allow for even greater volumes of commerce to move through the region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While there are lingering questions over the feasibility of the ambitious project, a growing amount of opposition is being expressed among Western commentators, focused instead on the impact it will have on the “environment” as well as concerns regarding “economic dependence” on China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">For those following the rise of China and the success of its Belt and Road Initiative, these “concerns” have become common smokescreens used by Western governments, the Western media, and commentators who simply oppose and attempt to obstruct both China’s and Eurasia’s development as part of a much larger effort by the collective West to contain the rise of China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Projects already in operation or under construction such as the high-speed rail projects connecting Thailand and Laos to China, as well as both the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, have faced particularly stiff opposition from the US. Washington has done everything from backing political opposition parties <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/junta-critic-says-thailand-needs-hyperloop-not-china-built-rail" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">vowing to cancel</a> joint projects, to sponsoring armed terrorists who are <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/china-backed-pipeline-facility-damaged-in-myanmar-resistance-attack.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">physically attacking</a> the projects and the personnel building, maintaining, and guarding them.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">These projects represent China’s strategy in hedging against a US maritime blockade meant to contain and cripple China’s economy. By attacking these projects both politically and by armed proxies, the US seeks to eliminate them as alternatives, making any future US naval blockade as effective as possible.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Kra land bridge in particular would complicate US plans to cut off Chinese maritime shipping, otherwise forced to travel exclusively through the Malacca Strait.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Diplomat, a Western publication<a href="https://thediplomat.com/partners/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"> partnered with</a> a network of Western government and corporate-funded policy institutes, in its <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/a-bad-idea-revisited-thailand-pitches-prayuts-land-bridge-to-beijing/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “A Bad Idea Revisited: Thailand Pitches Prayut’s ‘Land Bridge’ to Beijing” by Mark Cogan, uses the common smokescreens of environmental concerns and fears of Thailand becoming overly dependent on China, to condemn the project and encourage opposition against it.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Cogan cites small environmental groups which suspiciously turn up to oppose the construction of any infrastructure project anywhere in Thailand, especially those including China as a partner. Cogan links to a Nikkei Asia <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Thailand-pushes-dream-of-land-bridge-to-boost-economy" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Thailand pushes dream of ‘land bridge’ to boost economy,” which claims:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Somboon Khamheng, a coordinator of the group, says environmentally destructive economic stimulus measures are unnecessary, adding that residents depend on the area’s natural resources to make their living.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Somboon Khamheng can be found promoted by US government-funded Thai language media outlet <a href="https://prachatai.com/journal/2023/07/105151" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Prachatai</a> in which he eagerly supports US-backed opposition party Move Forward. Move Forward’s politically-motivated opposition to Thailand’s cooperation with China is much less veiled than Cogan’s or Somboon’s.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Besides Somboon’s association with US interference in Thailand, it is also important to point out his claims are invalid. The “natural resources” locals “depend on” are often in the process of being depleted by unsustainable exploitation prompted by poverty, driven by a lack of local infrastructure, development, and access to modern economic opportunities – all of which would be resolved if construction of the land bridge moved forward.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The use of “activists” like Somboon and US government-funded organizations citing environmental and social concerns as grounds to oppose development is a strategy the US uses all across Southeast Asia in an attempt to block everything from roadways, rail projects, dams, and power plants, to factories, economic zones, and of course, the land bridge itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Western commentators like Cogan regularly cite these activists and organizations, deliberately ignoring the implications of the pervasive US government funding behind their activities. The narrative comes across to ordinary readers as genuine concern for natural resources and local communities, when in reality it is a malicious strategy meant to sabotage ties between China and other nations in the region and arrest badly needed development, thus perpetuating poverty.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Chinese Debt Trap Diplomacy?</strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Cogan then warns about the dangers of Chinese investment.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In his article, he claims:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Leaning so heavily on China would also be problematic. China’s reputation as an economic development partner in South and Southeast Asia is decidedly mixed. The financing of large-scale infrastructure projects has increased its sphere of influence in some areas, but has raised concerns both domestically and internationally. Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port is a prime example. With Colombo struggling to meet its international debt obligations, a controlling stake in the port was leased for $1.12 billion to a state-owned Chinese firm for 99 years. The Gwadar Port, funded by China in Pakistan, has raised similar concerns among Western countries, who worry about China using the facility for military purposes.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">What Cogan does not mention is that Sri Lanka’s debt is owed primarily to Western financiers, not China, a fact that is pointed out even <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myths-and-realities/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">elsewhere within</a> The Diplomat itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should also be pointed out that Cogan’s claims of “worries” among Western countries of China using Pakistan’s Gwadar Port for “military purposes” are baseless. Even if China did, it would pale in comparison to the hundreds of military bases the US alone operates around the globe, including in nations the US is illegally occupying.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Cogan also says:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>For the land bridge to not become a geopolitical concern, Srettha needs more than just Chinese investors; he needs to build assurance and confidence from Western partners as well. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Cogan then complains about Thailand’s prime minister meeting with the leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia, revealing the position of extreme Western chauvinism Cogan sees the world from.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In reality, Thailand does not need the West’s approval to build infrastructure within its own sovereign borders. It also doesn’t need the West’s permission to seek investment or cooperation from other nations, including China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The only limiting factor for Thailand should be whether or not the project is actually beneficial.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The fact that the US and its vast global-spanning network of opposition groups oppose all development, feasible or otherwise, reveals the true threat to global peace and prosperity. It is not China who seeks to invest in and build around the globe, but the US who hides behind environmental and social concerns to obstruct national development, prevent the construction of badly needed infrastructure projects, and all in a bid to prevent the rise of Asia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Developing nations, including across Southeast Asia, as well as newly industrialized nations like Thailand are rising because of industry and infrastructure, driven by growing trade with a rising China. Together this is creating a stronger Asia. In fact, this emerging Asia is so strong that it is clearly in the process of surpassing the collective West. Rather than corporate with and benefit from the rise of Asia, the collective West, led primarily by the United States, seeks to arrest development in Asia and thus arrest the rise<em> of</em> Asia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Kra Isthmus land bridge is just one of many projects that may or may not contribute toward a prosperous Thailand and a rising Asia, but the decision to construct it rests solely with Thailand and its chosen partners. Only time will tell whether or not the project is viable and whether Thailand and its partners move forward with its construction, or if the US will succeed in leveraging its network of opposition groups and political parties to obstruct it and other development projects, and hinder Thailand and the rest of Asia on the path toward prosperity.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine</em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"> <strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-1718938046414613582024-02-08T22:03:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:03:53.089-08:00Thailand to Speed Up Construction of Joint-Chinese High-Speed Railway<p><b>December 12, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/12/19/thailand-to-speed-up-construction-of-joint-chinese-high-speed-railway/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thailand’s recently renewed commitment toward finishing the already under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway may help move the Southeast Asian nation forward, out of the shadow of years of Western-induced political instability, and into the light of peace and prosperity as it and the rest of the region rise with China.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The recent announcement has triggered condemnation from Western commentators who support Washington, London, and Brussel’s agenda of maintaining dominance over Asia and shaping Southeast Asia into a united front against a rising China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">As Thailand takes the final steps toward finishing this and other ambitious joint projects with China, the US and its extensive network of political opposition groups both within Thailand and beyond its borders are likely to make an attempt to both block these projects and undermine the government and other interests seeing them through.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Speeding Up Thailand’s High-Speed Railway </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China’s Xinhua news agency in an <a href="https://english.news.cn/20231026/f6d1aaec00f14c368ac61a18f9ab7e0d/c.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Thailand to accelerate construction of China-Thailand railway: PM,” would report that Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin highlighted the importance of the high-speed railway project for regional development and announced plans to speed up construction after years of delays.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article reported:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>“Logistics is one of the significant issues for Thailand regarding BRI cooperation and Thailand will enhance the connection between its domestic railways and the China-Laos Railway, a flagship BRI project in the region,” Srettha said in an interview with Xinhua before his official visit to China earlier this month, during which he also attended the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thailand has already benefited greatly from the already completed Lao-Chinese high-speed railway. The high-speed railway, connecting Laos (Thailand’s neighbor to the north) to China, also serves as a new route for Thai products to reach Chinese markets, as Global Times reported in its April <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1289721.shtml" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “China-Laos-Thailand freight train completes first heavy-load return trip.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Currently, Thailand moves goods to the border with Laos via its existing rail and road networks. The completion of a high-speed railway within Thailand itself will supercharge the movement of goods and people both between Thailand and its neighbors, but also within Thailand itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A high-speed railway connected to China’s vast domestic high-speed rail network means even greater numbers of Chinese tourists (who already make up the largest number of tourists visiting Thailand) will arrive not only in the capital city of Bangkok, but also in more remote areas so far relatively inaccessible to most tourists.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China has already demonstrated the benefits of its high-speed rail network domestically toward economic development. Expanding it across Southeast Asia means sharing its benefits far beyond China’s own borders.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Asian Cooperation Undermines Western Primacy </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite Thailand’s eagerness to expand what is clearly already beneficial cooperation with China and the rest of the region, Western publications argue there are “consequences” that await if this and other projects move forward.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Diplomat, a Western publication <a href="https://thediplomat.com/partners/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">partnered with</a> a network of Western government and corporate-funded policy institutes, in its <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/thailands-high-speed-railway-on-the-fast-track-to-ties-with-china-but-at-what-cost/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Thailand’s High-Speed Railway: On the Fast Track to Ties With China, But at What Cost?,” attempts to argue against the completion of the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">It claims:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>While the project aims to stimulate economic growth and regional development, it has generated significant concerns. They are apprehensive about Thailand’s deepening partnership with China and the resulting increase in integration with the southern neighbor. These concerns encompass worries about potential impacts on Thai national sovereignty, doubts regarding the project’s necessity due to the existing rail connection to Nong Khai, and concerns about the financial involvement of foreign partners, particularly China, which could lead to debt accumulation and economic vulnerabilities.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Nowhere in the article is an attempt made to argue against the Thai administration’s belief that the project will act as <em>“a catalyst for stimulating economic growth and fostering progress in the region.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">And while the article waves around the familiar narrative of Chinese “debt trap diplomacy,” it eventually admits deep within the article that:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Currently, no immediate issues exist, but potential challenges may arise in the future, particularly in the context of maintaining a balanced relationship with major powers like China when engaging with foreign partners.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article refuses to openly and plainly say what the collective West actually thinks. The West, which had at one point colonized most of Southeast Asia, sees China’s rise and the rest of Asia with it as a closing window of opportunity for reasserting Western primacy over the region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Thailand’s cooperation with China and the building of tangible infrastructure doesn’t create dangerous “dependency” for Thailand on China, but further reduces Thailand’s vulnerability to US and European coercion. This cooperation also reduces the likelihood of the US successfully containing both China and the rest of Asia’s rise.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong>Trying to Derail Thailand’s High-Speed Train Ambitions </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While this is the real “concern” at heart in articles like from The Diplomat, Western commentators and policymakers find it difficult to say this openly. Western policymakers and commentators instead use <em>“environmental and social” </em>concerns as a pretext to oppose and obstruct such projects.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Western governments also use such pretexts to organize protests and generate opposition against such projects via what are almost exclusively US and European-funded “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) and US-European-backed political opposition parties.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Within Thailand, this coalition of US and European-funded organizations and the Move Forward Party have openly opposed any and all cooperation with China, including the construction of the high-speed railway.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Move Forward’s de facto leader, billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit at one point openly opposed the construction of the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway and promoted the construction of the non-existent “hyperloop” instead, Bloomberg reported in its 2018 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/junta-critic-says-thailand-needs-hyperloop-not-china-built-rail" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Thailand Needs Hyperloop, Not China-Built High-Speed Rail, Junta Critic Says.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In a 2019 public <a href="https://youtu.be/-voKCHK1nT8?si=8IhnJGST5DbHtn4d&t=3465" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_index="0" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">presentation</a><span style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://savefrom.net/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F-voKCHK1nT8%3Fsi%3D8IhnJGST5DbHtn4d%26t%3D3465&utm_source=yabrowser&utm_medium=extensions&utm_campaign=link_modifier" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_is_link="1" style="background-image: url("data:image/gif;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat; border: none; color: #14397f; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 16px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; width: 16px;" target="_blank" title="Get a direct link"></a></span> of his “hyperloop” proposal, Thanathorn even went as far as admitting:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>I think over the past five years we have been giving too much importance to China. We want to reduce that and rebalance our relationship with Europe, with Japan, [and] with the US more.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thanathorn never explained in what way Thailand would “rebalance” its relationship with the US and its allies, considering they do not provide alternatives to joint infrastructure projects with China. But judging from recent developments in Ukraine, the Philippines, and the island province of Taiwan, it seems clear that this would involve forgoing economic and infrastructure cooperation <em>with</em> China, and instead, involve transforming Thailand into a battering ram <em>against</em> China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">More recently, Thanathorn attended the 2022 US government-funded (via <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220315112502/https:/oslofreedomforum.com/sponsors/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">the Freedom Fund</a>) “Oslo Freedom Forum” held in Taipei, Taiwan. There he vowed support for a variety of US regional projects, including the armed opposition in neighboring Myanmar and US-sponsored separatism in Taiwan itself, as <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Thai-opposition-leader-defends-Taiwan-vows-support-for-Myanmar" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> by Nikkei Asia. He complained about growing ties with China, once again citing the Thai-Chinese high-speed rail project as an example, failing to explain how the US could offer a comparable or better offer.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Today, Move Forward and a host of US government-funded organizations continue leading opposition to Thailand’s growing ties with China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It is clear that the US and its proxies do not see cooperation with China and the construction of a high-speed railway as a genuine threat to Thailand, but instead, a threat to Washington’s influence over Thailand and the rest of the region. Without the ability to politically capture and control Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia, the creation of a united front against China becomes unlikely and with it, the continued primacy of the US in Asia becomes impossible.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In reality, the US should not hold primacy over a region of the planet it is not even located in on a map. The US could, however, still play a construction role in Asia. Nations like Thailand are just as eager to cooperate with the US economically as they are with China, given the US demonstrates the same mutual respect China does in regard to the sovereignty of its partners.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the US may still be able to politically capture and coerce some nations in Asia (the Philippines, for example), many other nations are gaining an opportunity to permanently move out from under the shadow of US coercion and control. Thailand, through projects like the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway, represents just such an opportunity.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Until the US reshapes its own foreign policy into a desire to genuinely cooperate with, rather than impose itself upon other nations, it will continue to face a world increasingly eager to work with others, including China, isolating the US in the process. Only time will tell whether China’s constructive cooperation with others can raise the region up faster than Washington’s current policy of politically capturing nations and turning them against China can drag the region down.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-50431782454144487672024-02-08T22:02:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:02:51.558-08:00US Seeks Plausible Deniability as it Lights Middle East on Fire<p><b>December 11, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/12/11/us-seeks-plausible-deniability-as-it-lights-middle-east-on-fire/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A surprising change of tone came from the Pentagon in early December. After weeks of devastating Israeli military operations inside Gaza, the US Secretary of Defense implored Israel to demonstrate restraint and concern for the civilian population.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Hill in its early December 2023 <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4339335-lloyd-austin-israel-risks-defeat-if-civilians-not-protected/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Israel risks ‘strategic defeat’ if civilians aren’t protected, Pentagon chief says,” would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Israel risks a “strategic defeat” if it does not work to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza amid its war on militant group Hamas in the region. “The center of gravity is the civilian population and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat…”</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article also noted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The Biden administration has issued caution that a campaign in southern Gaza must be carried out more precisely than Israel did in the first leg of the war.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">After a century of American military aggression killing millions (mostly civilians) around the globe, everywhere from Southeast Asia to North Africa, across the Middle East and deep into Central Asia, is Washington finally finding a sense of humanity?</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">No.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">All while US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin attempted to convince the world that Washington cares about the Palestinian civilian population, the US continues flooding the Israeli arsenal with US-made weapons, enabling the campaign of indiscriminate brutality.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Bloomberg in its November 2023 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-14/pentagon-is-quietly-sending-israel-ammunition-laser-guided-missiles" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “US Is Quietly Sending Israel More Ammunition, Missiles,” would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The Pentagon has quietly ramped up military aid to Israel, delivering on requests that include more laser-guided missiles for its Apache gunship fleet, as well as 155mm shells, night-vision devices, bunker-buster munitions and new army vehicles, according to an internal Defense Department list. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The weapons pipeline to Israel is extending beyond the well-publicized provision of Iron Dome interceptors and Boeing Co. smart bombs. It continues even as Biden administration officials increasingly caution Israel about trying to avoid civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Israel could not continue its military operations and the subsequent destruction of Gaza’s civilian population without this US military aid. Israel also continues to enjoy US political protection within the halls of the United Nations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington cannot even say it didn’t know its weapons would be used by Israel to carry out this indiscriminate brutality because Israeli military representatives openly declared they would before their military operations into Gaza even began.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The Guardian in their October 10, 2023, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-is-one-day-at-a-time-life-on-israels-frontline-with-gaza" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “‘Emphasis is on damage, not accuracy’: ground offensive into Gaza seems imminent,” admitted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari made the startling admission that “hundreds of tons of bombs” had already been dropped on the tiny strip, adding that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy…”</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Why then does Washington want the world to believe it has growing concerns over the nature of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, and more specifically, concerns regarding the brutality Washington is admitting is being used against the civilian population?</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Washington’s History of Pleading Peace While Pursuing War </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington wants plausible deniability. The US has for years followed a familiar pattern of attempting to covertly provoke nations and regions into conflict while publicly appearing to pursue reconciliation and peace.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>For example, the US for years rhetorically supported the Minsk agreements regarding reconciliation within Ukraine, all while deliberately building up Ukraine’s military capabilities to empower and encourage the widening violence in eastern Ukraine and the eventual provocation of Russia to become directly involved in the conflict.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Likewise, the US officially maintains a “One China” policy in regards to the status of Taiwan, recognizing it as an integral part of Chinese territory, yet unofficially Washington has done everything in its power to undermine the policy and provoke war with China over its efforts to support separatism in Taipei.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Officially, the US supports the two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine. Unofficially, and sometimes quite openly, the US has supported the most extreme elements within both Israel and among Palestinians to ensure no such peace agreement is ever possible.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong>Israel as the Eager Provocateur </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The intention by Washington to use Israel as a proxy and provocateur within the Middle East is well documented within US government and corporate-funded policy think tank papers. One <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">such paper</a>, published by the Brookings Institution in 2009 titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” focuses on containing Iran politically, militarily, and economically. It lays out options for disarming Iran and for overthrowing its government through US-sponsored sedition or US military intervention. Beyond the US and groups the paper sought to use as proxies within Iran, the paper also cited Israel as an eager regional proxy that could attack Iran, triggering a regional war that the US could then appear “reluctant” to join. The goal, of course, is to appear that the US sought peace, being left with no choice but war, all while a US-led war was the objective to begin with.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The paper notes:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It also says:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>“In a similar vein, any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.”</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Here, the paper admits Iran does not seek war, but could be provoked into one anyway, and notes that the US,<em> or Israel,</em> could then carry out military aggression against Iran having convinced the world they did so reluctantly.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Israel factors so heavily in US plans to provoke war with Iran, it was given its own chapter in the paper. Chapter 5 of the paper is titled, “Leave it to Bibib: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” and notes how a war started by Israel could then be cited as a pretext for the US itself to join in afterwards, and most importantly, appear to do so “reluctantly.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thus, as Israel continues destroying Gaza, targeting the civilian population deliberately, knowingly triggering unrest across the region which in turn is placing pressure on Arab governments as well as Iran’s to respond, the stage is being set for the possibility of wider conflict.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">As Israel attacks, invades, and erases Gaza, it is also targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both the US and Israel have already carried out strikes in Syria. The goal is to trigger a conflict the US and Israel can portray as an act of aggression against either or both to then expand military operations across the whole region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin posing as concerned for the Palestinian population all while arming Israel to continue indiscriminately brutalizing them, is being done to convince the world the US is pleading peace all while in actuality pursuing wider war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US used the proxy war in Ukraine to reorder Europe and reassert hegemony over the continent, rolling back European cooperation with both Russia and China. The US likely seeks to repeat a similar process in the Middle East where relations are improving within the region between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and between Syria and the rest of the Arab World. The region also collectively continues moving closer with Russia and China as well as toward multipolarism.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Only time will tell if the region continues successfully moving out from under generations of Western hegemony – first under the British Empire and now under the US – or if the US will successfully trigger regional conflict that can divide, destroy, and disrupt this process, just as it has in Europe.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> <strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-8062597256328078652024-02-08T22:01:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:01:33.253-08:00Washington’s Obsession with Containing China Continues<p><b>December 7, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/12/07/washingtons-obsession-with-containing-china-continues/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While a mid-November meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in San Francisco was interpreted by some as a thawing in relations between China and the US, Washington continues onward, expanding its policy of encircling and containing the rise of China through economic, diplomatic, and military means.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The most likely explanation for US overtures toward China, precipitating the recent meeting, is Washington’s familiar game of seeking to appear to be pursuing diplomacy all while actually undermining it.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Containing China: A Decades-Long US Policy </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the Western media depicts US policy toward China as varying from administration to administration, in reality there has been a singular obsession with encircling and containing China stretching back to the end of World War 2.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The US State Department’s official website via its Office of the Historian publishes a multitude of cables, memorandums, and other documents articulating US foreign policy over the decades.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">One <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03/d189" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">memo</a> published in 1965 written by then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to then US President Lyndon Johnson was titled, “Course of Action in Vietnam,” and emphasized how US military operations in Vietnam were directly related to a “long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The same memo admits that the US pursues this containment policy along three fronts,<em> “(a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.” </em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China then, just as it is now, was seen as an obstruction to Washington’s ultimate goal of moving the world<em> “in the direction we prefer.”</em></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington, both past and present, had and still has a clear desire to dictate to the world how affairs are managed within and across borders. A nation (or nations under a multipolar world order) with sufficient economic, political, diplomatic, and military power would prove an obstruction to Washington’s otherwise uncontested primacy around the globe and its ability to act with impunity anywhere, anytime.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The 1965 memo complained:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>China—like Germany in 1917, like Germany in the West and Japan in the East in the late 30’s, and like the USSR in 1947—looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The fear wasn’t that China would rally Asia against the US within American borders, but against the US presence in Asia-Pacific thousands of miles from its own shores. The Soviet Union then, and the Russian Federation now, likewise posed and now poses a threat not to the US within its borders, but its ability to dictate affairs in Europe, an ocean away from America’s eastern coastline.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Russia’s growing cooperation with Europe in the lead up to the 2022 Special Military Operation represented a similar threat – not to America’s homeland – but to its unwarranted influence over the European continent.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China then and now represents the same sort of “threat.” Its rise is empowering nations along its periphery, offering alternatives to the exploitative practices of Wall Street and Washington, including the development of infrastructure and trade rather than the building of sweatshops and military bases. Both China and a growing list of nations in the Indo-Pacific region are no longer beholden to US demands and are increasingly assertive regarding their domestic and foreign policies.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US has spent decades attempting to prevent such developments from unfolding, including through fighting a destructive war spanning Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and involving Thailand, the Philippines, and even Japan and Australia. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the US has relied on covert actions and political interference through the CIA and later the National Endowment for Democracy and adjacent organizations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Considering the destructive and destabilizing lengths the US went through more recently to reassert control over Europe, fears of the US doing likewise across the Indo-Pacific region seem justified.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Moving Back Toward Regional Conflict </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">To reassert US primacy over the Indo-Pacific region, the US is continuing its policy of covert actions and political interference, but is also increasing its military footprint in the region ahead of a potential conflict with China itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Myanmar, which borders China’s Yunnan province, has been targeted for violent destabilization. Following a 2021 military coup ousting a US-installed client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, US-backed armed militants have plunged the country into internal war.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">US-backed militants are not only fighting against the central government in Myanmar, close allies to both Moscow and Beijing, but also specifically attacking joint infrastructure projects built with Chinese assistance. This includes a Chinese-built pipeline attacked early last year, according to US government-funded Irrawaddy in its <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/china-backed-pipeline-facility-damaged-in-myanmar-resistance-attack.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “China-Backed Pipeline Facility Damaged in Myanmar Resistance Attack.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The pipeline is part of China’s efforts to circumvent shipping routes increasingly threatened by the US’ growing military presence in and around the South China Sea. Pipelines through Myanmar allow Chinese ships to unload at ports in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, saving significant time and effort that is normally needed to continue through the Malacca Strait, across the South China Sea, and onward to ports along China’s south and southeastern coast.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite claims that the US military presence in and around the South China Sea is to protect “freedom of navigation,” US government and arms industry-funded think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a <a href="https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">presentation</a> titled, “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?,” admits that the vast majority of shipping through the South China Sea is actually between China and its trade partners in the region. Thus, the US isn’t there to protect this shipping, but to menace and potentially cut it off entirely.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">More recently, US-backed militants in Myanmar have begun destabilizing Myanmar-Chinese border areas, making trade and travel more difficult, prompting Chinese military forces to begin preparing for possible cross-border violence, <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202311/1302483.shtml" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> the Global Times.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This is just one example of the ongoing hostility-by-proxy the US is conducting against China even as it poses as pursuing diplomacy with Beijing.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The US Staging for War </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Beyond proxy-war targeting Chinese infrastructure and trade along its periphery, the US continues increasing its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, primarily to threaten Chinese maritime trade and position its military ahead of provocations involving the Chinese island province of Taiwan.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A recent Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-philippines-marcos/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “How the U.S. courted the Philippines to thwart China,” all but admits the US is using the Philippines to contain the rise of China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The Philippines, Taiwan’s neighbor to the south, would be an indispensable staging point for the U.S. military to aid Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack, military analysts say. China’s ruling Communist Party views democratically governed Taiwan as an inalienable part of China and refuses to rule out force to bring the island under its control.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Reuters omits to mention that China is actually the Philippines’ largest trading partner by far and the only partner capable of building the modern infrastructure the Philippines desperately needs to catch up with the rest of a rising Southeast Asia already taking full advantage of growing Chinese relations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Instead of railways, ports, and powerplants built in cooperation with China, the Philippines is allowing the US to expand its military presence in and around the archipelago nation, pushing Manila itself into an escalating confrontation with Beijing. Just like Ukraine following its political capture by the US from 2014, cutting its economic ties with Russia and sending its economy into free-fall, the Philippines is placing itself on a path toward self-destruction in its role as an eager US proxy.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US is using the Philippines not only to continue tensions in the South China Sea, but also to stretch its military footprint closer to Taiwan. Taiwan itself continues to serve as a major point of contention between Beijing and Washington.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">This is because while Washington officially recognizes Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan under its “One China” policy, it unofficially undermines this policy along with international law at every available juncture. The US has placed a growing number of US troops on Taiwan, continues arms sales to the administration in Taipei, and invests in long-running political interference within Taiwan’s local political system.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">For years, the US helped move Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into power, investing in political movements to roll back growing cooperation between Taiwan and the rest of China, and more recently, has backed growing separatist elements in Taipei. It was announced ahead of January 13, 2024 elections that DPP William Lai’s running mate will be half-American Hsiao Bi-khin who had at one point held US citizenship before giving it up to enter politics in Taiwan and has been actively working alongside US Congress<em> in Washington</em> against China for years, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/us/politics/taiwan-diplomat-china.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US continues its decades-spanning policy of containment toward China through military, political, and economic provocations against China and its people that, should China do likewise toward the US, would be perceived as acts of war. Rather than rush to war, Beijing has maintained a persistent patience, confident that time is on its side and fully aware that the US seeks conflict with China sooner rather than later.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Beijing believes that as each year passes, US influence and power wanes as Chinese economic and military strength grows. There will come an inflection point at which China will irreversibly surpass the US. At that time, China will be able to resolve the many issues that the US has created along and within its borders in a rational and constructive manner. The goal of Beijing is to avoid provocations that seek to entangle it in conflict in places like Myanamr or burn its own territory to the ground like in Taiwan before this inflection point is reached.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Only time will tell if China’s patience and capacity to build itself and the region up can outlast and outmatch Washington’s ability to undermine and burn it all down. For the time being, it is clear that despite superficial diplomatic overtures by Washington toward Beijing, its decades-spanning policy of containment at all costs remains intact and as urgent as ever.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-86868570994623627762024-02-08T22:00:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:17:50.992-08:00US Missiles Made For, Aimed at China<p><b>December 2, 2023 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/12/02/us-missiles-made-for-aimed-at-china/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The United States is working toward fielding a number of new weapon systems including the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM</span><strong style="text-align: justify;">)</strong><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">, the “Typhon” Mid-Range Capability missile launcher, and the “Dark Eagle” Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, all designed from the ground up almost entirely to fight China in a future war the US envisions it can wage to prevent the East Asian nation from surpassing it militarily and economically both within the Indo-Pacific region, and globally.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQ1yffMBFSA?si=fJqRdRy64DqNrwaH" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The various weapon programs as well as a fundamental reorganization of an entire branch of the US military – the US Marine Corps – demonstrates the invasive and provocative nature of US foreign policy and how it is shaping its military to advance that foreign policy.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>US Military Aggression vs. Chinese Defenses </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China’s military posture demonstrates a desire for self-defense, its military capabilities confined almost entirely within or along China’s borders, which in turn reflects Beijing’s foreign policy of non-interference and non-intervention. Even US government and arms industry-funded think tanks like the RAND Corporation in its 2016 <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pdf" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper</a>, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable” admit China lacks the desire and ability to strike at the US “homeland.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Because China is pursuing an inherently defensive policy, it (like Russia) has invested heavily in anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities. A2AD capabilities are designed to prevent an adversary from entering into or maneuvering within an operational area. For China, this clearly means its land borders, shores, airspace, as well as information space. To protect China’s various domains, it has built up an immense military force with equally immense capabilities, including the world’s largest and most diverse missile and rocket arsenal.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">US government and industry-funded think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as part of its “China Power” project would describe China’s missile forces in a 2020 <a href="https://chinapower.csis.org/conventional-missiles/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">CSIS would note:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>China has developed one of the most powerful land-based conventional missile arsenals in the world. China’s conventional missile forces have significantly reshaped the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, and the US and other regional actors are steadily adapting their own capabilities in response.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It also explained:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>For decades, the PLA primarily sought to improve its missile capabilities to better ensure its ability to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes. While deterring nuclear attacks remains a top priority, China’s leaders have attached growing importance to the role of conventional land-based missile capabilities for both deterrence and warfighting.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article mentions specific acts of US military aggression that prompted China’s development of its missile and rocket forces, including the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article admits that Chinese missiles and rockets are postured to counter the US military encirclement of China stretching from South Korea to Japan, up to and including Taiwan, and now in recent years, the Philippines.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In addition to these missile and rocket systems, China also possesses a formidable integrated air defense network consisting of some of the best air and missile defense systems on Earth, including Russia’s proven S-400 system. China also has developed a large, modern air force armed with air-to-air missiles able to out-range their US counterparts.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Together this creates a formidable A2AD strategy to deter, and if necessary, defeat US military aggression within or along China’s borders.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Rather than acknowledge China’s legitimate national security concerns and the reality of China’s rise and greater influence in the region of the planet it is located in on a map, the US insists on maintaining primacy over Asia, including over China, thousands of miles from America’s own shores. Because of China’s missiles, rockets, air and missile defense systems, and its increasingly capable air force, the US needs weapons and military forces capable of penetrating into and maneuvering within operational areas protected by Chinese A2AD capabilities.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Enter the Precision Strike Missile, Typhon, and Dark Eagle </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Among the capabilities the US is developing to counter Chinese defenses, enabling US military aggression against China in Asia-Pacific, the US is developing 3 new missile systems.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The first, the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, is meant as a replacement for the US’ aging Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). With a range up to 500km (possibly more) versus the ATACMS’ 300km range, the missile is meant to provide greater range, more sophisticated targeting capabilities, and the ability to be upgraded well into the future. The PrSM would be launched from the M270 and HIMARS launcher vehicles.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The longer ranges of PrSM is made possible by Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the US and the Soviet Union (and inherited by the Russian Federation). While the US cited unverified claims of Russian non-compliance, it was clear the US withdrew from the treaty to develop missiles it believed it needed to contain China militarily in the Asia-Pacific region.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Among the intended recipients of PrSMs is the US Marine Corps. The US Marines were entirely reconfigured in recent years solely to wage a future war against China in the Western Pacific under what is called “Force Design 2030.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The London Telegraph in a 2020 <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/24/united-states-marines-ditch-tanks-readiness-confrontation-china/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “US Marine Corps to ditch tanks in readiness for confrontation with China in the Pacific,” would explain:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The United States Marine Corps is to ditch its tanks and slash troop numbers as it prepares to fight Second World War style island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific amid rising tensions with China. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>A ten-year reform programme announced this week comes follow warnings that Chinese advances in drone and missile technology have drastically eroded the West’s military dominance in the Western Pacific.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Telegraph is unable to explain why the US should hold “military dominance in the Western Pacific,” thousands of miles from America’s own shores.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">But the article does explain that the US Marines would replace their tanks and reduced numbers of artillery pieces and helicopter squadrons with “rocket and missile batteries, drone squadrons, and C-130 transport squadrons.” Among those rocket and missile batteries will be HIMARS and potentially automated launch vehicles carrying among other ordnance, PrSMs.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">For mid-range capabilities, the US is developing the ground-based “Typhon” mid-range capability (MRC) missile launcher capable of firing SM-6 anti-aircraft missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The system consists of a vertical launcher mounted on a trailer holding up to 4 missiles pulled by an M983A4 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT).</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Plans to deploy the Typhon to the Indo-Pacific region have already been announced, according to Breaking Defense in a November 2023 <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2023/11/armys-new-typhon-strike-weapon-headed-to-indo-pacific-in-2024/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Army’s new Typhon strike weapon headed to Indo-Pacific in 2024.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The PrSM and Typhon, while being “fielded,” will only exist in relatively small numbers as development and improvements continue. The US Army, for example, will only be receiving 120 PrSMs in 2023. Between 2023-2027, <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2022/05/the-army-could-get-its-next-gen-precision-strike-missiles-in-fy27/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> Breaking Defense, the US Army will acquire up to 1,086 missiles with a maximum annual output of 266 missiles peaking in 2026. Considering the scale of fighting in Ukraine where Russia is firing hundreds of missiles a month, US production numbers are entirely insufficient should the US find itself in a direct conflict with either Russia or China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The third missile system, the longer range “Dark Eagle” Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, is also being rushed into the field, however, it has suffered many setbacks including during several test launches.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Defense News in a September <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/09/18/us-armys-dark-eagle-hypersonic-weapon-fielding-delayed-to-years-end/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “US Army’s Dark Eagle hypersonic weapon fielding delayed to year’s end,” would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The U.S. Army will miss its goal to field the Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon during the government’s fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, but is still aiming to deliver the capability by the end of the calendar year, according to the service’s acquisition chief. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The delay is due to the cancellation of a critical test of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told Defense News in a Sept. 18 interview. The scrapped test planned for this month was going to be “pretty close to an operational test” rather than a developmental test, he said.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Both the US Army and US Navy are slated to receive the system. The US Army’s version, like the Typhon, consists of missile launchers attached to a trailer, but containing only 2 missiles rather than 4. The US Navy version is designed to be launched from surface vessels and submarines.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The longer-range missiles release an unpowered hypersonic glide vehicle that operates in the upper-atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 5. It is designed to not only move at great speeds over longer ranges (over 2875 km) but also assume an erratic flight path, making detection and interception more difficult.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Magic Missiles vs Very Real Industrial Limits </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Washington’s fast-paced reorganization of the US Marines and the rushed development of these missile systems stem from a growing understanding that both Russia and China are developing formidable military capabilities – not to threaten or attack the United States itself – but instead, making it increasingly difficult for the US to coerce, contain, or subordinate Russia, China, or their growing list of allies and partners.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China’s rapid rise economically and militarily creates a closing window of opportunity for the United States to exploit its perceived, existing military advantages over China in a conflict now rather than later after China irreversibly surpasses the US by all conceivable metrics.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It could be argued that this window of opportunity has already closed, and no amount of reorganization or rushed missile development can make up for the United States’ fundamentally weak industrial base and the fact that it seeks to wage war against a nuclear-armed superpower across an entire ocean, and do so off that targeted nation’s own coasts.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Considering the role military industrial production has played in the conflict in Ukraine and the weaknesses revealed in this regard across the entirety of the West, one wonders why the US believes it can somehow outproduce and outfight China if it was unable to outproduce and outfight Russia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-6484353640381681792024-02-08T21:59:00.000-08:002024-02-08T21:59:16.899-08:00West Admits Ukraine is Losing Proxy War<p><b>November 27, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/11/27/west-admits-ukraine-is-losing-proxy-war/">NEO - Brian Berleti</a>c) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">After nearly 2 years of portraying the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as unfolding in Kiev and the collective West’s favor, a sudden deluge of admissions have begun saturating Western headlines noting that Ukraine is not only losing, but that there is little or nothing its Western backers can do to change this fact.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">What had been a narrative of Ukraine’s steady gains and indomitable fighting spirit has now been replaced by the reality of Ukraine’s catastrophic losses (as well as net territorial losses) and a steady collapse of morale among troops. What had been narratives of Russian forces poorly trained and led, equipped with inadequate quantities of antiquated weapons and dwindling ammunition stockpiles, have now been replaced by admissions that Russia’s military industrial base is out-producing the US and Europe combined while fielding weapon systems either on par with their Western counterparts, or able to surpass Western capabilities entirely.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Ukraine’s Catastrophic Losses </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukrainian losses, especially after 5 full months of failed offensive operations, are almost impossible to hide now.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The London Telegraph in its <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/22/ukraines-army-is-running-out-of-men-to-recruit/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Ukraine’s army is running out of men to recruit, and time to win,” published as far back as August of this year admitted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The war in Ukraine is now one of attrition, fought on terms that increasingly favour Moscow. Kyiv has dealt admirably with shortages of Western equipment so far, but a shortage of manpower – which it is already having to confront – may prove fatal.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article also claimed:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>It’s a brutal but simple calculation: Kyiv is running out of men. US sources have calculated that its armed forces have lost as many as 70,000 killed in action, with another 100,000 injured. While Russian casualties are higher still, the ratio nevertheless favours Moscow, as Ukraine struggles to replace soldiers in the face of a seemingly endless supply of conscripts.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article paints a bleak picture of continued Ukrainian military operations that are almost certainly unsustainable.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The claim of 70,000 killed in action among Ukrainian troops is a gross underestimate, while claims that <em>“Russian casualties are higher still”</em> are not only unsubstantiated, but contradicted elsewhere among Western sources.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Mediazona, a media platform maintained by US government-backed Russian opposition figures, has tracked Russian casualties from February 2022 onward by allegedly tracking public information regarding the death of Russian soldiers.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Its numbers cannot be entirely verified, but on the few occasions the Russian Ministry of Defense released Russian casualty numbers, they were relatively close to Mediazona’s claims versus the cartoonish claims made by Ukraine’s General Staff – claims that are often unquestionably repeated by Western governments and media organizations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A more recent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-cant-use-western-weapons-due-to-soldier-shortage-report-2023-10" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> published by Business Insider in late October titled, “Ukraine official says it can’t properly use its Western kit because it has so few soldiers left, report says,” confirms that Ukraine’s losses and resulting manpower crisis is only getting worse.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article reports:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>A Ukrainian official said Ukraine’s army is suffering a manpower shortage that is hampering its ability to use Western-donated weapons, Time magazine reported. Since the start of the war, several Ukrainian officials have blamed their difficulty repelling Russia’s invasion on the slow pace of deliveries by its allies. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>However, in the Time report, an unnamed source identified as a close aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted a different problem. “We don’t have the men to use them,” the aide said in reference to the Western weapons. Although Ukraine doesn’t give public figures, Western estimates suggest it has suffered in excess of 100,000 casualties.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In addition to irreversible losses in manpower, Ukraine is also losing territory despite 5 months of intensive offensive operations and the fact that the Russian military leadership has repeatedly stated Russia’s goal is to eliminate Ukraine’s military, not take territory.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The New York Times in a September <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/28/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-map-front-line.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Who’s Gaining Ground in Ukraine? This Year, No One,” would note:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Ukraine’s counteroffensive has struggled to push forward across the wide-open fields in the south. It is facing extensive minefields and hundreds of miles of fortifications — trenches, anti-tank ditches and concrete obstacles — that Russia built last winter to slow Ukrainian vehicles and force them into positions where they could be more easily targeted. When both sides’ gains are added up, Russia now controls nearly 200 square miles more territory in Ukraine compared with the start of the year.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Along with steep losses in manpower and a net loss in territory, Ukraine suffers from an equally damaging loss of equipment. Compounding materiel losses is the fact Western military industrial production is incapable of replacing these losses.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Military Industrial Production: West Running Out as Russia Ramps Up </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Last year, Western politicians and the Western media promoted the idea that superior Western military equipment would easily sweep aside Russia’s dwindling numbers of supposedly antiquated weapon systems. One <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/09/british-made-tanks-about-to-sweep-putins-conscripts-aside/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> published by the London Telegraph in early June of this year was even titled, “British-made tanks are about to sweep Putin’s conscripts aside.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Nothing could have been further from the truth.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Instead, Russian military equipment has proven itself capable if not superior to Western weapon systems and, together with Russia’s massive military industrial base, it has both outnumbered and outfought Ukrainians trained and equipped by the West.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">This was admitted in the New York Times’ September <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say,” which noted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Russia is now producing more ammunition than the United States and Europe. Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article admits that Russia has doubled tank production, increased missile production, and is producing at least as many as 2 million artillery shells a year – more than the US and Europe combined currently produce and more than the US and Europe combined if and when they meet increased production targets between 2025-2027.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A more recent <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/23/russia-is-starting-to-make-its-superiority-in-electronic-warfare-count" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> published by The Economist titled, “Russia is starting to make its superiority in electronic warfare count,” admits that Russia has developed an “impressive range of EW [electronic warfare] capabilities to counter NATO’s highly networked systems.” It explains how Russian EW capabilities have rendered precision-guided weapons provided by NATO to Ukraine ineffective, including GPS-guided Excalibur 155mm artillery shells, JDAM guided bombs, and HIMARS-launched GPS-guided rockets.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article also discusses the impact Russian EW capabilities have on Ukrainian drones which are lost by the thousands week-to-week. And as Russian EW capabilities disrupt Ukraine’s ability to use guided weapons and drones on and over the battlefield, the article admits Russia is able to produce at least twice as many drones as Ukraine giving Russia yet another quantitative and qualitative advantage.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite much of the hype surrounding talk of equipping Ukraine with NATO-provided F-16 fighter aircraft, more sober Western analysts have gradually admitted that between Russia’s vast and growing aerospace forces and its superior integrated air defense systems, NATO-provided F-16s will fare no better than the Soviet-era aircraft Ukraine had and lost throughout the duration of the Special Military Operation.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">After months, even years of “game-changers” sent to Ukraine only to prove incapable of matching let alone exceeding Russian military capabilities, the game is indeed revealed to have been changed – in favor of Russia and a military doctrine built on vast military industrial production, cheap-but-effective weapon systems, and most importantly, a doctrine built to fight and win against a peer or near-peer adversary.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This stands in stark contrast to a West who has shaped its military for decades to push over developing or failed states around the globe in military-mismatches, atrophying the technological, industrial, and strategic capabilities the US and its allies would have needed to put in place years ahead of time to “win” their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The “solution” to Russia’s now admitted advantage in terms of quality and quantity on and over the battlefield is to “increase production” and “collect data” on Russian capabilities to then “develop counters to them.” However, these are processes that could take years to yield results, all while Russia continues expanding its capabilities to maintain this qualitative and quantitative edge.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">And as this process continues to unfold, the US continues simultaneously seeking a similar conflict with China, which possesses an even larger industrial base than Russia.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">One wonders how many lives could have been spared had these recent admissions across the Western media regarding Russia’s <em>actual</em> military capabilities been presented long before provoking conflict with Russia in the first place through Washington and Brussels’ long-standing policy of encroaching upon Russia’s borders. One wonders how many lives may yet be saved if the collective West learns from its current mistakes before repeating them all over again in a senseless conflict triggered by efforts to likewise encroach upon and provoke China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-76021216507953644852024-02-08T21:55:00.000-08:002024-02-08T21:57:19.057-08:00US Shapes Philippines into Southeast Asia’s “Ukraine”<p><b>November 2, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/11/02/us-shapes-philippines-into-southeast-asias-ukraine/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">With the rise of China, so too rises Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia has slowly transformed in terms of economics, infrastructure, tourism, industry, and politically over the last two decades as Chinese influence increases and inevitably displaces US influence over the region.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><picture><span style="text-align: justify;">At its height, US influence resulted in a major war spanning two decades, engulfing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The US maintained military bases across the region, including in Thailand and the Philippines. However, when the US finally lost its war against Vietnam, it withdrew much of its military. And in the following decades, the region slowly shifted from depending heavily on trade with the US and its allies, including Japan, over to China.</span></picture></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Today, China stands as the largest trading partner, investor, source of tourism, and infrastructure partner for most of Southeast Asia. This includes the Philippines.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">According to Harvard University’s <a href="https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=174&queryLevel=location&product=undefined&year=2021&productClass=HS&target=Partner&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Atlas of Economic Complexity</a>, China stood as the Philippines’ largest export market. Between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, over 30% of exports from the Philippines go to China. The US and Japan combined account for only around 25%.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China also stands as the largest source of imports into the Philippines at around 33% while the US accounts for around 6% and Japan around 8%. China is indisputably the Philippines’ largest trade partner.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">China is also the Philippines’ best chance at developing badly needed modern infrastructure.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">However, while other nations across Southeast Asia are expanding their relationship with China and building the region together, the Philippines finds itself irrationally cutting itself off from China, laying out a foreign policy demonstrably contradicting its own best interests.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The Philippines Sacrifices Progress to Become US Provocateur </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">As Chinese-built high-speed rail networks begin operating in Laos and Indonesia and another continues construction in Thailand, the Philippines has recently canceled several joint-Chinese rail projects.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">US government-funded Benar News reported in its recent <a href="https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/philippine/no-funds-10262023131943.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Philippines drops funding deal with China for 3 railway projects,” that not only will the Philippines no longer seek funding from China, it will also seek out alternative contractors to build the rail projects. Since no other nation is capable of building such projects in the region, the Philippines has for all intents and purposes put infrastructure investment on hold.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Earlier this year, the Philippines also signed a military basing agreement with the United States. The Washington Post in its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/01/united-states-military-base-philippines/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “U.S. reaches military base access agreement in the Philippines,” would report that:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"> <em>U.S. military forces will be given access to four new military bases in the islands, solidifying a months-long U.S. effort to expand its strategic footprint across the Pacific region to counter threats from China.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Since then, the Philippines has also begun talks with the US for the development of a port dangerously close to China’s island province of Taiwan.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Reuters in its article,“ Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the United States justifies its growing military presence in the Philippines by citing maritime disputes in the South China Sea, it should be noted that maritime disputes are common both around the world and particularly in Southeast Asia. Not only do many Southeast Asian states have disputes with China, they also have overlapping claims and resulting disputes with one another.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>These disputes can result in sometimes dramatic public displays. Malaysia, for example, in 2017 sank nearly 300 foreign fishing boats seized amid these disputes, including fishing boats from the Philippines, Nikkei Asia <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Malaysia-burns-illegal-fishing-boats-to-send-a-message" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>. While these disputes become somewhat heated, they are always resolved bilaterally all while nations in the region, including China, maintain otherwise constructive and even close economic and diplomatic ties.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thus, the US is using common maritime disputes as a pretext to insert itself militarily into the region, attempting to escalate ordinary disputes into a regional or even global crisis. In reality, the US is building up its military presence, not to defend its supposed allies, but to encircle and contain China while transforming host nations into battering rams against China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This US strategy has had varying success across Southeast Asia, with the Philippines being by far its greatest success. This is owed to the unique and unfortunate history of the Philippines as a US colony from 1898-1946 and its defacto subordination to the US ever since.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>The Philippines as an American Foothold </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US State Department’s Office of the Historian in a <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">publication</a> titled, “The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902,” would admit that the US seized the Philippines as a US colony from Spain and then waged a brutal war of subjugation against the Philippine people.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The US State Department admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The ensuing Philippine-American War lasted three years and resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It also admitted that:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>U.S. forces at times burned villages, implemented civilian reconcentration policies, and employed torture on suspected guerrillas, while Filipino fighters also tortured captured soldiers and terrorized civilians who cooperated with American forces. Many civilians died during the conflict as a result of the fighting, cholera and malaria epidemics, and food shortages caused by several agricultural catastrophes.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the US granted the Philippines “independence” in 1946, the US has maintained varying degrees of political and military control over the nation ever since. Under the presidential administration of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines attempted unsuccessfully to expel the US military presence. President Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has since rolled back the incremental gains in sovereignty and dignity achieved during Duterte’s term in office.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">To explain the deep, institutional subordination of the Philippines to US interests, demonstrably at the cost of the Philippines’ own best interests including economic development, trade, and infrastructure, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo would explain at a Washington-based <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygOIyOAfBAQ&t=1588s" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_index="0" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">April 2023 talk</a><span style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://savefrom.net/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DygOIyOAfBAQ%26t%3D1588s&utm_source=yabrowser&utm_medium=extensions&utm_campaign=link_modifier" savefrom_lm="1" savefrom_lm_is_link="1" style="background-image: url("data:image/gif;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat; border: none; color: #14397f; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 16px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; width: 16px;" target="_blank" title="Get a direct link"></a></span> hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the core of his nation’s political leadership has been shaped by decades of US indoctrination.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo would explain:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Our partnership has thrived on other vibrant connections. And people are the throbbing core of our ties. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Fulbright program in the Philippines, which has 8,000 alumni and is the longest continuing Fulbright program in the world. The seeds of the future of our alliance are born in the many platforms in our relations where our peoples, whether they are scientists, entrepreneurs, civil society partners, youths, and artists, incubate new ideas and contemplate on visions together.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://us.fulbrightonline.org/about/fulbright-us-student-program" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Fulbright program</a>, created by the US State Department, claims on its website that it “expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue.” By “expanding perspectives” it means indoctrinating potential leaders in politics, media, business, education, and culture to adopt a pro-US worldview and create a US-influenced cadre of administrators in nations around the world.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Together with other US government programs, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which funds political parties, education programs, media platforms, and many of the “civil society partners” Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo referred to in his speech, the Fulbright program is part of the toolset the US uses to politically capture a targeted nation.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">An example of this is Maria Ressa. She is a <a href="https://www.fulbrightprogram.org/maria-ressa/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">1986 Fulbright alumni</a> who founded the media platform “Rappler” <a href="https://www.ned.org/wp-content/themes/ned/search/grant-search.php?organizationName=rappler&region=&projectCountry=&amount=&fromDate=&toDate=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&projectFocus%5B%5D=&search=&maxCount=25&orderBy=Year&sbmt=1" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">funded </a>by the US government through the NED. Both Ressa and her Rappler media platform are loud advocates for greater US influence over the Philippines and the rolling back of relations with China. Rappler’s media content is indistinguishable from US government talking points because Rappler <em>is an extension of </em>US government influence.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In terms of political capture, the Philippines represents one of Washington’s success stories. Enduring US influence, first as the Philippines’ colonial master and then through decades of indoctrination and political interference via the NED and programs like Fulbright, Washington has convinced Manila to forego the benefits of trade and economic development together with China and the rest of Asia in exchange for positioning itself as Southeast Asia’s “Ukraine.”</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Just as Kiev attempted to convince the Ukrainian people that the West would provide a superior substitute for the nation’s long-standing ties with Russia only to instead find itself abandoned at the end of a self-destructive proxy war, Manila is likewise attempting to convince the people of the Philippines that the US, Australia, and Japan will provide better alternatives to Chinese-driven trade, economic progress, and infrastructure development. In reality, all the US is building in the Philippines are military bases meant to drag both it and the region into greater instability, economic stagnation, and possibly even war.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Only time will tell if China’s patient rise and ability to build up the rest of the region will outlast America’s desire and ability to divide and destroy Asia. The Philippines, for its part, serves as an indicator of which direction the region may move in. Sadly, for now, it seems the US capacity for dividing and endangering the region is still very much intact.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-13334656918299509742024-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:002024-02-08T21:57:07.712-08:00The Grim Prospects of US Proxies: Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan<p><b>October 23, 2023</b> (NEO - Brian Berletic) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">As Russia’s special military operation (SMO) approaches two years of intense fighting, having parried Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive” and with the initiative shifting to Russian forces, Western capitals are now admitting they are reaching the limits to remaining support for Kiev.</span></p><div><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">During the Ukrainian offensive alone, the Western media has admitted Ukrainian forces have suffered catastrophic losses in both manpower and material. The Ukrainian economy has all but been replaced by heavy subsidies from the United States, Europe, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ukrainian infrastructure including its power grid and ports have suffered severe damage the collective West is unable to repair in a timely manner.</span></div><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine’s territory has shrunk. Four oblasts, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson are now considered by Moscow as part of the Russian Federation. Crimea had already joined the Russian Federation following a referendum conducted in 2014 after the US-backed overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In fact, from 2014 onward, Ukraine’s sovereignty had been stripped away, with the resulting client regime installed into power by the US answering to Washington at the expense of Ukraine’s best interests. To say Ukraine’s status as a viable nation state hangs in the balance because of this arrangement would not be an understatement.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Ukraine, as a US proxy, has suffered irreversible losses economically, politically, socially, and militarily. In a wider sense, Europe is also politically captured, led by the European Union bureaucracy who, like the Ukrainian government, serves Washington’s interests entirely at the expense of Europe’s collective interests.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Germany stands out as a particularly poignant example, having ignored the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, imposing sanctions on Russia to restrict any remaining hydrocarbons required by Germany’s industry and public, beginning a process of recession and deindustrialization.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Europe’s wider economy is suffering from similar setbacks, setbacks that cannot be offset by alternatives such as US liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) moved by ship across the Atlantic Ocean which will always be more expensive than Russian hydrocarbons piped in directly to Europe.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The price of subordination to the United States is in reality the existential threat the US claims Russia poses to Europe in fiction.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should be noted that the US had long-planned to use Ukraine as a proxy to overextend Russia. Laid out in a 2019 <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">policy paper</a> published by the US government and arms industry-funded think tank, RAND Corporation, titled, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” US policymakers would recommend providing lethal aid to Ukraine to draw Russia into the ongoing conflict between Kiev and militants in eastern Ukraine. The idea was to <em>“increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure,”</em> as it dealt with the conflict between Kiev and eastern Ukraine along its borders.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The paper also noted, however, the strategy posed a high risk to Ukraine. Such a move, the paper warned, might:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>…come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Despite these acknowledged risks, the United States pressed ahead with the plan anyway. Today, we see that fears expressed by US policymakers proposing this strategy have been fully realized, if not entirely surpassed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Taiwan is Next… </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">As Ukraine is destroyed by a US-engineered proxy war against Russia, with members of the US Congress vowing to fight Russia to the “last Ukrainian,” a similar arrangement is being used to organize the Chinese island province of Taiwan as a heavily US-armed proxy against the rest of China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Just as was the case with Ukraine, US policymakers acknowledge the existential threat Taiwan faces in its role as a US proxy.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), likewise funded by the US government and arms manufacturers, published a 2023 <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper </a>titled, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.” In it, policymakers acknowledge that during any fighting between a US-backed Taiwan administration and the rest of China, heavy damage would be inflicted on the island.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The paper notes that any infrastructure the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) does not destroy in the fighting, because of its possible use to the PLA, the US itself would target and destroy it:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Ports and airfields enable the use of more varied ships and aircraft to accelerate the transport of troops ashore. The United States may attack these facilities to deny their use after Chinese capture. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Beyond infrastructure useful to Chinese military forces, US policymakers have also explored the possibility of destroying economically useful infrastructure on Taiwan. An October 2022 Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-07/taiwan-tensions-spark-new-round-of-us-war-gaming-on-risk-to-tsmc" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Taiwan Tensions Spark New Round of US War-Gaming on Risk to TSMC,” would report:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Contingency planning for a potential assault on Taiwan has been stepped up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the Biden administration’s deliberations. The scenarios attach heightened strategic significance to the island’s cutting-edge chip industry, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. In the worst case, they say, the US would consider evacuating Taiwan’s highly skilled chip engineers.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The article also stated:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>At the extreme end of the spectrum, some advocate the US make clear to China that it would destroy TSMC facilities if the island was occupied, in an attempt to deter military action or, ultimately, deprive Beijing of the production plants. Such a “scorched-earth strategy” scenario was raised in a paper by two academics that appeared in the November 2021 issue of the US Army War College Quarterly.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">CSIS’ paper would analyze the possible outcome of a conflict between China and the US-backed administration on Taiwan, surmising:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In other words, even under the best-case scenario, following a US-backed defeat of any Chinese military operation aimed at reunification, the US would nonetheless have suffered heavy losses in terms of its military while Taiwan would have suffered catastrophic losses both militarily and economically.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Like Ukraine, Taiwan, in its capacity as a US proxy, would be destroyed.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Israel Will Not Be Spared Either </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">US policy papers are also abounding with strategies employing Israel as an eager military proxy in the Middle East. Israel is elected to strike at nations across the region with impunity, freeing Washington of the political, military, economic, and diplomatic baggage of carrying out such military operations itself.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Of course, such military operations expose Israel to the same dangers that have threatened Ukraine’s self-preservation and threaten to undermine Taiwan’s.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">With the US having demonstrated a fundamental inability to sponsor and win proxy wars against peer and near-peer adversaries in both Ukraine and Taiwan, there is little reason to believe that an already overstretched US military industrial base could somehow give Israel the ability to wage and win protracted proxy war in the Middle East.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Such a proxy war has already unfolded from 2011 onward both in Syria and Yemen with little success. Israel has already played a role in Syria, carrying out missile strikes across the country in an attempt to provoke Syria into a wider conflict.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Syria and its allies Iran and Russia have only strengthened their positions in the region and are driving a fundamental transformation across the Middle East. Even long-time US allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey find themselves gradually divesting from a US-led regional order to one that better fits with the wider trend toward global multipolarism.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This has left the US and its remaining proxies in the region more isolated and vulnerable than ever. The US itself finds its own troops illegally occupying eastern Syria in an increasingly precarious position.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Israel, in many ways, finds itself likewise isolated. Should it lend itself to a major US proxy war more directly, it may find itself in a similar position as Ukraine – locked in intense, protracted combat with its US allies unable to provide the arms and ammunition necessary to win.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Unlike either Ukraine or Taiwan, Israel is believed to be in possession of between scores to hundreds of nuclear weapons. While Israel will thus never face the same sort of defeat Ukraine faces, a protracted military conflict will leave Israel exhausted economically and isolated diplomatically. Its Arab neighbors will move on with the multipolar world while Israel exhausts itself fighting to reassert US-led unipolarism.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Because of the deliberate, premeditated manner in which the US uses and then disposes of its proxies around the globe, there is little reason to believe it will spare Israel. While Israel has several advantages over other US proxies in terms of its economy, military capabilities, and diplomatic connections, these advantages will only prevent Israel’s use and disposal by US foreign policy if there is a conscious decision to pivot with the rest of the region away from US subordination and toward regional and global multipolarism.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-17358843797308522782024-02-08T21:52:00.000-08:002024-02-08T21:56:55.673-08:00US Stretched Thin as Ukraine Offensive Fails, Israelis Threaten Large-Scale Conflict<p><b>October 16, 2023 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/10/16/us-stretched-thin-as-ukraine-offensive-fails-israelis-threaten-large-scale-conflict/">NEO - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">As Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive” nears five months of intense fighting and equally intense losses achieving only negligible gains, Kiev’s sponsors in Washington, London, and Brussels find their military stockpiles nearing depletion and their military industrial base stretched far beyond capacity. This single conflict has tested the limits of US military power, diplomatic reach, and economic influence, exposing significant and growing weakness.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><picture><span style="text-align: justify;">At the same time cracks begin to emerge militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the US and among its European allies, the rest of the globe continues its pivot away from the previous US-dominated global order, toward a broader balance of power under multipolarism, further undermining US foreign policy objectives.</span></picture></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Rather than reflect on this paradigm shift and find a rational place for the collective West in this emerging global order, the US and its allies are doubling down in an attempt to reassert their slipping international system and specifically through the use of proxy conflicts.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Just as the US-led collective West is using Ukraine as a focal point to confront, encircle, and contain Russia, the US has maintained Israel as a foothold in the Middle East for decades vis-à-vis Iran and its allies.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In East Asia, the US maintains a presence of tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea and Japan, while expanding its military presence in its former colony of The Philippines. It also has heavily invested in separatist elements on the Chinese island province of Taiwan, setting up the same sort of dynamics seen in Ukraine and Israel that have led to violent conflict in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It stands to reason that if Washington’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is unsustainable and a losing proposition, compounding the strain on US military, diplomatic, and economic power by investing in one or more additional proxy wars around the globe will only accelerate the collapse of US primacy around the globe and the rise of multipolarism.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Ukraine: A Failing Proxy War </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">A recent New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-support-aid.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article </a>titled, “Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So,” highlights growing concern over Washington’s stretched global ambitions. It notes that with growing hostilities in the Middle East and US military aid now being divided between two US proxies, Ukraine and Israel, there is a growing realization that difficult decisions will be necessary.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article also admits that even before conflict erupted in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, expanding into a broader and large-scale Israeli military operation against the Palestinians, both support for and interest in Ukraine was already waning.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Beyond political will, the New York Times admits to technical limitations of Western support for its proxies globally.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">The article admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should be noted that a previous New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article </a>revealed that Russia is currently producing as many artillery shells annually as the combined output of the US and Europe<em> if</em> production is expanded by 2025 at the earliest.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Even if the West could rally both political and public support for not only Ukraine, but also Israel, the limitations of the West’s combined military industrial base simply cannot deliver the material support needed to match it.<p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>Israeli Military Gears Up For War, Diverts Military Support for Ukraine </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas raids into Israeli-held territory, the Israeli military has begun carrying out large-scale military operations against the inhabitants of Gaza as well as strikes on southern Lebanon and airports in Syria. A military incursion into Gaza alone will require huge amounts of artillery and aerial munitions, as well as small arms ammuniton.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">While the US government claims it is capable of supplying both Israel and Ukraine, it is clear that if support was already falling far short of requirements in Ukraine, dividing it among Ukraine and now Israel means US military support will be stretched even thinner still.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">In a Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/09/israel-seeks-weapons-missiles-artillery-from-us-00120587" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article </a>titled, “Planes have already taken off’: U.S. sends Israel air defense, munitions after Hamas attack,” admits:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The needs of the Israelis and Ukrainians are different in some key respects. Israel will rely heavily on precision air-to-ground munitions fired from F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, none of which is in the Ukrainian arsenal. The issue of 155mm artillery shells, which both countries rely on heavily, will likely loom large, however.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The US has already transferred 300,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition from stockpiles maintained in Israel for both US and Israeli use, to Ukraine. Now 155mm rounds will be flowing back into Israel.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It should be pointed out that Israel also operates M270 multiple launch rocket systems, which fire the same GPS-guided rockets as the HIMARS vehicles the US transferred to Ukraine. There has so far been no discussion of transferring such rockets to Israel and if this will impact shipments of this ammunition to Ukraine, but as CNN pointed out in a May 2023 <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, Ukraine’s daily rate of fire was already a meager 18 rockets.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In 2006, Israel’s failed ground incursion into southern Lebanon was accompanied by an intense nation-wide aerial bombardment of Lebanon using a variety of aerial munitions including guided bombs. In less than a month of intense military operations, Israel’s stockpiles were depleted, and as the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported </a>at the time, additional munitions were rushed from US stockpiles to Israel.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">Protracted Israeli military operations will broaden the drain on US military stockpiles and military industrial output across even more weapons and munitions than Ukraine has.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong>And Taiwan Too… </strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It cannot be forgotten that the third focal point of Washington’s Russia-China containment policy, Taiwan, also requires large amounts of munitions to prepare for a conflict the US is openly attempting to provoke with the rest of China.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Even as the US intensifies its pressure on China over Taiwan, America’s stretched military industrial base is struggling to meet even previously agreed upon arms sales.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Bloomberg in its September 2023 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-19/taiwan-arms-supply-is-hobbled-by-slow-contractors-us-official-says" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Taiwan Arms Supply Is Hobbled by Slow Contractors, US Official Says,” admitted:</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Delays in US delivery of promised weapons to Taiwan stem more from defense industry shortcomings than government inefficiency, according to a State Department official handling foreign arms sales. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>“We need to work together to encourage our partners in industry to take more risks, be more flexible, diversify their supply chains and act with deliberate speed to expand production capacity,” Mira Resnick, deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, said in prepared remarks for a hearing Tuesday by the House Armed Services Committee. </em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Expanding physical production facilities, channeling larger amounts of raw materials and basic components into these facilities, and manning them with sufficient human resources depend on other prerequisite investments to be made, such as in construction, mining, upstream manufacturing, and education.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Thus, despite the ease with which US officials demand military industrial production be expanded, doing so is a resource and time-intensive process that will take years if and only if both the US government and Western arms manufacturers agree to significantly expand production. This takes place at the same time both Russia and China continue expanding their own industrial bases, including the production of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">For US, proxy wars to have succeeded, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan would have needed US military industrial production expanded years ago.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">It is clear US geostrategic planning attempted to produce a strategy that achieved its objectives with what it had on hand. This strategy was swallowed up in Ukraine, with the remnants being divided between a depleted Ukrainian military and a nascent Israeli military operation that could escalate out of control.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">This leaves US policymakers with two options; increasingly extreme and dangerous options including direct interventions in Ukraine, the Middle East, and against China in what could escalate into nuclear war or a pivot away from achieving global primacy and finding a proportional role for the US to play among, rather than above, all other nations.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">The future of the United States will take the shape of either an overextended empire involuntarily retreating into irrelevance and destitution, or a powerful member of the multipolar world prioritizing the rebuilding of its industrial base, infrastructure, and its education system to trade with and contribute alongside the rest of the world. The longer the US invests in the former option, the longer and more difficult the transition will be to the latter.</p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"> </p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-40987217047556841532024-02-08T21:50:00.000-08:002024-02-08T21:50:35.663-08:00Washington Wakes Up to Harsh Reality Amid Ukraine Proxy War<p><b>September 25, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/09/25/washington-wakes-up-to-harsh-reality-amid-ukraine-proxy-war/">New Eastern Outlook - Brian Berletic</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">Long gone are Western headlines heralding Ukraine’s NATO-trained and armed forces and the prospects of them able to “sweep Putin’s conscripts aside,” as former British Army Colonel Hamish De Bretton-Gordon claimed in an</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/09/british-made-tanks-about-to-sweep-putins-conscripts-aside/" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">published as recently as June this year.</span></p><div class="single-post-content" style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><p style="text-align: justify;">As Ukraine’s offensive forces broke across extensive Russian defenses all along the line of contact from Zaporozhye to Kharkov, the realization that Washington, London, and Brussels underestimated the Russian Federation economically, politically, diplomatically, and most importantly, militarily and industrially, began to set in.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Russian Military Production Grows, Western Stockpiles Dry Up </strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, different kinds of headlines now appear across the collective West’s media. The New York Times recently reported in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say,” that Russia ammunition production was at least seven times greater than the collective West.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The same article acknowledged that Russia had increased its tank production two-fold and was producing 2 million artillery rounds per year, a number that is larger than the combined planned expansion of shell production of the US and European Union some time between 2025 and 2027. Not only is Russia out-producing the West, it is producing weapons and ammunition at a fraction of the cost of Western arms and munitions.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As Russian military industrial production expands, producing more tanks, artillery, cruise missiles, and ammunition for the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces find their sources of arms and ammunition drying up.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The BBC would report in a recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66873495" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Poland no longer supplying weapons to Ukraine amid grain row,” that:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>One of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, Poland, has said it is no longer supplying weapons to its neighbour, amid a diplomatic dispute over Kyiv’s grain exports. </em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Poland’s focus was instead on defending itself with more modern weapons.</em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">While both Poland and the BBC attempt to frame the decision as motivated by growing tensions between Poland and Ukraine, the reality is Poland had a finite amount of expendable arms and ammunition it could send Ukraine, and it has expended those stocks. This leaves a much smaller number of more modern systems Poland has acquired for its own defense. Neither Poland nor its foreign arms suppliers produce weapons and ammunition in the quantities required to sustain Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, meaning that should Poland continue supplying Ukraine from this point forward, it will eventually find itself “demilitarized.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Other nations are failing to deliver much anticipated weapon systems. This includes the ATACMS ballistic missile Ukraine has demanded from the United States for months now, and despite claims of its arrival being imminent, Reuters in a recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-plans-325-million-ukraine-aid-announcement-zelenskiy-visit-official-says-2023-09-20/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> has ruled them out once again ahead of the Pentagon’s next assistance package.<p></p><p>Germany’s air-launched cruise missile, the Taurus, has also failed to turn up in additional assistance packages. Bloomberg in its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-18/germany-plans-additional-428-million-in-military-aid-to-ukraine" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Germany Plans Additional $428 Million in Military Aid to Ukraine,” noted that Berlin is still weighing “a multitude of political, legal, military and technical aspects,” before finally sending any.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It should be noted that neither missile, along with a wide array of other so-called “wonder weapons,” has any prospect of changing the outcome of the fighting in Ukraine. While the missiles, <em>if </em>delivered, will result in tactical victories for Kiev, they will have little to no impact on the fighting strategically.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What remains of Western military assistance to Ukraine is inadequate amounts of ammunition, older and/or increasingly inappropriate armored vehicles including relics of the Cold War like the Leopard 1 main battle tank, and “training” for Ukrainian soldiers conducted in compressed timelines producing entirely unprepared soldiers almost certain to perish within days of arriving at the battlefield.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The US-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is unsustainable, and it appears many in the halls of power across the collective West are coming to grips with that.</p><p><strong>Delusion Persists</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, elsewhere in the Western media, a deep sense of delusion is still reflected in articles that, despite admitting Ukraine’s failures, believe a “rethink” of Ukraine’s military strategy could help win what is obviously transforming into a “long war.”</p><p>For example, The Economist in its <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/09/21/ukraine-faces-a-long-war-a-change-of-course-is-needed" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a>, “Ukraine faces a long war. A change, of course, is needed,” admits the long-anticipated offensive “is not working,” but goes on to demands more offensive and defensive capabilities for Ukraine, including additional air defense systems and “reliable supplies of artillery,” both of which objectively do not and will not exist in the necessary quantities Ukraine requires for years to come.</p><p>At one point in the article, The Economist insists on Europe “beefing up its defense industry,” apparently oblivious to the lead times involved in doing so being measured in years – years Ukraine does not have.</p><p>The collective West apparently realizes their plans are failing to end the war in their favor sooner rather than later, but appear unaware that the “long war” they now realize awaits them is beyond their capability to fight by proxy or otherwise. The proxy war, designed to “extend Russia,” is now making Russia stronger militarily and industrially. At the same time, the conflict and the sanctions the West imposed on Russia are serving as a catalyst for other nations to pivot away from the US-led unipolar world and instead invest in a multipolar alternative, fearing that eventually the West may target them in a similar manner.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is clear that the harder the collective West attempts to place Ukraine in a stronger position at the negotiation table, the weaker Ukraine and its Western sponsors become. The longer this conflict continues, the worse it will be for Ukraine and its sponsors. For the collective West, winning their proxy war is impossible militarily and industrially, but accepting this reality appears equally impossible for the collective West’s leadership psychologically.</p><p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="color: #14397f; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></p></div>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-11612183996475232472023-09-13T02:31:00.002-07:002023-09-13T02:31:11.846-07:00Washington’s Expanding Military Footprint on China’s Doorsteps<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><b>September 13, 2023</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/09/05/washingtons-expanding-military-footprint-on-chinas-doorsteps/">Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook</a>) - A series of announcements by the US reflect its large and still growing military presence across Asia-Pacific, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. Together, they reflect a continued and increasingly desperate desire by Washington to encircle and contain China.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bc3CovtheRc?si=UVJ0XvBGh_X46LQu" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These announcements include plans for expanding the number of US air bases across the region as part of the US Air Force’s (USAF) new “Agile Combat Employment” (ACE) doctrine. It also includes plans for a “civilian port” in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km from the Chinese island province of Taiwan. Then there were recently announced plans by the US Department of Defense to create drone swarms for countering China’s growing advantage in materiel and manpower.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Washington’s “ACE” in the Hole? </span></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A recent <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/08/air-force-expanding-number-bases-pacific-over-next-decade/389834/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> published by Defense One titled, “Air Force expanding number of bases in Pacific over next decade,” reported on the Pentagon’s plans to expand the number of air bases across the Pacific over the next decade to fulfill the requirements of the USAF’s “ACE” doctrine.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More than simply increasing the number of air bases in the region, ACE seeks to disperse US aircraft, ammunition, and personnel among a larger number of smaller bases, thus creating more targets for potential adversaries and increasing the overall survivability for USAF assets.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The article notes:</span></span></p><blockquote><p><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The U.S. Air Force will increase its number of bases across the Pacific over the next decade, in an effort to spread out and become more survivable in conflict.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the ACE concept, a few airfields serve as central ports, or hubs, while several smaller airfields serve as spokes. The idea is to be able to distribute weapons and assets over a large area and to increase survivability, versus just having a few large airfields throughout the geographically enormous region. </span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite USAF assets being distributed, command and control would be able to mass together assets from across multiple smaller bases for each specific mission or “force package.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The concept is meant to make it more difficult in a potential conflict with China for it to target and destroy US air bases with its large missile arsenals and by doing so, significantly disrupting US air capabilities in the region.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While ACE doctrine may be a realistic shift away from the relatively centralized nature of US military bases across the Pacific, it will take many years to implement and only if the Pentagon’s budget is adjusted to do so. By then, China’s missile arsenal will only have increased in size and capabilities, possibly neutralizing any advantage the US seeks to achieve by pursuing this doctrinal shift.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And while an eventual dispersal of US air assets may complicate China’s ability to target and destroy US warplanes before even leaving the ground to perform missions, China also possesses a large and very capable integrated air defense system able to intercept both US warplanes and the munitions they would be using against Chinese targets.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">US Seeks “Civilian Port” Dangerously Close to Taiwan </span></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reuters, in an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-military-talks-develop-port-philippines-facing-taiwan-2023-08-30/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The U.S. military is in talks to develop a civilian port in the remote northernmost islands of the Philippines, the local governor and two other officials told Reuters, a move that would boost American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan. </span></em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The article also notes:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bashi Channel between those islands and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Chinese military regularly sends ships and aircraft through the channel, Taiwan’s defence ministry has said.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The article fails to mention a much more important fact, that this “choke point” leading into the “contested South China Sea” is already “a key waterway,” one for Chinese maritime shipping.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While the US poses as underwriting peace, stability, and prosperity in the “Indo-Pacific” region and more specifically, in upholding “freedom of navigation” in areas like the South China Sea, the reality is that most of the “navigation” taking place in these waters is trade moving to and from China between other nations in the region which consider China their largest trade partner.</span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">US government and arms industry-funded think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as part of its “China Power” project, published a <a href="https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">post</a> titled, “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?” It included an interactive map indicating the percentage of trade that flowed through the South China Sea from each nation.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China, by far, was the largest beneficiary of navigation through the South China Sea, accounting for over a quarter of all trade passing through it. South Korea (7%), Japan (4%), and Southeast Asian nations like Thailand (5%), Vietnam (5%), and Singapore (6%) also accounted for large percentages of trade through the sea, with each of these nations counting China as their largest trade partner.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Very clearly, the US, by expanding its military presence in and around the South China Sea, including at choke points like the Batanes islands, is best positioned to threaten, not protect maritime shipping in the region, which would hurt China first and foremost. But it would also hurt trade among Washington’s supposed “allies” in the region it seeks to recruit in its escalating confrontation with Beijing.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Within the pages of US government-funded think tank documents detailing war games between the US and China, the disruption of Chinese commerce is a key element of Washington’s strategy. By creating a “civilian port” at the northernmost reach of the Philippines, so close to Taiwan and at a critical choke point leading in and out of the South China Sea, the US is placing itself one step closer to a better position from which to launch a war against China.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Drone Swarms Aimed at China </span></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Defense One, in another <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/08/hellscape-dod-launches-massive-drone-swarm-program-counter-china/389797/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “‘Hellscape’: DOD launches massive drone swarm program to counter China,” would report:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China’s most important asset in potential war with the United States is “mass,” says Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks: “More ships. More missiles. More people.” </span></em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To counter that advantage, the Defense Department will launch an initiative called Replicator to create cheap drones across the air, sea, and land in the “multiple thousands” within the next two years. </span></em></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cheap drones, of the type Ukraine has deployed to great effect against Russia, can be produced close to the battlefield at much lower cost than typical Defense Department weapons.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While at first glance the strategy may seem sound, within the article itself the primary problem with these plans reveals itself. The proliferation of swarms of cheap drones being used by both sides in Ukraine are made possible by easy-to-purchase Chinese-made components.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The whole reason China has “more ships” and “more missiles” than the United States in the first place is because of its much larger industrial base. Whatever drone swarm the US may be preparing for China, China will have the capacity to create one much larger to strike back with.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A Future War with China </span></strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Amid the current conflict in Ukraine, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly targeted Russian air bases deep within Russian territory. Despite the vast majority of these drones being disabled or intercepted, small numbers still occasionally make it through, causing damage. Had Ukraine possessed greater long-range strike capabilities or were Russian air defenses less capable, the damage to these centralized air bases could have been much greater and may have even potentially disrupted Russian combat operations.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The wisdom behind the US Air Force’s “ACE” doctrine is apparent. Should Russia adopt a similar doctrine, distributing its warplanes over a larger number of smaller airfields, the rare instances of success Ukraine currently achieves would be even rarer still.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China is certainly learning from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and is likely studying the posture of its own air assets in relation to the US military’s build-up and plans to not only disperse their assets over a wider number of smaller facilities, but also their plans to utilize drone swarms in addition to other long-range strike capabilities on a scale much larger than Ukraine is currently using.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, as the US moves closer and closer to Chinese territory with its military and “civilian” infrastructure, and specifically near “choke points” that could potentially restrict or cut off Chinese maritime shipping, Beijing must consider contingencies to sustain its economy including its trade even under the worst-case scenario.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In many ways, the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) already partially accomplishes this. Growing trade with Russia across Russia and China’s shared border represents another means of maintaining essential trade, including the flow of energy and raw materials, even if the US implements a naval blockade in the Indo-Pacific.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Taken together, it is clear the US is moving as quickly as possible to position itself best for a coming conflict with China. While US leaders and the Western media suggest China is rushing to war “by 2025,” it is clear that time is on China’s side and that it is the US rushing to war.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The economic and industrial advantages China enjoys over the US today did not exist 2–3 decades ago. A decade from now, however, China’s advantages over the US industrially and thus militarily will only have grown. The US seeks to exploit a closing window of opportunity to fight now before the odds tilt any further in China’s favor. But considering the realities of these recent announcements by the US and how little they actually change the odds in Washington’s favor, some may conclude that the window has already shut.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></span></span></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-34831971610269105342023-08-23T13:29:00.006-07:002023-08-23T13:29:51.697-07:00Will the US Pressure Southeast Asia into Arming Ukraine?<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>August 24, 2023 </b>(<a href="https://journal-neo.su/2023/08/23/will-the-us-pressure-southeast-asia-into-arming-ukraine/">Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook</a>) - <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;">In mid-August as Ukraine’s offensive remained stalled on the battlefield, Russian officials claimed the US was pressuring Southeast Asia to transfer Soviet-made arms to Ukraine.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aQO-FuJbP5-psm67Lb9P37yWb4jtAPCizlH0J5WLvrwVhMHTCZlI-RCiIhCre54G_qDeTF7YmTuLwcCq-O0_shHl25AJjGYTWBDb3SHid-k61ejPthrNC7NypYCbCQ6cgXiEHkpLyiQm6MKP2Fpt1t7hLxE6VfAaaUH3dzickS4tGL27FLW_Z69bBtj7/s1600/1097812_724506074305943_575503275507039479_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1103" data-original-width="1600" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aQO-FuJbP5-psm67Lb9P37yWb4jtAPCizlH0J5WLvrwVhMHTCZlI-RCiIhCre54G_qDeTF7YmTuLwcCq-O0_shHl25AJjGYTWBDb3SHid-k61ejPthrNC7NypYCbCQ6cgXiEHkpLyiQm6MKP2Fpt1t7hLxE6VfAaaUH3dzickS4tGL27FLW_Z69bBtj7/w640-h442/1097812_724506074305943_575503275507039479_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In a TASS <a href="https://tass.com/world/1660901" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “US twists arms of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia to send Soviet weapons to Kiev — top brass,” it was claimed that the purpose of doing this was to <em>“prolong the conflict in Ukraine by all possible means.</em>”</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The development reflects a much larger problem the US and its allies face as they continue encouraging Ukraine to fight Russian forces.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Desperate Search for More Arms </span></strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The desperate search for more arms for Ukraine has been a central theme amid US and European support of the conflict since it began. Russia’s military reduced Ukrainian forces, both in terms of trained manpower and equipment in the opening months of the Special Military Operation (SMO). What weaponry Ukraine had left was quickly running out of ammunition.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A desperate bid to scour the planet for spare Soviet-era arms and ammunition was made along with the decision to incrementally replace all of Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons with NATO equipment. This included sending M777 howitzers, M109 self-propelled guns, the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, and eventually even NATO main battle tanks like the Leopard 2 from Germany, the Challenger 2 from the UK, and possibly even the M1 Abrams from the US.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is now also ongoing talk of replacing Ukraine’s dwindling number of Soviet-era warplanes and munitions with US-made F-16s and associated ordnance.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next problem that presented itself was the reality that NATO was incapable of producing enough of its own equipment and ammunition to meet the rates of fire and losses Ukraine faced on the battlefield. US and European artillery shell production, for example, is vastly outpaced by Russian shell production. Even after a planned expansion of production expected to be completed by 2027, the US and EU will <em>still</em> be producing fewer shells per month than the Russian Federation currently produces.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the meantime, the US and the rest of NATO have insisted that Ukraine change its methods on the battlefield to conserve ammunition and equipment, relying more on NATO-style maneuver warfare and even on unmounted soldiers with small arms, exacting a tremendous casualty rate on an already badly battered Ukrainian military.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The recent Ukrainian offensive, launched in early June, proved that this was not plausible and that the only hope of Ukraine succeeding on the battlefield, or at a minimum, to continue fighting on, was indeed for the US and the rest of NATO to provide Ukraine with many more weapons and ammunition.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Recruiting a Reluctant Southeast Asia </span></strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Toward this end, it appears the US is pressuring Southeast Asia, which has so far attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. The goal is to transfer what Soviet-era and now Russian-made equipment Southeast Asia has on hand to Ukraine.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While the TASS article mentions no specifics, Vietnam and Thailand, especially, have plenty of compatible equipment and ammunition that would indeed help perpetuate the conflict.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vietnam has long considered Russia to be a close ally, stretching back to the days of the US-led Vietnam War and continuing to today. Vietnam is by far the largest importer of Russian-made weapons, including systems that would be compatible with Ukrainian stockpiles and inventories including everything from warplanes and helicopters, to tanks, artillery systems, and air defense systems.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thailand, while widely viewed as a close non-NATO ally of the United States, has in recent years diversified away from US and European-made weapons and has acquired a growing number of Russian and Chinese-made equipment as well as systems compatible with both.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For example, Thailand has a growing collection of Russian-made Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters, a cheaper and more capable aircraft compared to Thailand’s existing fleet of US-made Blackhawk helicopters. Ukraine has been sent whatever Mi-17 helicopters the US and its allies could find, including those originally meant for the now extinct US client regime in Afghanistan, US state media Voice of America <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/transfer-of-us-procured-afghan-helicopters-to-ukraine-underway-/6556878.html" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> last year.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">While NATO has plenty of helicopters of their own, sending Ukraine these helicopters would be problematic in terms of training, maintenance, and sustainment. Sending airframes Ukrainian pilots and maintenance crews are already familiar with like the Mi-17 would work well toward perpetuating the conflict longer.</span><p></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">US Interference: An Unending Curse </span></strong></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Before the US-sponsored overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014, the Thai government placed an order of up to 49 Ukrainian T-84 Oplot main battle tanks with intentions to buy more in the future. Because T-84 production, like much of Ukraine’s production before 2014, depended heavily on parts originating in Russia, and because the post-2014 government cut all ties and cooperation with Russia, the order was significantly delayed.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually, all 49 T-84 tanks were delivered to Thailand where they now reside. The Thai government clearly needed to replace the T-84 tanks and did so with Chinese-made VT-4s, knowing that not only was it unlikely Thailand could order more T-84s from Ukraine if necessary, obtaining spare parts, engines, and other support for the vehicles would be difficult if not entirely impossible.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If the US is indeed pressuring Thailand to send arms and ammunition to Ukraine, the T-84 Oplot would be a good candidate for such “assistance.” The tanks would represent systems Ukrainian operators and mechanics would be more familiar with than the NATO tanks Ukraine is now increasingly finding itself reliant on. The 49 T-84 tanks Thailand currently has on hand represents a larger number of tanks than donated by the UK (14 Challenger 2s) and US (31 M1 Abrams) combined.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact that US interference in Ukraine first destroyed Ukraine’s armored vehicle industry by installing a client regime into power which pursued self-destructive anti-Russian policies, then deliberately triggered a conflict with neighboring Russia which may now necessitate Ukraine begging for its delayed order of T-84 tanks back from Thailand, demonstrates just how destructive US foreign policy is.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">US interference not only has clearly harmed Ukraine, but now also threatens nations like Vietnam and Thailand. Both nations now face possibly being pressured into sending equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, depleting their own inventories, straining their otherwise constructive relationships with Russia while doing so, and helping perpetuate a conflict in Ukraine which ultimately undermines peace, stability, and prosperity worldwide, including in Southeast Asia.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With the Ukrainian offensive doing so poorly that even US analysts and intelligence officials now admit it will not achieve its stated objectives, it may be more difficult for the US to pressure Southeast Asia into investing into what is an obviously lost cause. Only time will tell ultimately just how much damage is done by Washington’s Ukraine project and how far that damage will spread beyond Ukraine’s borders.</span></p><p style="background-color: #f9f9f9;"><strong style="font-family: inherit;"><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.su/" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong style="font-family: inherit;"><em>.</em></strong></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296737490016844972.post-40695518746794028212023-08-12T05:34:00.004-07:002023-08-12T05:34:51.905-07:00US Arms Package to Taiwan Heralds “Ukraine Part 2”<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><b>August 12, 2023</b> (Brian Berletic - New Eastern Outlook) - The United States has announced a new weapons package for Taiwan worth up to 345 million USD. Reuters, in an </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-announces-taiwan-weapons-package-worth-up-345-million-2023-07-28/" style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">article </a><span style="text-align: justify;">covering the package, would suggest it was aimed at providing Taiwan with “security assistance.”</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EcXj_zFn5n0?si=bG4_QlZJed2spnGr" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In reality, the transfer of weapons from the US to Taiwan is a violation of Chinese sovereignty under international law, which recognizes Taiwan as an island province of China.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The US State Department on its own official <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">website </a>admits,<em> “the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan,”</em> and that, <em>“we do not support Taiwan independence.”</em> Yet, the continued support of political parties on Taiwan pursuing independence and the shipment of US weapons to Taiwan to underwrite such aspirations constitutes a blatant violation of Washington’s own agreements with Beijing under the “One China” policy.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Washington’s actions in contravention of both international law and its own agreements with Beijing constitute a clear provocation against China and serve as the central driving factor behind Chinese military expansion, especially in and around the Taiwan Strait.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By violating China’s sovereignty by shipping arms to separatist elements on Taiwan, the United States is neither providing for Taiwan’s security nor underwriting regional stability as Washington often claims its presence in the region, thousands of miles from its own shores, is meant to achieve.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A factor, further undermining Washington’s claims of providing for Taiwan’s “security” through such arms transfers, is the very nature of these packages.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reuters reports that:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In recent weeks, four sources told Reuters the package was expected to include four unarmed MQ-9A reconnaissance drones, but noted their inclusion could fall through as officials work through details on removing some of the advanced equipment from the drones that only the U.S. Air Force is allowed access to.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even if the MQ-9A reconnaissance drones, also known as Reapers, included the most advanced technology used by the US Air Force, their utility in providing for Taiwan’s “security,” would be questionable at best. That the US is stripping them of features maximizing their capabilities further demonstrates the lack of sincerity behind US intentions to “secure” Taiwan through such arms shipments.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Western drone technology including US Reaper drones as well as Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones have proven to be ineffective in combat roles against peer or near-peer competitors, namely Russia, as seen during the fighting in Ukraine and Syria.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As part of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russian Su-27 warplanes managed to down a US Reaper over the Black Sea simply by dumping fuel in its path, sufficiently compromising its propellers leading to its eventual destruction, CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/14/politics/us-drone-russian-jet-black-sea/index.html" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">reported </a>in March.</span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Russian warplanes have likewise challenged US Reaper drones flying illegally in Syrian airspace. Air & Space Forces Magazine in a July 27, 2023 <a href="https://www.airandspaceforces.com/russian-fighter-damages-mq-9-syria/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> titled, “Russian Fighter Damages a Second MQ-9 Over Syria. So What Should the US Do Now?,” would report:</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><em style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On July 26, two Russian fighters approached an MQ-9 and one dropped flares, striking and damaging the aircraft’s left wing in several places, according to U.S. officials.</span></em></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A similar incident several days earlier also damaged a US MQ-9 Reaper.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While US military commanders have insisted they would continue operating the drones in Syrian airspace and “demonstrate some will and some strength,” there is virtually nothing the US can do to stop Russian warplanes from disrupting and even downing US drones short of escorting them with manned warplanes and firing on Russian aircraft.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The drones themselves are incredibly vulnerable to capable peer and near-peer nations like Russia and China and even Iran, who has on multiple occasions disrupted and even hijacked some of the US’ most advanced drones.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 combat drone shares many similarities with US-made drones. Its use by Ukraine was hailed as a game-changing capability that would decimate Russian ground forces. Just months later, virtually all of Ukraine’s TB2 drones were destroyed.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Russian air defense capabilities as well as its large, modern aerospace forces were more than a match for the type of drone warfare the US had pioneered during its “War on Terror.” What had been lopsidedly effective against irregular forces in the developing world was left wholly inadequate and vulnerable when fielded against the armed forces of a developed industrial power.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China’s air defenses and warplanes are among the most advanced in the world. Some of their most capable systems are, in fact, purchased from Russia, including the proven S-400 air defense system and Sukhoi Su-35S warplanes.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China is more than capable of disrupting or even destroying any MQ-9 Reaper drones Taiwan may acquire as part of this most recent US weapons package, begging the question as to what the US believes it will achieve by sending the drones in the first place.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Other weapon systems the US has pledged to send Taiwan in recent years include the Patriot air defense system, which has likewise been exposed as vulnerable to modern cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, and drones both in Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Yemen and more recently in Ukraine. In addition to their battlefield deficiencies, the US is simply incapable of manufacturing both the Patriot air defense systems (launchers, radar, and commander units) and the interceptors they use in sufficient numbers to sustain operations in even a moderately-scaled conflict.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The qualitative and quantitative reality behind years of hyped Western military hardware has been fully exposed on and over the battlefields of Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine. Not only is Washington eager to provoke a similar conflict with China, but seeks to do so through a proxy likewise armed with insufficient varieties and quantities of US weapons.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The US sought to use Ukraine to “extend” Russia as a 2019 RAND Corporation <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">paper </a>literally titled, “Extending Russia Competing from Advantageous Ground,” explained. The idea was to continue to antagonize Russia, forcing it to expend resources, thus undermining its sociopolitical and economic stability much in the way the US claims it caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Quite clearly, US policymakers miscalculated. Russia’s determination to prevent the “NATO-fication” of Ukraine and its economic and military ability to do so, proved far more formidable than the West imagined.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">China, with its much larger military, economy, and industrial capacity, is surely positioned to counter similar tactics used by the US and its allies in regard to undermining its sovereignty over Taiwan and using the island province as part of a wider US policy of encirclement. That Washington continues to pursue its current policy of encirclement toward China despite the military means by which it seeks to do so with have already proven insufficient against Russia in Ukraine indicates a lack of options and, in a sense, growing desperation in Washington.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">US foreign policy centers on the singular pursuit of global primacy, despite growing evidence the US no longer possesses the military or economic means to do so. Will Washington continue spending military, political, and economic resources on dwindling returns against a reemerging Russia and a rising China? Or will the US finally abandon its increasingly unrealistic pursuit of global primacy and adopt a more rational policy of working among other nations rather than attempting to impose itself upon all other nations? It is a decision that if Washington doesn’t make for itself now, others will make for it in the near future.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong><em>Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine </em></strong><a href="https://journal-neo.org/" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong><em>“New Eastern Outlook”</em></strong></a><strong><em>.</em></strong></span></span></p>Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.com