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Very weird statement quoted from Elena Panina:
"This is a protracted war of attrition against our country, waged exclusively with conventional weapons, for which NATO has the potential for quantitative and/or qualitative advantage."
Since the ONLY area in which NATO has "quantitative and/or qualitative advantage" is trannies in uniform, I …
Very weird statement quoted from Elena Panina:
"This is a protracted war of attrition against our country, waged exclusively with conventional weapons, for which NATO has the potential for quantitative and/or qualitative advantage."
Since the ONLY area in which NATO has "quantitative and/or qualitative advantage" is trannies in uniform, I will be really interested to see how this plays out.
NATO is inferior in total competent manpower (remembering that a significant amount of US military are committed elsewhere in the world (eg Korea) and cannot be redeployed, a huge part is tied up with carrier battle groups which are irrelevant and highly vulnerable if they come anywhere near Russia, and the big Turkish military is not going to join a war against Russia). It is deficient in effective weapons and in munitions, both in terms of quality and quantity (having already handed a huge volume to Ukraine to have them destroyed). Its military industrial capacity is a midget relative to that of Russia and certainly relative to Russia/China/North Korea/Iran.
Elena Panina is apparently a believer in DC's BS.
I assumed she means that on paper the combined West has the ability to outproduce Russia, in terms of munitions productions, etc. But that's on paper of course, reality is much more nuanced.
NATO has a vastly superior ability to convert "defense spending" into corrupt funding for the political and financial classes.
The evidence is clear to anyone with analytical abilities that the military industrial capacity of the West, even on paper, is vastly inferior. See Boeing's never-ending saga of faulty planes, the US stock of hanger-queen aircraft, its large stock of subs and other vessels laid up needing repair, the perpetually receding schedule for the US rolling out its next generation of subs -- not to mention the Monty Pythonesque pantomine with the UK aircraft carriers; and NATO's pathetic program of raiding sock-drawers around the world looking for 155mm shells.
Simplicius really seems to be pushing the "West's narrative lately. I am left to wonder why? Whenever a "reporter" of news and information suddenly changes course I automatically think bad thoughts. Integrity seems to be forgotten everywhere. Not saying that is the case, saying it makes me wonder. In the last 2 Sitreps I have been exposed to the same propaganda as if I was a CNN watcher.
This new "spin" that actually on paper the West will out produce Russia is laughable, in my opinion. Not as an "expert" only as someone who operated as a sub sub contractor to the names we all love to hate (in the US) Lockheed, Gen. Dynamics, etc.
Someone here (last post) even posted a link to some very young woman writing on Substack who declared "Russia could never defeat NATO in a conventional war, and Russia knows this." I had to sit back and wonder why and how so many are suddenly pushing this obvious fiction. IF Russia knew this, they are serious people and would have never embarked on this mission. In my opinion, even if there are things to disagree about Russia is demilitarizing NATO, Ukraine is already defeated.
I think, maybe it is time for Russia to remove the Black Sea "gnats" (US drones) that have been causing much of the propaganda "strikes" and to finally end the power supply to Ukraine, it will cause panic and I guess they do not want that but it is something to think about.
I guess that's the only sentence you remember from that long series of posts I reproduced here from pat marins
It appears you took no time to assess the quality and sense of the information 'she' provided, nor did you show evidence that you read the refutation to this particular point she also posted, and I included
The person posting the info is not the person pictured, a Brazilain model, - is someone likely in the Ukraine or Ukrainian side, and is releasing dribs and drabs of quite interesting information about the strengths of the RF side, but mainly info highly critical of that European lot
I guess you are new here and perhaps also to the slightly subterranean world of information analysis or tone
S does not maintain a single tone or emphasis, and while usually inclined to highlight RF advantages, is also capable of mildly changing course, as here, somewhat
You'll notice, if you follow these things, that a lot of people are speaking and writing with distinctly new tone and content , VVP to start with
You should familiarise yourself better with this content, S as well as VVP, with the comments posted here, before launching such a criticism
Meanwhile if you would care to write about how those US companies you mention function, or do not function, you will be welcome
Really? I have been here for a good long time. I am terrible with dates and I am not sure exactly when I began commenting regularly. I must admit I am not sure exactly what the criticism you are pointing out. I am asking the same question that you seem to be pointing out. It seems that since Ukraine is being destroyed on the battlefield, suddenly we have a shift in the "reporting" and Yes, I wonder when people who do not seem to cover the same topics suddenly ALL seem to begin talking about the same thing which I see as a distraction. I am very familiar with S, and I stand by what I said, which is that I wonder why. I think you have made a bunch of judgements about me and all the things I must not know about, good for you
What is next? The woman who's link you posted was not interesting to me, except for that 1 sentence and that is why I commented on it. I feel like I am explaining myself to someone who's first language is not English. IF you are going to post endless paragraphs on S substack do not get offended if I comment on it. VVP ? So I am also not familiar with him, why we had a beer together last week.
I guess I will leave it like this, just who put you in charge of who can post and what type of post I am permitted? EDIT> IF I said something so awful S has the ability to delete my comments or whatever options the Author has, you on the other hand have 0 options
It is better to read in context than to take one sentence out of context
I gave you a partial explanation of that one sentence - that is to say that the (author of the tweets under the name) pati marins is not the young woman (Brazilian model) you might think she is but probably an Ukraine side poster
No need to get agressive - you did not write anything 'awful', but simply foolish -& we have many options- perhaps even you do -
But ---why don't you write about a subject you say you know something about - you say you have worked as a sub sub for the US Lockheed and so on - if you write about something with knowledge you'll find it easier to be appreciated, or not, depending if you have something of interest to write or not
And no, S is not ‘pushing the west’s narrative’- that’s a cartoon expressed in US style language, and a gross misrepresentation of S and what he does
Neither is the change of tone I attribute to S, partially, and to others, happening because the Ukraine side is doing worse and worse on the battlefield
The change is because of the increasingly strident language coming out from some 'western' gvmts about attacking RF territory with US/EU armaments, which is coming up against a more aggressive response and tone from VVP and others
This may, in VVP’s case, partly result from the recent agreements with China, who in their own pronouncements have recently shown a more aggressive tone and content
There are now 90 F-35's cluttering the parking lots around Lockheed Martin!
The USAF won't sign for them because they need a software upgrade, which Lockheed failed to design. That SW upgrade is needed to install "block 4" capabilities, which will correct a few of the troubles with F-35.
The jet needs a new bigger engine because it carries so much info tech that it needs more air conditioning!
It only overran cost by 100% and delays are unknown.
Get your Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble feet moving
NATO could in theory out produce Russia. But they get in their own way. This is not just in arms production, the entire human, social and industrial capital of the west is squandered to an unimaginable degree
It's structural--and grooved in by now over 3 decades. The operational & strategic chops, speaking in terms of productivity, aren't there any longer. Constructing a new factory can't backfill the gap in human ingenuity. Uncle Mo has left the building.
* Uncle Mo = mojo
40 decades or more, surely.
While I agree that generally the West could outproduce Russia if they really wanted to, perhaps if the threat was really existential to them and wasn't just a talking line.
Of course, Russia would then ramp up production as well with China potentially chipping in.
and Iran
The west can not outproduce no one, let alone RF and China
If you disagree please provide an outline of how the west, ok
let's say on the one hand the US and on the other the EU
could
1- reform & organise bureaucracies, divert scarce resources and capital
to plan out and operate general infrastructure upgrades with complete local supply chains from widgets to titanium
2-to train up skilled workforces (a generation's work)
3-to de financialising the economy and ruling class mindset
4-to retraining the middle class into practical middle managers and not identity slaves
5-to .... a sense of general coherence or cohesion along national and not class lines, as well as sloughing off generations of propoganda think of vacuous democracy talk
6-to arrive at a persuasive and generally accepted sense of national purpose, to eradicate 300 years of exploitative slave based divide and rule practices
7-To allow the complete overhaul you precognise
8-108- Impossible
""2-to train up skilled workforces (a generation's work)"
The people the USA is producing now are qualitatively different compared to 55 years ago when I graduated HS. I worked in a cheese factory before going to school...as did many of my mates. Many working class kids paid for college with the decent money we were making at the time. Half my HS were farm kids who milked cows and did chores before getting on the bus. The halls of my HS smelled of cow shit because kids went straight from the barn to the bus. Most of my peers were raw boned and serious about school. No blue hair, no alphabet people and very few slackers. Some drew the short straw and ended up in Vietnam. Fist fights on Sat night behind the bowling alley a fairly common experience. Early longhairs got a beating sometimes for their hirsute presumption. Coon and deer hunting common recreations. Half the fathers toted guns in WW2. Serious, capable, trainable people. Now I walk into a coffeeshop and a majority of the young women are grossly overweight, having already "given up" on discipline and appearance.
Long story short...Most of the young I encounter would need some kind of rehab before even starting training in "defense" of the empire. The US is still fighting WW2 while drones are the "new" air force. I think the West needs to "own" the loss re the Ukraine Project and come to terms with the new multi-polar world. For the sake of the kids I hope rationality returns.
Yes ....thanks for this memory - I have heard similar stories
Your's rings true from start to finish, and I'm sure you could write pages and pages
It is heart rending to measure the difference between then and today for the vast majority of the peoples of US and Europe
It is terrible to see the destruction of ways of life which, with all the problems and deficiences, allowed general freedom and independence
Along w/ sundry disinformation which the legacy media promotes, articles keep popping up, insisting per the Surgeon General that we are in a Loneliness Epidemic: /journalists/ claim that loneliness is as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day
The bulljive doesn't end
The idea of "IF they really wanted to" is pretty funny. I have heard this from guys who "luv my cuntry" come on, the defense big shots do not give a crap what you think, they certainly will gladly sacrifice your life and that of countless Americans as long as they get another fat contract. They will never really want to out produce anything because it means less profit for the "Beltway Bandits" I get so frustrated that my fellow Americans will never ever wake up to the facts. They made fools out of all of us, just stop defending them.
Older armament production systems are labor intensive; many munitions are practically built by hand: skilled labor factors hugely in finishing shells. Component shortages complicate matters. For a very long time, the U.S. military industrial base has not been geared to the volume of usable weapons, the bread 'n butter of an army's arsenal [ shells/munitions. ] The military industrial base is structured in a manner that makes such a thing all but impossible: it's a mind-set flaw--a course correction will take a generation, if not longer. Or at all
Until factory workers are valued much, much more than influencers and girl-bosses, the West can not be "the arsenal of Democracy " tm. To get young men into factories will require a lot of sexual pay-off for the trouble.
"Until factory workers are valued much, much more than influencers and girl-bosses ..."
... it's LITERALLY impossible, the way the system is geared towards scale .... ergo financialisation is the only possible outcome - FIAT CURRENCY OUT OF DIGITS ON A SCREEN, as long as the facade can be kept and THE FALSE RELIGION of THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN can be kept on "life" support of smoke and mirrors.
Factory workers, skilled workers, need a lot of training - those who can train them are very old or dead
They are also, en masse, a threat to the capitalist system
De industrial isation was also about getting rid of this blue collar base
The TMSC and other SK chips plants are finding it impossible to get workers, no skills no work ethic (like the Asian work ethic) and that's clean industry
To re create whole supply chains is impossible - there's be the occasional tokenism like this Turkish arms factory, propably wind up with Turkish workers operating it
Meanwhile have you read the latest ASCE scorecard? The infra report?
This is pure fantasy. Even if factories could be quickly built, very unlikely, there is no skilled labor to operate them. It will take a couple of generations to get that back.
The squandering took a generation, and will take a generation to rebuild if the will was there today. Western nations dominated a lot of industries, and have legit advantages in many fields.
What will do you believe is left once 12 y/o kids and especially their mothers - incl. Brandon, Kamala, Nancy .... - promote cutting off dicks and tits - my apologies for the vulgar language.
Impossible to re build this industrial base, once it's gone, it's gone
The west knows not how to build industrially on any level, financial, administrative, management, or working class
Boeing is the example
Henry Kaiser produced ocean going cargo ships by the hundreds, mostly using workers who never had seen a ship before and who had to be trained from zero.
With the new Russian defence minister I think that things will change.
And for the west capacity... they have become really good in boosting the prices and deliver less and less.
Smack talk is in hyperdrive, too, in advance of the so-called Peace Summit in Lucerne & OTAN's July conference. The Powers That Be are driving the newscycle, giving the scaremongering Russophobic content a good goose early in the week, or on the Sunday shows, in order to create a cresting wave of anti-Putin drek by Thursday. They are pulsing the system.
Everything is much simpler. Panina is 76 years old. She wrote it out of inertia, as she always did. She just copied this idea from her works of 30-40 years ago.
Timeframes, timeframes. 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. If automobile, truck, and aircraft production are a fair proxy of industrial capacity, Russia certainly needs to game plan a scenario where the war is being fought in 2027 and the West is transferring many more armaments to Ukraine. Not saying it will happen, but it must be planned for.
Don't be so dismissive. Recall that the USSR was 'defeated' largely because the West had control of vastly more global resources than the USS and allies had access to. And Russia is considerably smaller than the old USSR.
What does undermine her agument to some extent is two things: China is now the World's manufacturing colossus, and is very strongly aligned with Moscow; and the Global South countries have realised their planned future by the Western Powers is not radically dissimilar to the 'alternative' history in PKD's 'Man in the High Castle' if the German Nazis had won WW2 - eventual extermination after impoverishment.
Despite this, if the old Colonial countries go full in, those Global South countries have very little they can do to defend themselves, and even if with heavy local opposition the West may not be able to extract the resources for themselves, they can prevent the Eurasian Bloc from accessing them as well.
The West will continue to get weaker however - enormously accelerated by their stubborn refusal to admit they've lost in Ukraine - but it is best not to make the same mistake they are making, and underestimate the opponent. Westerrn powers are still powers, and ALWAYS REMEMBER that the rainbow flags are just an attempt to put lipstick on a fascist pig to pretend it's actually still liberal for the chump voters.
If the chips were really down, and all masks were off, the flags and 'diversity' will be ditched even quicker than the controlled demolitions brought down the 3 WTC buildings.
They are just social maskirovka, and a psyop.
If you think the amoral Western elites genuinely care about gay rights, or Transrights, or any other 'Identity politics' the neolibs hide their corporatist-facism behind, I have 3 - yes, THREE, Kerch bridges going cheap, and I give you very special offer. ;)
Totally agree. Underestimating your opponent is the surest pathway to defeat.
"the West had control of vastly more global resources"
The operative word there is "had".
The West trashed its industrial capacity which underpins military industrial capacity. It has trashed not just the factories but the scientific and technical education and experience which is even more important than physical factories and cannot be restored in less than decades.
Russia was able to rise again, in a few decades, to a high level economic and industrial output because it never dissed scientific and technical education -- unlike the West, which supplanted it with "gender and race studies", and supposed STEM disciplines like "climate studies" which are just unreal money-making frauds.
The de-industrialized West is now in a far, far worse position than Russia was to reindustrialize because it has liquidated the whole cadre of people with the personal knowledge required.
I remember decades ago, when the West was offshoring its industrial capacity hearing know-nothing morons in the West claiming their countries would be "knowledge economies". Supposedly, they would invent and design things which would then be produced for them by the "dirty economies" in Asia.
Except the reality is and was that sustainment and creation of knowledge is intimately connected with using that knowledge, ie with "doing".
At the time of those fatuous claims, the West had a short time window in which it could do what the theory trumpeted, solely because they had engineers and managers with detailed knowledge gained from personal, "hands on" experience, and who were yet to retire. And Western financiers reaped a huge profit, at the expense of their countries, by offshoring manufacturing.
The people who had the relevant knowledge at the time have now long ago retired and/or died and we are living in the inevitable result of that stupid fantasy promoted by ignorant people and politicians.
In terms of societal impact, it is entirely irrelevant whether "the amoral Western elites genuinely care about gay rights, or Transrights" -- promoting those views has destroyed morality and societal cohesion and economic capacity (by devoting resources to those destructive philosophies instead of to productive activities).
Offshoring was intended to destroy the left anti-war unions, which it did. What we see now is blowback.
It was far more than that.
It was to make immediate large profits for the globalists, AND
Allow the globalists, who already controlled the US and other Western countries, to gain control of China and the manufacturing capacity they were implanting there.
Unfortunately for the globalists, the CCP entirely understood the intent. They gladly took the support in industrializing but have been very active in preventing the rise of oligarchs (domestic or international) of the strength of those in the West and those that emerged in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. That is a permanent aspect of CCP policy.
To the great anguish of the globalists, this has left them in control of hollowed-out and failing economies in the West, while China (and now Russia) outstrip their power, and they can only see the situation getting worse (for them) -- all as a consequence of their own strategies.
This is why the globalists like Soros are so angry with China and want war (which the globalists will lose).
It's a chicken and egg scenario. Does the power come from the profits or do the profits accrue due to one's power? I think they are 2 sides of a coin. Anyway the 70s and 80s were the heyday for progressive union activism.
That is part of it, for sure. Mostly just capitalism
You are correct, but the Jews want you dead. So they will kill Europeans and Americans like they killed Ukrainians.
They have certainly drastically undermined the societies and economies of Europe and the US, flooding them with unassimilable imports.
Their problem is that this has also destroyed the power of Europe and the US and the existence of genocidal, apartheid Israel has depended on that power to subjugate its neighbors.
Now the "chickens are coming home to roost" and soon the balance of power in the ME will have totally and irretrievably turned against Israel and its Western vassals.
Within a decade, Zionist Israel will be history. That was not in their plans.
It's a replay of the story of the scorpion, mid stream, stinging to death the frog it had induced to carry the scorpion across the stream.
The chickens coming home to roost are a Chicken Caesar Wrap-It-Up when Russia starts cooking
That is the whole idea , kill them all off , and replace them with Africans . They are not trouble makers , they just want to play basketball .
2hrs ago I literally finished watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxDTE2fjT-Q
And shared it on several places, although little was new to me. But to some it would be.
But the idea that the entire West is now "Just pronoun-confused ill-educated morons" is a rightwing victimhood trope that is simply not true. There is a higher % of that, yes, but it is not EVERYONE.
In a move to total, long-term war, you'd be surprised at what the West could achieve. Putin and the Russians know this, which is why they are not blase, and why she also added that to the possible calculations.
Underestimating your opponents doesn't just apply to the Russians & Chinese, it also applies to believing all the rightwing victimhood NONSENSE. And it IS nonsense.
What has actually happened is corporate bureaucratisation, turning Education as well as healthcare, and military production, and military logistics, into mere money-making scams for gluttonously-wealthy scumbags. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/28/academentia-the-organization-insanity-of-the-modern-university/
Western 'elites' - or the more intelligent ones - are quite well aware of the cause of our true problems, and in a total-war scenario - assuming the WMDs don't fly - you would be surprised at how realism suddenly becomes important.
At the beginning of WW1 & 2, the UK & Soviet forces were like they are today - top heavy, corrupt, and incapable due to too many sinecures for elite-spawned losers.
But when the chips are down the Hunter Biden types are kicked out and replaced, "profit" becomes less important, and serious people get promoted.
We are 5-10 years behind Russia, at a MINIMUM (And that ignores the colossus China behind them), but in a frozen-conflict Korea style, a lot COULD happen.
Is it likely to? Fortunately not. To that extent I agree with your points.
But also UNFORTUNATELY not, as that is going to make the fuckwit pychos in charge of the West more likely to decide to just blow the planet up instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQDaMxPAZ2c
First, I don't assume that the West can do no harm to Russia or China. The US still has legacy systems and troops which have some lethality. They also have 6,000 or so nuclear weapons. I doubt they are all duds and some would almost certainly get through in the event of all-out war.
That is why I admire Putin's prudence, he is working for an outcome while trying to minimize the harm his country and his troops suffer in achieving it.
It is ironic you mention corrupt and top-heavy military institutions without citing the US which is without doubt the pinnacle in this regard. You are surely aware of Colonel Douglas Macgregor's observation that at the end of WWII, the US with 12 million men under arms had around 7 four star officers. Now, when about 10% of that size, it has 42 four star officers -- and each has headquarters staffs with a multitude of lesser generals and colonels, etc.
If the US removed all the corrupt members of its senior officer corps it might find itself with 7 four star officers and similarly downsized staffs.
I agree that "when the chips are down" countries SOMETIMES shape up and make serious appointments. Unfortunately that depends on having serious people in positions of authority to do the appointing. The US and most Western countries lack that. History shows many occasions when in difficult circumstances countries are either governed by fools (the West today) and/or, irrespective of the abilities of those in power, their countries is simply outmatched by its foes (the West today, where the number of engineers produced each year is minute compared to China and Russia (and many of the STEM graduates in the West are actually Chinese, who, in a conflict, won't be working for the West).
At the start of WWII, the US was industrially the China of the time. It is now the equivalent of Britain at the start of WWII, ie with some industrial strength but far behind the largest and incapable of catching up -- and over-extended with an empire which consumed more resources than it contributed to Britain's defense.
Hypersonics are here now. If total war breaks out the west won't be able to build the factories, or train the staff, or transport the raw materials. They will be obliterated. The window of opportunity for the west is closed...for decades.
Supply chain issues will throttle-back production, whether there's total war or not. It's not as if the material or the materiel is just lying around close at hand
As you say, a lot COULD happen, but the will to do it is not there, and, absent actual, direct impacts on the majority of the population in the West, that will can never be there.
The nature of employment necessary to re-industrialise to a full on war machine has been carefully characterised by modern Western education as a DOWN-grade to the idealised "service industry" jobs (which, ironically, are the most at risk in the "AI" tsunami certain companies are trying to bring) so the manpower to make that war machine will be very reluctant to participate, at best.
This is why Tesla is pursuing "humanoid" robotics so hard, to create the "manpower" at a lower dollar cost than actual humans are willing to accept to participate in "dirty" manufacturing..
Note that China is charging harder and faster down the robotics route than any other country, and once you have that, your limits on production are raw resources input, of which Russia is the largest single country source.... After that you have Africa, which is steadily moving toward a Russian/Chinese political orbit.
The Western oligarchs have made their bed, now they're having a pre-bedtime tantrum...
Cheezits & juice-boxes on the way--!
Permanent Washington has declared/insisted that China is an adversarial competitor: in order to out-compete China & maintain hegemony we have to create semiconductor fabs & go hyperdrive into chip production.
Millennials & Gen Zs are not motivated by Permanent Washington's mind-set, however. They're not making "out-competing" China a life-altering goal. Deloitte & McKinsey see the U.S. semiconductor industry facing a shortage of 70,000-90,000 workers by 2028. McKinsey projects a shortfall of 300,000 engineers & 90,000 skilled technicians by 2030
Well, the DEI riders built into the CHiPs Act should help with those critical personnel shortages..🤣
Now, if you want FUNCTIONING chips, perhaps not so much....
After all, bunny suits are white, and that's some special sort of privilege right there! Never mind having to work a 12 hour shift in one (Sorry, snowflake, next toilet break is in 3 hours..) AND you can't take your phone inside to Insta your friends, or TikTok your latest bunny dance.
I serious doubt that the Western elites could psy-op their populations into a war against Eurasia. The willpower is not there. The last 2 generations of hedonic individualism cannot be quickly flipped into stoic patriotism.
Do you HAVE to sound like this is a Bad Thing(tm)?
One of the few things the Earth has got going for it is that the psycho Western elites like L Graham, Nuland, Clintons, Bolton, Haley etc, are facing that reality.
Is there anything to be admired in "stoic patriotism"? ... considering LIFE!
Right now, the entire West is completely crazy and under the control of special interests. But that entire "leadership:" is being discredited and the powers behind them will make an attempt to treat this "leadership[" like an ablative layer. Scrap them and try to get a new layer. Right now, that doesn't look possible, but magicians can pull rabbits of of a hat.
History might offer two example of empires which pulled back from the brink of decline. So it's possible, but rather unlikely. Right now, the people in opposition (that's us and fellow spirits) are pretty pure in our motivation. But we are vulnerable to a popular mass stampede towards "solutions" which look viable and offer the (((false))) promise of a way out of the wilderness. It would not be the first time. Take a look at what happened to the German Greens in the late 1970's. They were tired of losing, not getting voted into office. It only took one party convention for them to throw away their principles and to go with the "media star" Joschka Fischer who promised victories in the elections. The Greens were deceived, not bribed. Today, no German party is more aligned with Washington than the Greens. History does offer a great many examples where movements were turned into their opposite.
The moral of the story is that we need to plan for the time after the current politicians. We need to be the ones replacing them, and not waiting for the powers behind them to do that "for us". We can only ask "What is to be done?"
The generic answer dates back to Lenin in 1903. It's always, "We need a political party to seize state power." Anything else is unicorn poop.
Thanks - for once it's said out loud
Correct.
I'm old enough to remember when the Thatcher-Reagan types said that the West would retain "The Commanding Heights" of the global economy.
Basically, lawyers and bankers in New York and London could write the contract and raise the funds while the Chinese made sneakers and T-shirts and the Russians dug potatoes and coal. But they also never gave up making guns and ammo, did they?
>"the West had control of vastly more global resources"
>The operative word there is "had".
Still does. Russia alone has 2/3 of the USSR territory and half the population.
Meanwhile the US empire grew since 1991.
And it was in fact already larger than the USSR even in the Cold War. The USSR had 22.4M km2, territory. The Anglo-Saxon empire spanned (and still does) 27.8M km2 just across the five countries, plus it controlled Western Europe and most of Latin America, plus Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Population-wise it was 2-3X larger than the USSR. It's why the USSR couldn't keep up.
Sure, Russia + China (plus Iran and NK and others) absolutely crushes them. And would have crushed them back in the Cold War too, but they were successfully divided back then, and the alliance isn't quite real now either.
Always remember that the frontlines are a stalemate because of drones and that those drones Ukraine uses to impose that stalemate are Chinese. Could China perhaps have shut down exports altogether and sent all those drones to Russia until Russia finishes the job (which would be less than a year in such a case)? They could have. But what did they actually do?
Western industrialization doesn't matter as long as the Chinese are willing to accept printed pieces of paper in exchange for their industrial goods. They still are.
Russia could win this war easy just shut down remaining power plants. Or Disable all US ISR. They have the means but Putin terrified of West unlike IRAN or HOUTHIES who have zero issue downing USA's shit.
If Russia Kesslerised the whole of Earth orbital space, which is what you are talking about, this would prevent any space activity for several generations.
While "Moon colonies", or "Mars colonies", or "Asteroid mining" are boondoogles, near Earth orbits are extraordinarily valuable, and barring existential danger, China is going to be REALLY REALLY PISSED if Russia does that over a war they are winning easily conventionally.
Russia doesnt need to do that they could target each individual sat. It's not complicated for space powers and Russia has shot down it's own before.
"They could have. But what did they actually do?"
Have you ever asked yourself why the didn't ... REALITY is much more complicated than Brandon makes you believe.
"They" are all - always were, but made you believe otherwise and spread their gospel - in uncharted territory. Only difference to previous times is that the interconnectedness has destabilised the structure and THE HOUSE OF LIES is about to crumble completely.
Remember Armageddon ... ANYONE?
"Western industrialization doesn't matter as long as the Chinese are willing to accept printed pieces of paper in exchange for their industrial goods"
You apparently have not noted that China is rapidly shrinking its stock of US bonds (those worthless pieces of paper). And what do you and FJB imagine is going to happen when the US starts its war with China. All those ships ferrying goods from China to the US and Europe are suddenly going to stop. Huge amounts of goods that the West depends on will suddenly be lost to it and it has no capacity to replace them for years.
Your fuzzy maths about the "Anglo-Saxon empire" (a total misnomer in any case, it has always been the camouflaged Zio empire -- Anglo Saxon's haven't been in charge since 1066) supports fuzzy thinking.
Take Australia as an instance. Huge amount of natural resources and currently exporting massive amounts of iron ore, coal, and other minerals to China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan -- but virtually no industrial capacity, threw it away decades ago. If a conflict starts with Russia and China, most of those exports will cease, since they all depend on maritime transport, and nor will they then end up in Europe or the US. And Australia has no industrial capacity to do anything with them itself. So, the resources become useless to the West.
China will make up some of the lost minerals imports from Russia (and from defensive stockpiles it has been building up). Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have no alternative defensible sources of supply. Any alternatives they have to Australia are equally dependent on maritime transport and thus will be disrupted.
Australia also exports large volumes of natural gas, including to Europe. Again, that critical energy supply will disappear for a Europe engaged in a war with Russia and China.
Finally. your bizarre notion that the "frontlines are a stalemate" is clear indication that you either don't actually read the extensive description of reality presented by Simplicius over many months or comprehension is not your strong suit.
The 'Normans' were Zionazis? I thought they were an Imperialised branch of the Norsemen?
As you say, the Normans themselves weren't Zionazis. They did, however, end the rule of Anglo-Saxons in England in 1066.
Again, as you note, they originated in Scandinavia, invaded and established themselves in what became Normandy (for North Men) in France, adopted the technology of continental warfare, ie horses, armor, castles and then invaded England, just across the channel and took control, subjugating the Anglo-Saxons.
The Zionazis came later, lending to English kings, and others, for wars, getting control of the currency and the City of London (a small physical area within London as a whole, but the heart of banking and financialization), from which they participated in the foundation of the US Fed (by Woodrow Wilson and US Congress) with most of the banks who actually own the Fed, from its foundation, being Zionazi British, European, and American banks.
Thus, Britain passed from control of the Anglo-Saxons to the Normans (who then subjugated Ireland and Scotland) and then to the Zionazis, who left the Norman aristocracy apparently in control as convenient sock puppets for the Zionazis who control finance.
"...the camouflaged Zio empire -- Anglo Saxon's haven't been in charge since 1066"
William the Conqueror was an adopted orphan. No one knows who his real parents were.
All of the royal houses of Europe are descendents of William. The crowned heads were one extended family. For example, Queen Victoria was a blood relative of Tsar Alexander.
(Jacob married his first cousins, Leah and Rachel, daughters to Jacob's uncle Laban. They too were extended family. The word "nation" comes from Latin 'natio'-- translation, "family".)
Edit, for Gnuneo and Bazza: The Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and French Houses were also part of that family (along with German, Dutch, Austrian, Spanish, etc.) In other words, the Normans were brought into the fold through royal marriage alliances.
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/02/06/us-army-hunts-for-explosives-to-meet-increased-munitions-output-goals/
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/general-dynamics-new-155-millimeter-shell-factory-opens-war-cycle-kicks-higher-gear
I would say Russia has a time window of industrial superiority, it is not closing fast and may even be expanding right now, but long term it will need China to be able to keep up. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say NATO needs 5 to 10 years. But Russia, like the USSR, is vulnerable to longer term military over spending.
A big time window, and expanding
These US reports talk about 100,000 shells per month by end 2025- given US tendancy to lie about everything and to fail to meet industrial goals one may be sceptical
EU ditto
RF, according to S and others is already at 4.6M per year, 380,000 per month
And capable of accelerating production at already established factories, without considering new ones built - it is said current factories are not at 24/7
And can count on the NK stock of 10M, of which it is said only 3M so far delivered
Krasnopol vs Excalibur just happened
We know the result
Russia produced 20.5M in 2023. S using number given by Western media
I do not think so- for the 155mm the figures given in the West press are lower than those given by S, and others
S gives around 4.5 4.6, the Western press is at 3.5 ish, The Estonians may be higher
But nobody is saying anything like 20M
Perhaps you have a link?
I think the problem with numbers comes from the fact that West trying to compare 152 with 155 production which is inherently stupid. 20.5M comes directly from Russian MOD and it includes all artillery calibers (including bigger than 152) and MRLS. And that's correct way of reporting things, because damage comes from all categories.
In fact, I learned that biggest damage to Ukrainian side actually comes from MRLS, not cannons/howitzers/FABs/drones like somebody could imagine after looking at combat footage reels, because MRLS produce terrible footage - it covers huge area and inherently inaccurate. Yet it's incredibly effective, math at works. Big, many booms over large area.
Source: only real military related channel in whole Runet (run by real military guys, Martyanov is there, Trukhan is there); almost impossible to read unless you can read all Russian military abbreviation, can tolerate crude/clever jewish jokes, Warhammer 40k and not repulsed by gachi memes
https://t.me/pozivnoy_kazman/6917
It's a crime that S uses completely discredited sources like Rybar/FB or Fedorov and never covers channels where real military guys wags their chins
lol we were squealing like stuck pigs when a mere 2000-4000 died in iraq and much more united in 2003 than today and DOD paper says that many would die a day vs Russia.
Not a chance in hell USA, or even worse, effete western europeans could fight Russia in conventional warfare for more than a week.
People way to divided, no clear purpose and no ones gonna die for elites and a country that calls you deplorables. I think Hillary and most of them actually hate us. The patriotism jig is up also importing people to replace us making citizenship worthless. Its also worthless seeing way veterans with disabilities are treated worse than illegal aliens who are setup in 5 star hotels and given phones and debit cards with thousands of dollars/mo on them.
We may win but it will be because Putin backs down being scared of crazy Western elites incinerating the planet not because we have a chance in hell conventionally. He actually likes his people unlike our leaders who wont give a two shits if everyone is incinerated while they hide out in thier luxury bunkers blaming Russia and China for planet going up in flames.
I'm reading that statement by Elena Panina as "...for which NATO has the POTENTIAL for quantitative and/or qualitative advantage."
There is certainly the potential for that, but it would take a huge reordering of NATO, politically, economically and socially to reach that potential. I think it would take a literal revolution to reach it.
>Since the ONLY area in which NATO has "quantitative and/or qualitative advantage" is trannies in uniform, I will be really interested to see how this plays out.
NATO is vastly superior in aviation and naval assets.
Also, never forget how asymmetric the damage done by the INF treaty was. It only covered land-based assets. So guess which side doesn't have ground-launched IRBMs and long-range CMs in vast numbers now, and which side can fire a huge salvo of ALCMs and ship-launched long-range CMs...
The poseidon will quickly eliminate the naval aspect of nato.
You have no idea what the Poseidon is about.
> NATO is vastly superior in aviation and naval assets.
Please, stop commenting. It's embarrassing to read.
Look at the fleet sizes. It's 5:1 in NATO's favor in aviation, with a much higher degree of modernization, and even worse in the open ocean.
Even submarines, in which the USSR used to have quantitative superiority, are firmly in NATO's favor now. It's 14+4+4 = 22 SSBNs versus 12 for Russia. Attacks subs are not in Russia's favor either.
This is why so many people reveal themselves to be utter morons when they talk about the wisdom of Russia's attrition warfare "strategy".
It isn't a strategy, it is kicking the can down the road in the hope that the problem will somehow resolve itself.
The reality is that tanks and artillery don't matter in a NATO vs. Russia war, what matters is aviation, navies and air defense. Russia is vastly superior in air defense, and that is why it is precisely air defense that NATO is targeting now. And the VKS and the Russian navy too. So Russia is being attrited where it matters, while NATO is taking zero losses because nobody has the balls to hit back.
You missing the point.
You have submarines, and you have floating coffins.
Modern warfare is all about rock & paper & scissors.
You say planes, I say AD.
You say tanks, I say ATGMs.
Russia completely covers all bases.
There is not a single area where the West have an advantage. You lose it everywhere, sorry if it hurts
>You say planes, I say AD.
Is that why Ukraine is still flying old Soviet planes 28 months into this?
And flying them 10 km away from the Russian border too.
If you think NATO's thousands of jets will all be shot down when they go up, you are delusional.
Saturation works. Mass matters. It has been repeatedly shown in this war.
The only way Russia can neutralize NATO's air force superiority is pre-emptive nuclear strikes on all the airbases. The cowards in the Kremlin won't do it, so that's a moot point.
> Is that why Ukraine is still flying old Soviet planes 28 months into this?
No, because they recently got the bunch of Soviet planes from Slovakia (t55 tanks as well). You mixing leftovers from Warsaw Pact with real procurement. What will you write when there will be a reports of Ukraine losing their t55 batch? Russia still failing to destroy outdated Ukrainian tanks, they never destroyed anything in reality? Right?
Do you really believe that armaments happens right outta thin air? Are these armaments in the same room with you right now?
The Great Masturbator flouts his ignorance again.
Naval numbers are irrelevant to a Land War in Asia.
As for superior aviation airframe numbers....
Where can you base them? Poland? You'd need one airbase solely dedicated to the tankers required to get the fighters from Poland to the front line from just two or three OTHER airbases. EVERY base a big fat target for Gerans and Kalibers.
The kind of build up *required* for NATO to bring its "aviation superiority" to bear has "Fat Juicy Target" written all over it...
Lose just *one* warehouse of maintenance spares for those Oh So Maintenance Intensive airframes and NATO air power goes from Hero to Zero in one oily puff of smoke...
>Naval numbers are irrelevant to a Land War in Asia.
It's not a Land War in Asia though. That's what you dummies can't get in your thick heads.
Naval power very much matters with respect to who has who at gunpoint for missile launches and who doesn't.
Similarly with aviation.
Yeah, the bases in Europe can get destroyed in minutes. But that requires nukes and the ball to use them. Do you see that in the Kremlin? No. So then raw numbers matter a lot.
I often read Russtrat and Elena Panina is not a believer in anyone's BS. She is certainly not an alarmist. I think what you are missing is the Russian view that WW4 (the one we are now in), could go on for 20 more years if the West doesn't outright collapse. So the Russians have to consider the possibility of some sort of NATO revival. Not next year, but the beast isn't gone until someone drives a stake through its heart. Americans have a saying, "Don't count your chickens until they hatch."
The chickens, once they've hatched, will end up in a Chicken Caesar Wrap-It-Up when Russia starts cooking
Whilst none of us can be 100% certain of our beliefs or analysis, I'd be surprised if many people in Russia believe WW3 can go on for 20 years. Undoubtedly a state of hostility can, but not a state of active war, as is occurring, because the war that exists between NATO and Russia, even in its current state, is destroying the last vestiges of real economic capacity in the West.
And, if the West starts a nuclear war, that will be brief and while causing massive global destruction, the greatest destruction will be in the West which, unlike Russia, has neither a semblance of effective AA and anti-missile defenses nor any significant civil defense investment to protect the civil population.
The West cannot restore its economic capacity in less than decades, if ever. Fundamentally, the West has eaten most of its seed corn, in the form of real, practical knowledge, widely spread throughout its population. Even if it could magically reconstitute the factories and power plants it spurned, it no longer has the trained workforce to operate them effectively (see the continuing saga of woke Boeing and its disastrous aircraft production).
Fifty years ago, the standards of western schools, including the US, were at the top of the world. Since then they have fallen massively (at the same time money spent on teachers and schools and "educational" bureaucracy has exploded) and the West is now way behind what it once had in education and the education standards of its rivals. Overall, its teachers are far less knowledgeable and competent than those it had a century ago. Likewise, most of the real knowledge once borne by its engineers, managers and labor force has withered away through lack of use and the deaths of those who once had that knowledge, and has been replaced by a huge expenditure of time and resources on wokism, an expenditure which immediately consumes resources for no tangible benefit or residual capacity to produce.
Over the last 2 decades, Putin and the Russian government and people have rebuilt Russia as a great economy and technological society. But they started from an infinitely stronger position than the West is now in, because even after dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia still valued and rewarded real knowledge and STEM education. And, it did not have a gap of decades between the manufacturing prowess of the Soviet era and the time of rebuilding Russia's industry.
It was like someone in their thirties getting fit again after a dissolute decade. The West is now like someone in their seventies who, after three or four dissolute decades, aspires to the fitness they had in their twenties. "Good luck with that."
That quote got me, too. Our published #s admit we are way behind the curve on production & plans to increase bring us up in years to a larger fraction of what Russia produces today.
And our "quality" goes up in smoke every day in Ukr.
Agreed. The West can't compete now in either quantity or quality. Russia's (and no doubt China's) weapons are built for effectiveness in a real war environment. The West's are built to maximize MIC profits and payoffs to government officials, and, to add insult to injury, are designed by legislative and government committees with zero personal knowledge of real war and war environments.
I happened to read recently of an attempt to take out of "mothballs" some of the magnificent WWII US battleships. I don't know whether the plan was good or not, but the salient point is that they needed some refurbishment and refitting and it turned out that no one in the US any longer knows how to make the special, superior steels used in those battleships.
Similarly, Russia has been able to devise and produce the advanced materials necessary for hypersonic missiles, while the US has not.
"Similarly, Russia has been able to devise and produce the advanced materials necessary for hypersonic missiles, while the US has not."
Not only the materials, but the communications systems to enable precision targeting & maneuverability at hypersonic speeds.
Oooh, the old "refurbish the Iowa's because we like BIG guns" idea rearing its ugly mug again. It's not just the metallurgy that confounds, you'd literally need to gut them open to the boiler rooms and rebuild from nearly the keel up to make anything of them.
And all to fire ammunition that's been in storage for over 50 years (guess what ELSE they don't make any more...)
As for MIC profits, they realised years ago, the real money to be made was in the maintenance contracts (after all, you only got profit for MAKING a tank or plane once, the profits for maintaining them are endless...)
Side note, There's a hugely profitable market in pre WW2 (or up to 1945 actually) manufactured steel... because it was made using oxygen not yet irradiated by atomic bombs. Whole WW2 warships have gone missing from their resting places near Indonesia in recent years...