Subscriber Mailbag: Answers - 12/10/23 [Part 3] Finale

Hello, all—welcome back to the final segment of this month’s subscriber mailbag. A lot of interesting topics covered. Apologies to anyone I might have missed despite my diligence in making sure I got every question. I believe I got them all, but again, for future reference, anyone who emailed me questions rather than posting them in the appropriate thread stood some chance at being lost in the shuffle as emails are iffy, and many things inadvertantly go into the spam folder for whatever reason.

Tomorrow we’ll return to our normally scheduled broadcast, but for now enjoy this last segment.

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38.

I am a big fan of both geopolitics and alternate history and I would like to ask you a question: in your opinion, without changing the overall situation too much, what could have been done to prevent the entire Wagner situation from happening in the first place and what would have changed on the ground? Maybe a requirement to sign a contract with the MOD from the start of the mobilization or maybe Shoigu's son joining Wagner or maybe something else? Hoping to hear from you soon

I don’t think the Wagner situation—namely, the ‘uprising’ and ‘march of justice’ on Moscow, as it was dubbed—could have been prevented. The reason is, the relationship between Wagner and the Kremlin was extremely toxic, and this had very deep roots that went back many, many years, long before the SMO.

There were stories about Wagner and the MOD’s toxic relationship in both Syria and Africa that would make your head spin. I’ve posted many of them, such as the two sides literally threatening to shoot down each other’s planes/helicopters, which was corroborated by a neutral third party from the Syrian army.

One of the most damaging alleged episodes revolved around the infamous Wagner attack on Deir Ezzor where the U.S. claims to have “killed hundreds of Wagner troops” in an airstrike. Several high profile figures like Israel Shamir have claimed that the MOD deliberately sabotaged Wagner to cut them down to size by secretly working with the U.S. to turn off Russian S-300 systems in order to allow U.S. to strike Wagner.

At the time this happened, no one in their right mind would ever believe such a thing could be possible, least of all me. But now in retrospect, I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment, given everything we’ve seen in Ukraine where the two sides have literally attacked each other multiple times. If you’re interested, you can actually read Shamir’s accounting of it here; it tells not only of the Deir Ezzor story but others as well, but keep in mind none of it is corroborated and the author takes a decidedly biased pro-Wagner and anti-MOD stance which could color his commentary.

The point is that their disagreements and rancor goes back a very long way, almost to the beginning. The SMO proved to be a culmination of the highly vexatious relationship because of the existential nature of the SMO. Everything was on the line for both sides, literally. That means no one was willing to compromise and old wounds were torn open between Prigozhin and the MOD.

Having Wagner sign contracts even at the beginning would likely have never worked for those very reasons. Prigozhin would never have given up his independence, and the project he considered to be his ‘baby.’ The only thing that could have prevented it would be less incompetence on the MOD’s part, which would have kept Prigozhin at bay. But that’s not something easily solvable either because it likewise had deep institutional roots stretching back through the entire post-Soviet era. The course of the SMO was a very painful correction process, a sort of harsh ablution like a snake shedding its skin. The process would always be messy and marked by fits and starts, as years of entrenched and calcified bad habits in the core of the system had to be chipped away like built up plaque. There’s no way to do this that would’ve placated Prigozhin.

So, in essence, my view is that the two were on an inevitable collision course whose intensity was magnified in every way by the unprecedented, existential nature of the SMO, where not only were reputations and careers on the line, but the entire corporeal existence of the various involved parties, PMCs, and the state itself.

39.

(I posted this as a comment to “Israeli Conflict Takes Eschatological Turn + Ukraine War Updates” on Oct 15. I am still curious what your reaction would be. Thank you for all your work!)

I guess no two ethnic cleansing events elicit the same outrage and political action, let alone give rise to the war drum beating, potentially starting another World War. What am I missing?

"In the months following the end of the war, 'wild' expulsions happened from May until August 1945. Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš on 28 October 1945 called for the 'final solution of the German question' which would have to be solved by deportation of the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. More than 3 million Sudeten Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1945 following Germany's defeat in the Second World War, in an officially ordered act of ethnic cleansing supposedly justified by Hitler's aggression and permitted by war-time allies Britain, the US and the Soviet Union. Not all Germans were expelled; estimates for the total number of non-expulsions range from approximately 160,000 to 250,000."

Following the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, "In 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias during the 1948 Palestine war."

October 2023: "Hezbollah High Command Releases Video Warning Israel, 'We Are Coming'. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that 'Every Hamas operative will die.'"

Israel has quite a bit of catching up to do compared to the post WWII internationally sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Czechoslovakia.

I’m not sure what the question here is, though you appear to be asking for my general reaction, if I’m understanding correctly.

My general opinion is that all historical grievances large and small are politicized toward geopolitical goals between the various great and semi-great powers, as needed on a completely arbitrary basis.

That means there’s no real point comparing outrages, genocides, etc., because to the elites who run our world, it’s all up in the air and entirely contingent on what agenda is needed at any given moment. If you ask anyone in the West what some of the worst ethnic cleansing and genocide campaigns of the 20th century were, they’ll bring up all the ones inculcated into them by their slanted education systems, which for obvious reasons emphasize all the wrongdoings of the West’s political adversaries, while completely sweeping under the rug and memory-holing the transgressions of the West and its cohort.

So they’ll bring up Pol Pot and the Cambodian genocide because it was a communist aligned figure but will cover up Kissinger and the U.S.’s own genocide bombing of Cambodia just a few years earlier, as well as tragedies like the Nakba, which served Western imperial interests. Same goes with Western-sponsored Pinochet, and many others.

In fact, the inconsistency is so bad that sometimes they switch stances as needed even on the same figure. For instance, backing Saddam Hussein or the Mujahideen in the 80s while laundering their actions, then switching on them when convenient to do so, and suddenly considering the very same actions they had supported to now be “terrorism.”

Consider your WW2 example—while decrying the Nazis as so unbearably “evil” they were secretly taking in Nazis by the boatload to the U.S., giving them full diplomatic cover and succor. It shows one thing: that any emotive symbology developed around a group by the ruling class is nothing more than performative fodder for mass consumption. These things exist at the upper surface level of the realpolitik reality. Beneath this performative facade exists an entire world of amoral opportunism which contrarily shirks sentimentality and adherence to feelings and pride. It’s the cutthroat world of intelligence services and politicians who operate only with the moral imperative of: ‘the ends justify the means’, all means.

This is best encompassed by CIA veteran Philip Agee who basically implies that in the clandestine services, no one cares about fanciful window dressing like ‘democracy’ and morality in general, these are just control terms used to pacify the gullible masses at the topmost superficial layer of societal management; the real players don’t need these contrived concepts for their own work, they operate far more elastically, using whatever means necessary to achieve the ends they desire:

40.

I regard this as an economic/ banker war where the global South, Muslim nations, Russia and China are trying to get their fair share raising commodity prices and shorting the dollar which will cause inflation which will cause higher interest rates and the eventual collapse of the value of assets as the nation goes bankrupt. That is, we do not get social security or any of the other nice benefits of hegemony. These are all banker wars. Yellen (Federal Reserve) announced they couldn't let Russia win. It is probably true. Look at what it would do to the dollar and society. The general comes in, Z goes out, new leader, but the war goes on. I look for a long defensive war, and more problems in the Middle East. I heard somewhere Turkey is paying 40% interest rates cause the Western Banks are taking their money out? Money, money, who's got the money? I get depressed over this gloomy, overly intellectual analysis - Tell me I'm wrong.

And a related corollary:

It looks like the USA is overextended with Russia and the Middle East. It also wants to pivot to China.

Should Russia and China become more proactive and consider opening up multiple fronts to further over extend the empire?

Or just sit back and wait for the collapse in confidence in the USA government which may take place next year in November?

I’m not sure how coordinated all that is, which you explained, exactly but it does sound fairly plausible, insofar as the Global South nations and their motives.

I don’t know about them shorting the dollar, as that presupposes they intend to buy it at a cheaper, later date, and it seems more like they’re trying to dump it outright and not have anything to do with it. There were recent—uncorroborated—reports, for instance, claiming that UAE, which is now an official BRICS nation, is seeking to ditch the dollar in oil trade.

The general trajectory of what you describe is accurate though. Certainly the U.S. and West will continue to get poorer. Many people recently pointed to how Israel gets high level socialized health care while the U.S. subsidizes them. In essence, Americans are paying for Israelis’ high quality healthcare, while sacrificing their own.

But whether these nations are shorting or simply dumping the dollar and treasuries, the result remains the same, which is as you described. The Federal Reserve is forced to take on ever more extreme measures in floating the system, causing massive inflation. The Fed is now officially insolvent as it’s technically operating on a loss, and is no longer even generating profits which were previously deposited into the Treasury.

The way I understand it is, there’s a sort of negative feedback loop initiated by the global south slowly dumping U.S. treasuries. It creates a situation where the Fed has to buy more of the treasuries to finance the government debt, and since no one else wants those treasuries, the interest rate on them has to rise to entice foreign buyers. But when that happens, the government has to pay much more in interest fees in servicing that debt, which means the government has less money, which leads to it needing to borrow even more. But since buyers aren’t interested and the government is now creating more supply without the demand, that means interest rates have to rise even higher, accelerating this doom loop.

This video explains how the Fed is now, for the first time, operating at a loss, i.e. it’s forced to pay out more money than it takes in:

In many ways, this aspect of what’s happening is very much coordinated by the Global South, with Russia and China leading the charge. That’s because years of the U.S.’s misuse of its monetary policies and economic bullying by way of trigger-happy sanctions, etc., has forced these countries to de-dollarize in order to simply protect their own economies from highly capricious and unpredictable U.S. policy makers.

This is one of the main reasons Yellen announced ‘Russia can’t win.’ They need to destroy Russia at all costs because Russia has led the charge in completely unraveling the Western financial hegemony over the world. Everything that is currently happening world wide revolves around the Western banking elite which control the world desperately fighting to keep their financial and economic hegemony going. These are the transnationalists who met in secret on Jekyll Island in 1913, and their many generational scions and associates.

Now, the Russia-led bloc appears to be coordinating a vast operation to stretch the U.S. entirely. Venezuela has even opened up a new front on Essequibo, with reports already claiming that U.S. may have to move various forces to the region. Between that and the Taiwan theater, Ukraine, Iran’s stretching of U.S. all over the Mideast via its sprawl of proxies, including the Israeli situation, the U.S. is now more stretched than ever. It’s doubtful that this is totally by accident or happenstance, so this plays into the second question about overstretching the U.S.

I think Russia and China are both very active in ‘opening new fronts’ against the Atlanticist empire in Africa as well, which is causing major problems. I’m not sure how much more they can do that they haven’t done already. The only last “big one” I suppose, is China going all-out on Taiwan. It likely doesn’t see it as necessary just yet, but that could very well happen in the next 2-3 years.

I think the biggest damage Russia and China are currently doing is in the economic sphere. By pushing dedollarization and the expansion of BRICS, they are showing the world that there’s a new path forward that doesn’t require going through Western financial enslavement to the IMF and all the other nefarious Western banking mafias.

41.

I'm a new subscriber and this is my first time commenting here (although I've been following you for two months or so).

As the SMO evolves over time, what role do what were once the Soviet republics adopt in relation to Russia? The case of Kazakhstan seems especially strange; since it asked the CSTO for help and then it seems that it sells its weapons to Ukraine (aviation). From what I see, too, the population of Russian origin in Kazakhstan has also decreased a lot in recent years: where has it gone and why? Anyway, I hope you can answer some of these questions. Thank you very much for your time

Kazakhstan is definitely a very complex situation in relation to Russia. A lot of people try to simplify or paint it with broad strokes to characterize it as a completely anti-Russian shift that the country has taken, but it’s not quite that simple.

Certainly there are lots of seemingly unfriendly motions from Kazakhstan toward the U.S.-led side, with Tokayev appearing like another Erdogan incarnate, what with the ‘sitting on two chairs’ act. There have been many highlighted “signs”, like Tokayev unexpectedly addressing Putin in the native Kazakh language in an Astana meeting last month, as well as the general seeming shift in Kazakhstan away from Russian toward emphasizing their own language in schools and society at large, which includes replacing Cyrillic with a Latinized alphabet. Little by little, it has felt like Kazakhstan is drifting away toward the Western sphere of influence, following the Ukrainian playbook.

However, beneath this ‘surface’ level, there have been many reports that Kazakhstan is doing a lot of secret work ‘under the table’ in support of Russia and even the SMO in particular. This relates to alleged secret sanctions circumvention, the arrest of pro-Ukrainian ‘propagandists’ in Kazakhstan, as well as some videos early this year claiming to show huge trainloads of tanks heading toward the Russian border, spurring rumors that Kazakhstan was supplying Russia with tank hulls for refurbishment.

Keep in mind Russia is still Kazakhstan’s largest trade partner and their trade has only increased by something like 30% over the past year or two. I may have posted this before, but it’s been established that in fact all the central Asian republics appear to be massively helping Russia to circumvent Western sanctions by importing European goods under their own guise, then shipping them to Russia:

The biggest such blow came recently when it was just announced days ago that Kazakhstan has cancelled their planned order of French Rafale planes, to replace their own aging Mig-29s, and is now instead buying Russian Su-30SMs:

In fact, here’s Putin’s international itinerary since the start of the SMO:

As you can see, it’s not quite cut and dry. Tokayev certainly seems to privilege his nation’s sovereignty but continues to retain strong bonds with Russia. Of course I’m not discounting the fact that this could change for the worse in the future, but for now it’s clear that there is a lot of cooperation under the hood.

Of course I believe this region is absolutely critical for Russia to retain strong connections to, and to keep the West from subverting into anti-Russian zones. But luckily, China is helping with that because this zone is critical for China as well, for the obvious reason that it borders China’s sensitive western flank, precisely where all Western efforts are aimed at destabilizing the Xinjiang province via the various Uyghur psyop efforts.

For instance, not only has China enrolled the central asian countries in the OBOR fold, but China has boosted trade and cooperation, reaching new trade records with several of the countries this year, as well as holding the first hallmark China-Central Asia Summit earlier this year. The first such meetings were done at a foreign minister level, but this was the first at the president level where President Xi met with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—which will now be a regular thing, every two years, the next one already scheduled for 2025 in Kazakhstan.

While many anti-Russian commentators read this summit as “China moving into the block and taking over Russia’s role” or basically kicking Russia out of Central Asia, in reality I consider this to be a good thing because whether it’s China or Russia acting as custodian of this region, it will either way create a needed bulwark against Western encroachment there. And China, at this stage, can likely protect this region from that even better than Russia so I see the development as a positive thing.

China isn’t greedy like the West, so taking the region under its wing can only benefit Russia in the long run as they will all participate in OBOR and exact mutual benefits from it.

Lastly as to the decline of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, I read that it is mostly owed to natural reasons like the higher birthrate of Kazakhs and aging out of the Russian populace. I’m not sure how true those reasons are, but it’s true that ethnic Russians have been dwindling there, although many new ones actually migrated there to escape the SMO after 2022.

42.

This one’s on a slightly similar tack to the previous:

Of all the original BRICS nations, South Africa's inclusion has always been a bit puzzling to me. At least from the outside looking in, it appears that country has been in free fall for some time now, to the point where their is real potential for some kind of collapse in the not too distant future. What does/did SA bring to the table, and if it does collapse in some way, what will be the ramifications for BRICS and the world in general?

Well, South Africa actually wasn’t an ‘original’ member, which may answer some of your question. The organization was first just BRIC, comprised of only Brazil, Russia, India, and China. In fact, South Africa didn’t come until several years later and not without controversy, because as you implied, it’s somewhat unfavorable by comparison to the 4 original big shots.

However, there’s a few potential reasons for its inclusion that I could pose, though they’re sort of just educated guesses.

1. BRIC would want to expand by gaining new members in each continent, to have connections to those continents. The original members already had South America and Asia strongly represented, so one from Africa would be very desirable.

2. But at the time, given that none of the BRIC members were exactly at their current stature, they probably would have had slim pickings and been satisfied to take almost anyone willing to be with them, rather than the various prestigious organizations like G20.

3. South Africa may have all the weaknesses you described, but it was also a very influential and connected representative of the African continent in that it’s a member of several of the biggest organizations such as G20, African Union, etc., and so its membership in BRICS would nonetheless represent a prestige gain.

So to sum up, it probably had more to do in the beginning with BRICS being satisfied to take almost anyone that was willing to face censure and ridicule from what was then a much more powerful West, in joining such a burgeoning organization. Like I said, neither Russia or China were as powerful back then as they are now, and the financial crisis of 2008 had just occurred as well.

Also what must be considered is that South Africa has long been at the forefront of the decolonization projects of the 20th century which the USSR was involved with. The USSR has a special place in South Africa for supporting the anti-apartheid movements. And since the original BRICS countries all represent strong decolonization and anti-imperialist spirits, it therefore seems that South Africa represented a strong ideological and symbolic addition to the BRICS’ foundation.

As you said SA is certainly undergoing a very tumultuous period, so certainly some bad things could happen to them economically. However, we must recall that horrible economic conditions are plaguing many other countries of the ‘esteemed’ and ‘prestigious’ economic clubs like the G7, G20, etc. So it’s not like the BRICS are in mortal danger because some members are having trouble.

The fact is, the BRICS expansion will be adding so many new members soon that it won’t really affect them too much. And as you said, SA has been in putative “freefall” for so long that its terminal collapse is always “just a few years away” but never comes, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in their “collapsing” in some dramatic way any time soon.

43.

After reading the room, it seems this is a safespace to ask questions too radical for normies.

More and more Americans are becoming vocal of their perception of two parralleling cold wars, one internal and one global. Such a radical idea of an American civil war/revolution 2.0 was common against the most fringe groups, but I’ve noticed there’s been a sort of awakening in the American zietgiest. If you want an example of real time descent into darkness, look at youtubers like Wranglerstar, Garand Thumb, and S2 Underground who have now been openly giving advice for the “oncoming stuggle”.

Whether or not this cold civil war is likely to turn hot, perception is reality to Americans. My question is: How do you think this will play out, if at it’s even possible to begin with?

My second question (I noticed there’s a lot of questions and you’re doing a great job covering the conflict, so if you’re short on time, please feel free to skip it): Do you believe the elites are trying to stir up WW3 as a way to “unify” the populous the same way the Chinese communist and nationalist united against the Japanese (although temporarily)?

Although I cannot imagine a civil war in the traditional sense (at least not anytime soon) the nation has become too polarized to the point of no return without some major “shake up”. With this metaphorical “iron curtain” up, both sides will accumulate resentment against their own percieved theat to their existence.

My fear is the longer this internal resentment goes on, the more radicalized Americans will become in elections, possibly electing a literal Hitler or Stalin, depending who controls the elections.

TLDR: How do you think an American civil war/revolution will take place, if any? Do you think the powers-that-be are trying to instigate WW3 to distract and unite the population?

Firstly on the Civil War issue, I’ve done an entire writeup on my thoughts on exactly that, and how it would turn out, which you can read here:

I did intend to do a part 2 update on this in the future, because not only are there new things to add, but things I missed or wished I could have explained better, etc., so you can expect that some time.

The only thing to add for now is that in the article I mentioned various secessionist movements in the U.S. including the TEXIT one, and there’s now been new updates regarding them:

BREAKING: Texas nationalist movement known as TEXIT has secured enough petition signatures to appear on the March GOP primary ballot. The proposed proposition would ask Texas voters: "Should the State of Texas reassert its status as an independent nation?"

Source

This appears to move it one step closer toward having a secession vote on the ballot, but you can read more above.

Since my article answers your first, I’ll answer the other, which is whether the elites want WW3 to unite the divided society. I think it could very well be the opposite, instead: the elites want some type of martial law inducing black swan event like global war in order to ‘liquidate’ the intractable portion of society which they can’t brainwash or control. In the U.S. that happens to be the conservatives or “extremist rightwingers.”

This is why they’ve been purging the military for so long, using various devious angles toward purging just one particular type of ‘undesirable’ personality or ideology type. For instance, they got rid of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ and flooded the military with transgender people. This was first designed to kill religious enlistments. Then they began DEI and Equity-tizing to get rid of all the traditional ‘toxic masculine’ personality types. Then they rolled out the jab mandate to get rid of the last few holdouts, to completely cleanse and purify the ranks so that when SHTF, they will have a military entirely staffed with ideologically pure goose-steppers who will have no qualms about ‘eliminating’ free-thinking citizens to complete the elites’ full takeover.

The other much more immediate reason for that though is also to insulate themselves in the halls of beltway power, so that no upstart like Trump could seize military loyalty to effect a sudden flush like almost seemed possible during J6.

So in my way, your theory would be accurate if you simply swap out the word ‘unify’ with ‘uniformize’—a subtle yet essential difference. Instead of ‘unifying’ the populace, they want to make it “uniform,” and to do that they must get rid of the pesky heterodox sore-thumbs.

You’re right that the natural trajectory for things is to head toward a very radical style leadership because the situation represents a natural negative feedback loop: the division causes one side’s extremism to radicalize the other side even more, which conversely causes the first side to get angrier and respond with additional vitriol and demagoguery, causing the second side to again feel attacked enough to escalate their rhetoric. This process continues upward with a mutually spiraling series of escalations until both sides are basically represented by the most extreme and hostile form of their respective ideologies. Then, whichever side wins feels like they have no choice but to permanently eliminate the other, so as to never have to endure such an existential opponent and threat ever again.

The leftists in the U.S. have already begun objectively using pre-genocide language against their opponents, dehumanizing them in a variety of ways, as well as openly classifying them as terrorists at the institutional level, which the FBI and DHS have dutifully done by designating conservatives as “dangerous domestic extremists” and correlating them to “terrorists.” This can only lead to the obvious scenario of a mirror response repercussion down the line so I do expect things to get much uglier as the 2020s head toward 2030. Next year’s election could be a particularly hot powder-keg culminating moment.

44.

The next series of questions I’ve linked together relates to the broadly similar topic of Russia and the Levant:

Question: Douglas Macgregor said in a recent interview that Russia would not allow the U.S. to destroy Iran or Syria. What's your thoughts on this statement, as it looks like this is what Isreal wants the U.S. to do for them?

I’d first contextualize it with two important acknowledgments:

1. Russia did in fact already keep Syria from being destroyed—and by extension Iran—by intervening in the so-called Western-funded and fomented “Civil War.”

2. It’s not really physically possible for Israel to totally “destroy Iran” short of using nuclear weapons, and even then I don’t think they have enough to “totally destroy” the immense country of Iran in its entirety.

So going from that premise, we know Russia did in fact already stop Syria’s destruction, so MacGregor’s statement is factually right off the bat.

The way this dovetails with the second part is that I don’t think the U.S. and Israel want to “destroy Iran” for the reason that this is simply impossible to do. What they’d love to more realistically do is simply cripple Iran’s power projection capabilities, in whatever form that could take. This could mean for instance, crippling Iran economically to the point where its military support of foreign states like Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, etc., is simply economically prohibitive, or destroy enough of its critical military infrastructure to greatly diminish its capabilities to arm foreign proxies, as well as its capability to power project into the critical maritime chokepoints like the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, etc.

Getting back to your original point, it’s true that Russia has already stopped them and will continue stopping them from crippling Iran in this way. The reason for it of course I explained here and has to do with the fact that Iran is the lower gateway or key to the grand ‘Heartland’ of the earth—and Syria falling would eventually mean Iran’s fall as well.

The natural follow up is how Russia will prevent this. There’s a variety of ways representing both hard and soft power, direct and indirect action. Russia’s presence in the region alone represents a huge intelligence sharing capability for both Syria and Iran, allowing forewarning and other types of collaborative military processes. Russia has long done technology sharing deals with Iran but now has inked a landmark deal to sell them vast amounts of Su-35s, considered by many to be the premier air-superiority fighter on earth. This alone reportedly has Israel terrified, as the Su-35s could potentially counter their F-35 strike craft, making potential operations against Iran completely untenable.

Either way, you’re right that Israel wants America to do the dirty work for them, but it wouldn’t consist of anything even remotely resembling the ‘total destruction’ of Iran, as that is simply not possible to do with a mere air campaign. Such a thing would require a full ground invasion of a million troops as they did in Desert Storm, and that’s not going to happen. At best, America can launch some salvos of hundreds of missiles to take out a few critical points of infrastructure as a sort of ‘warning’ and simultaneous appeasement of Israel, but it wouldn’t really accomplish much against a large nation like Iran.

The next question riffs on this same topic:

Good afternoon,

I'm wondering why most, if not all Middle-Eastern countries who are at odds with Israel, are seemingly defenseless in regard to being attacked (i.e. Syria and Lebanon), or threatened with attack (i.e. Iran), by the Israeli Air Force. I know that they do indeed have some sort of AD in most cases, often from Russia, so why are these systems not utilized? Are they waiting for some reason (I've read they need permission from Russia for instance), or are they just antiquated systems only capable of shooting down the periodic rocket or missile as opposed to a fighter/ bomber? It seems like this would be the optimal time to put such systems to work (i.e. Syrian airports being destroyed), so to put it in simple terms, I don't get it.

Thanks!

Thanks!

As many people have learned from the current Ukrainian conflict, which corresponds to the greatest air defense ‘demonstration’ in modern history—on both sides—the issue of air defense is a far more complex one than most ever assumed. There is such an endless amount of factors that go into determining who can stop what. As we all saw, even Russia which has by far the best but also most numerous IAD (integrated air defense) networks in the world, is capable of being penetrated with some regularity when clever planning and ingenuity are used in conjunction with sophisticated systems.

The situation in Syria has always been complex, where many countries tiptoed around a Byzantine web of each other’s red lines. The “permission” thing you speak of likely did apply to the S-300 system Russia gave Syria. This was just one or two batteries that could only cover a small portion of the country, which can easily be bypassed by routing missiles around them.

You see, the S-300/400 systems are world famous for their best-in-class radar range. The range of 300-400km on paper can cover most of Syria north to south. But this is assuming a target is flying at max altitude, so the radar waves can actually see it. For a low flying cruise missile, this range could reduce to as little as 10-15km or less simply owing to the natural limitations of radar horizon physics; i.e. the missile is “under the horizon” and therefore no radar on earth can possibly see it.

Israeli planes infamously fire from behind Mount Lebanon in Lebanon itself, quickly ducking back behind the mountain range so as not to be spotted by radars. It’s a cowardly tactic, but effective. This gives Syrian AD no chance to ever really see Israeli planes as they don’t actually overfly Syria.

Another important point as to why “Russia doesn’t arm Syria with everything it needs to stop Israeli missiles.” Most people don’t understand how unrealistic such a seemingly noble request is. For example, do you know the price of a single S-300 battery?

Now, guess what the Syrian Arab Republic’s entire yearly defense budget is. The number I found is about $2.5B per year. That means a single S-300 battery would eat half of Syria’s entire yearly budget. And they’d realistically need dozens if not more such batteries to adequately cover the country.

Russia does gift Syria many different systems, but it can’t give everything pro bono, particularly not when it’s billions in price. So the problem is that Syria is really punching above its weight, having to deal with adversaries which are far more powerful and advanced.

Syria has older Soviet S-200 systems which are great for hunting high flying planes and such but were not exactly designed in an era that had to deal with terrain-hugging stealth cruise missiles fronted by advanced decoys and countermeasures, and other things of that nature.

All that said, they’re not quite ‘defenseless.’ They do appear to shoot down a good portion of Israel’s missiles, but some get through and do their damage. But when you compare that to the Ukrainian war, you see that even Russia cannot stop all its adversary’s missiles—some always get through. With that perspective in mind, Syria may not be doing as poorly as we think. It’s only true chief limitation is that, unlike Russia, it cannot strike back at its foe, but must perpetually soak up defensive damage.

And speaking of that, we come to the last related corollary:

My question relates to US naval assets in the Mediterranean region and their bombing or missile attacks on Syria as a second attempt to topple the Assad government.  How at risk its the Russian bomber airbase at Khmeimim for being struck, is this perhaps the real reason for such a massive force of AGEIS ships plus carrier aircraft aside from the planned Uyghur attack on the base from Turkey?

Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘at risk.’ I’m not sure if you mean, were an attack launched at Khmeimim, what chance would the Russian base stand of repelling the attack, or how much risk is there for such an attack to even happen.

In the second case, I think it’s pretty low. There’s no way the U.S. or any other hostile actor in the region (i.e. Israel) is going to launch some type of direct attack on Russian assets. Not only does that needlessly risk WW3 but even on the lower end of the scale risks the destruction of the Gerald Ford carrier group in that region, which could happen by a combination of 1.) Russian Bal/Bastion coastal defense anti-ship batteries in Tartus (we know they’ve been there) 2.) Mig-31Ks firing Kinzhals from Black Sea, as Putin recently put them on patrol there likely to telegraph this very possibility 3.) Russian attack subs operating stealthily somewhere in the region, ready to take out the carrier group if necessary.

That being said, I think Khmeimim as a lone base is pretty at risk of being destroyed from a concentrated attack. A single base like that will always have trouble stopping a mass saturation strike, particularly if it’s some extreme variant of the hypothetical scenario with both Israel/U.S. going all out. I’m simply saying that U.S. assets may be destroyed in reprisal or even in the midst of their attack. But ultimately there’s zero chance of them launching any sort of sneak attack on Khmeimim unless some type of wider NATO-Russian war broke out from within Ukraine, and then began spilling outward to every other theater shared between Russian and U.S. forces.

The USS Gerald Ford carrier group is not in the Mediterranean to pose any threat to Khmeimim but rather primarily to deter Hezbollah/Iran from opening a second front on Israel from the north.

45.

Thanks again for your in depht analysis of what is hapeing globaly and especially in Ukraine.

My question is regarding Israel, the Gaza operation, does it has anithing to do with oil and gas reserves in front of their coast? Also I am wondering if you could say more about the Israel - US connection and about the Zionist movement both in Israel and I guess the Christian-Zionist movement in the US. Thanks

There are certainly a lot of dark connections between the U.S. deepstate MIC shadow elite, with that of the globalist financiers, and Israel and Gaza. These examples relate to the Golan Heights, but it just highlights what I’m referring to:

Interestingly, from the old Jerusalem Post article quoted above, they give this revealing tidbit:

The company believes its shale-oil cracking technology can free the world from dependence on Arab oil and turn Israel into an energy powerhouse able to produce 300 billion barrels of non-conventional oil at a cost of up to $40 per barrel.

So you can see here that Rothschild and co. seemed to envision Israel as a world savior from Arab oil. The fact that they sketched out a vision of Israel as a future energy powerhouse seems to suggest that such designs certainly are at least not out of the realm of credulity.

However, I realize you’re referring much more specifically to all the recent hubbub about the Gaza operation being about the gas fields just off the Gaza coast. Certainly I’m sure that plays into it as a sort of additional ‘cherry on top’, which makes it all the more worthwhile an endeavour. But I don’t believe that’s the chief motivation.

The real motivation is that of fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the coming of Moshiach, the Messiah. In 1990 a young Netanyahu was told by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to hasten the coming of Moshiach. Netanyahu has worked hard since that day to carry out his divine mandate, which will require the building of the Third Temple and establishment of the biblical Land of Israel. I believe those in power, i.e. the rightwing Likudniks, understand that Israel is up against the clock. Due to demographic exigencies their time is running out, and if they don’t strike now to rid themselves of the Palestinian problem once and for all, they will never fulfill their messianic destiny.

There’s a variety of reasons for that, which would take an entire article to enumerate, such as the demographics issue I mentioned, as well as the fact that Israel’s chief benefactors of the U.S./U.K. are crumbling in power and influence, which will leave Israel to fend for itself in the future. In fact, I did explain most of this here and here, so you can consult those for more details. In particular, the first link goes into detail of the Christian-Zionist movement. So if you haven’t read that article yet, make sure you do as it answers your final question of how that movement ties into everything.

46.

Hi Simplicius, thanks for all you do!

Looking at Avdeevka, it seems to me that now roles reversed compared to "Spring-Summer Counter-Offensive" - Ukrainians are sitting in long-prepared defensive positions, Russians are attacking (and during counter-offensive roles were reversed), but it looks like Russians have managed to do what Ukrainians couldn't. What do you think is the key which seems to be allowing the Russians to open those doors? Is it a specific tactic, way they go about it, or the reasons are more strategic in nature (I know that there is a school of thought that battles are won and lost before the first shot even fired - by logictics, morale, high-level troops disposition, equipment, etc., and operational decisions basically only change the cost of result predetermined by the strategic situation).

I think some would take issue with the statement that Russia recently has done more than Ukraine. In the Avdeevka offensive Russia has captured something like 1.5km to 2.5km at the most, depending on direction, for instance as seen below, going from near Krasnogorovka, to the outskirts of Stepove:

Ukraine on the other hand, has gone upwards of 12km in depth, seen here from their starting position of Mala Tokmachka down to Verbove and Novoprokovoka area:

So, depending how you parse it out, I’m not sure you can say that Russia achieved what Ukraine couldn’t just yet—after all, Ukraine had 6 months of fighting, whereas Russia is only 2 months into their Avdeevka offensive thus far. They will, because Avdeevka will certainly fall. But as of this writing Ukraine has objectively captured more territory in their counteroffensive than Russia has in Avdeevka.

Of course if we count all Russian advances in the past two months, then it may very well be more because Russia has recaptured a lot of territory in every sector, from the Kharkov region to the Artyomovsk/Bakhmut region, as well as even the above Rabotino zone.

But the thing is, Russia has not launched any major decisive offensives to do that, other than Avdeevka. In every other area, they’re still just doing a very methodical slow-grind of opportunistic advances. I.e. where they see a weak hole or flank, they’ll attack it and take the position, but they won’t do a brute force “all in” charge with massive losses like Ukraine did on their counteroffensive.

But to get back to just the Avdeevka comparison you invoked, the only difference is that Ukraine took hugely disproportionate casualties in their brute force head-on charge method. In Avdeevka, while Russian losses are relatively serious, they are still inflicting far more losses on the enemy while advancing compared to what Ukraine inflicted when they advanced in Zaporozhye.

And why is that? Mostly the usual: Russia has air superiority and is able to pound fixed AFU positions in Avdeevka with huge 500kg Fab-500 bombs 24/7, as well as nonstop rotary wing attacks. We’ve seen many videos of Ka-52s and Mi-28Ns launching TV-guided LMUR missiles precisely at AFU strongholds in Avdeevka. There’s also a drone and artillery dominance.

Most importantly, since Avdeevka is a cauldron, the AFU positions are relatively fixed. Meaning, they aren’t able to do a standard echelon defense fallback tactic as Russia used in Zaporozhye. There, Russia would strategically cede land as the AFU advanced, slowly goring them through the gauntlet, attriting AFU forces little by little as they slogged through each prepared echelon. It’s like leading someone through a multi-stage trap very slowly while you comfortably back away.

In Avdeevka, the AFU doesn’t have this option because there’s no where to “retreat to” and no echelons to speak of, because they’re sitting in an enclosed boiler and basically have to just dance around and hope Russia’s firebag saturation doesn’t exterminate them.

But even given those disadvantages, their defense has been remarkable. Unlike the hubristic pro-UA accounts who gloss over everything, we must admit that the Avdeevka defenders have shown remarkable ability to stymy Russian advances. Even given all the advantages, Russian forces are not able to consistently create breakthroughs and are often pushed out of positions just as quickly as they take them. For instance, days ago they made new advances in Stepove, but then were again booted out by a fierce Ukrainian counter attack.

Additionally, evidence continues to suggest Ukraine is still able to use the MSR supply route, which means Russia has still not fully clamped it down with firecontrol.

As a last note, the one thing I’ll say Russia has been able to consistently achieve that Ukraine hasn’t is the thing which has facilitated all of its dominance, from Avdeevka to Bakhmut and other fights. That is the ability to consistently create cauldrons. Even in all the brutal Zaporozhye assaults, the AFU was not able to create a single meaningful cauldron on Russian forces, despite trying very valiantly.

For instance, in the ‘Vremevske ledge’ direction, they tried desperately to push down through Priyutnoe to encircle Russia’s entire line there, while simultaneously pushing on the opposite Urozhayne side:

But Russia identified this and made major defensive/reinforcement efforts on the left flank near Priyutnoe to make sure it didn’t fall.

So when Ukraine advances, they’ve exclusively created ‘salients’ where they themselves end up being encircled, like even on the Rabotino-Verbove line.

But when Russia advances, they manage to strategically shape the advances in such a way as to always effect semi-cauldrons on the AFU. If you examine many, if not most, of the hottest contact lines, you’ll note this odd repetition that Ukraine is always being threatened with a cauldron. For instance, not far from Avdeevka there’s been a hot zone near Novomikhailovka, and again Russian advances are encircling it in a semi-cauldron as they did with Avdeevka:

Just north of that, there’s a hot battle happening for Pervomaisk as we speak—and what do we see again?

And of course in Rabotino, Russia has led the AFU through the echelon defense tactic and let them fall into their own semi-cauldron by over-extending their salient:

When you examine the frontline over the course of the war, you notice this one recurring fact, which is that Russian commanders appear to really know how to exploit flank weaknesses to advance in precisely the tactical steps it takes to consistently envelop the enemy. This has been demonstrated time and again in all the major captures of the past, from back in the Debaltsevo cauldron of 2015:

To the Illovaisk cauldron of 2014, Rubizhnoe and Severodonetsk-Lisichansk, etc.:

I believe this to be the chief difference between the two sides’ capabilities. I’ve seen reports from Ukrainian frontline troops complaining how devastating of a “mistake” it was to let Russian forces capture Krasnogorovka near Avdeevka in early 2023. This was the first major step that allowed Russia to gain an opposing flank to begin the encirclement of Avdeevka we witness today.

I believe the difference lies in battlefield mentalities. Ukraine often operates on a very short-term mentality, jumping from one new gimmick to please their sponsors, to the next. Russia slowly develops and shapes the battlefield to their strategic advantage over the course of a long time. Like I said, they captured Krasnogorovka early this year knowing that it will be crucial for an eventual Avdeevka push much farther down the line. Russian command plans in terms of long term operational objectives, while Ukraine is forced to consign much of their planning to immediate exigencies only, partly because their entire operation relies on hand-to-mouth, day-to-day sponsorship from the West. It’s difficult or nigh impossible to plan for “long term” strategic depth maneuvers when you don’t even know what you’ll have a few months down the line. Russia has a consistently productive and developing manufacturing base so they’re able to marry the two concepts, which allows such future planning.

47.

Simplicius, how do those of us in the more "Russian realist" school of thought, that is, those of us who can see the absurdity of western propaganda, check ourselves to make sure we aren't believing fanciful things from pro- Russia sources that aren't truthful? What heuristics do you use? After awhile, I just stopped believing Konashenkov's briefings because it just seemed like propaganda, as are a lot of the more extreme reports of "mobile incinerators" and the like. How do we make sure we aren't falling prey to wishful thinking?

This naturally segues from the previous question where I sought to strike a balance on the Avdeevka situation.

I think the answer is multi-dimensional. There’s no one silver bullet for the issue of fortifying oneself from propaganda. I view it in terms of good and bad data, with the ‘emotional’ and sentimental aspect removed. You can develop sources of good data over a long period of time, knowing which are trustworthy based on repeated reliability or vice versa. I follow sources for whom I’ve developed a good bearing over time, with a sort of mental quotient that rates them on their reliability based on how scrupulous they’ve been over a long period in their information hygiene.

Of course the next pillar of this is performing large amounts of cross-referencing. Particularly if it’s a critical type of claim, we can never just take one source’s word on it, and must cross-reference the claims as much as possible, which includes from the Ukrainian side.

The next aspect is psychological. I feel you have to understand the psychologies of each level of people involved, to properly assess the information coming from them. An example of this is: there are many frontline reports from soldiers themselves which have to be filtered with a certain understanding that soldiers report things in a particular way, sometimes coloring it with euphemism or a supercharged chauvinistic hotbloodedness that could somewhat adulterate the report. Meanwhile, a higher up, like some press secretary, too has psychological dimensions that need to be understood, i.e. political pressures to report things a certain way, minimize certain ‘uncomfortable’ realities, etc.

In short, it takes true long term experience to develop an instinct for all of these things which begins to operate sort of autonomously, raising red flags when necessary.

Of course in the end, nothing beats sheer bruteforce amounts of data crunching. This is the one area where most analysts fail simply due to their understandable treatment of this space as a part time hobby, so they simply don’t have the time commitment to wade through the enormous amounts of data from every conceivable source, and thereby get a good feel for what’s being supported by various crosschecks and what’s more flimsy. I myself harvest much more of this ‘raw data’ than the average, and I feel this gives me a far more accurate picture of what’s really happening on the front. This includes following many Ukrainian and pro-Western sources and constantly observing things play out from their perspective.

Sure the top level pro-UA sources, like the famous personalities, figures, and propagandists are mostly worthless, but there are many insider sources of actual Ukrainian frontline accounts reporting things in a fairly pure and unadulterated way that helps put the full picture together. Some of these are internal chats between Ukrainian troops and their affiliates where they speak very frankly without any of the usual chestbeating ‘colorations’ for mass or pro-RF consumption.

Then lastly, when all else fails, I have my own personal sources on the ground which can often give me unique perspectives as well, depending on the frontline.

But as general advice for others, the most important things are to follow sources from both sides and don’t resign yourself to an information bubble or echochamber alone. It takes a lot of experience to develop the knowledge and instinct for separating good, reliable sources from bad ones, no matter the side they’re on. Also, to follow sources from at least three different levels of the hierarchy, i.e. soldiers on the ground, with direct first hand reportage. Then mid level and second hand reports from reliable correspondents and such. Finally cross-reference all that against the reports from the highest ‘official’ level sources, like your Konashenkovs and such.

48.

Things certainly appear to be grim for Ukraine, yet they continue to defend their lines or in the worst case retreat slightly. Our assumption is that Russia is waiting for the proper time to close the deal with a few well resourced offensives that finally tear a large enough hole in the lines to redefine the contest.

But we must admit that the other possibility is that the Russians have not done so because they are not able to do so.

Do you have a point in time or certain events in mind that would cause you to conclude that Russian offensive capabilities simply do not measure up to the hope of defeating and breaking the AFU

And the related question:

Hi ST this is a bit of a follow-up to some other questions here about the next phase of Russia v Ukraine. Most of the pro-Russia and alt media side of the coverage is in the “war is over and AFU is going to collapse in a few months” camp now. I view this as unrealistic wishful thinking. My base case is UFA capacity to attack has collapsed but defense capacity will remain for some time. Even when defensive capacity collapses, I don’t see a path to a rapid resolution given the mass psychosis that has apparently overtaken Ukrainian society and the reality that most Ukrainians see this as an existential conflict. For this reason, my base case is that Ukrainian resistance devolves into asymmetric warfare against Russia and drags on for years. Do you agree?

As to the first question, I certainly think it’s true that many are now underestimating Ukraine, after the recent rash of histrionic Western reporting that depicts the country on the brink of collapse. Much of this reporting is politicized for a specific purpose, partly because the MIC figures making billions off this war need their grift to carry on, and so it’s in their interest to exaggerate things.

On the other hand, I do think some of the cynics swing the pendulum too far the other way, and believe that Russia is completely stalemated and will never be able to breakthrough, totally ignoring the untold economic and societal damage that Ukraine as a state is incurring.

The thing is, though, is that it’s not a mere “possibility” that Russia is waiting because they “can’t break through”, it is a fact. Of course if they could have broken through, they would have already. Who wouldn’t want to end the war faster. But that doesn’t mean they won’t in the future once Ukraine weakens even more significantly.

But your question implies the possibility they’ll never be able to break through. On one hand, I think that is true in the sense that, if we were to imagine the battlefield solely as a one dimensional struggle of forces arrayed on the frontline itself. Russia has proven an inability to breakthrough in that case, because both sides are too evenly matched, with each one’s advantages being countered by the other’s asymmetric advantages. For instance, Ukraine has a total operational level ISR advantage due to having all the resources of NATO and 5 Eyes at its disposal, whose satellite fleets vastly outnumber just Russia’s alone. But Russia counters this with a tactical level ISR advantage in the preponderance of its frontline EW and drone overmatch, etc.

So, in an absolute vacuum, two such given forces would infact be stalemated indefinitely. However, this ignores the realities of all the other exigencies that happen away from just the frontline. Namely, I’m talking about logistics, economics, infrastructure, societal climate, and productive capacities, which relates to the economics.

Even if two sides are wailing on each other, inflicting equal losses, one side is bound to lose if they are unable to sustain the material losses as well as the other side. That’s where economics, supplies, and logistics comes into play. And in this case, for Ukraine, it all depends on how long its allies support it. If support dramatically drops then Ukraine simply will not be able to indefinitely survive because there will come a point whereupon they will simply run out of all heavy armor, amongst other things.

They may still have a good amount of armor left, let’s say 500-800 tanks and 800-1500 light armor units, but as high as this sounds, it’s still really only a year or so’s worth of attrition. Without massive new resupply, a year from now—at current attrition rates—Ukraine would be left with virtually nothing, and no way to defend itself from Russian advances. Russia on the other hand has roughly equalized its losses. I.e. the current track is anywhere between 600-900 tank losses per year (daily figure is 2-4), as an example, while production is 1000-1200+ and thus totally covers the losses.

Ukraine has gotten some stopgap measures in armor backfill, but each iterative tranche is of increasingly older and less viable offerings. For instance, they went from Leopard 2s, to now getting Leopard 1s from 1960 with completely inadequate armor and a puny 105mm gun that won’t even penetrate Russian tanks.

So while I do think ‘reports of Ukraine’s demise are premature’, there’s a high probability they won’t be able to survive past 2025, with even 2024 being 50/50, because the economics and logistics are simple realities that will begin to fail.

However, the second question brings up a good point. What if they’re able to dig in Vietcong-style, going full blown guerilla insurrectionist, even long after their equipment has run out. We can’t discount it completely—anything is possible, particularly in the western Ukrainian regions. Polls—at least those from the UA side—continue to allegedly show strong support for the AFU and the war amongst the Ukrainian society. So I don’t have particularly strong data to support the assertion that Ukraine wouldn’t continue fighting bitterly even in the face of total loss of support. After all, look at the Chechens. They didn’t have even a fraction of the funding or goodies that Ukraine enjoys from Western allies, yet they were able to fight bitterly for years against Russia.

We have to be realistic and assume that this is a possibility. Even the highest level Russian officials have admitted to this. For instance just yesterday one of Putin’s top siloviks, Naryshkin, said this to the U.S.:

You risk a second Vietnam ... Every new administration of the United States of America that comes will have to deal with the war in Ukraine.

Inherent to that statement is the clear implication that this war could last through several U.S. administrations. That means even top Russian officials envision this potentially lasting for years or decades. So who are we to dispute them, when they have far more access to real data concerning the conflict?

Earlier this year I myself predicted in several articles that this war could last 5-7 years or even more. It was only semi-recently, after the disastrous counteroffensive, that I began to see signs that maybe it could end by 2025, which is what I’ve been espousing recently.

Much of it will depend on what the political climate will be like in Europe, and even the U.S. toward the end of 2024 and onward. Did you know that 2024 is slated to be one of the most pivotal political years in history? It has the highest concentration of significant global elections of almost any other year:

2024 has 65 elections globally across 54 countries. We won’t see that many again until 2048. Integrity Institute fellow Katie Harbath and co-author Ana Khizanishvili share what these numbers from global elections tell us about the future of democracy.

That means there are potentials for huge shifts, particularly major surges of rightwing parties which could finally throw Ukraine under the bus. There’s a possibility Ukraine can have all support totally cut by early 2025, at which point it could be game over.

Of course it’s possible something big happens in Ukraine far earlier than that, like spring 2024. But that would most likely revolve around a potential shakeup in the leadership, like a coup, which does not necessarily mean the war would end, but rather begin a new phase. For instance, I had suggested last time that Zaluzhny could take power and merely orient Ukraine into an even greater defensive posture, doubling down on defense totally, and completely eschewing all goals of “1991 borders”. This would be a nightmare for Russia that could make the AFU even more intractable than it already is.

But let me say one final thing which addresses both questions, and gives a conclusive perspective.

Up to now, Russia has still continued to prosecute the war in a very soft-gloved approach, refusing to destroy Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure or even key transport routes. This implies Russia is quite confident of achieving its strategic goals without needing to go overboard, which further implies that Putin has simply calculated it out as a long term operation. This also includes generating massive strategic reserves of manpower without even using them on the war.

This is all to say that, Russia is using a fraction of its true potential, and theoretically could end the war much quicker if it really wanted to up the ante to a different style of warfare. This is merely to point out that, if in the future, Russia ever truly reached a level of frustration where it feels like it has been stalemated without an ability to breakthrough, Russia still has trump cards in its back pocket that it can use to escalate to a different scale and break the deadlock.

In short, Russia is fighting the war on level 2/5 or 3/5 because it feels this is a comfortable approach that still allows achievable results—thus why it calls it a ‘special military operation’ rather than a full blown war. But if it were to realize it’s not working, then Russia still has room to dial the intensity up to change the tenor of the conflict to ensure achievement of the stated objectives.

49.

Will you consider doing a major update on the artillery situation? Link to your past reports (and other sources) and give updates. Especially cover counter-battery. Also, production (and outside procurement) by Russia and the West of shells and especially barrels. Also hit on the mobility (or lack of) on both sides.

Stay tuned as this is one area I’ve actually been collecting data for a larger update in the near future, so yes that will come.

A couple things for now though, was this interesting report:

Ukrainian sources again complaining about Russian ammo production (this just from one plant). So according to this source, one plant alone will produce over 1,250,000 rounds.

In particular, for 2024, only at the facilities of one JSC “V.V. Bakhirev State Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering” (Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region) the following ammunition production is planned:

- 60 thousand units of 203 mm artillery ammunition (this is almost three times more than planned for 2023);

- 683.5 thousand units of 152 mm artillery shells (this is 18% more than planned for 2023);

- 270 thousand 125 mm tank rounds (an increase compared to this year it is almost 14%);

– 252.7 thousand 122 mm artillery shells (here the increase is insignificant – up to 5%).

In general, the Russian military command expects to receive from its military-industrial complex in 2024 almost a third more "freshly made" ammunition across their entire range than in 2023.

This is shocking if true, because this is but a fraction of Russia’s ammo production facilities. Just speaking about 152mm, the above institute is not even the main producer of those, as they are produced in Kirov region’s Selmash Zavod and Chelyabinsk’s Plastmass Zavod factories. This would mean, theoretically, that those main factories are producing even more. Let’s just say the main facilities can do double of this one, as a purely spitballed figure: 1.2M + 1.2M + 600k = would give us nearly the ~3M yearly 152mm shells which I myself have long theorized is somewhere in the general vicinity of what Russia likely produces.

However, there are potentially other factories that are producing 152mm, as well, such as the Tula plants. Some believe there are upwards of 8 Russian 152mm producers at this point, but it’s hard to be 100% certain.

We know that recently there were specific reports that in some zones like the Bakhmut region, Russian forces were given a greenlight to basically use ‘as much artillery ammo as they want’, with some Ukrainian troops reporting that they’re seeing the highest levels of artillery usage since the start of the war, in that theater. This would explain why some of Russia’s biggest advances in the past few weeks have been in this region.

For now, the Ukrainian situation is much less opaque. The U.S. has openly said they’ve now gotten up to 28k shells per month, which is 336k a year. Meanwhile, the EU has openly said that for the stated goal of the 1 year period, they’re on track to deliver 480k out of the promised 1 million shells. Thus together, this would signify 816k that is capable of being produced for Ukraine at the present time.

But. The major caveats are this:

The U.S. is now being forced to provide Israel with a lot of the shells, and Israel has openly stated they’re planning for this to be a one to two year long term operation. They just released a video of their M109s freely max-firing a load of shells, so we know they’re definitely expending them like skittles.

Secondly, despite all the bleated promises the EU is in fact cautiously slow-walking new shell orders:

Source

The above article implies part of the problem may be technical issues in not being able to ramp up as much as they claim to want. This video seems to confirm that angle, as a German report was ‘shocked’ at the outmoded artillery production conditions in a German plant:

Keep in mind this is the same problem plaguing the U.S.:

Source

A lack of machine tools is constraining the United State's ability to ramp up ammunition transfers to Ukraine, the Army's top weapons buyer said March 3. 

The timeline for acquiring new machine tools “are often the long poles in the tent on getting capacity increased,” said Douglas Bush, assistant Army secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology. “These machines are the size of buildings. You don’t just go buy it from a parking lot somewhere.”

Some people were shocked at the conditions of the U.S. shell plant in Scranton, with an aging workforce milling around in a dim, antiquated setting:

The Russian plants by comparison look much more modern and thriving:

As for counterbattery, the only update I have is one I already gave I think a couple weeks ago, which was that there was a specific report stating that Russia has greatly ramped up Zoopark radar production to something like 3x or 4x. Beyond that I haven’t heard too much on the production side. On the fighting side, complaints about counterbattery related incidents have dropped significantly, apart from the Kherson region where Russian units have complained of poor conditions in regard to that, as Ukraine has stationed a dense concentration of elite units with major artillery complements which Russia is not able to adequately counter there.

But everywhere else, due to the overreaching shell hunger Ukraine is currently experiencing, Russian forces are not having much problems with Ukrainian shelling. The biggest problem now that’s getting worse by the day, is the FPV problem. The AFU has now been leaning more heavily on FPV usage and they continue to inflict major losses on Russia on every front with FPV drones. Keep in mind, Russia likewise inflicts even bigger losses on them with FPVs, however this still doesn’t change the fact that FPVs are becoming an increasingly wider nightmare and the counters to them are struggling to keep up, as electronics units are not being rolled out quite as fast as needed to most units.

But stay tuned to this update also, as I am planning a much larger report in the near future on how drone warfare is evolving in the current battlefield.

As a quick note on barrels, check this guy’s account and posts, as he had some good—though pro-Western slanted—information, like also this. Here he states that, interestingly, Russia and the U.S. both use the identical Austrian GFM forging machine to build their artillery barrels. In U.S.’s case, the Watervliet Arsenal factory in Watervliet, NY, and the Russian Motovilikha factory which produces their artillery barrels and MLRS equipment:

Left is Russian, right American.

The Russian photo above is from Medvedev’s tour of the barrel factory:

50.

Dear SImplicius!

Again, my gratitude to you for your thoughtful and very informative analysis!

What are the chances, from your point of you, that USA will be able to gain ground with AI development and remain its, hegemonic position to dictate the terms within the West?

I definitely think there’s a fairly good chance of what you said, because the U.S. is certainly leading in that field, in some respects. The only question is by how much.

I often talk about human capital in regard to Russia in the area of AI. Many of the top AI researchers and developers in the world are Russian, for instance Ilya Sutskever the head of OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Igor Babuschskin head of Elon Musk’s AI team, chief developer of Grok, etc.

There are many aspects to approaching this question. For instance, do we mean AI hegemony via economic and market forces, or through military, or both. I say that because there are some hints that Russia is actually leading the race in AI development for military applications, but unlike in the West, it keeps things much more hushed up on this. China, it appeared, has been leading in drone swarm AI tech development for a while as well. If the two combine their powers and exchange information, they could potentially keep the U.S. AI hegemony you speak of in check.

But AI has so many components to it, for instance raw compute which requires server farms, as well as native semiconductor/chip manufacturing capabilities. In this the U.S. is ahead of most countries, as for example, U.S. has the largest server farms in the world. Russia and China have the human capital, though many of the best have famously brain-drained to the West, however there’s indications it’s starting to reverse, at least in China’s case. I’ve seen recent articles where top Chinese researchers are increasingly returning back to the mainland.

In the West, Russia is often portrayed as backwards and lagging behind in such ‘modern’ developments like AI, or anything that has to do with microcircuitry. However, Russia has ‘quietly’ kept up in many ways. For instance, its cities too are being filled with robot deliveries, though sometimes not so successfully:

And things of this nature:

⚡️⚡️⚡️Moscow hospitals have new employees: robot cats

They will deliver food and medicine to patients and accompany them to doctors.

You can also talk to them a little.⚡️⚡️⚡️

Not to mention Yandex has already had working self-driving cars for several years.

My point is simply that, I think Russia and China are in many respects keeping up with U.S. developments in AI, but it’s true they don’t have quite the density and thriving entrepreneurship of the infamous Palo Alto tech startup hub. In the U.S., the AI development is flourishing with hundreds of startups that crop up daily, making endless innovations, though most of them are powered by Russian/Chinese/Indian brain-drained human capital, as always.

However, much of this development centers around novelty and useless apps which won’t really contribute toward any sort of U.S. hegemony. The larger, more serious developments will be copied, more or less, in Russia and China, negating most of the advantages.

I think that while the dollar remains dominant for the next decade or two, U.S. will continue making the top breakthroughs, as it will remain the most attractive place for brain-drainers to head to, however it will be in places like China where those developments will be scaled up and instrumentalized into society far faster and more efficiently, thanks to the strengths of a command economy. This will likely trickle into Russia as the two grow ever closer over the years.

In short, I think there’s a chance U.S. can retain hegemony by dominating AI development, but there are also many, many factors which militate against the U.S. sustaining such dominance. The only thing I can imagine that would ensure it would be if the U.S. broke through to true AGI/ASI and singularity level AIs which are then able to quickly solve the various social issues plaguing the U.S. For instance, in a very short time period, creating vast self-replicating AI factories that could churn out endless synthetic food as well as housing, rapidly building vast utopian cities where people live for free, creating instant UBI for the tens of millions of impoverished Americans, etc.

If something like that were to happen and the U.S. instantly solved all of its social ills, it could perhaps remain as a strong globe leading nation. But barring that—which is unlikely anytime soon—the U.S. has a high chance of collapsing into increasing social disorder and political instability that will all but ensure its inability to sustain global hegemony, the reigns of which China will then take.

51.

And on that note:

Lets say you were someone who just wanted to escape the clutches of the dying AngloZionist empire, i.e. avoid the accelerating cultural, societal, spiritual and financial decline and perversion and the surge in enforced control of citizens. What would be your favorite place to move to, and why? To which extent are you weary of the possibility that the forces that destroyed the west will also grow in that new favorite place, and that lockdowns, enforced medication, cashless cbdc's and face recognition & monitoring will ultimately prevail anyway?

I’ve gotten this question before, and my answer remains probably Russia or China, depending on your particular preferences for climate, culture, food, and various other things.

Those are the main choices, however, I do think there are some valid secondary ones where you can lead a pretty good life without much of the West’s cultural encroachment touching you, but are simply not as developed of a nation. Places like Vietnam, for instance. I would say maybe some of the other southeast Asian countries as well, I’m just personally not as familiar with them. But there are many Western ‘dissidents’ who live happily in places like Thailand as well.

I think Belarus, Serbia, or even Poland appear to be decent places where I know anti-Western type people who’ve moved there and enjoyed the insulation against some of the more egregious cultural encroachments.

But primarily if you’re from a “1st world” style Western nation, the places I’d recommend most strongly are probably Russia and China, with Russia being foremost if you’re from U.S./Europe, as Russians and their culture are ultimately not very dissimilar once you get down to it. Besides the spiritual sickness you’ll be leaving behind, you’ll fit in far more quickly and naturally.

Of course the biggest fear is that either of those countries may succumb to the same WEF-style totalitarianism as you suggested. There’s a lot of grist out there about China’s putative ‘social credit systems’ and CBDCs and all that kind of stuff, most of which is completely fake or wildly exaggerated.

There are some concerns about those things, of course, with every nation slowly adopting digital currencies and still having open connections to Western institutions like the IMF or WEF. But I’ve covered those things in detail before, and have shown—as far as Russia is concerned—there are many nuances to it. I feel pretty confident that Russia will not succumb to the most egregious of Western impulses in the sphere of finance, health, etc. Russia has shown an elasticity lacking in the West, where many measures that are initially taken, are quickly repealed when the populace responds negatively to them.

Either way, whatever risks there may be, they are low compared to the risks in the West.

52.

Hi Simp,

This is an old article, I was wondering if you could comment on whether it is true that patriarch kirill wore a super expensive watch that was air brushed back in 2012?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-22/meet-patriarch-kirill-orthodox-church-leader-and-putin-ally/101858322

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17622820

I'm asking this question because in my conversation with Russian peaceniks, this was one issue came up.

The theme being that the corruption of the 90s hasn't gone away and found its way to the Russian orthodox church. Even worse, a lot of the info published in Russian media cannot be believed - ie people are editing info to make their leaders look good.

Would be great if there are alternate sources to prove that the golden watch story was untrue...

I suppose an even bigger question would be how much of we read is true? Between corporate captured media, dis information, moneypolitics , the pace of life and AI... I'm not sure if ordinary people really have the capacity to handle it all.

It’s probably true, at least from a cursory search I’ve seen he reportedly even admitted to owning the watch, but not wearing it with his ‘official attire.’

However this is an almost elementary sort of occurrence that does nothing whatsoever to prove or disprove any putative ‘corruption’ anywhere. Most grownups understand what human nature is like, and that the stories we’re told as children about the purity of certain classes of people are not to be believed, whether it’s the religious class or some other class of ‘morale standing.’ So this should come as no surprise, as it’s exceedingly common, and therefore a fairly jejune occurrence.

I can see it only making a big splash to some very religiously credulous people who idolize their leading spiritual figures to a fault, but to the rest of us it’s commonplace.

Does it mean that Russia is as corrupt as the 90s because the Patriarch has an expensive watch that someone likely gifted him? No, it has no connection whatsoever. Surely, Russia like every other nation is not perfect and has tons of corruption. No nation will ever be totally without corruption—this is a physical impossibility.

The question is, does it compare to the corruption of before? And it’s very easy to see that it doesn’t. Also, does it compare to the corruption in the West? Even just on a religious basis, I think sporting a watch pales in comparison to the horrifying scandals that Western religious institutions have been, and continue to be, embroiled in. So it’s not about framing it as: “Is Russia an absolutely pure utopia” but rather “Is Russia less corrupt than the West.”

You said a lot of info published in Russian media can’t be believed—in relation to what? So media can’t be trusted, that’s nothing new. But Russian media is infinitely more trustworthy than the completely captured and compromised media organizations in the West. Also, who in their right mind would get their information from “media” to begin with? I would never recommend for someone to do that. In today’s day and age, legacy media has been totally obsoleted by direct reporting from first hand and primary sources.

Also, depending on which media you are referring to—for instance, visual media like that which plays on TV or in talk shows is susceptible to various forms of sensationalizing and propaganda because this format is filled with “personalities” and “figures”—like for instance Margarita Simonyan, etc.—who feel it their duty to make things more about them than the actual truth.

But the one key difference between Russia and U.S. in the regard of ‘news’, is that Russia actually still maintains traditional legacy news organizations of the print variety, which actually neutrally print objective facts, rather than “opinions” dressed as Opeds, editorials, and various “guest columns”. In the U.S., real ‘journalism’ has completely ceased to exist in any print media. Open any CNN or BBC column, and you’re bound to see nothing but unsourced opinion jammed into every paragraph.

Russia on the other hand still maintains very unbiased print organizations like Tass, Izvestia, Ria Novosti, and various others, where you can go just to read the basic facts of what transpired, with zero “personality” or opinion injected into it from the author. Westerners not familiar with real Russian news may not know about these, because they’re used to RT and Sputnik. But the reality is, RT and Sputnik are not real Russian news, those are just dumbed down comic-level sites made for Westerners. No one in Russia reads RT or Sputnik.

In short: journalism is dead in the West, it has transformed completely into “activism” or “activist journalism”—but at least Russia still has some semblance of it on the print side. As far as the priests go, was wearing an expensive watch a naughty act? Maybe. Is it as naughty as 4% of all priests, amounting to 4000+ of them, in the U.S. having abuse claims against them?

Probably not.

Is it as naughty as Western churches turning into LGBT activist temples, etc.?

Well, you decide.

53.

Hi Simplicius,

How do you see the trajectory of Armenia at this time and what can be done to reverse the pro-West orientation of the country ?

That’s a very difficult question because there simply appears to be no real political will within Armenia to change the situation much. We all know the current trajectory appears well planned out and executed by the West to a ‘t’. The entire conflict appeared designed precisely to blame Russia and integrate Armenia with the West, which is quickly being done as the U.S. and France instantly swooped in to begin making arms deals in the wake of Azerbaijan’s victory. Britain joined in with a defense cooperation memorandum signed with Armenia, as well as USAID and Samantha Power flocking in to spread the anti-Russian narrative through society via her NGO network.

Armenia’s next election is far off, I believe 2026, so there’s no light at the end of the tunnel there. The only somewhat good news is the recent Western defense pushes have angered Aliyev and soured relations with Azerbaijan, but this doesn’t necessarily have any immediate positive effects for Armenia.

I’m not sure how it will be possible to repair the Armenian situation. Their second place political party appears more pro-Russian but lost something like 21% to 51%+ in the last elections, and so is not really that close in popularity to Pashinyan’s party.

To be honest, I have no idea how his party remains so ‘popular’ or what it is they do or promise to the Armenian people to win the election. I know the opposition claimed heavy election fraud, and maybe that’s the real reason why Pashinyan won. He seems like another devious figure like Zelensky, promising one thing then delivering the opposite.

Unfortunately, the way I see it is this:

1. Russia has its hands so busy with the Ukraine conflict that it will have minimal time and energy to focus on Armenia, which already explains much of the lackluster and seemingly ‘passive/reactive’ focus there, even during the NK/Artsakh conflict.

2. The elections are very far off, which gives Pashinyan a long time to continue shifting his country to the West.

3. Iran is likewise embroiled in an existential conflict, as the country is central to everything currently going on in Israel, with giant U.S. carrier group armadas currently positioning themselves all around Iran for a potential attack. Thus Iran too cannot spare any stabilizing attention to the Armenia situation.

These things combined unfortunately result in Armenia fending for itself, something it can’t do when its own leadership has been “compromised” and is “opening the gates to the city” for the enemy, so to speak.

The only positive development is that Azerbaijan’s relationship with the U.S. seems to have worsened, but again, this doesn’t really redound positively on Armenia, per se.

Ultimately, I don’t think too much can be done now simply because as explained, the key players have their hands tied with such existential conflicts of their own. That being said, I likewise don’t necessarily see the Armenia situation getting disproportionately worse, simply because everyone is trying to find balances to an extent, and the West is careful to not “over-correct” the situation too much. For instance, they could end up with a situation where Azerbaijan is conversely thrown into Russia’s sphere even much more so, which would be a far more devastating development for the West than Armenia being on Russia’s side, since Armenia doesn’t quite have any major strategic things to offer in the way Azerbaijan does with its Caspian treasures.

So I think the West will tiptoe around carefully to make sure Russia has as little influence as possible in Armenia, but they won’t go overboard into trying to turn it into some Ukraine-like redoubt of Russophobia, because ideally they want to have both Armenia and Azerbaijan on their side, so they can fiddle with the gas pipelines and cut Russia out of the gas market.

Apart from that, I don’t see much immediate ‘hope’ for the Armenian situation.

54.

I was wondering about the campaign of assassinations/sabotage by Ukrainian intelligence/special forces inside Russia which seems to have had some success. Why hasn't Russia been able to prevent more of these attacks and is it possible that the SAS or US special forces might actually be responsible for some of them?

As to the second question about SAS, etc., no simply because the operations weren’t sophisticated enough to require anything special outside of what Ukraine can accomplish themselves. The main reason for that is these hits aren’t on any high profile figures. They’re just murders of low level civilians that any vagrant with a rusty shank can do—you don’t need some exotic organization to achieve that.

This premises my answer to why Russia can’t stop them. Because such attacks are unstoppable, anywhere, by any country. Like I said, these are just murders in the streets of regular civilians—how would Russia be able to stop that? It’s not like Russia is “guarding” these people, or has been tasked with providing some type of security detail to them. If that was the case, then you could genuinely fault Russia with having ‘failed’ to stop someone’s murder under their watch. But these people aren’t under any sort of special guardianship at all, so why would Russia be able to stop their murder?

Presuming that we’re talking about the same people here, which is notably—off the top of my head—personalities like Daria Dugina, Vladlen Tatarsky, and lately Ilya Kiva. These are low level civilians with no type of official protection. You can go to any major country or city in the world and easily commit a murder of a civilian walking around in a park, it happens every day. But name me which high-profile protected figures the SBU was able to take out in Russia? The only one even remotely coming close to that was the Russian “Black Sea Fleet commander” they killed while he was jogging, and it turned out afterwards that he wasn’t even active duty, and thus was just a normal civilian no longer in service.

So that’s my answer. Low level civilians can be taken out by anyone in any city on the planet. They aren’t under any special guard, nor is any special protective service or agency tasked with watching them or making sure no harm comes to them. I know some of these people may appear high profile to you because they were public figures to some extent, but in the eyes of the Russian state, they are just low level civilians. Daria Dugina is just a daughter of some guy with 100k Twitter followers, in the eyes of the state she’s no one special. Vladlen Tatarsky was just a blogger who had a big following, but what does that matter? Does the secret service protect bloggers? I guarantee you any blogger in New York or London can be taken out just as easily if you really wanted to—there’s no one protecting them.

The only point of contention you can make is why Russian investigators aren’t able to catch the culprits in some of the cases. In Vladlen’s case they did, in fact she was just sentenced a week or two ago in a Russian court, from what I recall.

The ex-submarine commander killed in Krasnodar—the killer was also captured. Ukraine has targeted many high profile officials in Russia including Putin himself, and has not been able to succeed in eliminating any of them.

So in the end, as I said, Ukraine has not been able to hit any target actually protected by the state—at least to my knowledge—thus they’re forced to target vulnerable civilians with followings for cheap propaganda gimmick victories.

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