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here. As many of you may know, I find the shift of commentary from articles, blogs, and social media to YouTube and podcasts to be frustrating, since it’s extremely difficult to find exactly what one might have heard again, meaning both the original source (program, speaker, date) and what exactly they said compared to written sources. However, we are republishing an important YouTube discussion between Glenn Diesen and German journalist/best selling author Patrick Baab. Baab lays out a persuasive case as to how many critically-placed European decision-makers are driving towards a full-scale war with Russia, and due to deep personal investment and bad career incentives, will only press more aggressively forward as Russia progresses towards whatever flavor of Ukraine conquest it decides to implement.
Yours truly has warned from the outset that Russia could win the war but lose the peace. We had also consistently pointed out that there would be no negotiated end to the war, since there was no bargaining overlap between the Russian and Ukraine/Western positions. We held to that view during the Trump attempts to come to an agreement with Russia over the heads of Ukraine and NATO by pointing out that Ukraine and the Europeans had agency. One must add that domestic and military-industrial complex support of the conflict was sufficiently high that Trump could not pull the lever that might have brought Ukraine, and reluctantly, the Europeans to heel, which would be to end all intel support, including, critically, satellite information and US assistance in targeting, which is required for many US and NATO weapons platforms (aside from setting off a political firestorm, Trump could also have run into non-compliance, recall the military defying his orders in Trump 1.0 to exit Afghanistan).
We had assumed that “losing the peace” might amount to a sustained effort at terrorism, both in Russia and parts of Ukraine that Russia occupied (and presumably incorporated into Russia, but Russia may attempt to set up a neutral state of some sort in Western Ukraine that gets more sovereignity over time; the treatment of Germany after World War II is a precedent). John Mearsheimer, however, has been pointing out for a while that even after the Ukraine war was resolved, that the West had plenty of flash points where it could stir up low-level conflicts, with the intent of imposing continuing costs on Russia, such as Kaliningrad and Transnistria.
But what Baab describes below is more dire, and also more consistent with the current direction of travel, which is a hot war with Russia. Consistent with his analysis, just now, the Guardian posted a new piece, Britain may already be at war with Russia, former head of MI5 says, which contends that it is Russia that is “at war” with the UK due to alleged hostile acts perpetrated by Russia, such as cyberattacks.
However, Baab does not fully connect the dots he sets forth below, perhaps because he’s not yet ready to make what might be depicted as a hyperbolic call (you will see that Baab is exceedingly measured). If one does, the risk of a hot war looks far more imminent, in no small measure due to what both Russian and some US officials have called the Estoniazation of Germany (as to some degree the rest of Europe, which is the batshit hysteric belief that Russia fully intends to go beyond Ukraine and take more European territory.
Baab stresses the dire budget condition of Europe and even Germany due to how it handled its post-financial crisis bank rescues, and that the result is governments are even more hostage to financiers than before. He points out how Europe and the moneymen need more “collateral” and point to the mineral and agricultural wealth of Ukraine as a potential source now no longer available to them. He also points out that Germany is making what looks like unaffordable commitments to funding Ukraine and to a military buildup.
What he largely skips over is the frozen Russian assets, of which over $200 billion are in Euros and hence in Euroclear. Even though many EU leaders have been scheming to get their hands on them, their latest too-clever idea would require them to be confiscated via a transfer out of Euroclear. Euroclear is in Belgium and Belgium has been howling no way, no how, that this would be the end of anyone trusting European financial institutions as a place to keep deposits and investments.
Now what would provide for a legal justification for an asset grab that even Euroclear might not be able to stare down? A bona fide hot war with Russia. There is ample precedent for seizing the extraterritorial assets of belligerent states and their nationals.
And Baab gives an obvious trigger below: the West closing Baltic airspace to Russia. We had warned in the runup to the 2016 election that Hillary Clinton’s promise to declare a no-fly zone in Syria amounted to a commitment to initiate a hot war with Russia, since Russia would not accept that restriction. If you think Russia would sit pat with EU states trying to prevent its use of Baltic airspace, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Baab does stress that the German military is highly cognizant of the fact that is it in no position to take on Russia, and pols similarly accept that it would take years of rearmament, recruiting/conscription, and training. However, the level of official and press screeching over alleged Russia drone and aircraft trespasses into NATO members’ airspaces, none of which hold up well to scrutiny, intended to rope the US back into recommitting to Project Ukraine, are in danger of assuming a life of their own. Things are so out of control that three officials from NATO states, the UK, France, and Germany, went to Moscow to threaten that they might shoot down Russian jets that encroached on member state airspace and was backed by Trump, leading to a tart Russian response. From Anadolu Agency:
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that statements by Western leaders about shooting down Russian aircraft are “reckless” and could have “dangerous consequences.”
“Statements about shooting down Russian planes are, at the very least, reckless, irresponsible, and, of course, dangerous in their consequences,” Peskov told a journalist in Moscow.
The remarks came after US President Donald Trump suggested NATO should shoot down Russian jets if they entered the airspace of alliance members during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York.
Russian Ambassador to France Alexei Meshkov earlier warned that such a move by NATO would “mean war.” He had claimed Western countries have not provided “tangible proof” of Russia’s involvement in alleged airspace violations.
“You know, there are many NATO aircraft that violate Russian airspace … it happens quite often … (but) they are not shot down,” Meshkov said, stressing that Moscow “categorically denies” the accusations.
So this version of “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” is risking nuclear war. Every scenario of a hot war between the US and Russia ends that way.
We have extracted key quotes from Raab and put them beneath the video. I hope you can listen to it in full.
By Glenn Diesen. Originally published at his YouTube channel
My hypothesis is Western elites, especially Western European elites, are heading for war. They want to drive their own countries into a fullscale war with Russia. They let their countries into a dead end street and they they are unable to make a U-turn right now.
So I’d like to substantiate that in terms of economic, political, cultural, psychological and military reasons and all these reasons and tendencies convene in a single direction the direction to war. It’s a simple conclusion but resulting from a complex assessment.
So I want to make sure from my point of view elites are not defined by their intellectual quality or superiority superiority but only by access to power and one-way street means there is no way back with these elites. they must be replaced by the people and have to I have to go a bit deeper into the economic history especially of Germany..
The Europeans overstretched their budgets to win the war and now their own countries are in economic decline and they are left with a pile of debt. And so the last point is Chancellor Merz proposed to give a loan of 140 billion euros to Ukraine as military aid and to use the frozen Russian assets as collateral and this will have two consequences….
I think they hope to continue with this war and to widen the war, to extend this war, for example, for the Baltic region by provoking the Russians. and they hope that in 5 to 10 years they are strong enough to bring Russia to its knees. The whole thing is about unbalancing Russia because they need no collateral. First of all, the Ukraine minerals as collateral, the black soil, for example, rare earth, , and then to unbalance Russia to bring Russia again into the capitalistic circle of the EU and the so-called collective west. I think this is the background. And currently NATO is escalating. The so-called drone attack in Poland seems to be a false flag operation by Ukraine. Not a single drone was equipped with a warhead. No damage. The Polish army was warned by Belarus. It that’s a complete fake. And the origins of the drones observed over Denmark is still unclear. And the so-called airspace violation near Estonia resulted from the expansion of the airspace by Estonia and was absolutely no attack. And the rules of air policing are very clear at that point. You have to communicate with Moscow and to clear the situation. And there is no reason to shoot down Russian fighter jets.
But NATO is escalating by manipulating the public in the EU countries. And this is a form of cognitive warfare. The Europeans will force Trump to align with their escalating cause against Russia and they want to impose Russia a difficult decision. Either accept the closure of airspace over the Baltic Sea or retaliate militarily and that means fullcale war in Europe. And they hope that this war will not end into a nuclear war.
But this is in the hand of Moscow. and not in the hand of the Europeans. This is a is a Russian decision. And this shows the miscalculation of Russian military and economic power by NATO states. All this shows how desperate NATO is. They fear to lose the war and they are trying to expand the war and to open up new battlefields, for example, over the Baltic Sea to force Russia splitting up its military forces….
We are facing many years of war and the war will go on and go on. I don’t see that Mr. Trump will come to a peace solution. They are negotiating. But for the United States, it is very very good if the European politicians,
their European vessels will bring the American war forward because they are making money with that. They are selling weapons and they’re making big profits.And America is 6,000 kilometers away over the ocean. And it in America it doesn’t matter so much if more countries in Europe will be destroyed.
I’m not sure Europe has 5-10 years of this direction of travel left in it. The war is likely to continue throughout 2026 as there is no force pushing to end it. Yet Russia has set itself for a long war of attrition (once initial peace talks collapsed) and has natural resources, low debt levels, large reserves, good allies and a population onside (as Babb notes). Europe has none of these.
Of the three, Russia, Ukraine and Europe I’d say its now a toss up between the latter two as to which will implode first.
If Starmer goes on TV and tells the British that he has been talking with his mates Macron & Merz and they all agree that it would be a brilliant idea to all go to war against Russia, then assuredly it will be Europe that would implode first.
If the US does stop contributing financially to Ukraine and it is left to Europe the 140 billions Zelensky is asking for a single year is what is turning the Europeans to look at the Russian assets. Here a direct conflict might be the only “reason” to go for the full confiscation and deliver to Ukraine as stated. And this might exactly be what some are looking for. Downing a Russian jet and expecting a heavy handed reply by Russia, then a confiscation? There is an obvious public campaign though I haven’t seen any recent direct poll on whether NATO countries should participate directly in the conflict which suggests that public opinion is not in favour despite the campaign. Whether the idiots in charge want to try to cross the red line i really have not any idea. They are real idiots lacking any capacity to consider the only sensible alternative. Do these idiots believe that downing a Russian jet, if they are able to try and manage to do it, this will reduce Russian resolve?
Russia could loose the peace? I don’t worry about that. Europe can loose the war, the peace and everything with these idiots and this worries me very much. I really hope this is only bluff.
Today I have read, in Spanish, that Ukrainians are offered 52.000€/year to fight Russia. We want to seize the money for meat against Russia.
Ignacio: Indeed.
To quote Yves Smith (and then, like you, to be skeptical): “Yours truly has warned from the outset that Russia could win the war but lose the peace.”
Today’s Fatto Quotidiano has on its first page the headline, “Zelensky is puffing up fake news to drag Italy into war.” That’s today’s main article.
Above the fold is a kicker for an another set of articles inside casting doubt on the way the elections in Moldavia are playing out: If the wrong parties win, the EU wants the option of annulling the vote.
Observations:
—We are seeing a North / PIIGS split. Italy and Spain are more focused on the Global Sumud Flotilla, which is producing major demonstrations of support throughout Italy. Greece somewhat less so. None of these countries is interested in a war with Russia.
—As Alessandro Orsini (arch-putinist in the eyes of the bourgeois-thinking Corriere della Sera) keeps pointing out, Russia will not attack Italy. No country would attack Italy. Am I to fear an invasion from Switzerland?
—Meanwhile, in the article in FQ about that big headline, Zelensky claims that Russian drones are going to show up in Italy. Sure they are. To pick up pizzas and take them back to Pskov, ne.
—The violation of Estonia airspace didn’t happen, as indicated in the article above.
—The drone swarms in Denmark seem to be domestic. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
—I read a report that the drones that landed in Poland had SIM cards from Sweden and other Western countries. I have yet to corroborate that report.
The Northern European elites are desperate to cling to power, and losing the war and the peace don’t matter to them, so long as they can continue to loot their countries. USanians: Think of Hillary Clinton.
In Northern Europe you have a lot of overweening bourgeois who think that a war is an amusing little dustup with a basket of deplorables and that war won’t ever involve slaughtering bourgeois families. I have news for them.
Re the Swedish and other Western SIM cards, I recall this was reported by Col. McGregor on one of his YT interviews with Mario Nawfal which was linked on NC a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKd56gjn2k
At the end of the video (I finally got there) Baab tries to answer Diesen’s questions about what will happen, partly quoted above, that really got me thinking along a different line.
Like we’ve been saying, it sorta looks like bluff to get Trump back in the game. In other words, it’s the next move in desperate coalition-maintenance through escalation. This has been going on for years already including the pattern of Biden first refusing and then later agreeing under pressure to each new class of weapon. This can go on and on but there must be an end. Sooner or later something will change.
– Baab said he expects the EU to fall apart.
– DJG described today again the re-emerging north-south divide in Europe.
– The cartel political parties are going totalitarian to prevent their own electoral defeat by populists that question if war with Russia is a national interest.
– Trump wants out, he just needs a place to squarely lay the blame (and control of his own bureaucracies).
– Russia’s resolve seems to be holding, it has weapon production and other military advantages, and strengthening international relations.
– I surmise that the longer the ground war in Ukraine inches along (as GM describes below) the greater the stress on the Western coalition.
– Whenever there’s bad news, Euro leaders suddenly hold summit meetings showing their fear and inability to control matters.
Coalition-maintenance through escalation might end in nuclear war. Or it can end in humiliation and collapse of the alliance. NATO’s internal political weakness represents hope. Maybe engineering more mutual finger pointing among Western leaders should be our political tactic.
So whether it’s a bluff or not is just today’s question. If it turns out to be we’ll still have to face the same question in a new package again tomorrow and every day until something changes.
I don’t think they are interested on escalation to direct conflict. It is obvious they shouldn’t. May be the current objective is to find justifications to confiscate the Russian funds and use them to keep the war going. “For as long as it takes”. This is the only strategy they know about. Yes, they will face the same question later but in the meantime they will try their best to shift blame to others. Those who didn’t compromise so much.
It is hysteric and self-inflicted indeed, but in the era of long-range PGMs, this is a bit of a self-fulfilling statement.
Look at what is happening in Ukraine — as long as any part of Ukraine is not under Russian control, missiles and drones will be lobbed into Russia from there. Thus Russia has no other choice but to take the whole of Ukraine in order to stop that.
The Kremlin stubbornly refuses to accept this self-evident reality for four years now, because the Kremlin works in the interest of the Russian oligarchy, not the Russian people, and the Russian oligarchy will be hurt in various ways by the effort to recover Ukraine, so they are successfully vetoing it for more than a decade now as they are still more powerful than the military. But that is not in way a good argument to accept missiles and drones being lobbed daily increasingly deep into Russia indefinitely.
That simply cannot be tolerated.
Now let’s say the Europeans fulfill their dream of becoming the next Ukraine and start shooting at Russia directly. How are you going to stop that? Well, you fire some conventional missiles at them. Are they going to stop after that? No, they won’t, these people are insane, they will double down.
So you will have the same situation as with Ukraine — as long as those people who want to lob missiles at you occupy a piece of land from which they can do it, you will have missiles lobbed at you.
The only real solution is to make those people disappear and to have the territory under control.
Russia used to understand this. That is how it took possession of what is now the southeast of Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and of Central Asia — slave raids were constant, eventually they were stopped by totally defeating the slave raiders and taking over their territory. But while the slave raiders could get quite far north, they did so only every few years, and they didn’t have long-range missiles and drones. It’s actually a much more acute situation now.
The question then is about what military-technical means are to be used and how exactly.
Unfortunately it is not possible for Russia to solve this problem conventionally, because of small drones having made rapid advances impossible. The same s**t show you have been watching in Ukraine for three years now with small drones taking out everything that moves and resulting in advances being measured in one village per week in any given direction in the best of times will be easily replicated everywhere else. It doesn’t take much. Even WWII-level strategic bombing, which is not an option these days because of air defense having made heavy bomber runs simply impossible, did not result in the defeat of the Germany, it took the Red Army actually going there in person, and suffering horrendous casualties. But this isn’t Russia with the youth bulge of the early 20th century, it is half the size and demographically depressed. And, again, drones.
Thus there is no other solution than resorting to nukes. Which brings us to:
That assessment is true if you are talking about launching a large-scale conventional attack on Russia.
However, there is a much more sinister scenario here — if the assigned role of Europeans is to be the next kamikazes after Ukraine, then all that is needed is to make sure Russia cannot nuke them. After that they can continue to lob conventional missiles and drones into Russia and there won’t be much Russia can do about it other than sending some missiles and drones in the opposite direction, but a quick and decisive victory will be impossible. Sure, Europe will suffer greatly too, but who cares? Its assigned role is to be a kamikaze, the important thing is that Russia will be weakened and eventually destroyed.
For that scenario to be realized, Germany, Poland, Sweden and a few others have to develop their own nukes. Which they do have the capacity to do, fairly quickly too, and, because only Russia is the target, they won’t have to spend all that much time on developing delivery systems. ICBMs are hard, but they won’t need ICBMs, all they need is some short-range missiles to threaten Moscow and St. Petersburg, and deterrence will be established. It will be like Pakistan with India — Pakistan’s role is not to be a full-fledged nuclear power, but to keep India in check (which is why it doesn’t have ICBMs, but only missiles with fairly short range).
Then they are free to strike at Russia conventionally ensuring the degradation spiral of Russian economic and military potential.
Which in turn means that Russia has to strike now.
It missed multiple windows of opportunity to deal decisively with the Ukraine problem, and we see the consequences of that now.
Missing this window of opportunity too may mean the end of Russia.
At which point we’ll be able to note the eschatological irony that the German Greens will have successfully ended Germany’s ear of nuclear power and begun its era as a nuclear power.
Europe still has an estimated 650,000 former Ukrainian males within its border. Ready to be forced out of their host countries and into re-building the Ukrainian military when the time is appropriate.
I don’t think long range shooting drone/missile war with Russia would go well for EU. Russia has clear over match here, so EU would sustain far more damage. Just for the start, Russia could threaten tankers (see Yemenis) and pronto, EU is without oil & gas. And then what? All Putin has to do is manage the PR part and make it absolutely clear it is the EU politicians who are driving Europe into war and peace is possible on favorable terms for euro population. In other words he should absolutely avoid unilateral escalations and rather be seen as acting timidly.
You are severely overestimating how much damage conventional munitions do and the production capacity for ballistic and cruise missiles while seriously underestimating how large Europe is and how many such targets there.
You also missed the point about Europe’s assigned role being that of a kamikaze. In which case it being wrecked doesn’t matter. What it matters is that it keeps sending missiles and drones deep into Russia.
Notice how the Houthis are in one of the poorest countries in the world, i.e. they have no econony, but they do send a ballistic missile towards Israel almost daily.
Now consider the starting point of Europe compared to where the Houthis are now.
P.S. More generally, people seriously don’t understand what the game is here. It is to grab Russia’s resources so that they can be used by the right people for as long as possible. And a large part of Europe does not really enter in the category of “the right people”. They think they do, but they are fooling themselves. Thus Europe getting wrecked while destroying Russia is not only acceptable, it is even desirable. Consumption of resources will decrease as a result, i.e. there is more left for those who truly matter.
In fact, even Russia nuking Europe and putting an end to this, which they will have to do if they want to survive, is not an unacceptable scenario. It is more like Plan C or D, but that does take half a billion mouths consuming a lot currently off the table while it unties the US’s hands to use nukes in a strategic way openly (not just using small ones here and there covertly) to solve its problems elsewhere.
And once they have done that (e.g. in Iran), they will be in a position to finish off Russia anyway.
You agree with the Yemeni example, yet for some reason seem to think only EU will be shooting (?). Obviously Europe can easily block St. Petersburg port, the point is that Russia is using it to export fossil fuels, so they will not run out of oil/gas while the reverse is true for EU. Also I would thought it’s commonly accepted that Russia vastly outproduces the whole NATO in military gear and it’s particularly pronounced in missiles and drones. For example they are producing something like 3000 Gerans per month, compared with zero of any equivalent for NATO. So not sure what I’m over/under estimating.
I don’t doubt some in US upper echelons want Europe to self-destruct at the Russia altar, but that doesn’t automatically mean it will happen. While Ukraine couldn’t escape that fate, for example Georgia did. So Washington is not omnipotent. I think you are overestimating the desire of Europe population to drop their living standards to the Yemeni level just because someone in Washington wants to indefinitely lob couple of missiles per day into Russia at random for fun & profit, and doesn’t care said population will receive ten times missiles/drones in return. That is unless Putin takes your advice and starts directly bombing EU countries unprompted (wait, weren’t you saying missiles/drones are not very ineffective and EU can eat them ad infinitum?), then that calculation will change.
Again there is an asymmetry here — the kamikaze is there to weaken the target (Russia), while Russia has to defeat it totally in order to make the problem go away.
The former can be done while lobbing conventional PGMs, the latter cannot.
Also, Russia is not going to be able to launch thousands of Gerans while repelling the NATO air raids for very long, the first thing that will be hit with Tomahawks is Alabuga, then the various Almaz-Antey and Rostec plants making air defense missiles
The EU has got itself in quite a bind. Was listening to the latest episode of the War Nerd podcast and the guest, Ben Aris, mentioned that the EU still buys the bulk of its energy from Russia albeit in a roundabout way and at many times the price it paid before it effectively sanctioned itself in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. It currently spends more money buying oil and gas from Russia than it does on arming Ukraine and propping up the Ukrainian state. In other words the EU while funding its proxy in Ukraine is also subsidizing Russia’s war effort against said proxy. This is an own goal of epic proportions and there is no face saving way to back out of this quagmire so it will try to keep the war going indefinitely and escalate tensions with Russia in hopes of convincing Trump not to pull US funding and dumping the entire Ukraine file into Europe’s lap.
There is no way Europe can afford to fund this war on its own without completely collapsing what’s left of its already deeply damaged economy. Even if it appropriates the 300 billion euros of Russian money in European bank accounts this would only be a stop gap measure (and it would also signal to the rest of the world that Europe is an unreliable business partner and can’t be trusted). The current top leadership – Merz, Macron, Kallas, VdL et al – are dangerously deluded clowns that cover up the fact that they have no way out of this mess, and no vision for Europe, with wishful thinking, performative moral posturing and apocalyptic war fantasies. Very dangerous and depressing times indeed.
Can we please at least for a second stop lamenting the state of the European economy and think about the Russian people dying on both sides of the front line and now increasingly deep into Russia?
No bombs are flying into Europe at the moment. But today we have a 76-year old woman and her 6-year old grandson killed by a Ukrainian drone slamming into their apartment building in the Moscow suburbs, and that happens dozens of times every day closer to the front line.
I absolutely don’t give a f**k about the European economy, let them all rot and starve to death, but I do care about that woman and her grandkid and all the other innocent people who are once again being slaughtered as a result of European aggression on Russia, but this time combined with the Kremlin’s unwillingness to defend the country because it serves other interests (Stalin would have never tolerated this, but he had no missiles and nukes back then).
The “alternative media” in the West is just as much guilty of dehumanizing Russians as the mainstream. They just do it implicitly by constantly telling you that Russia will shrug off all “provocations” and should not respond. No, there are real people on the receiving end of those provocations. But they don’t matter to the “alternative media” in the West, to which Russia is just a tool in fighting whatever internal battles they have been already occupied with. Which is the same supermacist dehumanizing attitude as you see in the mainstream.
Utter stupidity. Unbelievable that Euro leadership is so nihilistic. Captives of their lying narrative.
It’s irrational. I have friends who are totally emotionally-invested in this mess, hate Putin and Russia, love Zelenskyy, and they will not listen to reason on this matter. It’s become a forbidden topic. This situation, as well as the COVID op, have made me much less optimistic about the future of humanity. People are so easily led via their emotions into self-destructive beliefs. This stupidity is all to the detriment of Europe and the West in general, and in favor of China and the East in general. I really find the political class of the West to be contemptible.
I agree with this view and it has been apparent, at least here in France, for at least a year that a hot war with Russia was the desired outcome. Since Kit Klarenberg’s reporting opened my eyes to see that Europe are not just hapless bystanders in this war meekly suffering its consequences, they are the prime driving forces behind it. This whole scheme was a British folly with Macron quickly signing France up to it. Russia, and not just Ukraine, was the prize. They found the perfect executor of the plot in a corrupt Biden, whom they built up for years, and had no plans for when Trump won. When Netanyahu decided that Trump must win to make the genocide bipartisan and to bring it towards the final solution, Europe’s elites had no answer as they too fear Netanyahu.
What all these imperial games ignore is China. Unless they provoke a Russian response that is disapproved of by China, China will enter the hot war to defend their ally and Europe will suffer a catastrophic military defeat in addition to economic devastation. Russia’s defeat would be an existential threat to China, more so than a hot war with NATO. Without Russia, China has no energy security, no border security, no economic security. Isolated China would have no doubt that they would be next, NATO elites even say as much. While states make poor decisions all the time, I can’t imagine China choosing a slow death over victory.
Everything you say is true, but…
The Russian economy is supplying, without a problem, the domestic market while outproducing by multiples the entire West in military systems. Russia has new battlefield-proven weapons systems (offensive and defensive) that the West does not have and cannot build, a highly effective functioning A/D against Western missiles, and immensely powerful weapons for which the West has no defense (Oreshnik, etc.). Russia has a battle-hardened army adapted to the new war paradigm – drones and missiles, NOT tanks and jets. The West is ready for a 20th-century war (e.g., 1990 Iraq) – Russia is fighting a 21st-century war. Most of the available Western systems are obsolete on the battlefield with anominable readiness rates, unsustainable maintenance cycles, and at nose-bleed costs. Russia has cut the deadwood from its (never bloated) military brass – Western militaries are larded up with corrupt (waiting for the MICC board of directors payoff) PowerPoint generals. I could go on.
The Russian military of today is not the Russian military of 2021. The Western military is a shadow of its 2021 self, with a military that is running out of everything, supply chains that start in China(!), and an unhealthy military age population – ripe with chronic diseases.
Russia can and will win the war against the West as it has four times before – every 70 years or so – with or without China.
All China needs to do is continue its Russian economic relations to avoid the potential for destabilizing economic stress in Russia. However, China is doing more than the minimum—it has shut off rare earths to the Western MICC, impeding Western weapons production, which was inadequate to meet current demands.
you’re right that Russia can easily handle all of Europe combined militarily by itself. I’m not sure if you throw in the combined military might of the US, and certainly the Europeans have an oversized faith in the US.
Of course, as long as Russia is easily handling itself China is more than happy to sit back and not intervene. If ever the tipping point were reached, however….
I could point out that the US is a thallasocratic power, and Russia is a land military power. The US never had the logistical capacity to push deep into Russia anymore than the Nazis, and no longer has an industrial base – most US stockpiles (or what remains) is 50 year old technologies – the Abrams is a deadly joke in the drone era, the F-35 has mission readiness of 17%, if I recall, and Russia currently regularly achieves close to 95% shootdown of modern US missiles.
But more to the point, it is existential for Russia, not the US, which means the US cannot win (though the entire planet can lose). How many Oreshniks would it take to ruin US ports and prevent any military materials from leaving the US (and medicine from getting in)? Repairs would take years because, again, the US shipped its industrial base overseas to China – whom it calls enemy number 1 every day.
You might want to watch the recent Martyanov YT video titled “GAO & Karma” during which he reviews the very latest GAO report on the readiness levels of various US weapons systems eg jets, tanks, IFVs, missiles etc. The readiness levels are shocking and would indicate the US military might not last very long in a serious large scale conflict with peers like Russia or China especially as the US would be fighting 1000s of miles away with a lengthy logistical tail.
The relevant section with the GAO report is from 14 to 22 mins of the video.
Do we really know enough to say that China would be solidly behind Russia? I could just as easily wonder if on balance, the most powerful people in China might prefer a NATO-Russia conflict with the assumption that it would severely weaken both sides and leave China in an advantageous position.
All this is speculation. And since we in NATO countries have perfected so-called democracies where the possibility of ordinary people organizing to exert influence is negligible, whatever speculation we find more plausible has next to no practical consequences. Those of us interested enough to follow what is happening are mere spectators, and we don’t even have a full view of half the field of play.
No, the Europeans are the useful idiots, the UK and the US are behind it.
The Europeans simply happen to have genetic hatred for the Russians, which makes them very easy to mobilize for war against Russia. A repeated theme in history — the Eastern Front in WWII was not Germany versus Russia, it was Germany + Italy + France + Belgium + The Netherlands + Denmark + Norway + Hungary + Slokavia + Czechia + the Baltics + Romania + Croatia + Ukrainian Nazis against Russia, and Napoleon’s army was like that too. The end result of which was a lot of grandchildren today of people who lost back then wanting revenge.
It is not hard to mobilize them for another war, but that doesn’t mean that they started it.
It’s been Britain’s policy for centuries to stir wars on the continent:
https://youtu.be/ZVYqB0uTKlE?t=132
The US simply picked up from there.
The twist is that this time they are gearing up for terminal destruction of Russia, as they have never been able to gather that many forces against it.
“We liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it”
Marshal Zhukov 1945.
All of the countries you cite were united through their interconnected aristocratic privileged class and the extreme politics they enabled, their generational inbred hubris and entitlement excludes the possibility they might fail today.
But if the absolute worst case scenario were to happen, they and they alone would benefit from the reconstruction and build up.
Unfortunately for them, Russia is well aware of their problematic ‘culture’ and has said repeatedly that they will not stop until that too is resolved.
No happy ending possible now!
Hatred that the Europeans* “simply happen to have” is not genetic, but cultivated. It is created and nurtured by “centers of power” like Vatican, London, Vienna (back in the day when they had an empire), Washington.
Genetic things are natural, and this “hate thing” is as artificial as it gets. Without it being stoked continuously, it would peter out. That’s why the whole media campaing is necessary.
* Not all Europeans of course (exceptions being Russians, Belarusians, Serbs, Greeks). Also, Hungarians are an interesting example of coming to one’s senses.
Nice to see Baab addressed here!
Although I still think the warmongering is rhetorics.
btw Jacques Baud pointed out 3 things with Glenn Diesen yesterday, which I haven´t heard anywhere else so far:
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/jacques-baud-europe-panics-as-us
TC 5:30
The Baltic Sept. madness begann shortly after the US had announced to cut their military aid to those former Soviet states and Poland too, I believe. So reason and timing are settled.
TC 15:20-16:20
On April 15 of this year the Estonian Parliament passed a law to extend its “military warning zone” further/beyond “the economic exclusive zone” with the effect that it goes further than the 12miles of territorial waters –
TC 16:20-17:20
They also increased the distance of their “air defense identification zone”.
I deduce both done unilaterally – they thus changed the conditions and possible area for RU planes to pass through in a way that there is no space left at all. Maybe Russians can beam themselves to Kaliningrad.
He also says that to this day the Estonians still did not provide any radar imagery, nothing beyond their childishly drawn line on that map.
And yet NOBODY calls them out. Insane.
–
NACHDENKSEITEN interview today:
use google-translate
Russian political scientist Igor Zhukovsky: “Confrontation in the Baltics threatens to escalate into open conflict”
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=139753
When we were digesting the Bloomberg account of the Brit, French, and German envoys meeting with Russian diplomats in Moscow I was on a knife edge. On one side is the above, i.e. taking the public statements of the Western powers at something close to face value. While on that side I pace up and down unable to regulate body temperature.
On the other side of this knife edge I thought: diplomats don’t go to deliver updates to military doctrine in person to the other side’s diplomats in a meeting that’s afterwards explained to be terribly private but then fully leaked to Bloomberg. If they are going to shoot down the next Russian planes crossing their tripwires they will use other channels to say so, or else they won’t say so and they just get on with it. Notably, also, the USA didn’t send an envoy together with the other three.
So that day I climbed down on the latter side of the knife. It must be part of the West negotiating with itself. But in truth it’s still a toss up. What do I know? And given the nature of the complex dynamic system with bunch of psychopaths holding immense power trying to influence Trump via the ocean of stupid (media new and old), does anyone know what the outputs will be? Maybe the precautionary principle should push me to the other side.
Two more things quite apart from that meeting. First, we’re well aware of this one-way street Baab describes so well. These pols must be replaced since they cannot turn but we see them changing election rules and using other dirty tricks to prevent replacement except by those trusted to maintain war continuity. Second, I was surprised when the SMO invasion really kicked off despite paying close attention for three month run up. My conditioned mistrust of the Biden admin’s statements misled me. I’ll try not to make that kind of mistake again.
I was also surprised by it. Remember, at the time Biden was repeatedly saying that Russian was going to attack, and Russia was repeatedly saying they had no intentions of attacking, and basically mocking Biden for claiming they would. But then the Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass was increased dramatically right before Russia invaded, a point almost completely ignored in the conventional narrative that would like people to think that Russia’s attack was “unprovoked”.
My guess is Russia really did have no intention of attacking. It would be interesting to find out who made the call to increase shelling at that exact time in a civil war that had been ongoing for 8 years already. My guess would be Victoria “Screw Loose” Nuland.
I also didn’t see the direct Russian intervention coming in 2022 simply because the US was insisting that they would, and I had consistently been correct by assuming that the US always is always lying (at least since 2003 when the lying became brazen and obvious, but in retrospect, also decades earlier) for almost 20 years.
Given that’s one time they told the truth during 30+ years of lying, I feel fairly confident continuing to dismiss them.
A hot war has been the objective since at least 2014. Anywhere will do. Russia is incidental.
Without a war, all these post-financial crisis unemployed people will get uppity and start voting their money back. That the real pressure driving governments on this rabid war mania.
Maybe I am to optimistic but I think Baab is wrong about a war coming. The three main countries of Europe, Germany, France and GB all have exceedingly weak and unpopular governments and their situation will not improve. If they want to stay in power they need the war to continue and even expand. Conversely the Russians aren´t stupid and see this is as well. They won´t do Macron, Merz and Starmer the very favor, these three are asking for.
I had a long talk with a mid ranking CDU politician (member of Baden-Württemberg state assembly) the other day and he told me they all know that German industry is in free fall. Millions of highly qualified workers are very, very angry. The reckoning is on the horizon. The Russians have shown strategic patience until now and they will continue to do so. Their European enemies will all fall by themselves. Also the Russians will let the Baltic chihuahuas bark and threaten as much as they want. I don´t think they will dare to close the air space over the Baltics. They would be toast afterwards.
If things really go to hell, we can wait a Russian attack with hypersonic weapons with no nuclear warheads. After that, there will be no more exits than unconditional surrender or escalating to full nuclear war, which will be global. It is pretty clear that Russia is stockpiling a pretty lot of that rockets, because they are not using them and they could be finish the Ukraine war once and for all.
Such outcome (the disabling Russian preemptive attack) will make impossible any kind of detente between the sinking West and the rest of the World, i.e., the US proper, since the EU would be absolutely finished.
It’s the problem here. Russia and China are trying a surgical and very cautious way to return the West to its senses (if that is possible), the West only wants its usual global full destructive war, in the belief they can win once again. They never won, any time, and this time there can’t be any war like that, because the full and fast destruction would take hours, even without nuclear weapons.
It’s the old dilemma of dealing with pathological stupids. And a collapse of the US in a similar way as the USSR would be the most dangerous of all possibilities.
Yep.
Only disagreement with the ending. Is it not unlikely that the USSR case was a controlled implosion and a US case – if happening as quickly – in contrast would more likely turn in all seriousness disastrous for all of us. A lot of the “chaos” ascribed to the post 1989-sit was Western fearmongering to justify the interventions thereafter so the “drunkards” don´t make matters worse.
I apologise in advance for not having had time to watch the video. But as a journalist, Baab is naturally looking for a coherent story to tell, and there’s always a temptation in such circumstances to try to force events into a straitjacket with a thesis. There are two basic problems with this approach.
First, “war” is not a modern concept, and hasn’t been since the UN Charter. A former head of “MI5” should know that there is no such thing as an “act of war.” But even taking the outdated popular understanding of the term, “large-scale armed conflict” between the West and Russia is impossible, because the West does not have the forces for such a conflict, and there is no obvious way for the West to do any real damage to Russia anyway. Sending western forces to Ukraine to be quickly annihilated implies a level of stupidity that not even our current leaders are capable of. Fantasies of “paying for” the conflict through exploiting Ukraine’s “mineral wealth,” in a failed and corrupt state next door to Russia, join a parade of tired old hits like the mineral wealth of Afghanistan, or Iraqi oil paying for the invasion.
The other is that “Europe” is not remotely capable of acting together on such questions. Any attempt to involve Europe in the war directly would rapidly produce such furious controversies and infighting that it would degenerate into chaos. And Europe does not have the political and military planning mechanisms or the technical and military capabilities, to do it anyway.
The reality is somewhat simpler, and from the transcript I think the journalist grasps this, at least partly. The Europeans are in the position of gamblers initially hoping for a quick win and finding the game going away from them. All they can do is hope that by spinning things out, a miracle happens, and they win after all. Since 2023, their only hope has been a political and economic collapse in Russia, and the only means they have for this is to keep the crisis going as long as possible. The trouble is that Ukraine is nearly finished, and Europe (and US forces in Europe) are not an obstacle. You can’t escalate if you have nothing to escalate with, and nowhere to escalate to.
You do know that you pretty much agree with Mr. Medvedev in this? He just recently said Russia doesn’t want war (or anything else to do) with Europe, while Europe itself is divided and can’t afford (or is even capable of waging) a war with Russia.
But, he says, every day the likelihood of an armed conflict by accident grows unless Europe reins in it’s “useless degenerates” (to give a glimpse of his tone).
Sending western forces to Ukraine to be quickly annihilated implies a level of stupidity that not even our current leaders are capable of.
You’re quite the optimist.
Starmer is that stupid. The continued default assumption that if he and other European leaders could only involve the US, then the US possesses the military capability to overcome the Russians — when it’s clear to any minimally intelligent analyst the US doesn’t — demonstrates that.
But he’ll be stopped by others around him, for the reasons you say.
Though whether Starmer, Merz, and the rest will be stopped before this insanity escalates further is another question, as Polar Socialist suggests.
Would the war party in the EU deliver any more than the phony war of Sept 1939 to May 1940?
In terms of materiel posture the EU is very far behind the mobilization Britain and France had achieved by autumn 1939. In terms of political/morale the EU is worse off than France spring 1940.
To engage Russia in any more than a phony war would require filling long lines of supply. With the US the EU is short almost every expendable…..
Russia will not come to them! It does not have the logistics.
If (exceedingly unlikely) EU would begin wearing down Russia would China come in to tilt the game and would that encourage nuclear escalation?
Either side losing big is dangerous!
I agree. It’s quite obvious there’s a lot of bark but no bite. Take the famous Taurus rocket. It would be capable to penetrate Russian air defenses and Germany (and Sweden) have a few hundred of them. Merz has many times threatened to deploy them to Ukraine but never carried his threat out. Undoubtedly because the Russians would have send some Oreshniks in return. In reality it is all about clinging on to power for a little time longer while waiting for some miracle to occur. Merz, Starmer and Macron are in a hole but they can´t stop digging. They don´t know what else to do.
I generally agree with Aurelian’s comments, except this: ” You can’t escalate if you have nothing to escalate with, and nowhere to escalate to.”
There is almost unlimited potential to escalate via deep strike weapons. Yesterday a Rssian thermal power facility was taken offline by three or four HIMARS and several hours later a Russian electronic factory in Bryansk was hit by ATACAMS. Russian AD and EW seemed nonexistent in both cases (at least in terms of preventing notable damage).
Notably, the factory to produce fuel for “Ukraine”‘s new Flamingo missile will be manufactured in Denmark. And, in a remarkable coincidence, what country do Russian ships entering or existing the Baltic have to pass by?
I have always and continue to believe that the end result desired by the neocons is a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine as that would forever be a stain on Russia and remove the taboo on the use of nuclear arms. The US’s reputation survived despite Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo and. . . .. ), but we were able to write the post-war narrative. I am not sure if TPTB in EU-land want that since that since presumably would lead to hundreds of thousands of angry Ukrainian men flowing into their countries, but I am sure if they have thought that far ahead.
Not necessarily.
Russia had (not sure it still does) a winning move that should have been played already back in 2022 that uses nukes but does not kill anyone — hit the border crossings with Poland and Romania with hypersonic bunker busters with 50-100 kt warheads. Of course you don’t hit the small settlements nearby and you hit inside the border, i.e. not in Poland, and you hit right at the roads and railways, and what this will do is excavate huge craters (we’re talking hundreds of meters wide and 100 meters deep) with relatively minimal broader contamination right where the roads and railways used to be. As a result:
1) transport connections between Poland/Romania and Ukraine are completely disabled, and thus the flow of weapons stops
2) everyone has hopefully gotten the message
3) nobody has been killed.
4) Russia maintains its reputation for fighting a humane war, in fact it would even enhance it, if Putin then came out and said “the West pitted brother against brother in a fratricidal war, I am putting an end to it and will not allow further slaughter and destruction”.
But as I said, the West has lost the plot to such an extent now that I am not sure that would deter them.
In 2022 it was definitely the winning move though, and even as later as mid-2024. Putin didn’t have it in him though, because, as I said in the other comment, the Russian oligarchy does not want Ukraine, so the Kremlin is looking for some kind of a deal that will preserve most of it independent. Even though everyone with a brain knows there is no real such option.
Except no Russian nuke will ever fall on Ukraine. That makes no sense for the Russians.
Berlin or Brussels, otoh, I expect will be nuked a lot sooner, if things came to that, than anywhere in Ukraine.
I agree that the Europeans, no matter what von der Lyin’ suggests, does not have the ability or will to work together. These nation-states have been bickering for centuries even when incestuous “royal” marriages was the attempted glue. Even so-called royal marriages could not unite the Europeans and Russia (Catherine the Great). Russia historically has been and will always be, the arch-enemy.
While we see the foolishness (sell out to the American bank$ters$ and the false prosperity built on a foundation of debt, the ultimate Ponzi scheme), the reality is that the post WW2 order is crumbling. The rotting financial system is equal to the morals of the leaders, accepted by the citizens who have been ‘zombied’ with lazy slumber.
While it is complex it is also simple.
The Atlanticists have been successfully seduced by the bank$ter$, and their overreach will be their destruction….
Except when Europe needs Russia to deal with Napoleon, Wilhelm II or Hitler. Or to protect the elites from popular uprisings every hundred years or so…
One might say that Napoleon and Hitler WERE Europe, however much they don’t want to admit now.
Granted, that exaggerates things more thsn it should, but it’s worth remembering that the Grande Armee was less than half French, with the Poles, in particular, providing 1/4 to 1/5 of the strength, or that the French SS were the most fanatical defenders of Berlin in 1945.
Napoleon and Hitler were more of EU than Europe. Calling NATO/EU the Fourth Reich is more than just a joke.
Thank you. Those of us here in America may not have any useful comment on this other than to suggest that a NATO war against Russia or an Israeli general war against Iran would require the US. And the mood here is utterly against this, uninterested in Europe and increasingly disgusted with Israel. The “we’re an empire now” attitude that was fueled by 9/11 flamed out with the Bush jr. even if our MIC didn’t want to let the profitable thing go.
Trump, idiot though he is, probably gets this and has even said he is withdrawing to this hemisphere.
So Euro speculation about a “you and him” fight war against Russia is meaningless unless they can get the Trumpies to sign up, and that’s why Putin and Lavrov keep up the gentle touch with DJT. They read their man as a grifter, not a fighter, who has no confidence in his own ability as a war leader but is willing to let things passively break to his advantage. Here’s suggesting that is correct. This passive/aggressive approach has its own dangers but one doubts Trump is willing to defy his public on this–at least not for Europe. Israel may be different.
Sorry something went wrong with the posts. Thus the typos.
I wanted to add Johannes Varwick to the names of sane German experts, who is teaching at the warmongerish Halle-Wittenberg Univers. security studies.
Even though he is rather friendly to US views and accordingly used to miss out on some very important things he has come under harsh attack internally.
So even if you were to have the insight and conviction to express these simple military truths that would make NATO look incompetent – insight I do not see anywhere in the FRG in public – you would be canceled.
Ultimately, if you conduct serious critique, you end up in no man´s land liked neither by the peace movement nor by the hawks.
i.e. nothing in Germany will change.
Sorry for sounding like a broken record.
re: Germany
what you also have is this e.g.
Major German TV “political” talkshow with guests:
German SoS Wadephul (“what a fool” as someone in comments once coined him)
political scientist Daniela Schwarzer
warmongering Atlanticist journalist Christoph von Marschall from the disgustingly russophobic TAGESSPIEGEL daily paper (close to the government)
aired Sunday, 28th 2025
German speaking
60 min.
Does Germany need a new foreign policy, Mr. Wadephul?
https://www.ardmediathek.de/tv-programm/68a33b6c9d4783c1b0a103da
TC: 33:00-35:00.
Marschall is not only a warmonger, he is incompetent:
What does he say? He was on a sabbatical in the US (Who paid for that? Who invited him? nobody asked him of course) and there apparently spoke to some “war gamers” who said to him that 60% of the German brigade (5000k) in Lithuania + Lithuanian forces (18k) would be wiped out in 10 days. He therefore demands more Patriots and more weapons. So “not only 1 Patriot battery for each army, German and Lithuanian, but 10. Then Russian warplanes will not intrude any more.”
He therefore demands more arms engineers and the permit to produce Patriots in Germany.
What can you say? You are a moron?
If you look into his German Wiki it is quickly apparent why nobody will dare say that – they are all part of the same club
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_von_Marschall
Marschall wrote a new book this spring:
“Der Schwarze Dienstag – Warum ein Krieg mit Russland droht und wie die Bundesregierung ihn verhindern kann
/ “Black Tuesday – Why war with Russia is looming and how the German government can prevent it”
https://www.beck-shop.de/marschall-schwarze-dienstag/product/38807896
He is on reading tour and alleges in the show that people want to know the truth and urges Wadephul to be honest to the public.
Of course honesty can mean all sorts of things in Mr. Marschall´s sickly weird and twisted world…
edit: German brigade (5k) NOT 5000k
There are steps between a clash in Europe and a US/Russia hot war. Europe has already had their conventional war with Russia and are in the process of being defeated and exhausted. Russia holds a substantial portion of their forces in reserve, using troop rotations to ensure they are battle hardened, and continues to roll out production of the Oreshsnik systems capable of reaching anywhere in Europe with devastating effect. Their navy is equipped with hypersonic ship-to-ship missiles that could possibly deny, or at minimum diminish any US efforts to move men and material across the Atlantic. If Germany or Poland or Estonia decides to provoke a war with Russia and Russia destroys their command centers with non nuclear weapons, will the UK or France launch nuclear responses knowing it would be their final act? Would the US?
And I wonder if the US calculates that a nuclear exchange in Europe would stay in Europe.
The Baltic states, the Black Sea states, the Big Three and Poland are already at war with Russia. The question is are any of them going to provoke Russia further as we head into winter. The leaders of the Big Three are in deep political trouble and they may feel that being a wartime Prime Minister or President will add luster to their brands and they may well decide to pursue military policies which are not in the interests of their countries and their peoples. An easy thing to do, as Barbara Tuchman demostrated, describing different examples of leaders leaping blindly into folly – but at least reading her book focused JFK’s mind on the prevention of war during the Cuban missile crisis and his subsequent commencement speech at the American University before his murder by those who disagreed with him that the diplomacy of peace is virtuous in a world with nuclear weapons.
I think it is highly likely there will be a controlled war in Europe, not least because if the sheer mediocrity and the idiocracy of the various deep states and their governments unrivalled incompetence in simply governing their countries by deliberately and without a qualm destroying their economies and greasing the slide downwards into a rapid decline with all the attendant problems they will continue to create for their populations until their people can throw them out of power electorally (fair elections are not something you can count on in most of Europe these days – as we have seen in Germany, Moldova and Romania) or through violence.
Until happier day,s Russia can sit back and fight a long range war without having to endanger troops by capturing what is already an industrial nd agricultural wasteland which contains much dross and very little of value following years of neo-libeal and neo-con policies. A few thousand missiles here and a few thousand missiles there and the Russians, who are patience itself, will just wait and lob a few as a relaxing form of military Keysianism until responsible leaderships emerge and attempt to secure, as Bismarck advised, a good treaty with Russia from the worst conceivable position
The US will avoid the conflict and NATO will go the way of the the EU as it splinters under the weight of its economic and political problems, Truly, a burlesque show of the bland and blind following one eyed madmen plus Useless fonda Lyin’ and the crazy woman from Estonia who will cling to power as desperately as Zelensky,
I think it is likely that the Baltic states and the Black Sea states may have to end up in Russia’s sphere of influence with fair elections overseen by the Russians with slightly more skill – and a great deal more legitimacy – than Europe has acheived thus far in Romania and Moldova.
And the world will go on. The US and her citizens, once they are capable of accepting their relative military and economic weaknesses, may well begin to see the value of restraint in a multi-polar world of major powers in which all states treat each other as equals and where all states will feel the pressure to enjoy mutual respect of national sovereignty and mutual respect of different religious and ethnic groupings within their borders.
If the US, by some flagrant act of stupidity, decides to support Europe in its travails, it may be that all bets are off. But with the impending collapse of Israel, the collapse of the dollar and Tresuries, plus the continuing military humiliation of the US’ because of her stoneage weapons systems and the increasing irrelevance of the Washinton Concensus, plus alternatives to SWIFT and all the panoply of the dumbest use of sanctions to ever conduct warfare, and under another President and with a different makeup of the House and Senate after the coming crash, the US may feel less inclined to be the world’s hegemon.
Excellent comments! I shall refrain from attempting to emulate any of them. As I was reading the transcript, I have not watched the video, what should come to mind but “We have always been at war with Eurasia.” Orwell’s I984 never loses currency does it? And then there was the scene in the movie Ghostbusters in which one of the characters looks up at the monstrous creature looming him and asks, “Are you a God?” I pictured Starmer, Macron, Merz and especially Von der Leyen, and Kallas high on their self-created pedestals as I ask, “Are you morons?” Now I do not think they are morons but neither can I accept that they believe their belligerent rhetoric. They can’t can they? It must be that the perks of power are so great, their self-regard so immense, that risking the destruction of Europe is a fair trade. Then again, perhaps they are counting on the Russians continuing to act rationally.
It’s a tough call, whether they actually believe their rhetoric, isn’t it? But did you see Netanyahu at the UN, publicly listing off all the people Israel has assassinated, and threatening more to come? As if the same couldn’t be done to the ghouls heading the Zionist entity? At this point, I’m leaning toward the thought that Netanyahu and all these European leaders do believe their rhetoric and they are really that crazy. They mistake the forbearance of other countries as weakness, and they are in for a rude awaking when the patience of their would-be victims who they continue to provoke runs out.
Baab mentions the “Weakening Germany, strengthening the U.S.” Jan 25 2022 RAND Corporation Research Report reported by Nya Dagbladet. RAND immediately declared it a fake and described it as bizarre. Otoh it appeals to my tin-foil hat collecting nature and corresponds with how the two Larry’s describe Washington’s influence on Europols on Nima’s Dialogue Works. I don’t suppose the content of the report is bizarre to many of NC readers.
But anyway, Baab chose to cite it so what do you think: fake or not?
https://nyadagbladet.se/utrikes/shocking-document-how-the-us-planned-the-war-and-energy-crisis-in-europe/
https://nyadagbladet.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/rand-corporation-ukraina-energikris.pdf
I think I see the logic behind the European thinking, even if I don’t agree with it.
Given Russia will not (willingly) expand the war outside of Ukrainian borders, this means if Europe declares a war with Russia (or vice versa) they’ll have plenty of time to ramp up toward a war economy without having to worry about defending against invasion, attacks or defending borders.
They must be thinking, well, Nazi Germany did this. It took Hitler 3 years to ramp up to limited militarization (1933-1936), then another 3 for partial mobilization (1936-1939), then in 1939-1941 Germany declared war but still not total war, only half dedicated to war production, then only in 1942 with the invasion of Russia did Germany shift to a total war economy with full war production and the all commerce and industry dedicated to and organized for war.
They must be thinking what if multiple countries did the same? Indeed, the German leadership must be salivating at the prospect of a fourth Reich by other means.
But even with all the money in the world, can they will factories and manufacturing into existence becomes the key critical question here.
Again, how did Hitler do it? Obviously, he didn’t just flip a switch – first he had to kindasorta end democracy (European leadership kindasorta is doing exactly this). Then he had to entice Krupp, Siemens, IG Farben, Daimler-Benz, etc., with lucrative contracts and guaranteed profits to subordinate industry without going the nationalization route. Then they had their Four Year Plan (1936-1939) to get the Germany economy ready for war in four years.
So, do we think the Europeans will go down this path, come up with their own Four Year Plan? Only maybe they’ll declare war first?
I am thinking of the horrendous amounts of energy, fuel, materials, steel, lead, uranium and everything else that one needs to go and attack someone, whether your neighbor across the street or someone you just don’t like and he lives a 1000+ miles away. Not to mention 100s of 1000s of motivated trained fit and enthusiastic young MEN, eager to go and defeat the enemy of the realm. Noone will get too far trying to wage a war with a wad of fifties, especially if the real value of the wad is one penny.
So ,no, the cowards currently overlording us in U.K. or Europe or USA have no chance of getting off the start line. Even our PM who is by now a SI unit for dumbness will not launch anything that stupid. He wouldn’t be able to blame it on Farage or immigrants :)
The only danger is as always, the ideological ubermensch set who will forever think, mein fuhrer, if we only managed to drop that one more bomb. They could have access to weapons of mass destruction.
The Baab interview and Naked Capitalism’s gloss on it are rich in insights.
The picture can be further filled in by way of reference to Brian Berletic’s line of argumentation, to the effect that rather than attempting to extricate the US from the conflict by ending it as a ‘peace maker’, what we’re seeing is more like the burden sharing with Europe that Hegseth argued for in February. Burden sharing, division of labor, strategic sequencing of conflicts.
One can go further, in a manner consistent with Baab’s hypothesis that European elites (and by extension globalist imperial oligarch elites in US and elsewhere) actually do not want to end the war at all. Which is to say, they and the Trump Admin are not trying to get Europe to take over the US role in the war, but are working to get Europe to take over **Ukraine’s** role as the next proxy destroying itself in direct conflict with Russia, while the imperial elites withdraw to the safety of the US base of operations, as the US continues selling weapons, & providing ISR, intel, diplomatic & media cover.
Alistair Crook commented on Judge Nepalitano’s channel this morning that the US is pulling away from Europe to focus on Iran and Venezuela, US finances requiring those hydrocarbon assets.
I’d been wondering for a while if the end of the war will require Russian tanks rolling down Champs Elysees or points further west. I’m more convinced of it now than ever.
It’s not so much that Russia today intends to go west, but neither did Alexander I–and the latter was happy to leave after a reasonable peace, perhaps too hastily. However, the survival of the warmongering neo-Bonapartist regimes is incompatible with sustained peace.
I hope Russia has lots of Oreshniks in place, pre-targeted, and ready to launch. The first provocateur should get whacked hard, then maybe the others will think twice about trying to start another European war to disguise the state of their failing societies. And maybe, despite all the barking in concert, having the various perps in one big military and economic alliance (NATO/EU) will slow down the push because of their difficulties all coming to an agreement about anything that would really need coordination of their forces.