Tag: Putin

A Non-Empire Approach to National Partnerships – Russia Does It Well

SouthFront's 07MAR2020 Syrian War Graphic
https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/7march_Syria_war_map.jpg

If anyone bothered to observe the news other than Covid-19 this week, there was a tense situation in and around the Idlib province of Syria that had the potential for bringing in NATO on the side of Turkey and Russian ships and troops on the side of Syria. The obvious question for me was, WHY would NATO consider joining Turkish forces IN Syria? But then I remembered, the US Empires troops are STILL on Syrian soil .. so the big empire models how to act ABOVE THE LAW to the little empire.

Scott Ritter’s article in Ron Paul’s Institute for Peace and Prosperity places what Russia accomplished this week in proper perspective:

This week’s meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan’s bluff, and the Turk folded.

One has to admit that since Russia’s invite by Syria in 2015 to directly assist in repelling the ISIS and other radical militia incursion, financed and backed by US/UK/SaudiArabia/Israel coalition, Putin has played it all very cool and extremely patient. Many times there was open second guessing going on within Russia and Syria as to the strategic approach to this intervention that the US had openly hoped would result in “regime change” so that the US (actually Israel, the US Empire’s other little brother) could benefit with Assad out of the way.

Here we are five YEARS later as Russia negotiates a slow and methodical way to return Syria to Syrians while keeping the US Empire and NATO only marginally involved. One has to wonder how many weapons that the Syrian and Russian armies have found US serial numbers on. I am pretty sure there is a database somewhere with all that information for a special time in the future.

Scott Ritter goes on to explain:

Over the course of a week, from February 27 through March 5, Syria’s Idlib province transitioned from being ground zero for a war between the Syrian army and allied forces, and heavily armed groups opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad, into a geopolitical powder keg that threatened to pull the Turkish and Russian militaries into direct conflict with one another. On March 1, Turkey, following up on threats previously made by President Erdogan to drive the Syrian Army and its allies back to the line of demarcation set forth in the original Sochi Agreement, unleashed a major offensive, dubbed “Operation Spring Shield” and involving thousands of Turkish troops fighting alongside anti-Assad formations.

Erdogan also inserted himself into the Syrian civil war (thanks Hillary, Obama and McCain for your “service”, I am sure the people of Libya love y’all and love ‘Merica as a result you dirt-bags) and has been attempting to play off the US Empire / NATO against Russia. Finally, Russia, as a “partner” enlightened Erdogen as to the errors of his ways in a way that allowed Turkey to save face as they retreated. (The US Empire has yet to understand their 2nd, let alone the 3rd and 4th effects of their approach to squashing a powder-keg, as brute force seems to be their motto.)

While the Putin orchestrated agreement is only a placeholder for lasting peace, it is a step in the right direction:

While couched as a ceasefire agreement, the additional protocol produced by the Moscow summit between Putin and Erdogan on Thursday is a thinly disguised instrument of surrender. The Syrian government got everything it was looking for by launching its offensive, and the Turks and their anti-Assad allies were left licking their wounds in a much-reduced Idlib pocket. Beyond preventing direct conflict between Turkey and Russia, the additional protocol achieves little that changes the situation on the ground. Turkey is still faced with the task of disarming the HTS fighters it currently embraces as allies, and the humanitarian crisis triggered by hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the earlier fighting remains. In many ways, the additional protocol, like its antecedent, the Sochi Agreement, is an arrangement designed to fail, because by succeeding it only perpetuates an unsustainable reality that will only be resolved when the totality of Syrian territory is restored to the control of the Syrian government.

So with the Russian “non-empire” strategy in mind, let’s take a look at how the US Empire’s fight (remember the “brute force” MO?) against militias that had nothing to do with 9/11 has panned out after 18.5 years, where instead of surgically targeting the 200 or so AlQ groups that “might” have been linked to 9/11, the US military decided to invade the whole country.(graphic below)

There is no end in sight for this in spite of the bogus Trump peace proposal that depends on the WORD of the US Empire to be believed. Sorry Trump .. from the American Indians to all the broken treaties the US government has bullied its way forward in time to 2020, there is no one on earth that ever believes what the US government says .. EXCEPT the domestic sheep that worship America as their lord and savior.

Peace out.

-SF1

SouthFront's 07MAR2020 Afghanistan War Graphic
https://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/7march_Afghanistan.jpg

Russia’s Underdog Achievement – High Tech / Innovative Advancements Shock USA

In a previous post, I outlined that path that the strategists in Russia have chosen since being disrespected in the 1990s by US/NATO advances in Russia’s “backyard”.

… the Russians have been quietly embarking on a strategic path toward learning from the fall of an over extended USSR and towards technological transformation to allow their “Tier 2” status not to render themselves defenseless from pressures from the outside. THIS is what defense is all about ..

This spring, Russia announced several technological advancements in various states of development that place quote a bit of the US’s military technology in early obsolescence. From this in depth article by Donald W. Miller Jr. MD at Lew Rockwell, six technological areas have been successfully realized by a country that spends only 10% what the US spends in their annual military budgets. The late John McCain as recent as three years ago in 2015 said:

“Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.”

Boy did he get this one wrong. After the US federal government released the “2018 Nuclear Posture Review: U.S. nuclear deterrence policy, strategy, and force posture” on 02FEB2018, Russia coolly waited almost a month and on 01MAR2018 released their bombshell:

President Vladimir Putin gave his annual State of the Nation speech to the Russian Federal Assembly in Moscow. The last third of his 2-hour, 13,340-word speech dealt with nuclear treaties and nuclear weapons.

As an overview to kick off this defensive method to retain sovereignty in the 21st century as nations that don’t want to end up like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya went like this:

“Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences. There should be no doubt about this whatsoever.”

This ain’t no gun-free zone. This isn’t a 3rd tier nation like Iraq with an antiquated military wrecked by sanctions, this is a 2nd tier nation who has taken the strategy to “shock-n-awe” without killing innocent people. Yet again, the US intelligence community was too busy with politics than achieving their main goal for this nation, to provide “data” so that this country will never be surprised, ideally. [NOTE: I purposely did NOT use the word “again” after that statement because the US government was NOT surprised on 11SEP2001 (WTC & Pentagon 9/11), and they were NOT surprised on 07DEC1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor]

The first of six technological advances is the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile.

Heavy as in the ability to place 10 tons in near earth orbit with a range that allows a trajectory that goes over the SOUTH pole on the way to the US mainland. If you ever heard of the Maginot Line in France during WWII, you know how quickly this “defense” was made obsolete by Hitler’s German military’s “trajectory”. The article states:

This new generation of thermonuclear warheads are both multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) and maneuverable reentry vehicles (MARV). The Sarmat ICBM carries ten 750-kiloton nuclear warheads, 7.5 megatons, enough destructive power precisely dispersed to wipe out the state of Florida.

The next defensive weapon is the Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile that is launched from 60,000 feet above the earth from a high altitude aircraft like the MIG-31BM.

This missile is 26 ft. long, can accelerate to a speed of Mach 10 (7,500 mph), and executes evasive maneuvers along its flight trajectory.

Mach 10 and a 1200 mile range puts all current air defense technologies in the obsolete category.

Third on Putin’s list was the Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle. The Sarmat, mentioned above, launches up to 16 of these EACH with 500 kiloton nuclear warheads. This glide vehicle’s speed is clocked at Mach 20 which is approximately 15,000 MPH.

President Putin described it this way: “It flies to its target like a meteorite, like a ball of fire. The temperature on its surface reaches 1,600-2,000 degrees Celsius [3,600 degrees Fahrenheit] but the cruise bloc nevertheless stays reliably guided.”

The fourth emerging technology that Russia will be using for its defense is a yet to be named (publicly) low-flying, terrain-hugging Nuclear Powered GLOBAL Cruise Missile. Testing from “ground-launch” site is underway

The fifth is an Underwater Nuclear Drone with a 5000 mile range at speeds of 50-80 knots and can descend to depths of 3000 feet equipped with a 2,50 or 100 megaton warhead. Placed well, these could trigger tsunamis that would generate waves ranging from 300 to over 1000 feet!

The sixth item, to be used for critical anti-missile defense is the Combat Laser which is most likely powered by a miniaturized nuclear reactor.

As a way of involving the people in these innovative technological projects, Putin invited the Russians to name these last three:

Putin invited Russians to submit names for the three yet unnamed weapons on a web portal set up for that purpose. For the underwater drone, Russians chose “Poseidon,” after the Greek god of the sea. For the nuclear-powered cruise missile, they chose “Burevestnik,” the Russian name for the Storm Petrel seabird, whose presence mariners believe foretells bad weather. And for the combat laser, “Peresvet,” after the medieval warrior monk, Alexander Peresvet, who died taking part in a 14th century battle against invading Mongols.

So, where does this leave the US military which has been spending 10x more than Russia?

The U.S. military has no such weapons—no hypersonic missiles or glide vehicles, no nuclear-powered cruise missiles or underwater drones, and no megawatt combat lasers.

The hub of America’s global navy, the aircraft carriers, are now highly vulnerable to these weapons. When you add up the the Ford-class carriers in the queue, 14 of them totaling $200B USD, you have to wonder at what point does the US military regroup and innovate, catch-up or remain in denial as to their eroding supremacy.

Beyond this, the F-35 program has proven to give the military a 2nd rate aircraft that is nowhere near the capability of the Russian SU-57. Another area where the US has failed to keep up is in their Littoral class ships that under-perform when compared to the Russian Corvette option which at half the displacement of the US equivalent, while able to launch cruise missiles (Kalibr-NK missile) up to 1500 miles away which the Littoral class can not do. In the submarine department, 4th generation Russian subs  started being deployed in 2014 and for the US it is estimated to be 2030.

The list goes on to include Russian S-400 and U.S. Patriot Missiles, Helicopters, Civil Nuclear Power .. all of these areas show significant lag on the US’s part to stay competitive.

The positive effect of this is it may keep the US Empire more humble in its reach around the world knowing that at any time, Russia could strategically and surgically strike defensively should the US arrogance play out. Bullies do tend to overplay their cards.

-SF1