John T. McNaughton served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Robert McNamara during the early years of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war.
In March 1965, McNaughton prepared a draft memorandum for McNamara titled “Proposed Course of Action.” This memo started with the following words:
1. U.S. aims:
70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).
20% - To keep SVN [South Vietnam] and the adjacent territory from Chinese hands.
10% - To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
Two years into the Ukraine debacle, the US/NATO finds itself in the position of continuing the fight in order to avoid a humiliating defeat and the possible disintegration of NATO. The future of Ukraine and its people is a minor issue (just as it was for the South Vietnamese in 1965 insofar as McNaughton was concerned).
The Biden people (who frankly bear an immense burden of responsibility for provoking this totally unnecessary war) have dug themselves into a deep hole. They have no coherent plan. Another 60 billion dollars in aid for Ukraine will disappear like a mist on a hot day with nothing to show for it except more Ukrainian dead.
The ventriloquist’s dummy, Mr. Biden, continues to mumble “Putin cannot win!” Then Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Burns, Nuland and all the rest better start praying hard because nothing short of divine intervention is going to change the trajectory of this war.
Source: Neil Sheehan and others, 1971, The Pentagon Papers as published by the New York Times, Bantam Paperback Edition, page 432
Thanks -your analogy is quite cogent. I was in Vietnam twice (1974 and 1975) and saw it first hand. When we started sending in "advisors" in the mid 1960s (started with Kennedy) we had gone too far and couldn't get out. I hope we do not repeat that in Ukraine.
I once sat in a plane beside a Marine colonel who as a junior officer was given the job of getting people from the embassy and a few other places to the airport in buses, before helicopters landed on the roof.
He told me at first he had no idea what to do, but made it up as the operation developed.
'Defeat is not an option', in Vietnam, Ukraine or anywhere else, while sometimes stiffening purpose (as when Viking invaders burned their return transport on arrival) is a very dangerous and costly strategy, if it's a strategy at all.
Of course Ukraine is teeming with NATO soldiers in all but name. Of course they are getting killed (see, e.g. the "French mercenaries" killed recently in Kharkov, or NATO personnel killed while trying to evacuate from Mariupol).
However, the sociopaths who run the West could not care less what happens to the peons, as long as they themselves are not unduly affected.
Anyway, the argument will be that the more or less open secret of direct NATO participation in the war in Ukraine hasn't yet triggered WWIII, so France and Germany need to get off the sidelines and send the troops.
The West's leaders are nothing if not reckless fools....Killing Putin would put someone like Medvedev in power, and he has made it clear that he would smash every country involved in such a war, for assassination is a declaration of war...
There is no hope of a sane foreign policy. there is occasionally less stupid maybe due to population reaction or budget problems (early republic, post 1812), but we have usually and stupidly been interventionist.
I don't expect a reply, and so far there has been none, but all these email addresses are direct, bypassing the embedded email system in their Official Office websites.
It was Biden who presided over the 2014 US/CIA Coup/Regime change of the Democratically Elected Russian friendly government, installing the US UN-elected proxy anti-Russian Ukraine government. That’s when the seeds for this US WAR with Russia over Ukraine in NATO were planted.
That anti-Russian government immediately started shelling the majority Russian speaking UKRAINIANS in the East bordering Russia who voted for the Russian friendly government and refused to accept the US/CIA orchestrated Coup.
From 2014 to 2022 there were some 14,000 UKRAINIAN Civilians in the East killed by Ukraine government shelling, but that was not hyped big News in the West.
Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions signed the 13-point Minsk accord in February 2015.
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2202 calling on all parties, to implement the 13-point agreement in February 2015. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, gathered in Minsk at the time, and issued a declaration of support for the deal.
1. An immediate and comprehensive ceasefire
2. Withdrawal of all heavy weapons by both sides
3. Monitoring and verification by the OSCE
4. To start a dialogue on interim self-government for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in accordance with Ukrainian law, and acknowledge their special status by parliamentary resolution.
5. A pardon and amnesty for people involved in the fighting
6. An exchange of hostages and prisoners.
7. Provision of humanitarian assistance.
8. Resumption of socio-economic ties, including pensions.
9. Restoration of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine.
10. Withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment and mercenaries.
11. Constitutional reform in Ukraine including decentralisation, with specific mention of Donetsk and Luhansk.
12. Elections in Donetsk and Luhansk on terms to be agreed with their representatives.
13. Intensifying the work of a Trilateral Contact Group comprising representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE.
To Putin’s great disappointment, Ukraine and the Western signatories made no effort to implement the terms of Minsk II. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and France’s President Holland spilled the beans the purpose of Minsk II was only to stall deceiving Putin, while NATO armed and trained Ukraine for the WAR the US was determined to provoke with Russia.
Fast forward to December 2021 when Putin repackaged the agreed Terms of Minsk II in a draft Treaty submitted to the US for consideration. The US rejected it out of hand without any Diplomatic discussion at all.
In early 2022, Western MSM were reporting Russia had amassed some 140,0000 troops on the border without mentioning Ukraine amassed some 80,000 troops facing the Russian speaking Ukraine majority in the East resisting the 2014 CIA orchestrated Coup.
More than anyone else, only because The Kansas City Times was quoting me in the Historical record of September 13, 1976, publishing, “He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a war with Russia” I went to the OSCE website to see what was happening with no. 3 of the 2015 Minsk II the week before the Russian SMO.
US Western MSM didn’t report it because it conflicts with the incessant Western War Propaganda the Russian SMO was unprovoked. In the week before February 24, the Ukraine government increased shelling the Russian speaking Ukrainians with up to 2000 Truce violations a DAY.
It was Ukraine that started the WAR, most probably as US direction, that provoked the Russian SMO to stop it.
We also know Russia and Ukraine initialled an agreement to stop the fighting in March, 2022 but the US lapdog Johnson went to Kiev with the instruction to not follow through with Russia because the US would arm and support Ukraine to fight Russia as long as it takes.
US/NATO claiming Russia wants to re-constitute the Soviet Union is fake US hype to sell more Weapons of Death & Destruction, preparing Americans and the World for the FINAL WAR to End ALL WARS, WWIII/Armageddon.
Vladimir Putin, “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
New York Times 20 February 2000;
If the US wasn’t so determined to weaken Russia as their stated goal using Ukraine as their proxy, all the territory Ukraine lost in the WAR would still be part of Ukraine. The US is also presiding over the Gaza carnage perpetuating the WAR, when the US has the leverage to stop the slaughter by threatening to stop supplying Israel the bombs and cash.
The Fact is the US Military-Industrial Congressional Complex is making a KILLING off the Ukraine War and the Gaza MASSACRE.
Excerpts from speeches from the last Real Commander-in-Chief General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower
In December 1998, Former US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, US Undersecretary of Defence John Deutch and Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, colluded to write this in Foreign Affairs Journal,
A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it.
Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbour, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks.
I find it curious it happened just like that 3 years later, and one of the Authors was able to control what information the 9/11 Commission was able to see?
how did I read last why can the USA organize wars worldwide, because no matter where they start wars, the reaction of those affected has never really affected USA territory so far. A lot of people think 9/11 was a reaction, it's really debatable. Because many indications speak a clear language
Remember, Russia considers Ukraine to be rightly part of Russia. I think the Russians are being cautious on possibly using nukes on what they consider Russian lands. Nukes strike sites are hard to clean up. They don't want another Chernobyl waste land in what will once again be its breadbasket. At wars end, wheat could become a very powerful tool to defeat the observance of sanctions by nations dependent on wheat, and Europe will fold to keep mass starvation at bay.
I am convinced that the leaders of the USA and the so-called "civilized" (which I think is a blatant lie) Western Europe have sworn one by one to send us EU citizens to nuclear hell ! They are not interested in the fate of the citizens, since they already openly state that there are too many of us on the planet and that this must be reduced at any cost. But we all know that they do not count themselves and their degenerate descendants among those to be reduced, of course, because they trust that they will survive the nuclear hell in shelters with adequate security on our tax !
I assume you mean the opposite of what is being done now. That would be leave Europe and NATO. Leave the Middle East as we have no hope of solving anything there. And leaving Asia to Asia.
You are the first Western writer I’ve seen refer to the Russian invasion as a Special Miltary Operation without quotation marks. You clearly have Tucker Carlson blinders on and don’t grasp the threat Putin represents to the world order and U.S. interests.
Also, your statement about Putin not going after Zelensky hasn’t aged well, as he tried to kill him in Odessa this week.
Being a realist doesn’t mean you have to be a Putin sycophant. Do better.
Complete nonsense. There is no need for quotation marks --it is what the Russians call it, lie it or not. I don't have any blinders on and I think I understand the Russian threat a lot better than you do, since I spent 25 years in government, including the Pentagon working the Russian/Soviet issue. Secondly you are completely wrong. If Putin aimed at Zelensky he would not have missed. The Russians used drones to attack the site where the Ukrainians make the underwater vehicles that had just destroyed one of their patrol ships. It happened that Zelensky and Macron decided to visit Odessa. They did not ask Putin or tell him. The Russian target was not far from their motorcade. In fact, they destroyed the target they were after. Finally I resent the outrageous, unfair and wrong suggestion you make about me being a "Putin sycophant." People like you find it hard to make rational arguments.
You read history and again and again there are these disastrous wars that were entered into with full knowledge of the likely consequences. And you just wonder how the leaders of the time didn’t see, or didn’t try to stop it, but just marched blindly forward.
And here it is again. Back in 2022 when America provoked this war everyone was worried about nuclear escalation and wanting to make sure it remained unthinkable.
But sure enough, two years in we are talking seriously about a NATO/Russia nuclear war that will probably result in the extermination of most of humanity, and nobody is really doing anything to stop it, world leaders are just blindly walking towards the light.
Sounds like Scholz made his public announcement to pre-empt Russian release of the leaked Bundeswehr phone call, which would have made public the same info?
Surely someone in his military or MoD, I would think. I had in mind damage control - but it's confusing. He's been caught misleading the public on the one hand (about dragging his country into a high stakes confrontation with negligible upside for them), and being totally submissive to both US and Euro-hawks who have already kneecapped his economy and filled the country with refugees, on the other hand.
I am assuming this article's position is that there are whole NATO units in Ukraine, not just the resumption of weapons trainers and support personnel, as there was for years in Ukraine.
If Schultz knew there were NATO units in Ukraine, then so did Putin, and Putin didn't launch nukes.
So the conclusion that we should stop supporting Ukraine the way we are is correct. We should stop sending mostly surplus and obsolete weapons, with a few modern trinkets.
The reticence to sent NATO ground and air forces en masse to counter Russia's massive deployment has been a huge mistake, extending the war and unnecessarily costing more lives. Overwhelming force should be used against Russia, rather than fighting with two hands tied behind our backs.
We don't have overwhelming force(s) to send to Ukraine, nor do we have the supplies for them. Furthermore, the war would not be contained --the Russians will attack in Europe.
NATO collective armies are not appreciably larger than Russia's, but the effective ones can bring to bear significantly more force. NATO's sea and air forces dwarf Russia's.
NATO forces would be able to secure air supremacy, and the nature of the war would immediately change, with Russia's defeat assured.
As for Russia attacking Europe, it already is. That's rather the point. Russia has struggled to handle a war at its current scale, against a foe with much less population. NATO has about 9x Russia's population, and 25x it's wealth. If it chooses to begin additional attacks at other points along its border, it will only hasten its defeat.
Ramping up production of supplies is the main obstacle to NATO forces; several are woefully under-armed. But that can be remedied.
you make a lot of statements without any proof. There is no assurance that NATO would have air superiority, especially against Russian air defenses. Russia's defeat would never "be assured." NATO won;t have enough ammunition for decades to fight a war. Furthermore, Russian field commanders and troops are far more experienced than those in NATO who only have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan (on a minimal basis). I simply think your assessment is not credible.
There are literally hundreds of articles on NATOs armament problem and inability to manufacture anywhere near what is required. You should be able to find them easily.
My own sense is that NATO's limited stockpile has been reduced by between 40 and 50%, although real numbers are hard to come by. For example, NATO has been able to provide Ukraine with only 1/3rd of its needs for 155mm howitzer shells with no real prospect for any improvement. This is due to years of underfunding in NATO countries.
I'm open to persuasion. But if you're going to make extraordinary claims generally not found in *credible* sources (especially "my own sense"), you need to provide proof, or you're not going to be convincing.
The articles you refer to: I have read dozens of such articles.
None of them support the idea that increasing capacity and throughput would take decades, nor do they credibly support that US stockpiles in gross (not individual arms) - which are most of NATO's stockpiles - are anywhere near those depletion rates. Note that there are many NATO forces with virtually no ammunition, and they can skew averages.
Regarding arming NATO: If NATO actually engages in a war, stasis ends, and any linear extrapolations you're making become obsolete. Russia is not the only one who can increase production, and it's capacity is far below NATO's.
The sleeping giant is not yet fully awake. It has only begun to stir.
It is increasingly apparent that NATO can only win if it escalates beyond Russia's capacity, which it can do. Putin will get to decide whether to fight NATO or come to the negotiating table. The latter is overwhelmingly likely, but either course takes precious time and resources from other NATO needs. The reasons for not doing so are outside that theatre: the US needs its resources in reserve as a deterrent for Asia-Pacific.
However, there are some longer-term benefits for NATO from ramping up production, even if it isn't largely used against Russia: it provides a considerably greater deterrent to Chinese expansion.
What NATO should fear most is not Russia's production, but China's, should the latter use NATO's distraction in Europe to launch a war in Taiwan.
John T. McNaughton served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Robert McNamara during the early years of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war.
In March 1965, McNaughton prepared a draft memorandum for McNamara titled “Proposed Course of Action.” This memo started with the following words:
1. U.S. aims:
70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).
20% - To keep SVN [South Vietnam] and the adjacent territory from Chinese hands.
10% - To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
Two years into the Ukraine debacle, the US/NATO finds itself in the position of continuing the fight in order to avoid a humiliating defeat and the possible disintegration of NATO. The future of Ukraine and its people is a minor issue (just as it was for the South Vietnamese in 1965 insofar as McNaughton was concerned).
The Biden people (who frankly bear an immense burden of responsibility for provoking this totally unnecessary war) have dug themselves into a deep hole. They have no coherent plan. Another 60 billion dollars in aid for Ukraine will disappear like a mist on a hot day with nothing to show for it except more Ukrainian dead.
The ventriloquist’s dummy, Mr. Biden, continues to mumble “Putin cannot win!” Then Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Burns, Nuland and all the rest better start praying hard because nothing short of divine intervention is going to change the trajectory of this war.
Source: Neil Sheehan and others, 1971, The Pentagon Papers as published by the New York Times, Bantam Paperback Edition, page 432
Thanks -your analogy is quite cogent. I was in Vietnam twice (1974 and 1975) and saw it first hand. When we started sending in "advisors" in the mid 1960s (started with Kennedy) we had gone too far and couldn't get out. I hope we do not repeat that in Ukraine.
Were you in Saigon in April 1975?
I once sat in a plane beside a Marine colonel who as a junior officer was given the job of getting people from the embassy and a few other places to the airport in buses, before helicopters landed on the roof.
He told me at first he had no idea what to do, but made it up as the operation developed.
'Defeat is not an option', in Vietnam, Ukraine or anywhere else, while sometimes stiffening purpose (as when Viking invaders burned their return transport on arrival) is a very dangerous and costly strategy, if it's a strategy at all.
As I recall I was in Saigon two weeks or so before it fell. Prior to that I was in Cambodia around a week before it fell to the Khmer Rouge.
Wow.
Maybe it's time you visited Kiev :-)
I will send you as my envoy
Of course Ukraine is teeming with NATO soldiers in all but name. Of course they are getting killed (see, e.g. the "French mercenaries" killed recently in Kharkov, or NATO personnel killed while trying to evacuate from Mariupol).
However, the sociopaths who run the West could not care less what happens to the peons, as long as they themselves are not unduly affected.
Anyway, the argument will be that the more or less open secret of direct NATO participation in the war in Ukraine hasn't yet triggered WWIII, so France and Germany need to get off the sidelines and send the troops.
I've wondered about the US desire to assassinate Putin. Your post is evidence of the insane US policy.
I know you don't want to consider a neutral US foreign policy, but your column is evidence it is the only sane idea as we court nuclear war.
You don't need to adopt a "neutral" foreign policy to have a decent foreign policy. We both agree that what is going on now is uber dangerous.
The West's leaders are nothing if not reckless fools....Killing Putin would put someone like Medvedev in power, and he has made it clear that he would smash every country involved in such a war, for assassination is a declaration of war...
There is no hope of a sane foreign policy. there is occasionally less stupid maybe due to population reaction or budget problems (early republic, post 1812), but we have usually and stupidly been interventionist.
I don't expect a reply, and so far there has been none, but all these email addresses are direct, bypassing the embedded email system in their Official Office websites.
From: rayray
To: Senator_Kennedy@Kennedy.senate.gov; Senator_Merkley@Merkley.senate.gov; senator_ossoff@ossoff.senate.gov; mike@rounds.senate.gov; elizabeth_warren@warren.senate.gov; senator_bennet@bennet.senate.gov; senator@cotton.senate.gov; correspondence_reply@durbin.senate.gov; info_sanders@sanders.senate.gov; SenatorHawley@hawley.senate.gov; Hirono.outgoing.mail@hirono.senate.gov; Senator@cortezmasto.senate.gov; Senator@sullivan.senate.gov; senator@klobuchar.senate.gov; senator@Gillibrand.senate.gov; jack_beyrer@armed-services.senate.gov
Sent: Tuesday, February 27th 2024, 10:46
Subject: US WAR WITH RUSSIA
It was Biden who presided over the 2014 US/CIA Coup/Regime change of the Democratically Elected Russian friendly government, installing the US UN-elected proxy anti-Russian Ukraine government. That’s when the seeds for this US WAR with Russia over Ukraine in NATO were planted.
That anti-Russian government immediately started shelling the majority Russian speaking UKRAINIANS in the East bordering Russia who voted for the Russian friendly government and refused to accept the US/CIA orchestrated Coup.
From 2014 to 2022 there were some 14,000 UKRAINIAN Civilians in the East killed by Ukraine government shelling, but that was not hyped big News in the West.
Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions signed the 13-point Minsk accord in February 2015.
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2202 calling on all parties, to implement the 13-point agreement in February 2015. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, gathered in Minsk at the time, and issued a declaration of support for the deal.
1. An immediate and comprehensive ceasefire
2. Withdrawal of all heavy weapons by both sides
3. Monitoring and verification by the OSCE
4. To start a dialogue on interim self-government for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in accordance with Ukrainian law, and acknowledge their special status by parliamentary resolution.
5. A pardon and amnesty for people involved in the fighting
6. An exchange of hostages and prisoners.
7. Provision of humanitarian assistance.
8. Resumption of socio-economic ties, including pensions.
9. Restoration of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine.
10. Withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment and mercenaries.
11. Constitutional reform in Ukraine including decentralisation, with specific mention of Donetsk and Luhansk.
12. Elections in Donetsk and Luhansk on terms to be agreed with their representatives.
13. Intensifying the work of a Trilateral Contact Group comprising representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE.
To Putin’s great disappointment, Ukraine and the Western signatories made no effort to implement the terms of Minsk II. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and France’s President Holland spilled the beans the purpose of Minsk II was only to stall deceiving Putin, while NATO armed and trained Ukraine for the WAR the US was determined to provoke with Russia.
Fast forward to December 2021 when Putin repackaged the agreed Terms of Minsk II in a draft Treaty submitted to the US for consideration. The US rejected it out of hand without any Diplomatic discussion at all.
In early 2022, Western MSM were reporting Russia had amassed some 140,0000 troops on the border without mentioning Ukraine amassed some 80,000 troops facing the Russian speaking Ukraine majority in the East resisting the 2014 CIA orchestrated Coup.
More than anyone else, only because The Kansas City Times was quoting me in the Historical record of September 13, 1976, publishing, “He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a war with Russia” I went to the OSCE website to see what was happening with no. 3 of the 2015 Minsk II the week before the Russian SMO.
US Western MSM didn’t report it because it conflicts with the incessant Western War Propaganda the Russian SMO was unprovoked. In the week before February 24, the Ukraine government increased shelling the Russian speaking Ukrainians with up to 2000 Truce violations a DAY.
It was Ukraine that started the WAR, most probably as US direction, that provoked the Russian SMO to stop it.
We also know Russia and Ukraine initialled an agreement to stop the fighting in March, 2022 but the US lapdog Johnson went to Kiev with the instruction to not follow through with Russia because the US would arm and support Ukraine to fight Russia as long as it takes.
US/NATO claiming Russia wants to re-constitute the Soviet Union is fake US hype to sell more Weapons of Death & Destruction, preparing Americans and the World for the FINAL WAR to End ALL WARS, WWIII/Armageddon.
Vladimir Putin, “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
New York Times 20 February 2000;
If the US wasn’t so determined to weaken Russia as their stated goal using Ukraine as their proxy, all the territory Ukraine lost in the WAR would still be part of Ukraine. The US is also presiding over the Gaza carnage perpetuating the WAR, when the US has the leverage to stop the slaughter by threatening to stop supplying Israel the bombs and cash.
The Fact is the US Military-Industrial Congressional Complex is making a KILLING off the Ukraine War and the Gaza MASSACRE.
Excerpts from speeches from the last Real Commander-in-Chief General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower
1953 CROSS OF IRON SPEECH:
https://youtu.be/04P4zPzspuI?si=-A7D9l4aZizGqtKe
1961 Military-Industrial Complex speech
https://youtu.be/Gg-jvHynP9Y?si=cKlSZiJq1oljMxYO
Peace
Ray Joseph Cormier
RayJC.com
Veterans Day Declaration
http://rayjc.com/2011/02/23/the-declaration/
For that matter, Zelenskii was elected in 2019 over vociferous American objections on a policy of peace and reconciliation with Russia.
The United States made it plain that he was not permitted to carry that policy out.
Thank God Curtis Lemay is dead.
He always proposed nuking the Russians when they didn't have atomic weapons.
In December 1998, Former US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, US Undersecretary of Defence John Deutch and Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, colluded to write this in Foreign Affairs Journal,
A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it.
Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbour, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks.
I find it curious it happened just like that 3 years later, and one of the Authors was able to control what information the 9/11 Commission was able to see?
https://rayjc.com/2011/08/28/the-revelation-of-jesus-christ-from-1911-to-911/
how did I read last why can the USA organize wars worldwide, because no matter where they start wars, the reaction of those affected has never really affected USA territory so far. A lot of people think 9/11 was a reaction, it's really debatable. Because many indications speak a clear language
Remember, Russia considers Ukraine to be rightly part of Russia. I think the Russians are being cautious on possibly using nukes on what they consider Russian lands. Nukes strike sites are hard to clean up. They don't want another Chernobyl waste land in what will once again be its breadbasket. At wars end, wheat could become a very powerful tool to defeat the observance of sanctions by nations dependent on wheat, and Europe will fold to keep mass starvation at bay.
The point Putin was making was NOT about Ukraine, it was about NATO starting a war.
I am convinced that the leaders of the USA and the so-called "civilized" (which I think is a blatant lie) Western Europe have sworn one by one to send us EU citizens to nuclear hell ! They are not interested in the fate of the citizens, since they already openly state that there are too many of us on the planet and that this must be reduced at any cost. But we all know that they do not count themselves and their degenerate descendants among those to be reduced, of course, because they trust that they will survive the nuclear hell in shelters with adequate security on our tax !
Please define a "decent" foreign policy?
think of the opposite
I assume you mean the opposite of what is being done now. That would be leave Europe and NATO. Leave the Middle East as we have no hope of solving anything there. And leaving Asia to Asia.
Is that not a neutralist foreign policy?
I did not mean any of that.
Please let me know what you mean? Opposite of what?
You are the first Western writer I’ve seen refer to the Russian invasion as a Special Miltary Operation without quotation marks. You clearly have Tucker Carlson blinders on and don’t grasp the threat Putin represents to the world order and U.S. interests.
Also, your statement about Putin not going after Zelensky hasn’t aged well, as he tried to kill him in Odessa this week.
Being a realist doesn’t mean you have to be a Putin sycophant. Do better.
Complete nonsense. There is no need for quotation marks --it is what the Russians call it, lie it or not. I don't have any blinders on and I think I understand the Russian threat a lot better than you do, since I spent 25 years in government, including the Pentagon working the Russian/Soviet issue. Secondly you are completely wrong. If Putin aimed at Zelensky he would not have missed. The Russians used drones to attack the site where the Ukrainians make the underwater vehicles that had just destroyed one of their patrol ships. It happened that Zelensky and Macron decided to visit Odessa. They did not ask Putin or tell him. The Russian target was not far from their motorcade. In fact, they destroyed the target they were after. Finally I resent the outrageous, unfair and wrong suggestion you make about me being a "Putin sycophant." People like you find it hard to make rational arguments.
You read history and again and again there are these disastrous wars that were entered into with full knowledge of the likely consequences. And you just wonder how the leaders of the time didn’t see, or didn’t try to stop it, but just marched blindly forward.
And here it is again. Back in 2022 when America provoked this war everyone was worried about nuclear escalation and wanting to make sure it remained unthinkable.
But sure enough, two years in we are talking seriously about a NATO/Russia nuclear war that will probably result in the extermination of most of humanity, and nobody is really doing anything to stop it, world leaders are just blindly walking towards the light.
Let's have a war!
So you can go and die!
Let's have a war!
We could all use the money!
Let's have a war!
We need the space!
Let's have a war!
Clean out this place!
Let's have a war!
Jack up the Dow Jones!
Let's have a war!
It can start in Moldavia!
Let's have a war!
Blame it on the middle-class!
Let's have a war!
We're like rats in a cage!
Let's have a war!
Sell the rights to the networks!
Let's have a war!
Let our wallets get fat like last time!
Let's have a war!
Give guns to the poor!
Let's have a war!
Clean out this place!!!!!
Sounds like Scholz made his public announcement to pre-empt Russian release of the leaked Bundeswehr phone call, which would have made public the same info?
I am not sure that was the reason for Scholz --would he have known about the leak ahead of time, or did he leak it?
Surely someone in his military or MoD, I would think. I had in mind damage control - but it's confusing. He's been caught misleading the public on the one hand (about dragging his country into a high stakes confrontation with negligible upside for them), and being totally submissive to both US and Euro-hawks who have already kneecapped his economy and filled the country with refugees, on the other hand.
I am assuming this article's position is that there are whole NATO units in Ukraine, not just the resumption of weapons trainers and support personnel, as there was for years in Ukraine.
If Schultz knew there were NATO units in Ukraine, then so did Putin, and Putin didn't launch nukes.
So the conclusion that we should stop supporting Ukraine the way we are is correct. We should stop sending mostly surplus and obsolete weapons, with a few modern trinkets.
The reticence to sent NATO ground and air forces en masse to counter Russia's massive deployment has been a huge mistake, extending the war and unnecessarily costing more lives. Overwhelming force should be used against Russia, rather than fighting with two hands tied behind our backs.
We don't have overwhelming force(s) to send to Ukraine, nor do we have the supplies for them. Furthermore, the war would not be contained --the Russians will attack in Europe.
NATO collective armies are not appreciably larger than Russia's, but the effective ones can bring to bear significantly more force. NATO's sea and air forces dwarf Russia's.
NATO forces would be able to secure air supremacy, and the nature of the war would immediately change, with Russia's defeat assured.
As for Russia attacking Europe, it already is. That's rather the point. Russia has struggled to handle a war at its current scale, against a foe with much less population. NATO has about 9x Russia's population, and 25x it's wealth. If it chooses to begin additional attacks at other points along its border, it will only hasten its defeat.
Ramping up production of supplies is the main obstacle to NATO forces; several are woefully under-armed. But that can be remedied.
you make a lot of statements without any proof. There is no assurance that NATO would have air superiority, especially against Russian air defenses. Russia's defeat would never "be assured." NATO won;t have enough ammunition for decades to fight a war. Furthermore, Russian field commanders and troops are far more experienced than those in NATO who only have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan (on a minimal basis). I simply think your assessment is not credible.
"NATO won't have enough ammunition for decades"
Now there's an extraordinary claim. Proof please.
There are literally hundreds of articles on NATOs armament problem and inability to manufacture anywhere near what is required. You should be able to find them easily.
My own sense is that NATO's limited stockpile has been reduced by between 40 and 50%, although real numbers are hard to come by. For example, NATO has been able to provide Ukraine with only 1/3rd of its needs for 155mm howitzer shells with no real prospect for any improvement. This is due to years of underfunding in NATO countries.
I'm open to persuasion. But if you're going to make extraordinary claims generally not found in *credible* sources (especially "my own sense"), you need to provide proof, or you're not going to be convincing.
The articles you refer to: I have read dozens of such articles.
None of them support the idea that increasing capacity and throughput would take decades, nor do they credibly support that US stockpiles in gross (not individual arms) - which are most of NATO's stockpiles - are anywhere near those depletion rates. Note that there are many NATO forces with virtually no ammunition, and they can skew averages.
Regarding arming NATO: If NATO actually engages in a war, stasis ends, and any linear extrapolations you're making become obsolete. Russia is not the only one who can increase production, and it's capacity is far below NATO's.
The sleeping giant is not yet fully awake. It has only begun to stir.
It is increasingly apparent that NATO can only win if it escalates beyond Russia's capacity, which it can do. Putin will get to decide whether to fight NATO or come to the negotiating table. The latter is overwhelmingly likely, but either course takes precious time and resources from other NATO needs. The reasons for not doing so are outside that theatre: the US needs its resources in reserve as a deterrent for Asia-Pacific.
However, there are some longer-term benefits for NATO from ramping up production, even if it isn't largely used against Russia: it provides a considerably greater deterrent to Chinese expansion.
What NATO should fear most is not Russia's production, but China's, should the latter use NATO's distraction in Europe to launch a war in Taiwan.