On June 25th Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin telephoned Russian Minister of Defense Andrew Belousov. It was the first contact between the US and Russian defense heads in more than a year and it was initiated by Secretary Austin. Was the conversation useful?
In the meantime two Russophobes aquired important positions. Mark Rutter is the new NATO clown and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is poised to become the EU's top diplomat.
I Germany we say, the dumbest sheep select their own butcher.
One has to wonder if the EU really wants to get nuked. Perhaps that's the US final goal, a wider war in Europe. You'd lose two big competitors once and for all.
US would lose much more than competitors... If there were a "wider war in Europe" that would be WWIII and then immediately US would be fully nuked as well. Let's hope the senile Biden and all his criminal puppeteers will disappear before they achieve dragging us into their war.
The Russian SMO was necessitated by the US, EU, and NATO ignoring multiple and diverse Russian attempts to prevent an existential threat to them from the Ukraine from developing from the Maidan revolution.
It's difficult to sell a war to your people these days.
While Russia has miscalculated their war effort, Putin was proven right about the intentions of the West. The Russians could clearly see what this conflict was about, from the get go.
"Negotiate" does not have the same meaning when the gun barrel is pointed at your head...the Russians are the ones who have their finger on the trigger!
Just a bit more understanding of the backstory on the coup would help you understand that they wrongly trusted the cabal that negotiated the Minsk agreements in bad faith.
Had Russia gone "all in" you and I would likely be sharing a cave somewhere doing bong tokes for Jesus until the radiation levels outside settled down!
...and that was when the RAF was still in disarray and weak. The nitwit Sakashvilli was duped by George-the-Shrub "we've got ur back son" into attacking with it's puny forces backed by a few NATO/IS/US instructors. Got their collective asses handed to em...and gave up some Humvees with NATO comms equipment that really let the Ruskis get their noses all up in the EW tent. Hardly comparable to Fortress Ukraine which was being built and equipped since 2014!
I' not sure I understand your point. Nobody knows what Russian objectives were in 2022 outside of Plan A (lightning strike to bring Ukraine/US to negotiating table) and there were certainly Plans B and C. Faulty intel contributed to shaping the dynamics in the first few months but Russia adapted. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. If I recall, minimizing casualties on both sides was incorporated into the SMO plan. Regime change and denazification also...maybe Russia should have nuked the whole of Ukraine to satisfy your need for a quick victory (bong tokes for Jesus)? Maintaining minimal losses of Russian soldiers is still a guiding principle, regardless how much bloodlust you express. Establishing a safety corridor is another...do you realize what fighting along a 600km front of open steppes (arguably the most fortified place on the planet) entails where forest belts and towns are the only (and scarce) places of refuge? What do you mean by RAF?
I am sure that Austin called just to deceive the Russian leadership once again. Americans like to arrange such emotional swings when, after threats, they show that there is still a possibility of cooperation. Few people in Moscow will buy into all these tricks. Putin clearly announced his peace plan and it was confirmed even after the attack on Sevastopol.
Several reports from Dima at MilitarySummary channel provide info that an official Russian government plane took off from Moscow headed towards US soon after the conversation between Austin and Belousov. Secondly, he announced today (6/28 morning update) that Def Min Belousov issued a mandate to find strategies to eliminate NATO/US recon drone flights over the Black Sea. This follows Fighterbomber's interview in which he states the Global Hawk was buzzed at high speed by a Mig-31 which destablized it's flight and prompted it to leave the area (all accidental of course). This seems to be confirmed by other sources as well (though all reports may share the same source(s))
"Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov instructed the army’s General Staff to take “rapid response measures” against US drones over the Black sea as their increased activity raises the likelihood of incidents in airspace."
And may God save us from the consequences of the next four years of US "leadership"...based on what transpired last night on US national teevee, the best candidates for the next "leader of the free world" will be a narcissistic nincompoop and a senile old man who lost his dignity along with his marbles. The democrats are in the process of saving "democracy" and "America" by destroying both while the republicans stand by watching Rome burn (when not supporting them).
The official plane may be picking up people for an exchange with the Russians, although nothing has happened yet. Alternatively they may be clearing out their embassy (which would be a very bad signal)
More than likely it was nothing more than a “defusing exercise.” The US consistently treats Russia with inexplicable contempt…as though Russia doesn’t smell bs when it’s thrust under their nose…this call is a perfect example.
Never mind that literally no one in the US air fleet, at any level, has any experience whatsoever in high-intensity air combat operations against an enemy that:
- can match or exceed you with high numbers of superior air frames
- will be flying from interior lines, with well-established logistical infrastructure
- backed by high numbers of the finest layered air defenses on the planet
- with far superior magazine depth
- and will significantly outrange NATO platforms in almost every plausible scenario.
Oh, yeah. And I almost forgot: anyone (including the perpetually catastrophist Russian murmurers) who believes for a moment that Russia will not act to obliterate a NATO base in Romania under such circumstances ... well, that's just silly talk.
Of course they will. They'll hit it hard. Really hard — with a strike package that exceeds anything ever thrown at a Ukrainian target over the course of this war.
It could well become the most intensely pressure-packed moment in modern times — a situation exceptionally fraught with the possibility of catastrophic miscalculation.
(...)"
However I don´t think RU would bomb NATO territory simply for F-16 taking off there.
It doesn´t add up. The one thing - to stop NATO - it would not accomplish because NATO is ordered around by the insane. F-16s are a provocation and if they are nuclear tipped and firing that stuff, well then it doesn´t matter anyway because it´s over and both sides would know this. Yet, what sense does a limited F-16 nuclear strike make? Whether with 0.3 kt or 50kt yields?
Nuke Russia a tiny little bit somewhere in Siberia and expect them to not do anything "coz we are the real nice guys"? Even Russians have a limit of tolerance.
This shitshow is not winnable.
p.s. I think Schryver underestimates the madness and incompetence in Europe.
Yesterday Brian Berletic, who of course is merely an observer and theoretical scholar of these issues, on The Duran suggested that time for the US with their plan to overwhelm RU and then "move on" to CHINA has run out.
I have always had contentions against the assumption that this war was waged by the US for one reason only. Many other things so far have worked out for the US which need not necessitate a RU withdrawal, defeat, call it whatever you want.
However the question is, what is the bigger plan for Europe after stepping into US´ shoes and taking over concerning RU? WWIII? Seriously? With this population? What kind of dimwit plan is that?
The rest of the world knows Europe as the most belligerent and nasty midget continent ever carrying out genocides for over 500 years. Do Europeans really believe anybody is going to take Paris, Berlin, London seriously with their incompetent Masters-of-the-Universe attitude in the future?
British historian Dilip Hiro once put the "strategy" of British Imperialism into a great nutshell:
"We have the Maxim Gun and you don´t."
(In the US it was The Winchester instead).
But that era is over.
So why not start behaving like decent adults who want to live together with others instead of killing them?
Unfortunately calls and plans for escalation are underway among the group of rabid Russophobes running the EU and the respective "leaders" of its member countries. (God punishes the wicked with insanity first so they are blinded). Poland is leading the charge (with the Baltic poodles leading from behind) and has announce "30 day military summer camp" programs (voluntary as of now) to increase the pool of soldiers in its efforts to expand its army, teach military skills (and dig ditches) to "save the EU from those evil imperialists in the East"! Additionally the Proles want to build a 700km fortification along the border (for a mere 2.5billion euros). The military "Schengen" plan is part and parcel of this mood for "inevitable and necessary" confrontation with Russia.
Until 2022 I really thought that with the Covid play past and the pressing climate conferences and the then renewed warnings over nuclear winter, even after a "limited nuclear war" between India and Pakistan, governments would start to act sane. There is enough to tackle. Boy was I wrong. However the scientific realities will not pass. They wil only get worse. So why on Earth are the Poles planning on a tank army of 800+ pieces from South Korea? Why that East Wall that you are describing? These people know the intelligence reports. And those reports are telling them that RU wants no harm. To paraphrase Seymour Hersh quoting I think Falstaff: "The world is an oyster no more". And to press those tiny nations in the East (sry, but Berlin alone has more citizens than Latvia and as many as Lithuania) into war frenzy and jingoism is downright sick and perverted.
This "plan" (the vision to knock out Russia and China, in order) was always a non starter, but the neocons were forceful enough in their denial of that impossibility until very recently - like this year. Alas, once the US accepts its fall to the #2 global position (around end of next US presidential term, perhaps), tensions with Russia continue unchanged. It is entirely natural for #2 and #3 to fight, and they will get help doing just that from #1.
Indeed. Unless of course its architects were so blinded by their idea of military (and cultural) supremacy that they dismissed reality.
I really don´t know if they truly are as dumb as Andrei Martyanov pictures them, comparing it with the racist arrogance of German Wehrmacht towards the Red Army. Or are they just cynical?
After all one of the US intelligence community´s characteristics was to overestimate RU capabilities during the Cold War. Where have those traditions of exaggeration gone?
Or were they merely a means to keep up the post 1945 order? As the covert story of Truman´s orchestrated War Scare of 1948 would suggest (which btw has very much in common with today´s fabrication of RU threats).
Resulting in a twisted sort of "double think" by US analysts throughout the Cold War, thinking contradictory thoughts about the Communist Empire at the same time: Incapable yet totally evil and unpredictable.
p.s. On a related note see this February entry by John Bellamy Foster on the history and nature of "Counterforce" attacks:
"The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy: The Counterforce Doctrine and the Ideology of Moral Asymmetry"
With neocons in mind - what I would like to understand - in how far has this counterforce stratagem possibly been a phantasma for most of its existence? I am asking in the light of new hypotheses on hypersonics changing „the game“ (or not), or details of RU early warning as at least suggested by Andrei Martyanov or Pavel Podvig with differing emphasis - all possibly eclipsing US supremacy or putting it into question.
Were US MIC think tanks possibly off the mark by the late Aughts already? Just speculating here.
Very interesting paper. In my non expert opinion, the 'counterforce' concept was always, aspirational.
In a contest limited to 2 participants (US and USSR or Russia), there is firstly the technical challenge of finding amid Russia's vast territory all road-mobile ICBM's and decoys, and then of course submarines. But at least with ABM, with some squinting and handwaving, one could tell themselves they would emerge from a strategic counterforce exchange less damaged than their opponent. The advent of hypersonic strategic weapons undercuts this argument, and this was articulated by Russia in the 2010's. Of course soonboth sides develop the hypersonic capability, and the debate would have continued as before.
Enter modern China. Leading industrial and scientific capacity pretty much across the board. Antagonized pointlessly by both Trump and Biden administrations, leaving no doubt about US planners' fear and hostility towards the PRC. Now it's a 3-way contest. This buries the anyway shaky original argument for counterforce, which would presume the side to attack first emerging from the exchange in a less debilitated position. IOW, if US comes out with 40% of its arms, and Russia with only 20%, China still wins. The whole thing is completely moot now, unless the US thinks it can simultaneously attack both Russia and China. While some crazies can be found who formulate plans for this scenario, it is so much more obviously nonsensical, I think we are pretty safe. For one thing, the combination of Russian and Chinese submarine fleet, before long, will be simply too numerous for the US fleet to keep up with, having to steam halfway around the world to attempt to track them. Not to mention what would happen when China really starts to lose patience, and implications of the drone age, and so forth.
The lies deceptions and outright hubris of America is beyond redemption. The viper signals conversation a pause in hostilities either retreat or attack which is it?
In the meantime two Russophobes aquired important positions. Mark Rutter is the new NATO clown and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is poised to become the EU's top diplomat.
I Germany we say, the dumbest sheep select their own butcher.
One has to wonder if the EU really wants to get nuked. Perhaps that's the US final goal, a wider war in Europe. You'd lose two big competitors once and for all.
US would lose much more than competitors... If there were a "wider war in Europe" that would be WWIII and then immediately US would be fully nuked as well. Let's hope the senile Biden and all his criminal puppeteers will disappear before they achieve dragging us into their war.
And that insane byotch is pushing Poland into the meat grinder with all the Estonian-nazi fervor she can muster!
The last ‘American century’ was built on wars in Europe and East Asia. There is a project for a new American century.
Personally, I'd like to feed Austin through a wood chipper, render the results and use them to wax the boardroom table and floors at Raytheon.
Sadly, he'd be replaced with another just like him.
The Russian SMO was necessitated by the US, EU, and NATO ignoring multiple and diverse Russian attempts to prevent an existential threat to them from the Ukraine from developing from the Maidan revolution.
Which is why Russia was foolish to have gone as lightly as they did.
It's difficult to sell a war to your people these days.
While Russia has miscalculated their war effort, Putin was proven right about the intentions of the West. The Russians could clearly see what this conflict was about, from the get go.
That requires assuming away a lot of facts in evidence. Russia was happy to enter a Minsk 3 before Boris Johnson scuttled that.
Hell, even now Russia would prefer to negotiate. The West sees this as contemptible weakness.
"Negotiate" does not have the same meaning when the gun barrel is pointed at your head...the Russians are the ones who have their finger on the trigger!
Except it is ever always only the West that acts like it.
Except it is ever always only the West that acts like it.
Ah, the delusional west! Remember "...reality is what we say it is...", Karl Rove (except when reality meets the Russian/Chinese road)
Just a bit more understanding of the backstory on the coup would help you understand that they wrongly trusted the cabal that negotiated the Minsk agreements in bad faith.
Had Russia gone "all in" you and I would likely be sharing a cave somewhere doing bong tokes for Jesus until the radiation levels outside settled down!
That didn't happen in Georgia in 2008. Russia used adequate force, the whole thing was done and dusted in three days.
...and that was when the RAF was still in disarray and weak. The nitwit Sakashvilli was duped by George-the-Shrub "we've got ur back son" into attacking with it's puny forces backed by a few NATO/IS/US instructors. Got their collective asses handed to em...and gave up some Humvees with NATO comms equipment that really let the Ruskis get their noses all up in the EW tent. Hardly comparable to Fortress Ukraine which was being built and equipped since 2014!
Since Russia only used a small fraction of available forces in 2022 expecting a quick surrender, you're just retconning excuses.
Anyway, the RAF hasn't participated in the war in Ukraine.
I' not sure I understand your point. Nobody knows what Russian objectives were in 2022 outside of Plan A (lightning strike to bring Ukraine/US to negotiating table) and there were certainly Plans B and C. Faulty intel contributed to shaping the dynamics in the first few months but Russia adapted. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. If I recall, minimizing casualties on both sides was incorporated into the SMO plan. Regime change and denazification also...maybe Russia should have nuked the whole of Ukraine to satisfy your need for a quick victory (bong tokes for Jesus)? Maintaining minimal losses of Russian soldiers is still a guiding principle, regardless how much bloodlust you express. Establishing a safety corridor is another...do you realize what fighting along a 600km front of open steppes (arguably the most fortified place on the planet) entails where forest belts and towns are the only (and scarce) places of refuge? What do you mean by RAF?
That didn't happen in Georgia in 2008. Russia used adequate force, the whole thing was done and dusted in three days.
I am sure that Austin called just to deceive the Russian leadership once again. Americans like to arrange such emotional swings when, after threats, they show that there is still a possibility of cooperation. Few people in Moscow will buy into all these tricks. Putin clearly announced his peace plan and it was confirmed even after the attack on Sevastopol.
In other words, a CYA call...
Sounds to me like he's spooked. Sounds to me that it hints at the downing of the Global Hawk was real. Sounds to me that Intel was flashing red.
Several reports from Dima at MilitarySummary channel provide info that an official Russian government plane took off from Moscow headed towards US soon after the conversation between Austin and Belousov. Secondly, he announced today (6/28 morning update) that Def Min Belousov issued a mandate to find strategies to eliminate NATO/US recon drone flights over the Black Sea. This follows Fighterbomber's interview in which he states the Global Hawk was buzzed at high speed by a Mig-31 which destablized it's flight and prompted it to leave the area (all accidental of course). This seems to be confirmed by other sources as well (though all reports may share the same source(s))
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-defense-minister-calls-for-response-to-us-drone-provocations/ar-BB1p3xWB?ocid=BingNewsSerp
"Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov instructed the army’s General Staff to take “rapid response measures” against US drones over the Black sea as their increased activity raises the likelihood of incidents in airspace."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-28/russia-vows-to-take-measures-against-us-drones-over-black-sea
And may God save us from the consequences of the next four years of US "leadership"...based on what transpired last night on US national teevee, the best candidates for the next "leader of the free world" will be a narcissistic nincompoop and a senile old man who lost his dignity along with his marbles. The democrats are in the process of saving "democracy" and "America" by destroying both while the republicans stand by watching Rome burn (when not supporting them).
The official plane may be picking up people for an exchange with the Russians, although nothing has happened yet. Alternatively they may be clearing out their embassy (which would be a very bad signal)
The embassy issue is what occurred to me…god I hope not.
It is has been long enough to suggest the plane was sent and is sitting on standby. That suggests some prisoner exchange may be in the works.
..as in the prisoner swap? Also reports that a new NATO SOP was put in place for fighters to escort all recon drones over the Black Sea!
Thanks for your work Stephen!
We've shared the link on our latest report.
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/
Many thanks!
More than likely it was nothing more than a “defusing exercise.” The US consistently treats Russia with inexplicable contempt…as though Russia doesn’t smell bs when it’s thrust under their nose…this call is a perfect example.
Putin must be facing enormous internal pressure to up the ante vs. US and Ukraine after the Sevastopol attack. Is Russia's patience at an end?
This latest entry by William Schryver on a F-16s scenario (with Western volunteer pilots)
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/the-last-wunderwaffe
"(...)
Never mind that literally no one in the US air fleet, at any level, has any experience whatsoever in high-intensity air combat operations against an enemy that:
- can match or exceed you with high numbers of superior air frames
- will be flying from interior lines, with well-established logistical infrastructure
- backed by high numbers of the finest layered air defenses on the planet
- with far superior magazine depth
- and will significantly outrange NATO platforms in almost every plausible scenario.
Oh, yeah. And I almost forgot: anyone (including the perpetually catastrophist Russian murmurers) who believes for a moment that Russia will not act to obliterate a NATO base in Romania under such circumstances ... well, that's just silly talk.
Of course they will. They'll hit it hard. Really hard — with a strike package that exceeds anything ever thrown at a Ukrainian target over the course of this war.
It could well become the most intensely pressure-packed moment in modern times — a situation exceptionally fraught with the possibility of catastrophic miscalculation.
(...)"
However I don´t think RU would bomb NATO territory simply for F-16 taking off there.
It doesn´t add up. The one thing - to stop NATO - it would not accomplish because NATO is ordered around by the insane. F-16s are a provocation and if they are nuclear tipped and firing that stuff, well then it doesn´t matter anyway because it´s over and both sides would know this. Yet, what sense does a limited F-16 nuclear strike make? Whether with 0.3 kt or 50kt yields?
Nuke Russia a tiny little bit somewhere in Siberia and expect them to not do anything "coz we are the real nice guys"? Even Russians have a limit of tolerance.
This shitshow is not winnable.
p.s. I think Schryver underestimates the madness and incompetence in Europe.
Yesterday Brian Berletic, who of course is merely an observer and theoretical scholar of these issues, on The Duran suggested that time for the US with their plan to overwhelm RU and then "move on" to CHINA has run out.
I have always had contentions against the assumption that this war was waged by the US for one reason only. Many other things so far have worked out for the US which need not necessitate a RU withdrawal, defeat, call it whatever you want.
However the question is, what is the bigger plan for Europe after stepping into US´ shoes and taking over concerning RU? WWIII? Seriously? With this population? What kind of dimwit plan is that?
The rest of the world knows Europe as the most belligerent and nasty midget continent ever carrying out genocides for over 500 years. Do Europeans really believe anybody is going to take Paris, Berlin, London seriously with their incompetent Masters-of-the-Universe attitude in the future?
British historian Dilip Hiro once put the "strategy" of British Imperialism into a great nutshell:
"We have the Maxim Gun and you don´t."
(In the US it was The Winchester instead).
But that era is over.
So why not start behaving like decent adults who want to live together with others instead of killing them?
Unfortunately calls and plans for escalation are underway among the group of rabid Russophobes running the EU and the respective "leaders" of its member countries. (God punishes the wicked with insanity first so they are blinded). Poland is leading the charge (with the Baltic poodles leading from behind) and has announce "30 day military summer camp" programs (voluntary as of now) to increase the pool of soldiers in its efforts to expand its army, teach military skills (and dig ditches) to "save the EU from those evil imperialists in the East"! Additionally the Proles want to build a 700km fortification along the border (for a mere 2.5billion euros). The military "Schengen" plan is part and parcel of this mood for "inevitable and necessary" confrontation with Russia.
Until 2022 I really thought that with the Covid play past and the pressing climate conferences and the then renewed warnings over nuclear winter, even after a "limited nuclear war" between India and Pakistan, governments would start to act sane. There is enough to tackle. Boy was I wrong. However the scientific realities will not pass. They wil only get worse. So why on Earth are the Poles planning on a tank army of 800+ pieces from South Korea? Why that East Wall that you are describing? These people know the intelligence reports. And those reports are telling them that RU wants no harm. To paraphrase Seymour Hersh quoting I think Falstaff: "The world is an oyster no more". And to press those tiny nations in the East (sry, but Berlin alone has more citizens than Latvia and as many as Lithuania) into war frenzy and jingoism is downright sick and perverted.
This "plan" (the vision to knock out Russia and China, in order) was always a non starter, but the neocons were forceful enough in their denial of that impossibility until very recently - like this year. Alas, once the US accepts its fall to the #2 global position (around end of next US presidential term, perhaps), tensions with Russia continue unchanged. It is entirely natural for #2 and #3 to fight, and they will get help doing just that from #1.
"was always a non starter"
Indeed. Unless of course its architects were so blinded by their idea of military (and cultural) supremacy that they dismissed reality.
I really don´t know if they truly are as dumb as Andrei Martyanov pictures them, comparing it with the racist arrogance of German Wehrmacht towards the Red Army. Or are they just cynical?
After all one of the US intelligence community´s characteristics was to overestimate RU capabilities during the Cold War. Where have those traditions of exaggeration gone?
Or were they merely a means to keep up the post 1945 order? As the covert story of Truman´s orchestrated War Scare of 1948 would suggest (which btw has very much in common with today´s fabrication of RU threats).
Resulting in a twisted sort of "double think" by US analysts throughout the Cold War, thinking contradictory thoughts about the Communist Empire at the same time: Incapable yet totally evil and unpredictable.
p.s. On a related note see this February entry by John Bellamy Foster on the history and nature of "Counterforce" attacks:
"The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy: The Counterforce Doctrine and the Ideology of Moral Asymmetry"
by John Bellamy Foster
02/01/2024
https://monthlyreview.org/2024/02/01/the-u-s-quest-for-nuclear-primacy/#en71backlink
https://archive.is/u9lDX
With neocons in mind - what I would like to understand - in how far has this counterforce stratagem possibly been a phantasma for most of its existence? I am asking in the light of new hypotheses on hypersonics changing „the game“ (or not), or details of RU early warning as at least suggested by Andrei Martyanov or Pavel Podvig with differing emphasis - all possibly eclipsing US supremacy or putting it into question.
Were US MIC think tanks possibly off the mark by the late Aughts already? Just speculating here.
Very interesting paper. In my non expert opinion, the 'counterforce' concept was always, aspirational.
In a contest limited to 2 participants (US and USSR or Russia), there is firstly the technical challenge of finding amid Russia's vast territory all road-mobile ICBM's and decoys, and then of course submarines. But at least with ABM, with some squinting and handwaving, one could tell themselves they would emerge from a strategic counterforce exchange less damaged than their opponent. The advent of hypersonic strategic weapons undercuts this argument, and this was articulated by Russia in the 2010's. Of course soonboth sides develop the hypersonic capability, and the debate would have continued as before.
Enter modern China. Leading industrial and scientific capacity pretty much across the board. Antagonized pointlessly by both Trump and Biden administrations, leaving no doubt about US planners' fear and hostility towards the PRC. Now it's a 3-way contest. This buries the anyway shaky original argument for counterforce, which would presume the side to attack first emerging from the exchange in a less debilitated position. IOW, if US comes out with 40% of its arms, and Russia with only 20%, China still wins. The whole thing is completely moot now, unless the US thinks it can simultaneously attack both Russia and China. While some crazies can be found who formulate plans for this scenario, it is so much more obviously nonsensical, I think we are pretty safe. For one thing, the combination of Russian and Chinese submarine fleet, before long, will be simply too numerous for the US fleet to keep up with, having to steam halfway around the world to attempt to track them. Not to mention what would happen when China really starts to lose patience, and implications of the drone age, and so forth.
The lies deceptions and outright hubris of America is beyond redemption. The viper signals conversation a pause in hostilities either retreat or attack which is it?
The United States can lead the world to disaster.