Jim's Blog

It seems unlikely that the Ukraine war will end in a negotiated settlement. The Ukrainian muppet state is already starting to disappear, with most of the high elements of the state having moved to mansions in the South of France, Italy, and Canada. They don’t seem keen on America for some reason I am at loss to understand. Zelensky has purchased a palace in London, which is not a strong vote of confidence in the continued existence of the Ukrainian muppet state.

Those elements of the state apparatus that are still around are increasingly acting like mobile bandits rather than stationary bandits — grabbing what they can preparatory to moving on, and applying state violence capriciously and arbitrarily without regard to the long term state objectives of maintaining order and productivity. Likely that by and by, there just will not be enough of the muppet state left for the elements of the state to get away with using violence under color of authority.

If the Ukrainian muppet state simply vanishes, chances are that the Russians will not intervene to restore order, as this would be contrary to their objective of obtaining a neutral and non aligned buffer zone between themselves and NATO. With luck, we may gain a modern example of how to organize a state from nothing. Or at least how not to do it. Ancient states were created from nothing through relationships of blood and marriage, but we are likely to see a state created from nothing through computers running on Starlink internet and generator power or solar power.

On the other hand, the normal process of state creation is that mobile bandits get sufficiently large and well organised that they face no serious opposition within a well defined turf, and quietly and slowly settle down to stationary banditry. Which is a long, slow, bloody, and destructive process. And one that the Russians may not have the patience for. Russians want a strong cohesive and neutral state capable of keeping out agents of foreign powers, capable of taking responsibility and exercising power over state level threats that happen on its turf.

We shall see. But the topic of this post is not what happens to the Ukraine after what remains of the Ukrainian muppet state skedaddles, but what happens in Nato after what remains of the Ukrainian muppet state skedaddles. Even if Ukraine develops a strong cohesive non aligned state, Nato and Russia are going to keep on pushing where their borders are adjacent. What is happening to Kalingrad is intolerable to Russia and Russians, and Russia is sure to do something violent about it after the Ukrainian muppet state vanishes, even if Nato engages in no further acts of menace and aggression — and it surely will engage in further acts of menace and aggression.

Russia has had centuries of Kalingrad type problems, and for centuries has been resolving or attempting to resolve those problems with immense and terrible violence. This is unlikely to change no matter who governs Russia in future, short of it being conquered and converted into a muppet state of the Global American Empire.

Russia is an empire, and naturally fissiparous, but the gradual escalation of threats, menace, and violence by the global American Empire has led to unprecedented unity and patriotism. These days, even the Chechens are enthusiastic Russian patriots. Russians have deep and horrifying memories of World War II, and when they look westwards, they see the German Wehrmacht in 1940. They are psychologically prepared for total war that could very easily go nuclear, though they do not expect nuclear war happening suddenly out of the blue.

The most recent Nato escalation of war on Russia was a small scale invasion of Russia past the borders that Nato recognizes. It was only a reconnaissance in force, a test of Russian capability, will, and cohesion, but it pissed off the Russians no end.

The Polish and American Nato forces operating from Nato bases in the Ukraine were wearing “Free Russian” hats, and the Nato bases are prominently labelled Ukrainian, and everyone in Global American Empire thinks this makes it totally not a Nato invasion of Russia, just a proxy invasion of Russia, a view not universally accepted by people who live in Russia.

Because the Global American Modus Operandi since 2010 has been slow and creeping escalation, on the slow boiling the frog model, no one in Russia expects nuclear war any time soon, but the Russian government and individual Russians are preparing for nuclear war eventually.

You will recall how the US could not tolerate Soviet Empire bases in Cuba, and this nearly led to nuclear war even though there was absolutely no threat of an Imperial Soviet Invasion of the American homeland. Russians perceive a very real threat of Imperial American invasion. In the end, either the borders of the Russian homeland will be neutral states, or the nukes will very likely fly.

The Ukraine begins to crumble. The Ukraine has about six months of war material left. There army has been severely depleted of men willing to fight. Zelensky has been ruling illegally since March 31, when the last constitutional fig leaf of paper pretence at democracy expired. The pool of potential conscripts is empty – they could easily lower the age of conscription to eighteen or to fifteen, but due to flight and failure to reproduce, that is not a substantial pool.

The death and injury rate among the men that have already been conscripted is horrendous, and is growing faster and faster.

On the other hand, Russian advances have been insignificant so far. A ditch, then a tree, then another ditch, then a house. Remember Bakhmut. That was quite a while ago, and Putin murdered the general who accomplished it, which is not good strategy. Today there is much excitement because the Russians have gained a small and shaky toehold in Chasov Yar. The centre of Chasov Yar is about ten kilometres from the centre of Bakhmut, and the Russian toehold about five kilometres from the western edge of Bakhmut, so it took the Russians all this time to advance five kilometres.

But this painfully slow rate of advance largely reflects Ukrainian strategy of sacrificing very large numbers of troops to hang on to very bad positions. They keep feeding enough troops into a killing field that the Russians cannot take it. So the Russians kill the men that are defending it, and the Ukrainians feed in more men. Ukrainian strategy seems single mindedly focused on what will look good in next week’s Washington power point presentation, and avoiding what will look bad in that presentation, rather than on winning the war.

A Ukrainian strategy aimed at winning the war would be to make Russians pay the highest possible price for their advances, and Ukrainians the lowest possible price for inflicting that high price, and then negotiate when the Russians got tired — it would mean a willingness to fall back from weak places. The entire Greatest Ukrainian Counter Offensive consisted of Ukrainians in weak places fighting Russians in strong places.

Washington loves its frozen conflicts, but the Ukrainians are paying an unpayable price to keep this conflict frozen.

I watched Kagan on Youtube lay out his plan for the Ukrainian Greatest Counter Offensive. (Or maybe it was his wife’s plan, or Blinken’s plan, but he seemed to think it was a great idea, and that he was a great military expert on warfare). Well I am not a great military expert on warfare, but I thought that the plan was idiotic, and that he was idiotic. Some time later I learned that the Pentagon also thought the plan idiotic, and the Ukraine’s top general thought the plan was idiotic. Nonetheless, the Ukrainians attempted to carry out the plan. Which tells you where the power is. The power is with people who have family reasons for wanting Ukrainians dead.

So, the question is, how long before the remaining part of the Ukrainian army just decides to vanish?

Summer.

If the Ukraine was a real nation, their army would be only about half way to collapse, and they could probably continue the same way to 2026 or so. But I think Ukrainian patriotism is mostly fake. The Ukraine has never been a real nation, but a satrapy that empires fought over, not with. I say Ukrainian patriotism is fake and gay, that people say patriotic words because it is easier and safer, and in due course they will say pro-russian words, and scarcely notice the change. Their Ukrainian patriotic words are not really their words, they are Global American Empire words, and Global American Empire is falling.

We shall see if I am right.

Know your enemy, know yourself, win every battle. Know yourself but not the enemy, win some, lose some. Know neither the enemy nor yourself, lose every battle

The Global American Empire does not know itself nor the enemy. They cannot see that to the ordinary Russian in the street, this looks like the lead up to World War II with Nato as Wehrmacht, that fear of the west and the tyranny Russians suffered in the 1990s has remarkably united the naturally fissiparous Russian empire.

And similarly, they believe that Russians seek liberation from Putin, see him as a tyrant, and long to be liberated to Global American Empire rule and for peace by surrender. Hence the remarkably stupid US “Free Russian” invasion of Russia. They thought the oppressed Russian masses would rise up to join them for liberation. The Russians got some electronic devices from the bodies of the “Free Russians” — which recorded a mixture of Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian with Ukrainian accents, and Americans speaking English with American accents.

Our rulers believe their own economic statistics, such as 3.5 percent inflation and low unemployment, hence the disaster of economic sanctions against Russia, which in practice did far more harm to the American Empire than the Russian. All GDP statistics are fake, but Global American Empire GDP statistics are fake and gay. Hence American incapacity to support this war logistically. When America goes up against China, the disparity in economic capability is going to be far more extreme.

From 1990 to 2010 or so, Russia was a province of the Global American Empire. Global American Empire rule was disastrous, incompetent, corrupt, and a nightmare of ruin, oppression and tyranny for ordinary Russians. In 2010 or so, Russia shrugged off Global American Empire rule, and the Global American Empire promptly set to with the standard treatment of rebellious provinces, attempting to color revolution. The color revolution was very badly done, so inevitably escalated to terror, murder and proxy war. Among other things Global American Empire funded and armed the Chechen revolt, and smuggled in a whole lot of arabs to help the Chechens out. The arabs were not very helpful, and managed to piss off the Chechens. NATO-GAE also are attempting to grab the black sea to cut Russia off from warm water, hence the Ukraine and Crimea. They have been manufacturing minority rebellions all over Russia, but most of them have not got off the ground. On the contrary, these endless proxy attacks have caused a deep groundswell of patriotism and unity, with even the Chechens turning into enthusiastic Russian patriots, despite the fact that the Russians levelled most Chechen cities during the war.

Russia is an empire, hence naturally fissiparous and apt to suffer disunity, but stubborn persistent efforts by hostile outsiders to take advantage of this natural disunity have instead created unity and patriotism, for it is transparently obvious that the Global American does not much like the people it attempts to use. Apart from Chechnya, the astroturfing was clumsy, and smelled alien, hostile, and foreign. The Chechnyan revolutionary movement was real enough, but the arab “help” smelled bad.

With all their astroturf revolutionary movements inside Russia expiring in shame, they have invaded Russia from outside, using “The Free Russians” — most of whom are not Russian, some of whom are Nato forces thinly disguised, and who are bombarding Russian civilians deep inside Russia from Ukraine with Nato weaponry.

Last nights massive strike on Ukrainian energy facilities was a response to strikes against Russian energy facilities deep inside Russia. A strike on Czech energy facilities would have been a more relevant and appropriate response. Those were primarily Czech weapons that struck Russia, and though launched from within Ukraine, it is unlikely that Ukrainians launched them or controlled their launch.

Over the the past fourteen years, the line of separation between the Global American empire and its many proxies has been steadily fading away, as tends to happen when color revolution fails, as for example Libya, Syria, and the Congo.

A few days ago the Russians stopped calling this a “special military operation” and are now calling it a war. And they are not calling it a war with Ukraine, but rather retaining ambiguity as to whether it is a war with Ukraine allied with Nato, or a war with Nato for Ukraine. It is clear that the terrorist attack on the Moscow theatre was organised by Western intelligence agencies, and this is likely to lead to further redefinition of the war as war with Nato, and likely to lead to Russians escalating to similar use of unconventional war and proxy war against Nato countries.

As the fine line of separation between Nato and its proxies fades away, it is inevitably going to go nuclear unless the Global American Empire and Nato accepts defeat, accepts the loss of Russia, accepts the will of large Russian areas outside of Russia to join Russia, accepts unrestricted Russian access to warm water, and cuts a deal for peace and friendship that accepts the new reality of a multipolar world containing a powerful and independent Russia.

I usually do not report the news of the day — it is impossible to understand the daily events except from the perspective of years. If one pays too much attention to the news of the morning, one is overwhelmed by meaningless noise. But today, a big change.

Today the Russians took a bunch of villages without much of a fight, and a bunch of prisoners without a fight. Little villages, and a small amount of turf, as usual. But what has changed is the a sudden diminuition in resistance. Among those villages that quietly changed hands was Robotyne, a tiny insignificant village and tiny insignificant patch of land over which so many vast rivers of blood have been spilled for the past year and a day. Exhausted Ukrainian soldiers are retreating in disorder across the front.

On checking the mainstream media, I see Baghdad Bob levels of denial:

Forbes:

The Russians Got Cocky After Avdiivka, And Sent 70-Year-Old T-55 Tanks To Attack Robotyne. It Ended Badly.

Yes, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a great power🙃

Yahoo News:

Russian Armed Forces fail near Robotyne: Five occupiers become prey for only two Ukrainian soldiers

The events they are reporting are not made up, those things really happened, but the implied frame, the implied context, is wildly and ludicrously out of step with the reality of what is happening on the ground, which is Ukrainian collapse. Russians are moving into formerly occupied Ukrainian turf, one squad at a time, one tank at a time, and sometimes they get an unpleasant surprise. But most of the time, they do not. “Oh, attempting to take Robotyne with one tank, and one armored personnel carrier carrying five soldiers failed? OK, we will have another go with two tanks and two armored personel carriers, each carrying a squad of half a dozen, attacking from different directions.”

The Ukrainians in Robotyne ran away without a fight. The fields around Robotyne are littered with Leopards and Bradleys, and the thunder in and around Robotyne which has been unceasing for a year and day has fallen quiet.

Fighting continues across the front, but Ukrainians killed has fallen dramatically, while Ukrainians taken prisoner has risen dramatically. Since the liberation of Avdeyevka, the nature of the fighting has changed substantially.

When Trump took power in 2016 the Global American Empire was dangerously over extended, due to all the ever more brutal, bloody, horrifying, and terrible color revolutions of the Obama presidency, particularly Syria.

Trump the president cut deals for quiet, orderly, dignified and very gradual retreat on all fronts. The two most important being that Nato on Russia’s borders would quietly fade, and that the Taliban would quietly take power in Afghanistan shortly in his second term, with the US retaining only Bagram airbase. The presidency, however, had other ideas, saw no reason why their power and their muppet regime in Afghanistan should disappear, and were itching to expand Nato and collapse Russia, hence the RussiaRussiaRussia narrative.

After the election was stolen and Trump removed, the regime went ahead with Trump’s planned withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan, but did so on the basis that they were merely handing weapons and responsibility from direct Washington control to the nominal control of their muppet regime in Kabul. So they pulled the despised fighting men out first, leaving the weapons and camp followers last, because they expected and intended that all the comforts provided by the camp followers would be available to their bureaus and clients in Afghanistan, without being bothered by those irritating, and irritatingly white, soldiers. All the irritating and unimportant menial fighting would be done by slightly less white soldiers, whose deaths would be further away and less embarrassing at home, and the US would have another lovely frozen conflict, in its vast portfolio of frozen conflicts to be activated whenever a client state showed signs of getting uppity.

The president had to fight the presidency over the issue of leaving weapons and equipment behind, because the presidency intended that that stuff be handed over to their Kabul muppets, while the president and the Taliban expected and intended that as US soldiers moved out, Taliban militia would move in.

But things were quiet in Afghanistan only because of deal that Trump had made. With Trump removed, the deal was removed, and withdrawal turned into shameful and terrible collapse. As arranged, Taliban militia moved in, and muppets in Kabul had neither the capability to stop them, nor any expectation that the Taliban were going to move in. Trump had been removed because he was an obstacle to delusion, which they thought to be an obstacle to power. They thought the conflict in Afghanistan was frozen because of the awesome and unchallengeable might of the Global American empire, not because Trump the great deal maker had cut a deal for peaceful and undramatic withdrawal from the periphery of empire.

As US troops moved out, Taliban militia moved in, and Global American Empire could not see it because supposedly nothing ever happens and nothing ever will happen.

Which collapse gave everyone around the world who did not much like the Global American Empire ideas.

Afghanistan, they say, is the graveyard of empires. The common factor is the great Afghan defeats of empire were delusion. They came to liberate and emancipate the Afghans, and expected the grateful multitude to throw flowers at them. They came to impose their ways on people with very different ways. The Safayid empire ruled Afghanistan with no great problems, till they tried to convert them to Shia Islam, whereupon the empire fell.

Afghanistan is easy to conquer, and lots of empires have conquered it. It is a worthless barren land, with one very great asset, that it is the crossroads of Asia. And if an empire sticks to holding the main roads, and does not bother the tough folk in the mountains too much, it easy to hold. Or at least it is easy to keep the roads safe for the empire, provided the empire leaves the tough mountain folk alone so long as the tough mountain folk leave the roads alone. The rest of it is very difficult to conquer, which is not a problem, because no sane emperor would want to conquer it. It is worthless, and very difficult to hold.

It is not that defeat in Afghanistan directly causes collapse of empire, but that defeat in Afghanistan is apt to be the first great manifestation of delusion, a delusion which is revealed to everyone except the imperials.

And now, collapse in Africa, defeat in the Red Sea, failure to achieve victory in Israel, and the Ukraine shows signs of starting to crumble. A chorus of outraged imperial voices is raised demanding war with Iran, war with Russia, war with Texas, and war with China, to remind everyone of awesome and unchallengeable might of the Global American Empire. (They don’t seem to care much about Africa.)

In the Ukraine, the expansion of the graveyards indicates about four hundred thousand Ukrainian goyim killed so far, and that is probably an underestimate, for many bodies are abandoned and left to rot, as in Krynky bridgehead, where three of Ukraine’s elite brigades have been devoured. and because the Ukrainians are re-using graves. They stick a soldier in a grave, put a wooden cross with his name on it, and very shortly the cross with his name on it is removed, another soldier is buried on top of him, and a new cross placed. A whole lot of crosses are going into the dumpster, hard to know how many.

The Russians are only making very tiny advances, at immense cost, but the cost to the Ukrainians is even more immense, and the Russian advances have been steadily becoming slightly less tiny. In some places they are through the oldest and toughest fortifications, fortifications that the Ukrainians spent nine years building, and are now facing fortifications that were only built a few months ago. In terms of square kilometres, Russian advances are absolutely insignificant. In terms of how much fortification remains between the Russians and Kiev, the Ukraine is starting to slowly crumble.

In Africa, the muppet regimes that were overthrown all had unpopular minorities in power, a local or foreign black minority ethnicity analogous the Jewish power in the west, and were replaced by officers of the local legacy population, officers from the area, faith, culture, and ethnicity where they recruited most of their actually useful fighting men. Let all potential Caesars in US armed forces take a lesson from that. When push comes to shove, Jewish LGBTQ++ four star generals born and raised within walking distance of Harvard are not going to matter.

It is still reasonably plausible for them to believe the Ukraine is just another frozen conflict in their vast portfolio of convenient frozen conflicts to be conveniently activated or deactivated at whim. But they continued to believe that in Afghanistan long after it became obviously delusional.

Britain was a sea power and sea empire, the US an airsea empire.

And it has just suffered a defeat from Yemen, following the awesomely incompetent flight from Afghanistan. Global American Empire ships now have to sail around the horn of Africa. Not a good look for the unipower.

All countries lie about GDP and CPI, though some lie a lot more extravagantly than others.

Flying into the airport and looking out the plane window, America does not look like a wealthy, technologically advanced country. Walking through the airport, let alone the subway station, looks poor. Walking through a high end shopping centre, does not look all that high end.

Looking at the arms it is able to supply Ukraine, does not look like a wealthy, technologically advanced country.

The best indicator of real GDP per capita is energy usage per capita, because everything about a comfortable modern lifestyle takes a lot of energy, energy comes into everything people do and consume. This was rising exponentially to 1972, when the rise suddenly halted. It then started fall, slowly. And suddenly it has now started to fall rather more quickly and dramatically. It looks like three trend regimes: Exponential growth starting in the seventeenth century, then stagnation and slow decline starting in 1972, and now it looks like the beginning of dramatic collapse, looks like the beginning of a sharp break in the trend of slow and gentle decline.

This reflects a regime ever more hostile to the men who made it great, to the faith that made it great, the culture that made it great, and race that made it great.

The collapse in military recruitment reveals that the grandsons of the men who conquered the world for America know the regime hates them.

As its lies failed, it resorted increasingly to terrible coercion, as in Serbia. Now coercion is failing abroad. How long will coercion continue to succeed in the heart of empire?

The ISW (State Department) position is that if America sticks its head up its ass hard enough, the problem will go away. And on past performance, that is what America is going to do.

The ISW, which is the voice of the State Department, complains that

A Ukraine strong enough to deter and defeat any future Russian aggression with an economy strong enough to prosper without large amounts of foreign aid is the only outcome of Russia’s war that the United States and the West should accept

And if an unacceptable outcome happens, like the Ukrainian economy being levelled to the ground, the Ukraine’s army collapsing in attritive warfare, and the Russians installing a Marshall Petain in Kiev?

This is like someone jumping off a cliff and half way to the jagged rocks at the bottom, declaring that the only acceptable outcome is that he lands like a feather.

The last of the Greatest Ukrainian Offensive seems to have ended today, or is ending, with the Ukrainians throwing in the towel at Krynky. Our rulers have been showing internal division, with some of them deciding that the Greatest Ukrainian Offensive ended a long while ago, with the result that Krinky became strangely invisible to them, some of them hailing Krinky as a mighty Ukrainian victory which was about to cause the collapse of Russia and the fall of Putin, and some of them noticing the facts on the ground – that it was a killing field for the Ukrainian army, with life expectancy for troops of a day or so, and highly unlikely to get much further than it had gotten, but producing clever rationalisations that the Russian were hurting even worse.

For some months the Russians have been increasingly on the offensive. And those offensives have been costly. The gains in turf have been absolutely insignificant, something in the ballpark of a square kilometre a day, but the gains in positional advantage for a war of attrition have been significant. When a local Russian offensive succeeds (and it frequently fails) they grab a strong point where the lie of the land and/or human built defences make it strong. And they then have a strong salient poking into weak Ukrainian territory, which becomes a killing field for Ukrainians. And then they cheerfully let the Ukrainians hang out in the killing fields until the Ukrainians decide to leave, whereupon it is time to grab another salient.

So far the Ukrainians have shown absolutely no sign of getting wise to this strategy, though giving up on Krinky may mean it is finally starting to sink in. They tend to hang on to unfavourable turf, and the Russians let them keep it.

The Ukrainian offensive was predicated on the reverse strategy – they would charge through at the weakest point, which was generally between strong points on either side, and then charge forth all the way to the Azov sea, whereupon those strong points, now cut off, would fall like ripe fruit. This was Kagan’s plan. I thought it moronic when he told us, and even more moronic to tell the plan on Youtube months in advance of attempting to carry it out, so the Russians would have lots of time to get ready for it. What predictably happened of course was that the Ukrainans found themselves in trapped in weak point salients surrounded by strong points, and the weak point salients became killing fields.

The Ukrainians seem to have become increasing reluctant to provide Krinky with the fresh cannon fodder it endlessly needs, or are just having some difficulty rounding up fresh cannon fodder.

The reason Krinky has been so bad for the Ukrainians is not because it is a natural weak point – it is just a random point on the delta much the same as everything around it. The problem is that everything has to be supplied in small unarmored boats that have to cross a broad river in plain sight from a long distance away, and these boats cannot carry heavy weapons. And the journey back is even more dangerous, because by the time the small unarmoured boat reaches a drop off points and drops off the latest cannon fodder, it has likely been spotted. Except during heavy rain or snow, it is a one way trip. Also the surface of the river is now turning to icy slush, too strong to drive a boat through, too weak to walk over. The boats creep slowly through the thickening slush. Maybe they have not stopped sending boats to cross the river, the boats may have stopped reaching their destinations.

The Russians have been fighting a war of attrition. The Ukrainians have been stubbornly and unusccesfully attempting to fight a war of movement, on the the instructions of deluded people from Washington. But now the tune is changing to war of attrition, to be followed by negotiations once the Russians are exhausted. Except that it is the Ukrainians that are becoming exhausted.

The killing and dying could continue for years, but the writing is on the wall. It has been on the wall for some time. The armies of the Ukraine might be able to hold the line for years, and then collapse, or months, and then collapse.

This war resembles world war I, a static war of immovable front lines, until one side collapses from attrition, though advancing drone technology and production might change that to drone on drone air warfare, and drone on drone operator air to ground warfare.

The question that remains to be revealed, is how long this goes for before the Ukrainians collapse. Signs of strain are showing. We are seeing the ruling elite, here and in the Ukraine, develop increasing amnesia and blindness, which is how they handle defeats. They unhappen them.

Their current plan, insofar as they have a plan rather than an amnesia attack, is that static warfare should continue, leading somehow to negotiations. But static warfare only leads to negotiations when the losing side realises that their negotiating position is very bad and is only going to change for the worse. And, during war, information channels that could lead to that realisation tend to get shut down.

War is a test of will and capability. Maximum will is akin to madness, but is not madness at all. What, however, we tend to observe in practice, is madness substituted for will. Rational conduct would be, once will and capability was revealed, to negotiate a peace based on what was revealed. This seldom happens in practice, and with the kind of reality blind elite we have now, even less likely to happen. Collective sanity is harder than individual sanity, because collective action is harder than individual action, and wars tend to happen because on or both sides are incapable of acting as a single cohesive unitary rational individual.

World War I started because Serbia was incapable of deciding between war and peace, incapable of choosing peace while unwilling to choose war. It became a two front war because the German generals ignored the Kaiser and invaded neutral Belgium. When you are up to your neck in alligators, bad idea to invade anyone, let alone a neutral. Likely it would have become a two front war anyway, but if it became a two front war through France invading Germany, rather than Germany invading Belgium, Germany would have had fewer enemies, and France fewer allies. If you invade a neutral unprovoked, everyone is going to figure you need to be taken out, lest you invade them next. The Kaiser understood this, while the Generals merely understood war. There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides for starting the war. No one should have supported Serbia, since the regime was incapable of rational action or decision making, but if the Germans had not invaded Belgium, the blame for starting the war would have been entirely on Russia, and on France if France attacked, which was far from certain. Germany attacked France through Belgium because France might attack Germany. Which might have been sane had Germany not already been at war with Russia.

The Serbians complained that Austria’s demands were an insult to their sovereignty, which they were, but the reason for the demands was that Serbia was incapable of exercising sovereignty over itself, incapable of restraining its minority war faction from making war. If we think of Serbia as an individual, it was an individual with a bad case of schizophrenia, and a schizophrenic’s neighbours have little choice but to interfere with his sovereignty.

Germany lost the war, because it kept stubbornly trying to regain war of movement in France, to knock France out of the war in a quick blow, as the ISW has been stubbornly trying to knock Russia out the war with a quick blow. This was more generals trying to prove that invading Belgium had been a good idea, than it was a rational military strategy. And trying to take Russia out with a quick blow is the ISW trying to prove that endlessly provoking Russia with ever escalating provocations and threats has been a good idea.

Rational behaviour would be to cut a deal on the basis of the cards that are now lying face up on the table. What is likely to happen instead is ever deeper and ever stronger delusion.

The neocons write (hat tip Simplicius) that America is an idea, and that idea is at risk of being lost, and that if the idea falls, America will fall.

They attribute this, of course, to Russian disinfo and Russian influence, not to them silencing freedom of speech, rigging elections, and forcing woke down everyone’s throat, but this is just point deer make horse. They can see the deer and they are afraid.

America is an idea. America is a choice. America is a belief in the value of action. US domestic resilience and global power come in no small part from people and countries choosing the United States and from Americans preserving their agency to act with intent. An adversary learning how to alter these realities is an existential threat — especially when ideas are that adversary’s core weapon.

Of course ideas are not Russia’s core weapon. Putin is almost as scared of the ideas that are frightening them as they are. Ideas are our core weapon. Russia does not frighten them. Whatever happens in Eastern Europe, they will be far from Russian drones and Russian artillery, We frighten them.

Simplicius tells us:

America the Myth floated along during all of this. It was a shared catechism of the American religion, but is becoming harder to swallow. We are becoming American Atheists and when the people stop believing in their own myths they perish.

Well, to survive we need a new myth. Or better, a very old one. One that has been regularly tried before.

The neocons tell us:

Russia’s true sphere is its global information space — communities penetrated by the Russian narratives, including in the United States

But, of course, Russia’s narrative is not penetrating us. That is point deer make horse, 指鹿為馬. On the contrary, our narrative is penetrating Russia. Putin had to be dragged kicking and screaming into holy war. He wanted a cabinet war, and was profoundly reluctant to let go of it. That is not Russia’s true sphere. This is our sphere.

The white boys from rural America decline to sign up to die for Israel and ensure that goat herder’s daughters get taught to put a condom on a banana. Our enemies know why they are not signing up.

That they know is why they are starting to hesitate a little on woke, on censorship, and may well hesitate on the more flagrant and outrageous forms of election rigging. But they are only backing off a little bit. It will likely prove far too much, and far too little. Far too little to get troops to sign up and for the public to start believing in America again, far too much in that much pent up and long suppressed outrage is going flood through the crack in the slightly opened gates. And then they, or a faction among them, will likely attempt to shut the gates again, which could get more interesting than the first time they shut the gates, for the first time they shut the gates they thought that the normal of the early Obama years would return, and America would conquer Russia. The next time no one is going to believe in Covid and Climate and all that.

War is a test of will and capability.

The test has been performed, and the result is apparent, and now is apparent to everyone. The Global American Empire GDP is fake and gay, created by fraudulently manipulating cpi figures, and consisting of the magic paper wealth of the FIRE economy of the blue state megalopoli. Russian production of drones and shells is many times greater than the entire production of the Global American Empire.

And as for will, there are no Ukrainian commissioned officers within sixty kilometres of the Ukraine front line. Ukrainian commissioned officers get killed by deep penetration long range drones. Russian commissioned officers get killed during deep penetrations into enemy territory. Ukrainian conscription is rounding up old men, cripples, and women from their equivalent of red state flyover country, including pregnant women, rounding up people they hate, despise, and want dead, and dumping them into the trenches to soak up Russian artillery and drone strikes, while young men party in the nightclubs of Kiev with the wives, daughters (and in some cases granddaughters) of the men dying on the front, while sons of the Moscow elite are joining voluntarily, semi voluntarily, or getting conscripted. Increasingly, the men on the career track to high command in the Russian forces are men hardened in battle. Anyone hardened in battle on the Global American Empire side is on the career track to a graveyard or a wheelchair.

The Global American Empire now needs to adjust its policies, posture, and actions, to a reality where it has been tested and has failed. But our elite remain in stubborn denial, living in the paper reality of a unipolar world. Perhaps they will remain in denial till the nukes fly.

When the order went forth to defend Avdeeka to the last man, all commissioned officers and all Nato forces were immediately withdrawn — the order was interpreted as “Defend Avdeeka to the last cheap expendable Ukrainian”. If you are a cheap expendable grunt fighting for the side that has superior will and capability, you will probably be OK. If you are cheap expendable grunt fighting for the side that has inferior will and capability, you will die. And now everyone knows which side has superior will and capability.