Not to worry; it’s already started burning. There’s probably no stopping it.
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Asia to the rescue:
https://www.technology.org/2023/12/15/south-korea-is-supplying-huge-amounts-of-ammunition-to-ukraine/
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From the article: “South Korean law prohibits providing weapons to countries at war. Ukraine is obviously a country at war so the help of South Korea has been described as indirect. It is not entirely clear what that means, but there are speculations that the South Korean shells are being brought into the US to replenish the stockpiles after American shells were sent to Ukraine.”
OK, I am cynical. But what this likely means is that South Korean shells are being sold to the Biden* Administration for actual money, and the Biden* Administration is then giving other shells (or maybe the same shells) to the Zelensky regime. A good deal for the South Koreans; not such a good deal for the US taxpayer.
Time will tell whether the Zelensky regime is actually firing those South Korean shells at Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens … or is selling them to the Houthis.
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Good catch, I share your cynicism
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Arnaud Bertrand on X:
This is an exceedingly rare and fascinating article in French magazine Marianne, who got access to “several confidential defense reports” from the French army on the situation in Ukraine:
The situation looks exceedingly bleak for Ukraine, which might in part explain Macron’s recent declarations around sending troops to Ukraine. I translated the important parts of the article:
“A Ukrainian military victory now seems impossible”
The reports Marianne consulted write that Ukraine’s counter-offensive “gradually bogged down in mud and blood and did not result in any strategic gain” and that its planning, conceived by Kiev and Western general staffs, turned out to be “disastrous”: “Planners thought that once the first Russian defense lines were breached, the entire front would collapse […] These fundamental preliminary phases were conducted without considering the moral forces of the enemy in defense: that is, the will of the Russian soldier to hold onto the terrain”.The reports also highlight “the inadequacy of the training of Ukrainian soldiers and officers”: due to a lack of officers and a significant number of veterans, these “Year II soldiers” from Ukraine - often trained for “no more than three weeks” - were launched into an assault on a Russian fortification line that proved impregnable.
Without any air support, with disparate Western equipment that was less efficient than the old Soviet material (“obsolete, easy to maintain, and capable of being used in degraded mode”, the report mentions), the Ukrainian troops had no hope of breaking through. Add to this the “Russian super-dominance in the field of electronic jamming penalizing, on the Ukrainian side, the use of drones and command systems”.
“The Russian army is today the ‘tactical and technical’ reference for thinking and implementing the defensive mode,” writes the report. Not only does Moscow have heavy engineering equipment that allowed it to construct defensive works (“almost total absence of this material on the Ukrainian side, and the impossibility for Westerners to supply it quickly”) but the 1,200 km front, known as the Sourokovine line (after a Russian general), has been mined to a huge extent.
The reports also highlight that contrary to Ukraine “the Russians have managed their reserve troops well, to ensure operational endurance.” According to this document, Moscow reinforces its units before they are completely worn out, mixes recruits with experienced troops, ensures regular rest periods in the rear… and “always had a coherent reserve force to manage unforeseen events.” This is far from the widespread idea in the West of a Russian army sending its troops to the slaughter without counting…
“To date, the Ukrainian general staff does not have a critical mass of land forces capable of inter-arms maneuver at the corps level capable of challenging their Russian counterparts to break through its defensive line,” concludes this confidential defense report, according to which “the gravest error of analysis and judgment would be to continue to seek exclusively military solutions to stop the hostilities”. A French officer summarizes: “It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily.”
“The conflict entered a critical phase in December”
“The combativeness of Ukrainian soldiers is deeply affected,” mentions a forward-looking report for the year 2024. “Zelensky would need 35,000 men per month, he’s not recruiting half of that, while Putin draws from a pool of 30,000 volunteers per month,” observes a military officer returned from Kiev. In terms of equipment, the balance is just as unbalanced: the failed offensive of 2023 “tactically destroyed” half of Kiev’s 12 combat brigades.Since then, Western aid has never been so low. It is therefore clear that no Ukrainian offensive can be launched this year. “The West can supply 3D printers to manufacture drones or loitering munitions, but can never print men,” notes this report. “Given the situation, it may have been decided to strengthen the Ukrainian army, not with fighters, but with support forces, in the rear, allowing Ukrainian soldiers to be freed up for the front,” admits a senior officer, confirming a “ramp-up” of Western military personnel in civilian clothes. “Besides the Americans, who allowed the New York Times to visit a CIA camp, there are quite a few Britons,” slips a military officer, who does not deny the presence of French special forces, notably combat swimmers for training missions…
“The risk of a Russian breakthrough is real”
On February 17, Kiev had to abandon the city of Avdiivka, in the northern suburbs of Donetsk, which had until then been a fortified stronghold. “It was both the heart and symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the Russian-speaking Donbass,” highlights a report on the “battle of Avdiivka,” drawing a series of damning lessons. “The Russians changed their modus operandi by compartmentalizing the city, and especially by using gliding bombs on a large scale for the first time,” notes this document. When a 155mm artillery shell carries 7 kg of explosive, the gliding bomb delivers between 200 and 700 kg and can thus pierce concrete structures more than 2 m thick. A hell for Ukrainian defenses, which lost more than 1,000 men per day. Furthermore, the Russians use sound suppressors on light infantry weapons to foil acoustic detection systems on the ground.“The decision to retreat by the Ukrainian armed forces was a surprise,” notes this last report, highlighting “its suddenness and lack of preparation,” fearing that this choice was “more endured than decided by the Ukrainian command,” suggesting a possible onset of “disarray.”
“The Ukrainian armed forces have tactically shown that they do not possess the human and material capabilities […] to hold a sector of the front that is subjected to the assailant’s effort,” continues the document. “The Ukrainian failure in Avdiivka shows that, despite the emergency deployment of an ‘elite’ brigade – the 3rd Azov Air Assault Brigade –, Kiev is not capable of locally restoring a sector of the front that collapses,” alerts this last report.
What the Russians will do with this tactical success remains to be seen. Will they continue in the current mode of “nibbling and slowly shaking” the entire front line, or will they seek to “break through in depth”? “The terrain behind Avdiivka allows it,” signals this recent document, also warning that Western sources tend to “underestimate” the Russians, themselves adept at the practice of “Maskirovka,” “appearing weak when strong.” According to this analysis, after two years of war, Russian forces have thus shown their ability to “develop operational endurance” that allows them to wage “a slow and long-intensity war based on the continuous attrition of the Ukrainian army.”
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We laugh at French military prowess (French military rifles for sale - never fired, dropped once) but in truth that’s a carry-over from WWII attitudes about the French contribution. DeGaulle gaulled most of the Allied command (and compare that to Monty, who should have gaulled the Allies), and since the Free French military contingent wasn’t that big, it never got the kind of recognition it ought to have for its efforts. Truth is the French have had a small but quite good, professional military. In many ways it fits where the nation is - self-sufficient but not really a player on the world stage. Would that we emulated the French military more.
Probably THE counter-insurgency book was written by a French officer, using Mao as his example of classic insurgency organization.
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The French sold arms and military toys to Israel during the Suez crisis and 6 day war
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And much of the Dimona reactor?
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That’s a tough one, maybe
Obama and Biden are stupid and reckless enough to help Iran go nuclear for “civilian” purposes
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There’s a great book called Bomb in the Basement talking to the whole process whereby Israel got the reactor to build their arsenal from France.
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“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
― Vladimir Ilich Lenin
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“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
The problem is that while we would sell them the rope (and make a profit) they would find that when they had the rope, they had no one who knew how to tie the knot, and when they had someone to tie the rope, they wouldn’t have a scaffold to use for the hanging, and when they had the scaffold, someone would have bribed the guards to let the prisoner go.
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“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.”
― Lao Tzu
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I am not sure whether this item belongs under this category or under “The Crazy Years”. Rational analysis suggests the best chance for whatever is left of the Ukraine to survive & prosper would be a UN Mandate installing the Chinese military on that territory to ensure that both NATO and Russia stay out – and to invest big bucks in rebuilding. Thus it is foolish as well as juvenile for the Zelensky regime to insult China.
Of course, this is another one of those items which will never grace the pages of Western news media.
Zelensky’s security chief insults senior Chinese diplomat — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
Danilov rebuked Beijing’s special representative on Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, on national TV on Wednesday after the diplomat visited Kiev earlier this month. According to Politico’s sources, he “amplified” a message that his government may boycott international talks on the Ukraine conflict, which Kiev wants to convene without Russia in Switzerland.
During the interview, the Ukrainian official angrily declared that it is up to his nation to decide its fate, and not “some Hui, or whatever his name is.” One of the co-hosts smirked and covered her mouth with her hand, reacting to the play on words.
In Ukrainian and Russian, the name resembles a swear word for male genitalia.
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The effect of giving a blank financial check to a teenager
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I must be missing some details. The west is going to have peace talks with each other? They will agree that Russia will withdraw to previous borders, leave Crimea, Putin to be imprisoned, Russia to pay reparations and provide free nat gas to whomever wants it. Anything else we can add to the peace agreement between ourselves?
Another huge diplomatic win for the Biden administration.
This does belong in the Crazy Years.
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There’s always a beautiful dollar, or won, to be made.
To the last Ukrainian!
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Definitely the Crazy Years! Strange that much-maligned China is the nation to stand up and say that the Emperor has no clothes – can’t have a “peace” talk when one of the belligerents is not invited. We can only speculate why our idiots in the West are encouraging Zelensky by going along with this pointless stupidity.
My guess is that China – in addition to being apparently the only country with a leadership class with IQs in triple digits and an adequate supply of common sense – wants to keep its hands clean, because they see that the optimum solution to the problem of the Ukraine will be a UN-mandated long-term large Chinese military presence in neutral rump Ukraine to make sure that both NATO and Russia stay out. China is also about the only country that realistically could financially underwrite the reconstruction of rump Ukraine … and China has well-proven methods for dealing with the corruption which is endemic to that sorry place. As for the Europeans waking up to find Chinese missiles on their eastern borders – could not happen to a more deserving group of people.
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