Biden dares Putin to use chemical/biological weapons:
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Alternatively, Biden (or at least whoever is controlling him) knows that chemical weapons are not useful for a number of practical reasons, and hence are very unlikely to be used by Russia. But the Big Guy can warn evil Russia not to do what they were not going to do anyway, and then puff up his chest and take credit when Russia does not use chemical weapons.
Now, about those US-funded Fauci labs in the Ukraine …
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What military aid would Russia need? UCAVs? Fuel trucks? Better tires? Chemical weapons protective gear?
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Click … Click … Click
(Furiously stabbing at remote)
How do I get this thing back on reality?
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Perhaps you misread my statement. You have been claiming the invasion was because Putin wanted Ukraine NOT to be in NATO. Zelensky has conceded that point. He has even given up on the two areas having a degree of independence. Considering how badly the war is going for the Russian forces, this should have given Putin the perfect out — agree, stop the war, declare righteous victory, and pull back. He passed. Instead he fired a bunch of his generals.
Putin is not interested in peace, nor about NATO membership. He wants the land!
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Elon should mandate a PED test.
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Jonathan Tepperman has posted an interesting interview on The Octavian Report with Alexander Gabuev, former diplomatic correspondent and editor at the Russian newspaper Kommersant and a senior fellow and chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. The interview, “Putin in His Labyrinth”, discusses Putin’s mindset, how he got Ukraine so wrong, and prospects for the relationship between Russia and China.
Imagine a Russian czar at the top of a powerful country, unchallenged for 20-plus years, who’s also been lucky and successful by Russian standards. Russia has never been as free and prosperous at the same time as it has been during Putin’s reign, particularly his first two terms. That’s all been undone over the last two weeks, obviously. But before that, he was very successful. To the self-confidence born from that success, add the impact of his age and his isolation, and you get a state of mind that led him to believe that his legacy would be the return of Ukraine to Russia’s control. The whole idea is irrational, but in his worldview, it’s a prize worth fighting for.
Another reason for all the mistakes is that he never went to Russia’s national-security establishment and said, “Hey guys, in a year or so I want to invade Ukraine, so let’s start thinking through the scenarios and debate the economic costs.” A full invasion of Ukraine was such an unimaginable idea that Putin tried to keep his plan as well hidden as possible. Instead of serious war planning, it became a clandestine operation, with only a handful of military planners involved.
Putin’s a KGB man, and that’s the way he does stuff. He was really concerned that some of the details would be leaked, so he kept the discussion limited to the smallest possible circle, with only like-minded people involved. Had he told senior officials outside that circle what he was planning, it would have sent shockwaves throughout the system.
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If you look at Russia’s demands in its negotiations with Ukraine, they tell you that Putin is not going to turn back. So if plan A doesn’t work, and it hasn’t, he is ready to turn Kiev and Kharkiv into Aleppo and Grozny. And then Russia will need to occupy Ukraine, because the moment Russian troops go home, whatever puppet government they’ve installed will be out. So Russia will occupy Ukraine, and there will be an Iraq-type insurgency, and ultimately this will end badly, because there is no way that Russia can occupy Ukraine forever. The problem here is that it can last for many years, like the U.S. operation in Afghanistan. But most of the Russian population won’t protest the war.
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Meanwhile, China’s relationship with Russia is very important to Beijing. Russia turning unstable or joining the pro-Western, anti-China camp would be a strategic nightmare. So Chinese leaders see a lot of opportunity right now. If the West says, “You should support us pushing back against Russia,” they’ll say, “We support territorial integrity, noninterference, and peace.” If the West says, “What about Russia’s threat to the U.S.-led rules-based international order?” China will say, “We support territorial integrity, noninterference, and peace.” They will observe the letter of the sanctions, because they don’t want to further damage their relationship with the West. In the meantime, they’ll watch from the sidelines as Russia’s economy goes through free-fall. Only when Russia hits the bottom, and the active phase of war is over, and all the sanctions have been introduced and are rock solid, and the economic situation in Russia has become terrible as it’s ever been—only then, when China can fully understand the situation, will it step in.
At that point, the opportunities for China will be enormous. Russia has long been reluctant to sell China its most sophisticated military technology. Well, guess what? Soon Moscow will have no other choice. Russia has also been reluctant to do a lot of deals in the renminbi, because it’s not fully convertible. Now Russia won’t have any other choice, and the renminbi will become the default currency of China-Russia trade. Those are byproducts of the war that Putin did not envisage.
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President Zelensky will not accept the maximalist deal that Putin is pushing now, because he knows that the moment he does, the popularity he’s gained in the war will be destroyed. Ukraine is now hostage to its own propaganda. I think that many Ukrainians actually believe that they’re winning the war and that if they don’t stop Putin, they will all die. So they will not surrender. It’s really tragic, but I don’t think that they will accept a peace settlement that makes them semi-dependent on the aggressor, even if it saves their cities. The ugliest days of this war are in front of us, not behind us.
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It is so easy in this situation for someone to hear what he wants to hear. There are lots of press quotes that are the direct opposite of what you have heard – Zelensky whining that NATO does not want the Ukraine, and swearing he will never sacrifice an inch of land, and rejecting all of Russia’s concerns. Of course, Zelensky’s army has been blowing Ukrainian civilians to bits for 8 years to try to get control of some of that land (but all the best people are ignoring that reality).
We are stuck in the fog of war. There are lots of players, and lots of moving parts. The only thing which is absolutely clear is that very poor corrupt Ukraine is winning the on-line war hands down. Reasonable people might wonder whether poor corrupt Ukraine is doing this on its own, or if it is getting “help” ?
What astonishes me is all the Rah! Rah! for war coming from the West – and very little serious consideration to where all of this is leading. Because the foolishness of our “leaders” may be driving us all to some very dark places.
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I could have sworn that news media for months were reporting the steady build-up of Russian forces on the borders of the Ukraine – forces being transferred thousands of miles from the Chinese border to Russia’s western border. But maybe I am mis-remembering?
Seriously, if that was a “clandestine operation” of which Russia’s military was not aware, then we can only wonder what a public operation would have looked like. Mr. Gabuev just sacrificed his credibility.
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China - tertium gaudens in the current conflict.
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[Octavian Report]: Even if that was the case, why didn’t the Russian military leadership tell its conscripts that they were going to war in Ukraine rather than telling them they were just going to do exercises in Belarus—which led the situation where you have Russian kids who don’t even know where they’re fighting, let alone why?
Gabuev: Because of an obsession with operational security. As the leadership saw things, the fewer people who knew what the mission was, the better. And we have evidence that when, one day in advance, they finally did tell senior commanders what the ultimate mission was, many of them were visibly shaken and there was a lot of pushback. Because if you tell any sane Russian military person that their mission is to bombard Kiev to liberate it from Nazis, they’ll know its [sic] nuts, right? So the morale was, and is, very low. No one was prepared, and that explains why the performance has been so bad.
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Has .ch taken active sides in any other recent (last 50 years) conflicts?
That depends on how you define “active sides”. According to the Federal Council (executive branch), the answer is “no”, including in the present conflict.
Based on the Federal Constitution (Art. 184 para. 3 Cst. and Art. 185 Cst.), the Federal Council may adopt appropriate measures to safeguard the country’s interests or Switzerland’s external security, independence and neutrality.
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In reaching its decisions, the Federal Council took Switzerland’s neutrality and peace policy considerations into account. It reaffirmed Switzerland’s willingness to actively contribute to a solution to the conflict through its good offices. Russia’s unprecedented military attack on a sovereign European country was the deciding factor in the Federal Council’s decision to change its previous stance on sanctions. The defence of peace and security and respect for international law are values that Switzerland, as a democratic country, shares with its European neighbours and supports. As before, Switzerland will examine each further package of sanctions imposed by the EU on a case-by-case basis.
Switzerland joined the NATO “Partnership for Peace” programme in 1996 and under its auspices the Swiss Army provided helicopter medical evacuation and humanitarian mission services in Afghanistan while NATO was engaged there. This was also said not to be violation of neutrality.
Swiss military observers (27 at present) participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions in various hell-holes around the globe.
In practice, neutrality appears to be in the eye of the “neutral”.
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“unprecedented”? – And they say the Swiss have no sense of humor!
It is a few years since high school history classes, but those classes did seem to emphasize rather a lot of white-on-white violence on in Europe since … well, since before Caesar wrote his Gallic Wars.
Arguably, we are seeing a reversion to the European mean. Let’s hope we are not on the threshold of another European Hundred Years War – or even merely another European Thirty Years War.
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It’s hard to “like” this post. Perhaps there should be another button labeled “brown pants day”?
Probably the other way around…
Also, the video leaves open what happens to all the beer and cognac used during testing? Does it work with spritzer? Mineral water? Jagermeister shots? Inquiring minds want to know…
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Elon is trolling… yawn.
He’s probably been letting Joe Rogan talk him into jiu jitsu without thinking Putin knows a thing ot two about judo. Or watching too many Jean-Claude Van Damme films… Or who knows, self medicating with who knows what…
Has the world forgotten when Switzerland ‘invaded’ Lichtenstein?
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John Robb discusses this recently in an interview with Jack Murphy. It starts slowly and definitely picks up as it wraps up.
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The world may have forgotten, but the Internet never forgets.
It is not true that Switzerland once invaded Liechtenstein. In fact, Switzerland has invaded Liechtenstein three times (so far), in 1985, 1992, and 2007.
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