Tag: War

The Russo-Ukrainian War of 2021-present has entered a new phase. In the wake of the Ukraine’s hybrid/asymmetric attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet (a.k.a., Operation Spiderweb), Russia is getting its revenge in the smartest way possible. Russia has begun a massive, month-long air/missile/drone campaign that is systematically attacking command and control centers all over the country. The latest was a Russian X-22 missile attack on a former drilling rig disguised as a seaborne command and control center. A Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber launched the X-22 cruise missile where it reached Mach 4 and then dove into the command center and obliterated it. There are dozens of videos out now on reputable sites indicating this campaign is ongoing and will continue.

Couple that withpolling data coming out of the Ukraine where 73.2 percent of Ukrainians polled believe the conflict should end along the current line of control, and it just gets worse.

This is very, very bad news for Ukraine. This might not be the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the middle.

The site for reasonably unbiased updates is Military TV. But, viewer beware, this is uncensored warfare.

UPDATE: At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which I watched in Russian — the translators often miss subtle points. Putin was talking about how Russia always respected Ukraine’s right to independence, and he gave an enormous amount of context in his answers, but, when it came to discussing Russia’s army moving into new regions in relation to Ukraine’s independence, he did so in the Russian past perfect aspect. Russian verbs have tense. But they also have aspect, meaning is an action fully completed, or temporarily or ongoing, etc. Putins use of the past perfect aspect signifies to me two things: 1) Putin has come around to the necessity of destroying the Zelensky regime, and the will of the Ukrainian people, and; 2) Following on logically, peace will not be negotiated; it willl be dictated, and there is fuck all Ukraine can do now except suffer for the deceitful sins of the West.

UPDATE 2: Medvedev just announced that Ukraine will not be allowed to enter the EU. At one time, Russia was fine with Ukrainian EU membership — so long as it remained militarily neutral, like Austria. In Medvedev owns words (apologies in advance for the terrible translation): “Brussels today is a real enemy of Russia. In such a distorted form, the European Union is no less a threat to us than the North Atlantic Alliance. Therefore, the complacent slogan, “Join anywhere but NATO” must be adjusted. Thus, the so-called Ukraine in the EU is a danger for our country. There are two ways to stop this danger: A) Either the EU itself must realize that it does not need the Kiev quasi-state, in principle, or a certainly preferable; B) There is simply no one to join the EU.”

Medvedev is always the one who lets the trial balloon loose, so it is only a matter of time until Putin makes options A and B into official Russian policy.

Netanyahu’s Delusional Desire to Attack Iran

By Ian Welsh

On April 1, 2009

Comments

Netanyahu states that if the US doesn’t deal with Iran’s “nuclear program”, Israel will.

Neither Netanyahu nor his principal military advisers would suggest a deadline for American progress on the Iran nuclear program, though one aide said pointedly that Israeli time lines are now drawn in months, “not years.” These same military advisers told me that they believe Iran’s defenses remain penetrable, and that Israel would not necessarily need American approval to launch an attack. “The problem is not military capability, the problem is whether you have the stomach, the political will, to take action,” one of his advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me.

This is like saying “if Russia doesn’t stop its program to create apocalyptic fairies, we will attack them”. That is to say, while Iran certainly has a nuclear program, there is no credible evidence that it is trying to get nuclear weapons, only civilian nuclear technology.

And while Iranian defenses may be “permeable”, who, exactly, is going to give Israel overflight rights to get its planes to Iran? Add to that the fact that Israel will need multiple sorties, unless it wants to use nuclear weapons itself (which would be somewhat ironic) and there’s a fair chunk of bluster going on here.

And then there is Netanyahu’s apocalyptic hysteria:

In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

This is just propaganda, or if not that, self-delusion. There is no credible evidence that Iran is willing to accept certain nuclear annihilation in order to use nuclear weapons on Israel. Nukes come with return addresses, even nukes given to terrorists. Iran having nukes just means it can’t itself be nuked without retaliation, what Israel is concerned about is not the possibility of pre-emptive nuclear war started by Iran, but the fact that if Iran was to get nukes (again, there is no evidence they are trying, but Israeli decision makers don’t appear to care about evidence) then Israel would loose its Middle Eastern nuclear monopoly.

If the US greenlights an Israeli attack on Iran it risks having both Iraq and Afghanistan go up in flames, and having Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would send the price of oil through the roof and put intolerable pressure on the world economy.

In no way is an Israeli attack on Iran in America’s interests. In no way is it in Israel’s interests. However, like the Israeli attack on Gaza, it may serve domestic Israeli political needs, by making Israelis feel tough and as if they are doing something for their security. Like the attack on Gaza, however, all it will accomplish is to make the rest of the world trust and like Israel even less. And it may make Iran decide that it does actually need nuclear weapons.

Israeli decision makers are abominably bad. After failing to achieve their goals in Lebanon (destroy Hezbollah) or Gaza (end smuggling and missile attacks) they now claim they want to attack another country for doing something there is no evidence it is doing.

George Bush would approve, I suppose.

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: War

The War in Ukraine Enters A New Phase

Netanyahu’s Delusional Desire to Attack Iran