[American leaders] don’t think the balance of power matters any more…. If you think we’ve had trouble with the Russians, just wait for the trouble we are going to have with the Chinese. I am very popular in China. I go to China quite often. I usually start my talks by saying, ‘It’s good to be back among my people.’ Because when I get to China I’m intellectually more at home there than I am in Washington….

Professor John Mearsheimer, 2016

Will there be a war over Ukraine? Have recent negotiations opened a path to peace? Unfortunately, the diplomats have achieved very little. The White House says no further talks with Russia have been planned.[i] Worse yet, American intelligence officials say that Russia is setting up a pretext to invade Ukraine. On 14 January Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said, “Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion…. In fact, we have information that they have prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct what we call a ‘false flag operation’; an operation designed to look like an attack on … Russian-speaking people … as an excuse to go in.”[ii]

Do countries carry out false flag attacks to justify invasions? Of course, they do. On the Eve of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, a small group of German operatives dressed in Polish uniforms seized the Gleiwitz radio station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish. For the sake of realism, prisoners from Dachau concentration camp were dressed in Polish uniforms, murdered, and left at the scene as proof that Polish soldiers had been killed in the attack. Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson in the movie Schindler’s List, provided the Polish uniforms and weapons for this Operation, which went by the bizarre name of Grossmutter gestorbin (Grandmother died).[iii]

According to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Moscow has also been preparing a social media disinformation campaign to depict Ukraine as the aggressor. For those who remember, the Kremlin accused tiny Georgia of “aggression against South Ossetia” to justify a full-scale Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained the Russian invasion in terms of a United Nations principle, “the responsibility to protect,” which arose out of the international community’s failure to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In essence, Lavrov said Georgia was engaged in ethnic cleansing in South Ossettia and Russia had to invade. Ironically, the only ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia that year was conducted against Georgians by South Ossetians.[iv]

Many people in America and Europe believe that the West has unnecessarily provoked Russia. They believe that Russia is the victim of U.S. imperialism and NATO expansionism. As Russian President Vladimir Putin warns U.S. President Joe Biden of a “complete rupture” of relations, conservative talk radio’s Michael Savage suggests that Biden is “picking on Russia.” Tucker Carlson of Fox News has criticized Biden’s reaction to Russian troops deploying to the Ukrainian border. Carlson thinks Biden’s policy is too confrontational. Carlson warned, “Do not discount, no matter how farfetched it would seem, a hot war with Russia.” But Carlson has discounted something more troubling. He has discounted the history of cooperation between Biden and the Russians, Biden and the Chinese, Biden and communists of every stripe. Here is the secret key to what is occurring around the world today.

Those who think Putin is a “nationalist” are mistaken. He is an ally of North Korea, Red China, Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, etc. These are all communist countries. Putin’s Russia has been helping communist countries everywhere. And today, it looks as though communism is ready to steamroll its way to a dominant global position. But the fly in the ointment has been the Ukrainian people’s opposition to the old Soviet structures in their own country.

Is America obligated to defend Ukraine? No. We have no such obligation. Would it be strategically advisable? No. Of course, most Americans sympathize with the Ukrainian people; but defending Ukraine is not possible for several reasons. We do not have the necessary troops. We are committed to defending too many other countries. Furthermore, we have failed to modernize our nuclear forces even as we confront China in the Far East. Worse yet, Americans are divided at home. Last month, three retired U.S. generals “penned an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the Pentagon to make preparations [to put down] another ‘insurrection’ after the 2024 election.”[v] According to the generals, “With the country still as divided as ever, we must take steps to prepare for the worst.”[vi]

Some patriotic Americans, of course, see Washington, D.C. as the enemy. Some may even view Russia as a potential ally. This has happened because Russian leaders have long pretended they are no longer communist. At the same time, American reds, who present themselves as Democrats, pretend they are at odds with Russia. By misleading everyone about who they are, the communists have achieved a remarkable dominance that is not yet fully recognized. In baseball the players all wear uniforms so we can tell them apart. In the Great Game of today, players from the Red Team sometimes wear Blue Team uniforms. Pitchers from the Red Team have even pitched for the Blue Team. This is how the Red Team has scored one home run after another – gaining control of oil-rich Venezuela, gaining control of mineral-rich South Africa and Congo, breaking the back of U.S. energy independence, overrunning Afghanistan, etc. And now the Red Team is ready to take Ukraine. Moscow need not worry about curve balls or fast balls. Even now, the ball is being lobbed over the plate, nice and easy.

To understand what the Red Team signifies, it is worth revisiting an interview I did with Russian historian Marina Kalashnikova more than a decade ago. I asked Kalashnikova why Moscow was aligning itself with Beijing and other communist countries. She surprised me by saying the primary reason was communist ideology. When I suggested that China was a natural ally for Russian because Russia could supply China’s energy needs, Kalashnikova disagreed. “I would say that the ideological motivation is much stronger,” she countered; “so, I guess that communist principles and ideas bring them together much closer than the energy supply factor.” [vii] Kalashnikova further explained that American analysts “expect one thing and Russia behaves in quite a different way, sticking with their communist ideology. The American ‘audience’ and officials should know that in Russia ideology always prevails.”[viii] (Please note: Kalashnikova and her husband Viktor believed they were poisoned by the Russian state security or the GRU on account of their outspoken views. Marina Kalashnikova died of cancer at a Moscow hospital a few years after my interview with her.)[ix]

I believe Kalashnikova was correct in her assessment of Moscow’s motives. And so, we must reckon with a hidden communist agenda on the part of the Russian government. We must understand that Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union, contains Soviet structures that were left in place to maintain control of that country’s economy and security forces. It is impossible to say how much control these Soviet structures retain today, after the Maidan Revolution of 2014. Certainly, the Kremlin would have to rescue these secret structures if they came under serious threat from pro-Western reformers in Kiev.

Given all this, will Russia invade Ukraine? If the country’s hidden Soviet structures are still in control, no Russian invasion is necessary. On the other hand, open union with Russia must occur sometime in the future. Why not begin the process now? Perhaps the time has come for Moscow Center to assert ownership. According to John Kirby at the Pentagon, “We already have … indications that Russian influence actors are already starting … to fabricate Ukrainian provocations … in both state and social media … to justify … some sort of pretext for incursion.”[x] Kirby then added, “We’ve seen this kind of thing before out of Russia. When there isn’t an actual crisis to suit their needs, they’ll make one up.”[xi]

Evidence for Mobilization

Reporting from Kiev last November, Stéphane Siohan wrote of “speculation about a new Russian military mobilization and the possible risk of an armed offensive against Ukraine.” According to Siohan, despite fears of a Russian invasion, “there is no major alert, no mass mobilization, no call-up of reservists. In fact, one gets the impression that large-scale war takes place in the media and on social media. However, Western and Ukrainian services report a reinforcement of Russian troops on the borders of Ukraine.”[xii]

In 2019, several months before the COVID-19 pandemic began, Emil Avdaliani of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies wrote, “Russia is now considering going back to mass mobilization. The draft system was never, in fact, abrogated after the breakup of the Soviet Union….” Avdaliani further noted, “Recently, the Russian government has been making contradictory statements and policy moves on the subjects of conscription and the role of civilian industry in wartime.” More significantly, he added, “Mass mobilization and the military costs it entails invariably kill Russia’s economy.”[xiii]

The Russians are pushing “the pedal to the metal” in terms of war preparations. They are paying an economic price for all this. There is an old quote, from a Russian general on the eve of World War I: “Mobilization is war.” Videos are now appearing online of young Russian reservists getting on trains. One video, tweeted by Igor Girkin, shows a Russian soldier walking out to the train with his wife and child. The video showed many others, dressed in drab military green, waiting to board the same train.[xiv] Girkin’s Twitter account has many videos of Russian trains moving tanks and APCs. He tweeted a very strange video of unmarked truck convoys “leaving and entering Ukraine on dirt roads in areas where there are no border crossings.”[xv]

It does, indeed, look as though Russia is mobilizing to invade Ukraine. Last April Russian cities were ordered to prepare for mass burials. Orders on “the organization of urgent burial of bodies in wartime” began appearing on the websites of several Russian cities.[xvi] A video from the Surgut City Cemetery, taken last year, clearly shows row after row of freshly dug graves.[xvii] Last month, Russia introduced “regulations to expedite mass burials of those killed during military conflicts.” According to Radio Free Europe, these regulations will take effect on 1 February 2022 and pertain to those “killed during military conflicts or as a result of these conflicts….”[xviii]

If this is all an elaborate deception, what purpose could it serve? Russian leaders deny they are planning to invade Ukraine. Yet all these actions suggest an invasion is coming. What makes all of this even more disturbing, however, is the way in which current Russian mobilizations coincide with Chinese mobilizations, and how both coincide with the ongoing pandemic. Consider, as well, other Russian preparations; for example, Russia has built a considerable underground infrastructure for surviving a nuclear war (see the work of Leon Gouré for details).[xix] Russia has been deploying the new S-500 ABM system for knocking down America missiles and bombers. Russia has new generation hypersonic missiles, more advanced tanks and aircraft, new nuclear warheads and thermobaric bombs. Many of these military game-changers have been deployed recently. Add to this Russian civil defense training in secondary schools. Why would Russia be bluffing?

It is true, of course, that mobilizations have happened before and there was no invasion. But then, we ought to ask what it means when Russia deploys troops to Ukraine’s border while preparing provocations to justify an invasion. Also, what does it mean to dig thousands of graves in anticipation of a bloody war?

NATO vs. Russia

Russia’s experts are undoubtedly trying to determine whether NATO is a serious alliance. When placed under pressure, will NATO fight or fold? Here again, we revisit the situation of 1939 when Hitler asked the question, “Will the British and French defend Poland?” Field Marshal Erich von Manstein wrote in his memoirs that “Poland’s position was hopeless from the start.” And yet, the Western Allies went to war in defense of Poland anyway – lacking the wherewithal to save Poland from Hitler’s panzers. The initial result of defending Poland was devastating for the Allies. Poland was overrun, along with Denmark, Norway, the low countries and France. The Allies had underestimated the German military. The same situation repeats itself today, on a larger map. Ukraine’s military position, like Poland’s in 1939, is hopeless from the start.

At the same time, NATO’s weakness before Russia becomes increasingly evident. The Pentagon knows that the U.S. Army is overstretched with commitments in Asia, the Pacific, and the Middle East. The next largest army in NATO, the Turkish Army, has no direct access to Ukraine because of the Black Sea. The French Army is not ready for war and will not be ready for two or three more years. The Polish Army will be pinned down defending the Sawalki Gap and Bialystok. The other NATO countries hardly count in the equation. 

Ukraine’s order of battle shows only two tank brigades. The rest is infantry of various kinds (motorized, mechanized, airborne, etc.). Meanwhile, Russia has deployed a guards tank army on Ukraine’s border. Worse yet, Ukraine’s helicopter and airmobile forces would be useless in a war with Russia, as Ukraine’s air force could never contest the air against Russia. Her helicopters would be massacred, her airmobile and airborne formations would have no mobility. Ukraine’s army, concentrated in eastern Ukraine, would be outflanked and surrounded. However heroic the resistance, the Russians would pocket the bulk of the Ukrainian Army. Surrender would quickly follow.  

Does NATO understand this? Does NATO understand that Russia can turn off Europe’s supply of natural gas? And yet, NATO has not given Russia a green light for invading Ukraine. After a week of diplomatic meetings, Russia’s deputy foreign minister characterized present attempts to negotiate as “a dead end.” Neither side is backing down. Russia is baffled by the West’s moralistic posturing. The West is baffled by Russia’s military bullying.

Debunking Mearsheimer’s Analysis

Professor John Mearsheimer, author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, has believed for a long time that the West is making a serious mistake regarding Ukraine – similar to the one made in 1939 by the Western Allies. Mearsheimer sides with Professors Stephen Cohen and Henry Kissinger in saying the crisis in Ukraine is actually the West’s fault. Mearsheimer thinks we ought to appease the aggrieved Russian crocodile. According to Mearsheimer, the West should not have extended NATO eastward to protect nations trampled by Russian imperialism in the past.

But is Russia, as a crocodile, within its rights to swallow Ukraine? Mearsheimer’s argument has nothing to do with rights. It has to do with appetite. And here is the problem with Mearsheimer’s thesis. It is the same problem Churchill saw with Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy toward Hitler. Once you feed a country to the crocodile, the crocodile will be hungry for more. What Happens after Russia swallows Ukraine? Is Poland next on the menu? Or Romania? Or the Baltic States? What morsel comes next? At what point do you stop feeding nations to the crocodile?

To this Mearsheimer would say that NATO is also a crocodile. And NATO, he would add, has been nibbling right up to Russia’s border. But the analogy falls apart because NATO was not enlarged through invasions. It was enlarged by small countries seeking protection from Russia. Rather than being a crocodile, NATO is a confederation of crocodile treats. But surely, America is a big bad imperialist crocodile. Right? America is busy toppling dictatorships and setting up democracies. But no. America is the tastiest morsel of them all – its misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan to the contrary notwithstanding.  

Mearsheimer insists the West is wrong to blame Putin for everything. Putin, he says, “is not bent on creating a greater Russia.” It is wrong to compare Putin with Hitler. This, says Mearsheimer, “is laughable in the extreme.” Of course, Poland is not laughing, and neither is Ukraine. We do not have to equate Putin with Hitler to see there are reasons for a comparison. After all, Hitler rebuilt Germany’s military even as Putin has rebuilt Russia’s military. Hitler annexed territory in Austria and Czechoslovakia even as Putin annexed territory in Georgia and Ukraine. Is any of this really laughable?

Certainly, the West has confused its democratic presuppositions with morality. The “tyranny of the majority,” as John Stuart Mill argued, can be as oppressive as any dictatorship. Western media and politicians use the term “democracy” as a political cure-all when it is nothing of the kind. As imperfect as Western democracy is, however, none of it justifies a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin may question democracy, but he is no James Madison who questions democracy for the sake of liberty. Writing in Federalist No. 10, Madison wrote “that a pure Democracy … can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will … sacrifice the weaker party.” In fact, Putin has always governed Russia on the principle of sacrificing the weaker party to the stronger. Has he not?

Yet Mearsheimer says the West is at fault for the situation in Ukraine. According to Mearsheimer, “The aim of the United States and its European allies is to peel Ukraine away from Russia’s orbit and incorporate it into the West…. To make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. And Russia says, ‘This ain’t happening, period. End of story. And we will do everything we can to make sure it does not happen.’”[xx] There are three key elements in the West’s strategy, says Mearsheimer: (1) NATO expansion; (2) EU expansion; (3) Fostering an Orange Revolution. According to Mearsheimer, “As you all know, the United States runs around the world trying to topple regimes and put in their place democratically elected regimes.” In the tradition of taking pity on the Devil, Mearsheimer warns: “But if you are Vladimir Putin, or if you are part of the leadership in Beijing, when the United States talks about [promoting] democracy … that means toppling your regime. And you won’t be surprised to hear … they don’t like that in Beijing and … Moscow.”[xxi]

Mearsheimer then points to NATO’s final declaration at the Bucharest Summit of 3 April 2008: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” Of course, they did not become members of NATO. Russia warned NATO off by invading Georgia in 2008 and by invading Ukraine in 2014. It is a funny thing, is it not? Ukraine is not afraid of NATO. Ukraine is afraid of Russia. Poland is not afraid of NATO, Poland is afraid of Russia. The Baltic States are afraid of Russia. Georgia is afraid of Russia. Do you suppose they have a good reason to be afraid?

It is Mearsheimer’s proposition that the Russian crocodile is frightened by the tasty morsels adjoining his snout. But how can this be? Russia is the world’s foremost nuclear power. Even if Georgia and Ukraine became NATO countries, NATO could not survive Russia’s nuclear might. How could NATO then threaten Russia?

Meanwhile, Russia has threatened a “military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela.”[xxii] Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he could not exclude the possibility of Russian “military assets” being sent to Latin America if negotiations over Europe fail. Russian deployments to the Western Hemisphere would almost certainly set the stage for Chinese deployments as well. Along these lines, the Russian State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov proposed a nuclear “warning strike” against the United States. This would be to underscore Russian seriousness. “We are not bluffing,” Fedorov is saying. “Russia has the authority to do this.”[xxiii]


[i] White House says no further talks planned with Russia | Washington Examiner

[ii] MSN

[iii] Gleiwitz incident – Wikipedia

[iv] Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia – Wikipedia – see, also, Was there a genocide in South Ossetia? – Foreign Policy

[v] Former US Army generals urge Pentagon to prepare for potential civil war – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

[vi] Generals Warn Of Divided Military And Possible Civil War In Next U.S. Coup Attempt (yahoo.com)

[vii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTpe84lGMnY, around the four-minute mark.

[viii] Ibid, starting about the five-minute mark.

[ix] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54Dj3XAqFM

[x] MSN

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] What is known about a Russian military mobilization at the gates of Ukraine? – Archyde

[xiii] 1208-The-Russian-Mass-Mobilization-Concept-Avdaliani-final.pdf (besacenter.org)

[xiv] More videos appeared online of Russian servicemen or reservists at railway stations – russia.liveuamap.com

[xv] IgorGirkin (@GirkinGirkin) / Twitter

[xvi] Russian cities prepare for mass burials as Kremlin amasses troops on Ukrainian borders | Ukraine Today .org – Additional survival tricks (wordpress.com)

[xvii] Mass Graves Being Prepared In Russia – 153 News – Because Censorship Kills

[xviii] Russia Introduces Regulations To Expedite Mass Burials Of Those Killed During Military Conflicts (rferl.org)

[xix] Leon Gouré – Wikipedia

[xx] Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer – YouTube

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii] Russia threatens military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela as diplomacy stalls | Ukraine | The Guardian

[xxiii] State Duma deputy proposed to propose a nuclear strike on the United States Russian news EN – europe-cities.com


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240 thoughts on “Will Russia Invade Ukraine?

  1. Jeff, not sure if you can comment, Adapt2030 (David DuByne) made this video the other day about the underwater volcano eruption in Tonga, also scientists are already saying it will have a cooling effect:

  2. My personal feeling about this Russian mobilization against Ukraine is that its purpose is to drive a wedge in NATO. I think we’re already seeing that with the way Germany is handling the situation vs the rest of the alliance so far. Sadly I believe we’ll collectively take the bait. Where will it lead? The Russians have already let us know. A fractured NATO will eventually lead to an isolated US. By 2025 the US will find ourselves surrounded by communists and their missiles, though they don’t NEED missiles in Cuba and Central America. Their subs can get them much closer. I wonder a lot lately if we’ll even make it that far, but I’m not sure how we’ve made it THIS far. Maybe enough of us are still petitioning God to stay His hand.

  3. These communist apologists are really the pest!

    Neither the EU’s eastward enlargement nor the incorporation of most of Eastern Europe into NATO were ultimately against Moscow’s strategic interests.

    In joining NATO (which had not followed suit in dissolving itself after the Warsaw Pact’s fake dissolution), the “former” satellites merely entered, following Sun Tzu’s advice, the enemy’s camp. “If you can’t beat them (or make them dissolve themselves), join them!” In addition, a pretext was created for Moscow to be used in the future to complain ad infinitum about NATO’s “aggressive expansionism”, which we can now witness in real time.

    As for the EU’s eastward enlargement (the first major eastward enlargement of 2004 came into force on MAY 1st of that year – what in-your-face communist symbolism!), it TOO was part of Moscow’s long-range convergence strategy of a “Common European Home from the Atlantic to Vladivostok”! Anatoliy Golitsyn even predicted this outcome and foresaw the European Parliament to become an all-socialist parliament, once all these “formerly” communist countries would have joined. And here we are.

    Worse, by entering the European Union in 2004, the three “former” Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as the five “former” Soviet satellites of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia (Yugoslavia had always been a de-facto bloc member!), also joined – at first, only de iure – the so-called Schengen Agreement, which previously had been a club of Western European countries gradually getting rid of their mutual border controls. This membership on the part of these eight “formerly” communist countries in the Schengen Agreement was then set into full force on Dec. 21, 2007, by which date the Western European countries ended all their Eastern border controls and, in most cases, even did away with their border checkpoint installations! As an agonising result, Western Europe has ever since been rendered open and defenceless against illegal immigration and Eastern mafiya activity. Worse still, when the time comes, the Soviet armies will be able to invade an undefended, borderless Western Europe…

    1. Schengen abolished internal borders for free and unrestricted travel within the EU, just as you travel from state to state in the US. The borders between the EU and beyond have always been maintained, just as you have a border with Canada and Mexico.
      IMO Schengen was a perfectly reasonable policy and still is, makes life a lot easier for the majority of EU citizens travelling within the union.

  4. Graves being dug in all Western countries, mass cold storage contracts for dead bodies issued by UK government, fields full of cheap plastic stackable coffins piled up by FEMA in the US…. Worst case scenario planning for Convid or jab fallout? Could well be the same story in Russia.

    What is more worrying is Russian withdrawal of diplomats in Ukraine, but they have done this before as bluff:
    https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-thins-out-its-embassy-in-ukraine-a-possible-clue-to-putins-next-move-445656

    As for the incessant Hitler bashing, I’ll stick with General Paton’s appraisal, it has stood the test of time.
    I’m not saying there are no parallels to be drawn, commandeering a radio station vs blowing up hundreds of your own people to blame on the Chechens would make Putin a far more odious character. With regards to natural, Gas Merkel roped Germany into purchasing from Russia after shutting down the nuclear option when Norway was closer, cheaper, more reliable and had plentiful supplies. Poland has bought from Norway and somewhere under the Baltic the two pipelines cross over each other.

    1. Incessant Hitler bashing? What have I written on Hitler contrary to fact or reason? Hitler was a crazed anti-Semite and mass murderer. To say this is not “bashing.” It is factual.

      1. To answer your question would require far more space and time than is available in this format. The issues between Germany and Poland pre war have entire books written on them. The Polish government at the time were not innocent victims by any measure. Had Stalin invaded Poland at the same time as was agreed, WW2 would have had a completely different dynamic. Stalin knew what he was doing and duped the Germans into becoming “the enemy”.

        Factually, did Hitler annex Austria? I don’t think so.
        Did Patton conclude that they had fought the wrong enemy? Yes.
        Did Patton request to commandeer the captured German forces and use them to smash the red army? Yes.

        Here’s some background on the non aggression pact:
        “One by one the props defending the fragile peace in Europe were being knocked aside. At any moment the dreadnought of war would begin its slide down the slipway. A growing number of politicians in London wanted precisely that: Hitler, it seemed, was getting away with everything, and nobody was willing to call his bluff.
        Can we not discern their hand in that month’s odd Romanian episode?
        We can call it the Tilea Untruth. Two days after Prague, the Romanian minister in London, Viorel Tilea – intimate friend of the Focus – told Lord Halifax that Germany had issued an ‘ultimatum’ to his government.
        Bucharest, astonished, denied the ultimatum, but Tilea stuck to his story.
        Robert Boothby would brag a few days later over lunch with Dorothy Macmillan at Quaglino’s that he had himself ‘entirely invented’ the story: he had called on the legation to obtain a visa, Tilea had mentioned that Germany was asking Romania to concentrate more on agriculture, and he
        had persuaded Tilea to tell the F.O. that this was an ‘ultimatum’. He himself had then sold the story to the newspapers.
        According to a German intercept, Tilea admitted to another Balkan diplomat that his instructions
        had only been to talk of an ‘economic ultimatum’; he had ‘made the utmost possible use of his instructions’.
        Whatever the background, he shortly retired a wealthy man; he purchased a farm and maintained a monastic silence until his death. The foreign office took note that among Tileaís effects in January 1941 was a pound of solid gold.
        The consequences of the Tilea Untruth were serious. Fearing new Hitler schemes, this time against Romania, Chamberlain began drafting a Four Power declaration to be signed by Britain, France, Poland and Russia, to ‘act together in the event of further signs of German aggressive ambitions’.
        But an important meeting of his Foreign Policy Committee on March 27 accepted that Poland would not join a system that gave Russia the right to pass troops through her territory. Britain quietly decided
        therefore to include Poland, rather than Russia, in the non-aggression scheme.”

    2. Patton was close enough in feeling to those he fought, having Confederate family and friends. As for your comment on Hitler, why be shy? I’m certain you want to restore his good name, yes?

      1. I know you said “close enough”, but the Confederacy was nothing like the Nazi regime, Strannik. The Southerners who owned slaves were not slaughtering them. If it would have been so bad, the slaves would have revolted when all the men were off fighting.

  5. nato is a paper tiger and in no position to be anything other than over run. they don’t want to defend ukraine, nor should they. they do have to SAY they want to defend her, b/c the only “defender of the free world” is forcing them. that’s b/c slojoe and company(joe, pelosi, clintons) make big bucks in graft/grift milking ukraine dry. hillary and brenen orchestrated the revolt and installed our own puppet regime. all the money that could be used to bolster their military is syphoned off. there is a reason democrats won’t give them arms. its b/c they are afraid it will be used on them, rightly so.
    russia is not much better. they sent mercs to syria that promptly got themselves wiped out, b/c at the moment the military had no one else to send. the bear has shrunken to a cub and while it has claws they are small. yes they have some of the best new equipment/arms but very few of them and more than one parade has been marred by said equipment broken down on the street. they had to call civilian experts from the factory to get their new tank restarted and finish the parade. the russians are still a deadly force but in no way a blitzkrieg capable juggernaut. defensive nukes, along w/ boomer subs are their true strength. we must figure this into the equation. they don’t want the whole of ukraine. they realize its a lot of hungry mouths to feed. they just want the waterfront and the eastern buffer zone. putin will use his nukes if needed, thinking slojo will back off. slojo has a temper. GOD help us.

  6. Former NATO Head Scaparrotti: China, Iran Watching U.S. Response to Ukraine Tensions Closely:

    https://news.usni.org/2022/01/17/former-nato-head-scaparrotti-china-iran-watching-u-s-response-to-ukraine-tensions-closely

    By: John Grady
    January 17, 2022 4:06 PM

    A Ukrainian soldier receives on-the-spot feedback from a 7th Army Training Command observer coach trainer during Combined Resolve XVI at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Dec. 10, 2021. Ukrainian Army Photo
    —————————————————-
    As Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to expand the Kremlin’s sphere of influence across Eastern Europe, how Ukraine is handled by the U.S. will be watched closely by China, Iran, North Korea, a former NATO top commander said last week.

    Retired Army Gen. Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti, who also served as the senior commander in Korea, said he was greatly concerned that the United States has taken off the table sending increased forces to eastern Europe as Moscow ratchets up pressure on Kyiv, he said at an online forum sponsored by a Korean-American organization.

    He said it was “consistently frustrating [to him] as a commander” in both theaters to have diplomats and senior administration officials take military options off the table publicly as a crisis began to unfold.

    Several times during the session, he and questioners noted little or no progress in talks with Russia by the United States, NATO and members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to defuse the crisis building over Ukraine.

    The Kremlin reportedly has 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, backed by armor and artillery units with at least three possible avenues of invasion.

    The situation “is in risk of conflict” and the “stakes remain very high” for Russia, Ukraine, the United States and its European allies.

    If Putin seized the strip of land connecting the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, it “would be a real problem for Ukraine and Europe” on how to respond – possibly militarily and with harsher sanctions. Likewise, Scaparrotti added, the Kremlin’s forces in Belarus, which borders Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, also present the West with a challenge, as the country could be used as a staging base for military operations against Kyiv and threaten three NATO countries.

    “These [two moves] are connected [and] will inform Xi Jin-ping and Iran” on what they may expect from the United States and allies if Beijing escalates tensions over Taiwan and Tehran does likewise in the Middle East.

    When asked whether Russian-Chinese joint military exercises pose a major new threat, Scaporrotti said they were “still pretty rudimentary.”

    His larger concern “is if they chose to act together” strategically. Their goals are similar: splitting alliances in Europe and across the Indo-Pacific and ”rewriting the international rules-based order.”

    Based on his experience as senior commander in two theaters, Scaparrotti said he isn’t concerned about caveats that allied nations put on how their forces could be used, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but rather how they “get focused on what they want.” He said a focus on “the little things” can cause partners to lose focus on the larger strategic goal behind the alliance itself.

    Scaparrotti added that the United States is a global power with global responsibilities. The American security strategy, he said, does not reflect U.S. military force structure. The strategy when it comes to armed conflict is to engage in one theater and hold in the next.

    “We’re relying on technology” to compensate for smaller forces, he said, adding that a major conflict in Korea alone could require committing the bulk of the Army’s 32 active-duty brigade combat teams to the peninsula. There are 28 in the National Guard.

    With Koreans going to the polls this spring to elect a new president, Scaparrotti said he believed Seoul “should play a stronger role” in the Indo-Pacific based on its “capability and responsibility” as a democratic state. As a middle-ranked military power, Seoul should show more presence “than they are now” in multilateral exercises and “at least as an observer to the Quad,” the informal security and economic relationship between the United States, India, Japan and Australia. He noted relations between Korea and Japan are at their lowest ebb in years.

    The next Korean administration “must be clear about their security interests” when it comes to relations with Pyongyang over the Korean peninsula and Beijing over the peninsula and Taiwan.

    Scaparrotti said South Korean media and think tanks’ new focus on nuclearization, – including again stationing nuclear weapons on the peninsula and Seoul building nuclear submarines, surprised him. He still believed “extended deterrence [under the existing treaty between Seoul and Washington] was the best position” for both nations now.

    The next Korean administration “needs to address with urgency” the resumption of large-scale joint exercises with the United States, he said. Scaparrotti said the long pause has had an effect on interoperability. The result has been that the combined force has “lost some of its effectiveness.”

    The halt also has made it difficult to advance planning on sharing and using artificial intelligence and other technology in light of Pyongyang’s refinements in its missile and artillery forces.

    President Donald Trump ordered the halt in large-scale theater exercises in 2018 following talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore. He saw the order as a way to advance negotiations on denuclearizing the peninsula and end Pyongyang’s missile program.

    If anything, the pause has allowed Kim to continue to modernize his missile forces, as shown by recent tests of a hypersonic missile and continued work on submarine-launched ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

    North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons, including a hydrogen bomb, and its various missile programs shows the country has “moved that much faster than our experts expected,” Scapporroti added.

    “They were willing to take risks” that the United States wouldn’t.

    In answer to a question about North Korea’s vulnerabilities, from food production to health care, he said, “we can leverage [those] to bring them to the table” for serious negotiations about its nuclear and missile programs.

    But he added that as a theater commander, he “worried about instability” in the North setting off a massive humanitarian crisis with unknown larger effects on the peninsula and in northeast Asia.

    ————————————————————————-—-———

    IAS Winter Symposium Libertas 2022
    Jan 15, 2022

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2EKVjNdIAg&t=1s

    Date Recorded: January 13, 2022
    The Hon Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti
    General US Army (Ret)

    ICAS Distinguished Fellow
    Senior Counselor, The Cohen Group
    Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (2016 – 2019)
    Commander, US European Command (2016 – 2019)
    Commander, US Forces Korea (2013 – 2016)

    1. I’m sure some in Rome would be fine with that, as they were in the period between 1918 and 1938.

  7. Yes, the post-2007 Eastern Schengen border has been so “perfectly” protected that – INDEED – not the slightest illegal immigration (trafficked by Eastern mafiyas, by the way) and not the slightest Russian, Ukrainian, Baltic, Polish, Hungarian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Georgian, Albanian etc. etc. mafiyas were able to get into what had once been the West! Long live our suicidal European “openness”! Long live the Common European Home from the Atlantic to Vladivostok!

    This typical troll comment was to be expected. Slowly but surely, I wonder whether there are any non-trolls left in these comment sections…

      1. Yes they are. Also, they sometimes respond pretty quickly to each other in the same thread. I think THE is te same character as well. I might be wrong, but sometimes think John Davies and Frank Myers might be the same too.

      2. Also, they throw out the same kind of statements or points. And everything they say lacks a ring of sincerity. They throw out whatever they can think of. Clever with words, sometimes have a mixture of something that sounds right mixed in with distractions.

      3. Also, when comparing what you say, to what “they” say, they have no depth. It is like comparing wheat to chaff. What you say is clearly based on much research, sifting, and thought. It is easy to see the difference in seriousness and depth of knowledge.

  8. Grossmutter gestorbin was the code transmitted by SD operative Alfred Naujocks to initiate the attacks on Gleiwitz and other locations. Operation Himmler was the overall operation name, sometimes referred to as Operation Canned Goods, although strict speaking Canned Goods referred to the bodies dressed in Polish uniforms left behind at Gleiwitz and other locations as evidence of Polish aggression, thus justifying the invasion of Poland.

  9. It has been convincingly asserted that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a farce, and a fact that the leaders of former Soviet countries remained in authority as if Democratic Capitalists, Ukraine included. Have there been free and fair elections in Ukraine? Is current leadership no longer puppets of Russia?

    Even if that were so, what would be the national interest of the United States, in Ukraine, or any other countries on the Black Sea, circular reasoning of NATO membership, notwithstanding? In a perfect World, anyone ought to be able to travel anywhere one may wish, but how is it not hypocritical for the US to establish a military presence in former Soviet territory, while objecting to a Russian presence in Cuba and Venezuela?

    Considering that the US nuclear arsenal approaches expiration, with no time to be replaced, wouldn’t the most prudent course of action be to launch an all out nuclear first strike against both Russia and China, and let the chips fall where they may?

    1. How about just waiting to be invaded first, then launching an all out nuclear response?

      Why hasn’t the US nuked China for the bio attack? Are the interests of US transnational corporations more influential on US politics than those of US citizens who are cheated at the ballot box with Venezuelan voting machines?

      Why hasn’t even one county in the US gotten rid of those rigged internet devices?

      1. At what hour is the point of no return? I suppose we could wait until the last moment before US nukes expire, let loose. No big hurry?

      2. Well, I don’t think Russia invading Ukraine would be good enough reason for US military response, especially in light of the fact that Ukraine remains a puppet state, irrespective of cultural differences.

      3. Biden hasn’t threatened a military response; merely sanctions. Putin however, is vehemently opposed to sanctions, and has threatened an unspecified escalation. If I manage to keep up, it seems that Putin orders the US out of it’s neighborhood, and the US threatens sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, and Putin threatens to invade Cuba and Venezuela, but is that in retaliation for sanctions, or for US ties to former Soviet States? Has Putin implied more than any of that? How do we take anyone at their word in any of this? Can we trust in declared limited actions/reactions? What if anything might establish reliable peace or at least mutual tolerance, short of win – win for all?

      4. The United States should break off all relations with China, close the Chinese Embassy in Washington and return things to the way they worked before Nixon visited Mao. It would not do any good to strike China with nuclear weapons. We would be destroyed by their counter-strike. The biological attack on us was made possible by the fact that we have extensive trade and scientific exchanges with China. It is immoral to trade with a country led by murderers. We are now reaping the reward of that immorality. We either stop, or we suffer worse. (Of course we will not stop and so we will suffer much worse.)

      5. Jeff, your response here is most noteworthy as you rarely offer solutions. As your avid reader, I’d like to see more of your prescribed course of action, relevant to further threads.

        [ Jeff Nyquist says:
        January 18, 2022 at 2:12 pm

        The United States should break off all relations with China, close the Chinese Embassy in Washington and return things to the way they worked before Nixon visited Mao. It would not do any good to strike China with nuclear weapons. We would be destroyed by their counter-strike. The biological attack on us was made possible by the fact that we have extensive trade and scientific exchanges with China. It is immoral to trade with a country led by murderers. We are now reaping the reward of that immorality. We either stop, or we suffer worse. (Of course we will not stop and so we will suffer much worse.) ]

      6. Even this prescription is vain. Nobody in the current government is gong to follow such recommendations. We need a very disastrous series of events to turn things around. Only then will people abandon the failing policies of the present.

    2. I do not think that the collapse of the Soviet Union can accurately be described as a “farce.” It was a much more complicated series of events, in no way involving buffoonery or horseplay. The question as to whether free elections have occurred in Ukraine or other former Soviet republics is complicated by the fact that local politics, in post-Soviet countries, is usually dominated by former Soviet apparatchiks, academics or even KGB agents. So you have the problem of major candidates for office being contaminated, one and all. The election could be perfectly honest, but you will end up electing one of several “Soviet persons.” As for the national interest of the United States, we need to keep enemies at bay. Perhaps you have heard of the concept “enemy.” NATO exists because Moscow was a center of communist subversion and because Soviet armies threatened Europe with invasion after World War II. The Soviet Union occupied many European countries, oppressing the peoples of those countries, and building weapons of mass destruction with which to threaten America. Surely we have an interest in thwarting Moscow’s attempts to dominate Europe. Right? As for American hypocrisy, I believe there are Chinese and Russian anti-aircraft troops in Venezuela right now. If memory serves, the Soviet Union moved around 50,000 troops into Cuba in 1962. If you look at White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman’s memoirs, you will learn that Soviet troops remained in Cuba into the 1970s. Don’t you think Chinese “workers” and immigrants throughout Latin America have reserve military status in the People’s Liberation Army? The Monroe Doctrine ceased to have any meaning once Castro joined the communist bloc. Our government makes no complaint when Russia builds military bases in Nicaragua, or gives weapons to Cuba and Venezuela. The hypocrisy is on the Russian side, not on the American side. NATO has not moved significant military forces into former Soviet republics. The small U.S. formations that have occasionally toured the Baltic States are not threatening Russia. Token forces of this kind are a symbolic show of support to the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. The United States has not even deployed large numbers of troops in Warsaw Pact countries (with the exception of Germany, which reunited in 1990). But Germany does not even border Russia! The idea that we are threatening Russia by defensive moves and deployments is sheer propaganda. The people who believe this propaganda are ignorant of military affairs, and do not understand what a threatening deployment looks like. It is inappropriate to describe America, a country that naively believed in Russian and Chinese promises of peace and cooperation, as “hypocritical.” Just as Stalin broke many of his promises after World War II, Yeltsin and Putin have broken their promises. You also make a very serious moral error in equating communist advances in South and Central America with communist retreat in Europe. When communism takes a country, the people are crushed, lives are ruined, individuals are murdered. When a country joins NATO, the process is not accompanied by arrests and expropriations. The two kinds of advance are not morally equivalent. Finally, your last paragraph about the U.S. launching an all out nuclear strike on Russia is contemptible.

      1. What possible difference could it make if Russia were to invade their puppet state? Besides, if the United States isn’t prepared to engage in all out war with Russia, why should Russia give a rat’s petuddy about what the US wants?

      2. However one might characterize the restructuring of Russian territories, is the United States in any position to effectively neutralize Russia’s military? Do trade wars not invariably lead to hot wars? It may be coincidental, but the Covid Live Exercise, began after President Trump imposed tariffs to Chinese exports.

        Has US transnational corporations which have partnered with Chinese military industrialist generals, converted China into a Capitalist society, or has economic interests subverted US partners, sufficient to prevent a hot war with China? Would economic sanctions against Russia, be sufficient to prevent a hot war with Russia, or would it provoke one?

        How wise is it to antagonize Russia, for the sake of crony capitalism, if the US in fact is at a severe military disadvantage? Is the US Space Force, significantly advanced enough to safely contain Russia and China?

  10. This should be a rather simple calculation:

    Russia will defeat Ukraine in a war.

    NATO lacks both the capability and intention of intervening to change that outcome.

    Russian and NATO forces staring at each other across the Dnieper River is beyond a nightmare security situation.

    Russia’s demands are absolutely no skin off America’s back.

    So, find a way to calm things down without looking like we’ve given in to anything. Then take a few years and work out the issues. Ukraine as a buffer is the best outcome for European security.

      1. You have already reported in a prior thread that the nuclear arsenal of the United States is about to expire before it can be replaced. How do you propose to strengthen NATO in time?

      2. Really Jeff, why do you want to defend Russia’s client state, Ukraine in the first place? Just to rub their faces in their canard? They deserve each other. Americans can’t even take back America.

      3. I never said we should defend Ukraine. I underscored the fact that we cannot for practical reasons. What I object to is your ready characterization of Ukraine. We really do not know what kind of state it is. It is something of an in-between. The regime is full of a Soviet types. Yet there are Ukrainian patriots there, too. It is impossible to sort out.

      4. The fissile materials are Ok and have a very long shelf life. The problem is the explosives used to compress the fissile materials to reach criticality. Those have to be precision machined and mounted in “the pit.” It doesn’t take long to do the explosives work to refurbish the nukes.

      5. Is strengthening NATO actually that important? During the Cold War there was no disputing that Western Europe could not possibly defeat the Soviet Union. It was outmatched on every level. American support was absolutely essential.

        Russia is not the Soviet Union, not even close. It’s economy is the size of just one EU country, Germany. It’s population is less than a third of the EU’s. The EU has a greater degree of political unity than NATO. It has a centralized government and bureaucracy. It is perfectly capable of defending itself without American assistance, provided it turns its potential into reality.

        America’s frontier was never on the Rhine. It’s certainly not on the Carpathians. Let’s stick with the English Channel. The continentals can defend themselves, we should let them.

    1. Appearances be damned. The United States has over reached. Why not simply admit the fact, and place the blame on the DoD, CIA, or whatever entity behind the expansionist policy?

      The facts already are out how factions within the US Government have created the illegal bio-weapons of Covid and mRNA lethal injections, in conjunction with big pharma and China. There will soon be Nuremberg type trials which result in convictions of genocide with capital sentencing.

      The People of the United States of America, need to clean house and restore the integrity of the nation. Creating one more false narrative to cover up the truth, will not do.

      1. Soon be Nuremberg style trials? Don’t hold your breath. The world is so corrupt these days I would not bank on anything approaching justice for those who have pushed the scamdemic on us.

      2. That’s up to you and I. Remember Merry Christmas Ceaușescu, and the ending of Frankenstein?

  11. Mr Nyquist. Will Brazil lean towards the Russians or the USA? What do you think? President Bolsonaro said in a recent interview that the Venezuelan air force is bigger and stronger than the Brazilian one. Can we expect a conflict in Latin America for the next few years? Thanks for your atention.

      1. I would add the caveat that regardless of which candidate wins the presidential election in Brazil, he’s bound to be captured (if not already captures) by the forces of the establishment politicians/deep state (the so-called “centrão”) which, in its turn, is aligned to China not ideologically but by being money-hatted by them. I really don’t know which side Brazil will take…

        As always thank you, Mr. Nyquist.

        Best,

        SARU

  12. “Russian leaders have long pretended they are no longer communist” – I’m just curious, what is a communist in your opinion? And how is it something bad?
    (this is not a mocking question, I really just want some clarity)

    1. A communist is a member of a communist party tied to the international of communist parties. Communism is bad because the communist program would likely kill most of the people I know, ruin the country, and elevate psychopaths to positions of unchecked absolute power.

      1. Ok I dont wanna be a dick but I think a larger discussion on what communism is, is needed here. “Communist program” – what is that, doesnt it wary from different countries?

        If you could just describe communism in a sentence – what is it?

        Yes, I dont want psycopaths running my life… but I’m married so…

      2. Communism is a complicated subject. It is a global movement that includes many non-communists. It is a new religion, but it is ultimately opposed to religion. The late Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky once told me that you cannot described communism in a sentence. You have to learn its complexities. He said Americans want to something easy, like fast food. “Just tell me what it is in a sentence.” He said, “No, it cannot be done. You try to explain it and their eyes gloss over. They want no part of it. Too much trouble.” And simplifications here are very dangerous. Bukovsky told me that conservatives never understood communism. I agreed with him 100 percent. It has taken me a lifetime to learn what I have learned. There is no sentence explaining it.

  13. 1980 called, it wants it’s foreign policy back.
    The only communist-leaning nations in the world are Western nations, the ones you mention are just regular nationalist/ authoritarian nations.

    Ukraine voted for a pro-Russia president, then the CIA overthrew him in a color revolution. The only side being provocative is the West. Similar happened with Georgia.

    We aren’t the good guys any more, if we ever were.

    1. The CIA did not overthrow Yanukovich. Yanukovich was never threatened and could have remained in office. Instead, he ran for Russia, going to Crimea first, then running for Moscow, where he lives now. It’s beyond stupid to think the CIA overthrew Yanukovich. Either you have uncritically swallowed Putin’s agitprop, or you are a Russian shill.

    2. No, the degenerate homosexual ideology of the imperialists is not communist, masonic maybe. From the Leninist anti-imperialist point of view, it does not matter much if the state is actually socialist or run by national bourgeois, the important is the foreign monopolistic capital is kept out, this way imperialism is starved. More realist American strategists like Eldridge Colby actually admit that the so called great power competition is about preserving control in comprador states.

  14. The Soviet Union seems to be reforming before our eyes. Kazakhstan and Belarus have already rejoined the Russian orbit. It appears they want Ukraine to be next. I think this will be one of Biden’s legacies.

    1. Kazakhstan never left the soviet orbit. The President was always a soviet apparatchik and made sure they stayed on Moscow’s good side. Ukraine wanted actual independence, as did Georgia, and have come under the guns of Moscow as a result.

  15. As I see it, the question is not “Can we defend Ukraine against a Russian attack?” (We can’t) but “can we afford to allow the crocodile a tasty morsel without at least some sort of response?” I remember a few years back when Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, the Swedish government recognized that as a gun pointed at their head, though I haven’t heard anything since if they upped their defence spending to meet that challenge.

    Those who claim that Ukraine is part of Russia discount its history. That they managed to maintain their identity as Ukrainians in spite of centuries of Russian occupation already speaks volumes. Add to that that the present generation of Ukrainian leaders are children and grandchildren of those who survived the Holodomor, how many of those people want to be associated with Russia and Russians?

    The bigger question is, when the Russians invade Ukraine, will they stop at the western border of Ukraine? Given the present weakness of NATO, why should they? Is this not a prime time to go for the goal, total subjugation of Europe? Before Europe can rearm?

    I may be wrong, but I expect the Russian attack will be this year. It will start with a nuclear attack against several of America’s cities and military targets. While we are still reeling from that surprise attack, Chinese and other troops will pour across the borders and from ships. At the same time, Russian troops will stream across Ukraine’s eastern border. I see the main thing holding them back is the weather—they are waiting for the fields to dry out enough so their tanks won’t get bogged down.

    Will America survive?

    1. China has quite a distance to travel in order to reach the United States. They won’t go unnoticed. Russia won’t launch nukes at the US as long as our nukes are still viable. If Russia objects to sanctions, how do they feel about actually having to move into their underground cities? Putin lives in Sochi, the balmiest climate on the beach of the Black Sea. Ukrainian people have maintained their culture, including the language, but they all speak fluent Russian, more than Angelinos even speak Spanish.

      Everyone in America who’s taken the mRNA lethal injections are the walking dead, soon to keel over. Half the population has been inoculated. The US will still have as large a population as Russia. There’s no way that China can transport an army equal in numbers as half the population of the US, where everyone is armed to the teeth.

      The US Military, even under Biden, continues to patrol the South China and Black Seas, much to the chagrin of Russia and China. If they attack, we will respond. The US is not perfect, with so much infiltration by enemies, foreign and domestic, but nowhere near as evil as China and Russia, but as the late, Reverend, Billy Graham once noted: “If God doesn’t punish America, he is going to owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

      1. We have next to nothing in the Black Sea. When we do have anything there, it is only for a visit because of the Montreux Convention. We can’t even stay in a Black Sea port for longer then 30 days so our ships have to be moved up rivers if they are going to stay. Frankly, ships on the Black Sea are simply targets for aircraft. The entire body of water can be ranged by any of the active aircraft in the inventories of the countries on the Black Sea littoral. No navy will be able to survive there.

      2. Pete Reeter: you have no imagination. Every one of the objections that you brought up already have answers to them. China too far away? Disguise the troopships as well as send thousands of troops to Canada and Mexico before the invasion. Will our nukes still be viable? Ever since the Obama years, our nuclear force has been ordered to absorb the first strike. How many will still be viable after that? Today our ships and planes still patrol the seas, but for how much longer? Already one of our ships had to stop its patrol because its “fully jabbed” crew was too sick to continue. You’re right that those who have been jabbed are the walking dead, how long can our troops be 100% jabbed, 100% walking dead, before they can no longer fight?

        So what that Ukrainians speak Russian. It does not follow that they want to be part of Russia, no more than that Spanish speaking Anglos want to return Texas and California to Mexico.

        As for the viability of a Chinese invasion, from a purely secular standpoint, it is doomed to failure. The CCP can send over only a couple of million troops. They have to keep so many troops behind to maintain their occupation of China. They also have to keep so many troops on their southern border to counter India. They were hoping that traitors in the U.S. government would have disarmed the American public, but every black flag operation carried out by the government has resulted in more weapons being purchased.

        Whether we succeed to rescue our country, or lose everything, is in God’s hands.

      3. Re:
        [ OHENGINEER says:
        JANUARY 18, 2022 AT 9:24 PM

        …”We can’t even stay in a Black Sea port for longer then 30 days”… ]

        I don’t think it would take thirty days, nor more than a few seconds, to fire off a cruise missile from a sub in the Black Sea, at Putin barbecuing reindeer venison on the porch of his little, beach cottage.

    2. Putin can be said to be stupid, but he isn’t stupid enough to lob a nuke at the US. The US has enough nukes to totally destroy Russia and Putin knows that. One does not make “warning strikes” with nukes unless one is insane.

      1. Putin won’t “lob a nuke at the US.” He’ll send volleys of nukes. It will be a Pearl Harbor on steroids type of surprise attack. There will be no warning.

      2. Ah, who says Putin is stupid? What has he ever done to give you that impression? He may be evil, but I’d say it’s calculated malevolence which invariably has paid off.

      3. Putin’s stupidity is not an “impression.” It’s a proven fact for anyone that pays attention to what is going on inside his benighted country. You, being a savushkina troll, know this, but are beholden to your master in the Kremlin.

      4. So then educate me. What specific actions has Vladimir Putin taken which can be uncategorically classified as stupid? He’s the World’s first trillionaire. If I’m so, smart, how come I’m not rich?

      5. Pete Reeter, I mean Shoot Me, I mean THE, I mean Commit, I mean Frank Myers, I mean Jeff Davies, I mean riverrunner, I mean Somoroya Biznezz, I mean meandmealone and any other name you assume, who said you were smart? You think you’re clever, but I’ve seen little children be more successful at fooling folks than you are.

      1. The odds have always been against Israel, too, but how do you explain their miraculous success in the Six Day War?

      2. On paper, yes the odds are against us. They will look even worse after several of our cities go up in mushroom clouds. But what about the odds in favor of a Chinese victory?

        The CCP must put and keep boots on the ground in order to secure their victory. That automatically is an argument against their success. As large as is the PLA, they are limited in how many people they can send to be those boots on the ground.

        The PLA has not won a war since 1962, where their victory was due more to Indian incompetence than to Chinese superiority. Unless you want to count the 1989 Tien On Men battle. Meanwhile, in an invasion, they will face a greater number of armed veterans, who have been in battle, who will fight for their lives, wives and children.

        The PLA is first and foremost a political organization. It spends much of its time in political indoctrination. How well will they fight against people inspired by leaders like Chesty Puller, who at the Frozen Chosin said “They’re on our right, they’re on our left, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us; they can’t get away from us this time.”

        PLA troop morale. Already the PLA has a problem with desertion, how much worse will that become under actual battle conditions? They won’t have the morale support of the Chinese people, especially if there are battlefield reversals, which always happen in wars. In other words, the frontline troops will be looking over their shoulders back to China hoping that the populace doesn’t revolt against the PLA forces left behind in China.

        I don’t say that our victory against the PLA invasion is assured. Many times the inferior force unexpectedly pulls off a victory. Or something else unexpectedly happens. Nor do I say that if we have victory, that it will be bloodless. All I say here is that we will be in the fight for our lives, and that the PLA victory is anything but assured.

  16. You mentioned those people on the right who say America gotta be buddies with Putin, some people who claim to be right of center in America are very cozy with the journalist Glenn Greenwald, giving him room to talk in their shows and so on, yet in Brazil he’s in cahoots with some radical marxist party people. It’s really bizarre to see people who supposedly want to oppose the left to prop him up like this, he clearly is a snake who is pretending to be for freedom by saying common sense things.

    1. Greenwald is a big question mark. Anyone saying we need to make nice with Putin would have been comfortable with making nice with Tojo or Hitler.

      1. I’ve read Greenwald for over 15 years. He’s politically left, but fundamentally suspicious of power, and always against authoritarian power. Like many, he may misread some politics or foreign policy, but he’s proven to be a truth-seeker, and courageous truth-teller, even at great risk to himself personally. He became instantly critical of the left’s sudden embrace of 3-letter agencies during Russia-gate, and persistently called out the left’s hypocritical lies, and it’s stark jolt to authoritarian bloodlust during (and after) Trump. He may have been played by Snowden – I don’t know. But he’s not a hack or a liar. (He also created a dog rescue (I think from his house), and hires the homeless to run it, and I viscerally cannot condemn a guy who does that.)

  17. People learn too slowly about communism, as a car stalled on a freeway is too slow.

    Not shrugging my shoulders even a millimeter, just say’in.

    One might consider dispersal of personnel to the country-side.

    Or: “So, I guess we need to learn how to talk to a suicidal people?” (To, not at.)

    Or plan consider selective VX attacks?

    Nukesafaster, just accept a high probability of a fizzle or a non-explosion, obviously.

    Which I suppose implies a cheap delivery system.

    China looks at clouds of ash, floating.

  18. My own opinion on this is I don’t know if Putin is enough of an idiot to invade Ukraine or not. I doubt Ukraine will be the pushover a lot of people think it will be, and digesting it is another question. Bandera is venerated there because of his resistance against the soviet regime. Stalin took him seriously enough to hunt him down and finally kill him in France in the 50s. Calling Ukrainians Banderites doesn’t carry the sort of insult that Putin’s agitprop apparatus would like to think it does.

    Having said that, If Putin is willing to impoverish his country to reassemble the USSR, no matter the price (and there will be a hefty price in blood to be paid), then Ukraine doesn’t have a chance in the long run. The price and the length of time is all that remains to determine.

    in the final analysis, Russia can not afford the price in blood or the damage to the economic state of the country to realize his imperial ambitions. He apparently has not looked at the actual reason the USSR went underground. He is also starting from a much weaker position than the USSR would have in 1989. If Putin really wants to escalate the Ukraine invasion, then he’s world record idiot.

      1. Yes, we shall. I don’t think Putin, however, is the genius a lot of people think he is. In many ways, he’s just as bad as Hitler and for many of the same reasons.

      2. Putin not too long ago stated that if he doesn’t stay in power that they will kill him.

  19. The bottom line is will. Russia has the will. Putin has the will. Hitler had the will.

    The US does not. And that’s the triumph of communism in America.

      1. Appearances can be deceiving. Right now America “appears” to have lost its wits, its will to survive, its unity. Again, appearances can be deceiving. Or maybe we are in real trouble. Either way, the road will not be easy.

      2. I think about 80 million would be willing to undergo the hardships required, maybe. But we will be hamstrung by our own government, and their running dogs like Antifa.

    1. Hitler had the will, but the will did not triumph. The current iteration of the Russian Empire has some very serious weaknesses.

    2. Too, bad G Gordon Liddy has kicked the bucket. He had the will to eat a rat and hold his hand over a candle flame. Now there was a leader. That was a great movie, but I liked his role in an episode of Miami vice where he sported a Mohawk cut.

  20. If there is to be a de-escalation this Spring, Germany will be the key. They are desperate to save Nor stream 2 from sanctions. As they continue to decommission their nuclear power plants, they MUST have gas from Russia. It’s an existential crisis for their economy, so they will work behind the scenes to restart some rebranded version of the Minsk agreements. Nuland was furious with Merkel for engineering Minsk with Putin so for her and many others in this nightmarish Obama-Biden administration, this is a grudge match with not only Putin but the Germans.

    It may very well be Nuland-style recalcitrance to German problem-solving that will push this whole thing over the edge. If Merkel had had the guts to back the implementation of Minsk, Ukrainian troubles would be simmering, not threatening Europe and the world with so many uncertainties.

    1. “As they continue to decommission their nuclear power plants, they MUST have gas from Russia”
      Frees up fissile material for other uses, too. Both Israel & Germany were coordinating in South African nuclear development, and if the latter was successful back then, surely both are ‘turn-key’ nuclear powers, alongside Japan. The PLA wasted their first Formosa invasion force in the jungles of Vietnam, and a second would be better spent taking the Home Islands before they fully rearm, rather than against an upscaled Iwo Jima that only marginally exteneds air & missile range in the direction of the Malacca Straight and can be converged given enough time.

    2. I have read about but can not confirm that Russia has recently reduced gas flow to Europe. If the EU
      has to burn through their reserves, the best time to invade would be in February, when they will be freezing and have limited energy.

      Question for Jeff: I am old enough to vaguely remember that the US or NATO made some promises to Ukraine during the breakup of the Soviet Union; that we would defend them physically from invasion if they gave up their nukes……am I remembering right? I think Russia also made that promise; do you know anything about that deal? Thanks.

      1. The Budapest agreement puts on the spot guaranteeing both the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. It also put Russia on the same spot. That’s why Putin has been pushing the notion that the ouster of Yanukovich rendered the memorandum nugatory.

        Anyone thinking that Russia’s word is good is in the market for ocean front property in New Mexico.

      2. We have no mutual defense treaty with Ukraine. We signed what is called the Budapest Memorandum in which we promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and not attack or threaten Ukraine. Russia also signed it. There is no obligation to defend Ukraine in that document. All nuclear powers made this commitment to Ukraine in either this document or a memorandum that (I think) came later.

      3. Is this a typo, or the correct title for the so-called, Budapest Memorandum? The United Nations files it as an treaty. What sort of a security assurance assures no security?

        Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty
        on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Budapest, 5 December 1994

        https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf

        __________________________________________________________________________________
        Volume 3007, I-52241
        167
        No. 52241
        ____

        Ukraine, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain
        and Northern Ireland
        and
        United States of America
        Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty
        on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Budapest, 5 December 1994
        Entry into force: 5 December 1994 by signature
        Authentic texts: English, Russian and Ukrainian
        Registration with the Secretariat of the United Nations: Ukraine, 2 October 2014

  21. There are so many lies and half truths out there in this world. I have friends in Donbass region, and what happened after the Obama backed coup in Kiev was nothing less than an attempted ” ethnic cleansing ” of Russians from the region. Except that it was carried out with incompetence as befits fascist swine in typical furious idiocy.

    See, these dolts attacked the very region with old Soviet era armories. The men of Novorossiya there fought back with equipment from the 60s and 70s against a modern Ukrainian military stiffened with neo nazi banderists out for Russian blood, and they badly beat them. This is the reason for the lies of Russian ” invasion “: poorly armed civilians defending their homes against what had been their own government’s military, and those civilians winning. You’ll not see the atrocities, the refugees streaming into Russia in their tens of thousands, the Ukrainian army units with fascist symbols and fascist ideology.

    No, Donbass did not get enough help, if anything. And fantasies of Russian ” invasion ” are simply that, fantasy. Most Ukrainian people I ever knew considered themselves Russian of a sort, and only freaks of a certain cultural and religious origin tend towards a hysterical and sick Russophobia.

    You want to look for mirror of Bolshevik mentality? You’ll find it with the lunatics who want to maintain the borders created by Lenin and Khrushchev and failure of Kiev to restrain bandits who rename the streets after OUN/B and Galician SS Division ” heroes ”

    But nobody wants this basket case of a country in it’s sad condition. Without false threat of invasion, the Oligarchy in Ukraine couldn’t hold it together at all, and its future collapse is certain. Ukrainians and Velikorussians and Byelorussians are brothers, and only outside forces act to keep them apart.

      1. Bogdan, Putin is not a woman that you or I should hate or love him, but this is not about Ukraine independence either: I for one am fan of Ukraine history like Mazepa against Tsar Peter tyranny. But you know Donbass and Crimea or Novorossiya are not Wild Field or Right Bank, right brother?

    1. Strannik: A provocation in a Nazi wrapping is apparently all it takes for you to see the world in this not-so-funhouse mirror of yours. But then, maybe you are just a Russian troll following a script. If ego is consciousness in the service of fear, then hatred is consciousness in the service of ego. Is that you? Really? Seriously? Sorry to disappoint you, but nobody in the West wants to instigate atrocities in Donbas. The West does not even properly defend its own borders. Look at what happened in Afghanistan! Communism is winning. You do know that, right? And Putin is a communist. Right? Or have they fooled you, too? Who do you think was pulling down statues of Washington and Grant in the summer of 2020? Communists. You do know that, right? How do you think that was financed? And when we follow the money what do we find? George Soros from communist Hungary with an anti-Russian alibi doling money to rioters. Could it be red cocaine money laundered through the Netherlands Antilles? Now there is a Red Team Guy in a Blue Team uniform. Oh dear! And now you have run your Black Maria into a ditch, right here, on this blog. You pretend to be an anti communist but I no longer believe you. Either that or you are not so bright. And the big telltale is the way you use the term “bandit.” Very clever. Very Bolshevik. Did you know that Obama was mentored by an American communist named Frank Marshal Davis, who probably worked for the KGB? There is another person who worked for the KGB. He is now in the Kremlin. His name starts with a “P.” He orders assassinations against writers like myself. And apparently he is your guy; or rather, you are HIS. Look, I like his style but I like the truth more. And so I ask you: Please do not try and sell me this bad vodka.

      1. Ah, the routine of ” no fascists but Bolshevik controlled ones” , as if snakes were of only one species. Perhaps they are but not the way you
        expect? George Soros from Communist Hungary era? What of his roots in plundering with the Nazis first? Are all Fascists a ” communist provocation “? I call them ” Bandits ” same as my loved ones always called them, because that is their essence, it fits then as now. Obama I do not know, only his results, and I don’t know what you can call them. Anyway, one can be opposed to God fighting Bolsheviks as much as Fascists, both alike Modernists opposed to the Theophany celebrated today as the other. Whatever one person is or the other, if they are a liar their lies will trip them into a stultifying foolishness. ” Communism “….All I ever see around me is not Marx, but Mammon, worship of money and only a common materialist basis between the past and present. One might be forgiven in thinking you elevate the Bolshevik simply because all the other alternatives seem so tawdry and banal, the ” last men” of Nietzsche and the final product of the Bourgeois age. Poshlost. But the Bolshevik ends in that too, ” plush” gatherers of loot and feather liners for their small execrable brood. I say ” small” , because they are generally sterile and let the Muslims overrun them, everywhere they are. Do you posit then the existence of a ” Communist” conspiracy, because of a Nietschean critique like Ludovici’s or Evola’s? I see only looters, nobody with even a miserable but still greatness of an infernal kind. Mercedes Maybachs, not Marx and Lenin.

      2. Strannik or Pilgrim or Vladimir: Is it possible for you to respond to what I say without misrepresenting it? Soros is from the former communist bloc and he is supporting communist fronts here in America. That is a fact. Some Ukrainian fascist groups are tied to Moscow. That is a fact. The Orthodox Church hierarchy is a pack of decorated KGB agents. That is a fact. And Evola’s critique is not Nietzschean. Evola was an esotericist who favored ancient paganism. And a proper businessman is not a looter. Looting is what communists do. All your rhetoric boils down to a polemic against the bourgeoisie for being bourgeois. So? People cannot have businesses and make nice things? You advance very clever rhetoric while posing as an Orthodox Christian. You have no honest words to describe Putin or the Soviet continuation government in Moscow. Why is that? Why advance new lies for old?

    2. “what happened after the Obama backed coup in Kiev was nothing less than an attempted ” ethnic cleansing ” of Russians from the region.”

      The exact opposite occurred. I still remember the disgusting photos put out by Russians of torturing innocent people, putting their dead bodies up on poles, or cutting off their heads and sending the photos to their relatives, much like the Russians have done in every other conflict they’ve engaged in in recent memory. It is not a coincidence that there are mass suicides in the Russian army every year as a result of brutal hazing that often includes rape and literal forced gay prostitution (and yet Putin goes around condemning homosexuality). The Russian army cultivates brutality and rape and, when given the chance, unleashes it on their enemies too, from decade to decade to war from war. In Chechnya, there are documented cases of mass rape of Chechen men in front of the women in order to “break” them psychologically.

      As far as this nonsense about “soviet armories” and Ukrainian ethnic Russians doing all the fighting, the “little green men” and their modern, Russian weaponry has been well documented by many different sources. It was, in fact, Russian regulars who fought for months attempting to take a single airport from Ukrainian militia but took heavy casualties.

      1. Unmitigated BS, that I’ve come to expect from Mudaks such as yourself. Would not surprise me if your hysterical animus had a religious and ethno tribal origin, propaganda worthy of Goebbels

      2. What’s funny about you, Strannik, is that you promote religious and ethno-tribalism on this website (even though you are delusional about as it applies to Russia, since only 7% of Russians even attend church once a month), and then turn around projecting your attitude onto other people, accusing them of religious and ethnic-based animosity! And then you even make a comparison to the Nazis, when you’re the one whose thinking is based in ethnic-tribalism.

        This reminds me that as Russia accuses Ukraine as being some kind of Nazi country, it was the Russian ‘separatists’ trained out of Russia that were photographing themselves with Swastika armbands, and Russian “green little men” attacking synagogues or Jews in Crimea or Donetsk.

      3. Strannik/Pilgrim/Vladimir’s motivations clearly have no religious or ethno tribal origins, so you can trust him.

    3. Wasn’t it standard for upon Russian invasion to dilute the native population of the conquered territory with Russian migrants?

    4. i doubt you have friends in the Donbas. There has never been an attempt at ethnic cleansing in the Donbas. That is simply a lie.

      There was no coup in Ukraine. Yanukovich was under no threat and could have finished his term and ran again if he wished. Instead, Putin told him to run, and run he did. All the way to Moscow.

      The collapse of Ukraine is anything but certain, except in the mind of Putin shills. Russia’s economy has been cut by a third since 2010, and Ukraine’s is growing. That growth is what has Putin scared to death.

      Brothers don’t stab brothers in the back. That is exactly what Putin has been trying to do to Ukraine. Your posts are nothing but buffoonish lies.

    5. Strannik: by resurrecting these old lies, you have destroyed what little credibility that you had (not that you had any). Why had these lies been buried? Because they were so obviously fake that they had become a laughing stock. The Ukrainians themselves made jokes of these claims, especially after knowingly electing Jews to top offices in their government. They also used it to contrast the real ethnic cleansing that went on in the Crimean Peninsula after the Russian invasion. Does anyone commenting on this blog believe any of your lies any more? How many of the comments support you?

  22. No one can currently predict with certitude whether or not Russia will invade Ukraine soon. One thing for sure, however—–if we were to seriously get into it with Russia as a result, no one will give a lick about Covid in short order, because it would almost automatically be swiftly swept away as a concern. Across the country, restaurant owners would no longer be concerned whether their customers have vaccine cards—–they’ll be worrying about whether there are many customers even *left*. If only because their establishments and everything around them are either no longer even standing, or there is no power, gas, or water left to operate them. (Lots of luck asking for ‘papers, please’, then !)
    And in a way, the country will have almost earned it, to a degree.

    1. Modern world nations need more worry about falling apart from the inside, or being swamped by replacement citizens with names like ” Muhammad “.

      1. Indeed Mr Nyquist. And yet those pushing for war for those reasons take terrible risks

      2. And war can also be used to distract the populace from the miserable failures of an administration, and to get them to ‘rally around the flag.’

      3. I think war with Russia (which would also involve China) would be more than a “distraction” from the administration’s miserable failures. It would almost certainly underscore greater failings.

      4. Lori G: you are right that wars in the past have been blamed to distract populations away from the failures of the regime.

        Now consider, according to economic analyst Cathie Wood, the Chinese economy has already collapsed, only they don’t know it yet. Further, it is government policies that massively contributed to the collapse. Will the CCP be able to contain the population’s fury short of a distracting war once the population realizes that they’ve been had?

        With China and Russia coordinating their actions, how long will it be before they start a war?

    2. Here I reply to mr. Nyquist, for reply room.

      First, you state as a priori fact what remains to be proven, or in any case is irrelevant. The dog’s tail is still that of dog. Or do you deny ontological similarity if not identity to Fascists and Bolsheviks alike? Now as to Nietzsche and Evola. Both got down to the Pagan essence in its Greco Roman form anyway, and wanted its revival. What stands in it’s way? A Christianity in apparent decline, with perverted and secularized forms of its social beliefs as communist and liberal milieu. A ” weaponized compassion ” as I’ve heard some call it. Is that your take on this issue, the root of your conflict with anything smacking of progressivism? Do you see Communism as a heretical form of godless ” Christianity ” ? Surely, there’s a connection between your philosophical critique and embrace of the ” Golitsyn Thesis “. In any case, surely from the Augustinian and Calvinist thought of the West, you know that everyone is a sinner. Some are looters. People without grace sin , because they are evil, not turned evil because they sin.

      And yet Capitalism still survives with this deficit of real good , why? Because it fits the World. Mandeville and Smith affirming that man’s selfish egoism and evil leads to societal good, mediated through market forces, this is the way of things, ” broken window” economics. Fine. But do I have to say that it is right and good because it is the way of the fallen World? No. I still call them looters and bandits. It doesn’t make me a Communist, or less a Christian personally.

      But perhaps you haven’t read people like me, like Berdaeyev or Shestov, who however writes better about these matters? Spirit has its basis in freedom, in spirits liberation from matter’s mechanical cause and effect. My culture has never submitted to anything otherwise for long or for real.

      1. The problem I see, is that you aren’t free to criticize the Russian state, or to even do what President Putin has advised all Russians to do; that is, to accept the history of your country for what it has been, and to draw lessons from it. I agree with this point completely, though I disagree the lessons Putin draws. And here we see that Russia is on the brink of a very fateful move — a military incursion into Ukraine. Yet you are rambling on about Adam Smith as if capitalism is the great evil of our time and the cause of all wars. You have no idea what freedom is, or how important it is to culture. And yet you rave about culture. How many in your country, like Socrates, have had to drink the hemlock? Your country still puts up statues to Stalin, to the worst criminal in Russian history — who was not even Russian, and who distrusted Russians. We have no one in American history to compare with his wickedness. So how is Russia then morally superior to America? You always heap scorn on America and “capitalism” even as you avoid mentioning Stalin’s crimes — especially that greatest crime of all, the Ukrainian Terror Famine. Shall the Russians now trample Ukraine again? How many Ukrainians will be arrested, tortured and killed in the wake of the coming invasion? And you write as if something good could come out of this. And then you dare to say that Russian culture has never submitted to anything for long? Are you joking? It has submitted to Putin for more than twenty years. It submitted to Stalin for nearly thirty years. What you write is an obscenity, justifying the destruction of a country because that country refuses to accept Moscow’s yoke? You know perfectly well the West is unable to save Ukraine. What are you doing on this website? What is the matter with you?

  23. From Martin Armstrong today

    Why Europe desperately needs to unleash the dogs of war is all because of their economic crisis thanks to their negative interest rates which has destroyed their sovereign debt market and the central bank is in peril unable to restore interest rates to normal. This has also undermined pension funds and savings throughout Europe.

    NATO, hence Europe, is pushing for war because this COVID scam is starting to fail. Protests are all over Europe and the media has desperately tried to comply by not reporting on the civil unrest under the theory that it would inspire others to join. War will bring a distraction for as I have warned, the computer has projected that they will be unable to maintain this COVID nonsense beyond 3 years which is 2022.

    The EU now needs war to unite its people which is their theory using patriotism to flip the people to then support the government against Russia. The EU is poking the Bear deliberately and they are really praying for Putin to invade. They want that to continue in order to distract the people and use war as the escape from the COVID false flag. They will most likely try to wrap COVID up within 2 months.

    The risk of war starts to increase by March.

    1. This paints NATO and Europe as “wanting war.” Wanting war with Russia because you mismanaged the pandemic and economy is like wanting a heart attack because you have cancer.

      1. An excellent analogy……but could it be like a dog chasing a semi truck, that our administration does not expect to actually catch and bite the Russian truck? Could they actually believe this war will not affect us here or spread, but will simply be limited to a small region so far away and hence be a perfect distraction, like Iraq or Afghanistan?

        Obviously Russia is gaslighting us, and obviously Russia (and especially Putin) want to reform the Soviet Union, but the way we are going about diplomacy seems to worsen the situation instead of controlling it. What should be done at this point by NATO?

      2. The U.S. Government is not saying exactly what we will do if Russia invades Ukraine. The most that would be done, I think, is sanctions. However, Germany is against sanctions, and the Biden administration appears ready to accommodate Germany. Of course, nobody knows how an administration of knuckleheads will respond. They keep surprising us. Afghanistan was only one instance of bungling.

      3. Brown is being silly. The most influential states in NATO, Germany and France, don’t want war and are not pushing it. Germany is not even close to being ready for war. Their military is, sadly, a laughing stock.

  24. Russia and china views on the matter are very very simple . The USA and it’s western coalitions, have been invading and waging war all over the world for the flimsiest of reasons or no reason at all for the past 20 years. One million dead Iraqi come to mind. The USA is bankrupt and nobody is really sure who are the power players behind the puppet president and pentagon these days.As this nuclear armed juggernaut with hundreds of global bases and advanced weapons rolls up to the borders of Russia and china in an ever tightening noose…. What would any sane country do in that situation? Mobilize for one! Develop counter weapons as fast as possible. Try to gain some space (Ukraine) between yourself and the nuclear armed powers surrounding you. The comparisons that are constantly made about Putin acting as Hitler are completely misplaced. The west has a two decade long history that would make Hitler’s regime blush.

  25. When the Cold War ended, USSR dissolved the Warsaw Pact. It was agreed that Ukraine would be free and independent provided they did not join NATO. What has the US done since? Tried to get Ukraine in NATO. Riddle me this: why don’t you want Ukraine to be free and independent?

    It is quite obvious you are a communist sympathizer, heck, you even claim them as “your people” in your opening. Quit projecting your communism and trying to get us into war.

    1. Justme: Quite obviously you do not know how to read. The opening line in the article is a quotation from John Mearsheimer — whose views I criticize. Furthermore, NATO never made a treaty with the USSR or Russia promising not to expand. That is a myth.

  26. Russia unofficially has already invaded Ukraine with its proxy army and the result are the proxy republics in Donetsk and Lugansk and the annexed Crimea. Kremlin would stage a provocation to justify its invasion in Ukraine and this provocation will include chemical weapons. Remember when Sergei Shoigu told that US are preparing chemical attack in Eastern Ukraine? The Russian Federation would definitely use a chemical weapons as a part of its provocations to say “look, we suggested that US would orchestrate chemical attack against the Russians in Eastern Ukraine and this is what happened. US is guilty.” After that Russia could attack Ukraine by using the Belarusian territory with the permission of Lukashenko who as a Russian puppet will help the Russians. There are Russian soldiers in Transnistria, Crimea and Donbass. I mean, Ukraine can be attacked by the South, North, East and from Southwestern side. The Russian army will have air superiority, it will use thousands of tanks, helicopters, sabotage and reconnaissance units of FSB, SVR and GRU, ballistic missiles launched from battleships or from systems on the ground like Iskander. Russia unofficially has in its arsenal all mafia groups and all radicals in Ukraine. GRU already has its own radicals who try to stage provocations in Odessa. The Russians would concentrate mostly in Southern Ukraine because of the oil and gas reserves. That’s why they wanted to create Novorossiya – because of the natural resources. Ukraine would be destroyed without a potential Western intervention.

    1. One of the reasons Russia stole Crimea was because Ukraine was getting ready to develop natural gas deposits in the Black Sea around Crimea. Russia stole the drilling platforms as well.

    2. Nobody ” created ” Novorossiya ” in recent years: the region was settled by Russians all along, particularly during the reign of ” Tsarina” Catherine II. The rest is similar filler of this inaccurate sort

  27. First things first.

    A preference for talk of Heros, and listening to talk by Heros.

    Then after this necessary refreshment, other talk.

    USA is 110th in country use of fertilizer.

    Tonga cloud, not of the typical cooling type Volcanic Cloud?

  28. Olá aqui do Brasil, o presidente Bolsonaro foi convidado por Putin para se reunir em fevereiro, espero que ele não caia na pressão russa que claramente vai sofrer.

  29. (Please delete the previous post, my mistake.) Hello here from Brazil, President Bolsonaro was invited by Putin to meet in February, I hope he doesn’t fall under the Russian pressure that he is clearly going to suffer.

  30. Mearsheimer is a racist anglo-saxon, can’t imagine non western counties cooperating and following a smart long term strategy.

    1. Very interesting, thank you. There have been reports of the Russians constructing military bases in Nicaragua as well. We can expect Chinese and/or Russian troops to enter the Western Hemisphere in large numbers at some point. It must be understood that the current plan to defeat and occupy the United States is at least 31 years old. The GRU defector, Col. Stanislav Lunev, learned about this plan during a meeting of Russian generals and high-level military staff prior to his defection in 1992. Russia has agreed that China will own the lower 48 states at the end of the war. Russia will get parts of Canada and Alaska. I believe they are committed to this plan.

      1. The inescapable bottom line regarding the 31-year old (at least) Communist plan to invade and take over the United States, is that for a plan like this to be executed, would take massive machinations from suicidal madmen. Any world leader who takes practical steps to this end would have to be desiring their own death and destruction; this is inevitable! There is no simulation where America becomes usable occupied territory. Under no circumstances would it be beneficial to any invaders, or their deluded goals of hegemony. Your decades old theory of imminent world war from Communist invaders is still laughable (exceptionally so, in these modern times). If you sincerely wanted to warn of a threat to America, it would be from planned symbolic attacks (see 9/11) meant to embolden opposition on a global ideological scale. The longer you talk about imminent invasion coming on the back of some diabolically subversive attack — the longer you let commenters call the vaccinated the “walking dead” without noting the very obvious reality that this is not true — leaves this entire blog on the fringe of relevant. Wacky commenters detract so much from the valid concerns Mr. Nyquist can bring to the conversation. Every time I drop in here to read, the initial essays are valuable, but the comments quickly drain that value like a hole in a boat.

      2. And you’re just a sycophantic cheerleader. At least the time I waste here is very limited.

  31. Biden threatens sanctions against Russia for if they invade Ukraine, but what effect would sanctions have, when Russian motions appear to threaten to cut Europe off from purchases of gas? Both the US and Russia are threatening to do the same thing. Where’s the conflict? Europe dares Russia, but at what consequence to Russia? I’ll wager that it’s all bluster, and Europe will pay through the nose.

  32. Off topic food for thought: In “The Great Reset”, Klauss Schwab footnoted an article stating that 97% of US antibiotics were manufactured in China as of 2019. Given JR’s earlier assertions of Chinese or Russian use of bioterrorism weapons, bacterial plague would seem especially devastating. The present stock of antibiotics would probably be depleted within weeks or months and China holds nearly all the shorter-term resupply cards. Schwab himself points this out as a critical point of national insecurity due to globalism run amok (Schwab strongly strongly promotes globalism at the necessary expense of either democracy or national sovereignty).

    1. India has a substantial drug manufacturing capability and could spool up production fairly quickly. China would be very foolish if they cut off the west from antibiotics, but Xi hasn’t shown himself to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

      The best that could be said for Schwab is that he is a fool.

      1. He apparently has no life, Janelle. I fear he is a legend in his own mind, feverishly typing witticisms, and ametuerishly trying to misdirect, as he juggles his ridiculously chosen screen names. Got to give him credit for trying to be more diverse and wax poetic, under the name Whowho. Unfortunately, it was a pathetic attempt.

      2. So do you do anything productive for a living, or are you paid by some Communist overlord to do their bidding? Or do you just have a personal grudge against Mr. Nyquist? He show you up in some kind of competition? Are you really so devoid of a life of your own that you get your jollies from posting half-baked comments under all your assumed names?

      3. Also Iran; the Iranian leader met with Putin Wednesday. And the stuff that Biden says reminds me US Amb. April Glaspie (if I remember right) when Iraq was considering invading Kuwait and they tested the waters with questions first. First we said, not our problem, then when they invaded there we were carpet bombing. Biden says it’s ok to take a small chunk of Ukraineand he also brings up the use of nuclear weapons. We are in big trouble with this type of diplomacy.

  33. Heaven knows I don’t go in for moral equivalency arguments between China and the U.S. But organ harvesting from innocent victims was an unfortunate choice to make the case, in my opinion. Here’s a sample report of the organ trafficking industry, driven by the pharmaceuticals and requiring a steady stream of fresh, near term babies to be vivisected. And the line about a lone line of fetal cells from a single aborted fetus decades ago is hogwash. I read a description about how monoclonal antibodies are produced and almost vomited.

    Of course, there are those who may respond that babies before birth are just “lumps of cells,” not human beings, and therefore can be butchered and used commercially. But even an atheist would have to acknowledge that a pre-term baby has human DNA and no other, even if he denies the existence of something like a human “soul.” So accepting the atheist’s premise, because they have canine DNA, pre-term puppies are dogs, and because they have human DNA, pre-term babies are…human. Most biologists today, atheist or religious, agree.

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/hhs-documents-organ-harvesting/

    1. Yes, the cold, hard truth is that we in the west are vivisecting children. This website contains a lot of information about what is currently happening:

      https://www.fetalindustry.com/

      It is absolutely gruesome. David Dalieden did some undercover investigations a few years ago about the trade in fetal tissues and organs. I don’t know if the videos he did are still out there or not.

      1. Yes, Jeff and CL, this abomination is what we are being chastised for, I believe. I am one of the Catholics who will not touch any of it, because I refuse any cooperation, even remote, in what Bishop Schneider calls cannibalism. This in addition to proscriptions against self-harm, ie, using dangerous experimental technologies without overriding need. In addition to cooperating in the theft of tissues which the child did not willingly donate. CL, you acted in innocence. Who could have imagined it? I am familiar with Daleiden, and I regularly donate to the Thomas More Society whose attorneys are waging a David vs. Goliath battle on his behalf.

        Let us all go and sin no more.

    2. Oh no. I read what you said about the monoclonal antibodies last night, and nearly got sick myself. I got out of bed, got on my knees, and asked for forgiveness. My wife and I had the Coronavirus back in October. It was very bad on us for some reason, so we went and got the antibodies. I knew nothing at all about them until we were sick, and a neighbor I trust told me how the antibodies were kicking the virus on out of people. I thought it was great that we had something that wasnt developed on the backs of murdered human lives.

      I type this with tears in my eyes. I cant believe it. If I would have known, I would not have taken them.

      What a sad, wicked time we live in in our country. Lord, have mercy on those who dont/didnt know!

  34. Yes, they will invade. Why shouldn’t they? They’ve been getting away with it since 2014, and now Russia has troops in Belarus, as well. I’m sure Russia has its eye on Kazakhstan as well. Vice News did a reasonable job of covering the conflict since it began, and it is quite clear that Russian troops from areas outside Ukraine have been involved all along (in a couple of videos they tracked soldiers coming from the easternmost parts of Russia to Ukraine). They no longer depend on the dollar, and pretty much everything Russia has been doing for the past several years is in preparation for an eventual war on a much wider scale than merely Ukraine. Considering the lackluster response on the part of the West thus far, what does it have to lose? Despite having a relatively small GDP, Russia has invested heavily in its military. The same is true of China. The goal is certainly not to play patty cakes with the West.

  35. The window to attack the USA is now open while a senile Biden is in office and the Demo-communists are in control of Congress. The Communists are not going to pass up this opportunity.

  36. Mr Nyquist, there is a very lively criticism and debate over the past in Russia, the difference being that in Russia people are indulged in being wrong as in being right. Most fans of Stalin today for example see him as a nationalist and counterrevolution figure, who cleverly killed the killers. This wrong and idiotic, but nobody is being ” cancelled ” over it, and private groups are free to put up statues to the man and so forth whether I like it or not. What have Russians to apologize for? There was no benefit really to speak of for Russian people as a nation in the Soviet period, and Communists hated and feared Russians most of all. Capitalism is a present and ongoing evil, but I went to great pains to emphasize that it is a lasting evil more congenial to fallen human nature than other modern beliefs have been, including Communism. It is also the fact that Capitalism is what Russia has embraced, her elites anyway. And the Ukraine will not be invaded. It is collapsing of its own accord, and the pieces will each go differently I’m sure. Nobody who loves the Cossacks and history of their freedom wants to subjugate anyone anywhere. I noted in the chaff of your reply that you would not answer me in my questions, which supplies answers of their own.

    1. Strannik; “Capitalism” is a Marxist term, clothed in “science,” made to advance tyranny even as it opposes market freedom (the most fundamental freedom after the freedom of speech). In reality, the market system coexists in every society with a political system, and administrative system, and also a religious system. The administrative system determines the level of state control and regulation, which opens the floodgates of official corruption (especially where religious belief is weakest). Bureaucrats are immediately corrupted by this level of power. Therefore, to revile something that must exist in every society in some form, and is best kept separate from state power, is sinister in itself. Here YOU take a Marxist approach. By mixing all this up with a KGB-controlled church adds insult to the injury. You sow confusion in the half-educated mind. You err on the side of statism, and lose the balance.

      1. You must be kidding. I spoke of Berdaeyev and you talk of me as a ” Statist”

      2. Berdaeyev wrote of the Russian Orthodox sense of mission carrying into communism — the new missionary creed. Have you not unconsciously mixed the two creeds, accepting Marx’s critique of capitalism without grasping the dangers of autocracy? After all, Russian Orthodoxy is now too weak to supply a moral code for its own bosses — the autocrats. Putin openly says Marxism is the same as Christianity. This is a disastrous formula. I therefore conclude, from your rhetoric, that you are a statist by default; for the Church you idolize is controlled by the state security organs. Unless there occurs a nuclear war, you cannot return to feudalism, or serfdom; but must lean toward statism or the free market. By some means or other your countrymen must shake off the communist legacy instead of prettifying it as a misunderstood form of nationalism. Have you not learned? There can be no compromise with Marxism-Leninism any more than there can be a compromise with Hitlerism. Furthermore, your Russian view of political economy is as inadequate as the American view of democracy. Neither side has understood the proper relationship between state and economy, and the strong moral sense that would enable it. How to avoid plutocracy on one side or bureaucratic tyranny on the other. Our political culture has failed so far — with dire consequences in East and West.

  37. You dont really add anything to the mix either, but deflection away from points Nyquist makes in his articles. You’re far more clever than I, and have a lot more time on your hands to be pulling stuff from everywhere, but I still recognize BS when I see it. And the only “people” I “accuse”, are your other pseudonyms, or fellow trolls, whichever you are. But I’m about to start my day job, so enjoy your day in front of your screen.

    1. I may not agree with you on everything you say, but I have respect for you. This other person appears to be mentally ill, with a fixation on certain conspiracy theories that have only sharpened under the strain of the pandemic. I am thinking there is less there with them and their situation than meets the eye

    2. GREYKNIGHT says:
      JANUARY 20, 2022 AT 8:57 AM
      P.S., I am about to give an HONEST day’s work, for an HONEST day’s pay. I encourage you to try that. It might change your whole outlook on life.

      I’m currently withholding my labour for a little thing called “principles”… You are seriously the worst troll hunter I have ever heard of.

      What I add to the mix comes from an European perspective, from knowledge I hold, from stories I have been told and first hand accounts. I am not averse to reappraising my opinions when a strong enough argument is made that isn’t based upon any of the common tricks and fallacies of propaganda that is so much in fashion today.

      Americans, even the exalted academics are often ignorant of many common variables that exist across the pond. You see, books don’t always tell the whole truth, researchers are often lazy using second and third hand sources without checking their veracity and governments never tell the truth.

  38. The problem is the US Federal Government and the silly masses of Americans who live on every breath and word of the corrupt regime.The Average American could care less about the world outside of their own vices and creature comforts. We blink and nod at our own corruption and decadance while grasping our pearls at the ‘reported’ atrocities taking place in locations most could ever find on a map. Peace has been taken from the Earth but waste time warning the Americans that, they dont have the ears to hear it with

    ameriKa, ameriKa is fallen is fallen.

  39. We are curently losing this Fourth World War because so many of our Countrymen refuse to believe it is happening here.

    “and because we are soft, we evade the horrors of THIS reality by ANY MEANS WE CAN; ideological or chemical; with food stamps and video (political) circus, with liquor and cocaine, with false sciences and false religions; DENIAL oozes from a gutless culture that worships comfort and fashion. The idea of nuclear war is dismissed as unworkable and undoable. People who discuss civil defense are ridiculed. “Shelters do not work,” we say to ourselves. In this way, we contrive to evade, for just a little longer, that horror with heat shield and payload, the mere thought of which is proscribed. Therefore, the future too is proscribed while MANY FACTS AND ESTIMATES ARE NECESSARILY DISTORTED. The typical citizen of today, during the commercial break gives a grunt and perhaps a thought: “I cannot admit of such things, I can do nothing about them anyway. I don’t want to live without Monday Night Football. Besides if i dig a bomb shelter my neighbors will laugh at me.”

    That’s us in a a nutshell. We are optimists, yes, but we are OPTIMIST OUT OF WEAKNESS.”

    — ‘Origins of The Fourth World War’ J. R. Nyquist

    1. How many military troops are required to conquer a big city, and how many of those troops would be lost in the battle? How many cities can be conquered before unable to conquer another city? Americans don’t go looking for trouble or riot in the streets. Americans sit at home and hand load magnum rounds waiting for trouble to come to them. Is that optimism or confident Realism?

      1. “How many military troops are required to conquer a big city, and how many of those troops would be lost in the battle?” One is to many.

        No reasonable person would advocate for global war or even a fist fight. Anyone who does hasn’t been in either.

  40. ” John Davies”, I wanted to let you know that my last comment wasn’t directed at you, as such. Mr Nyquist is quite capable of cogent replies and civil discussion. Some invested in aspects of his thinking: not so much. I actually have lived in the areas in question, so I believe that my ideas have a fair amount of experiential validity.

    1. For mr Nyquist: but with Berdaeyev, as with most other Russian thinkers, freedom and spirit are ontological qualities, which render the State helpless at its worst and a necessary evil at it’s best. Such evils as the Bourgeoisie and their Capitalism possesses, along with all of the world’s social evils, are not triumphed over by force such as the State has, but by love, personal love expressed communally, without legalism or brute power. ” Autocracy” for us is not the Power of the State, but sovereign and holy Authority which comes from God and has clear spiritual Charismata. Opposed to this, always, is Oligarchy.

      And ” official ” Orthodoxy…Many times I’ve noted here the sympathies I have with the Starovery, the ” Old Believers “, and also the Cossack life. This is the Old Russia. President Putin has the legitimate power, but how far can any government go when they all look to leaders like Tsar Peter for inspiration?

      So in my criticism of the West, please do not assume that I don’t have a critique of my world, even if those are the same criticisms because of my antipathy towards Westernization.

      1. And in response to ” Greyknight” I am historically interested but divided in sympathy by the Southern Confederacy cause. I know that the intervention of the Tsar in the American Civil War by threatening Britain and France (with the Russian fleets visiting in New York and San Francisco at Lincoln and Seward’s request)so they wouldn’t help the South, was a mistake. But Patton was a bit of a delusional maniac with all his reincarnation talk, etc…

      2. Strannik: The free market is not evil any more than running a dress shop is evil, or investing in a factory. Goods and services are necessary to human existence. Some of the things you revile as evil are neutral in and of themselves. The evil enters in through certain individuals at certain times. But this kind of evil cannot be compared to the evil of a tyrant. Like so many socialists here in America, or like anti-Semites who use the word “Jew” as a scapegoat and metaphor for the rich, your discourse places the evil potentialities of the market above the evil potentialities of the tyrant. This is an error. George Washington warned, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” In this context, there is no capitalist who rates with the great dictators in terms of destruction and killing. What is most dangerous in what you write, is this notion of demonizing private persons and private property, while sanctifying the dictator. This formula of “personal love expressed communally, does not exist. It is a contradiction in terms. Personal love is personal. A group is not a person. It is, as Kierkegaard suggested, a nullity or a monster. Here you have made an idol of “a dangerous servant, and a fearful master,” imbuing it with holiness when it is in fact an abomination; and this is what an invasion of Ukraine will lead to. Why justify such a horrible thing? It seems that you have deified a “dangerous servant, and fearful master.” The moral quality of someone like Lenin, or Stalin, or Putin, or Mao, is very low. So Russia will invade Ukraine and repressive measures will be adopted, and you say “Hurrah!” Certain people will “disappear.” And you say “Hurrah!” But I shake my head and say there is no justice in it. And worse will come because of it. You will hear Americans say that America is a “Christian” nation, etc. But it is not true. And this untruth is just the mirror image of what you are reciting to me about Russia. In America money is God. In Russia the State is God. But you have this prescriptive fantasy that the Orthodox Church has somehow sanctified Russia, and given legitimacy to Putin, who nonetheless showed himself to be a tyrant when he ordered the assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko. To regard Putin as an instrument of God, after that, is obscene. Anna Akhmatova wrote a poetic fragment that translates into English, “Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, I can’t bear it anymore. In some midnight hymn I live on that shore.” I am waving at you from Akhmatova’s shore. Don’t lie to me.

  41. Off topic, but still important (for those who pay attention): A bit more than half an hour ago, at 7:03 p.m. CET (= 1:03 p.m. EST), the Austrian parliament voted 137 vs. 33 FOR the proposed Covid-vaccine mandate bill.

    A cold putsch reminiscent of what Czechoslovakia experienced in 1948 (when Stalin turned that country into a communist one-party state) has been pulled off with gruesome precision. As of this day, January 20, 2022, the nation of Austria as a country under the rule of law, is no more.

    As a more than suitable musical illustration, here is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem (written in his death year of 1791), performed roughly half a century ago in Vienna’s by the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra and Chorus of the Vienna State Opera under Karl Böhm.

    Mr. Nyquist is kindly asked to immediately delete any and every poisonous troll comment by these Soviet PIGS who frequent these comments 24/7!

  42. Jeff, not sure if you can comment, one of the channels that cover the Grand Solar Minimum on youtube has done a explanation on the effect of the Tonga volcanic eruption and how the ash will result in cooling:

  43. @ ROCIOMATAMOROS722: Thank you for your support!

    And isn’t it ironic that the Austro-Hungarian monarchy ended with Emperor KARL, that the new so-called First Republic was at first headed by a socialist named KARL Renner (who was also Stalin’s man to be reinstalled in 1945), and that the country is now being crushed by one KARL Nehammer (Nehammer, the sledge hammer, one might argue).

    I’m not even sure whether the (once-nominally-conservative) People’s Party fully understands what they are doing here. Certainly, their coalition partner, the “Greens” (who are still the same rabid revolutionary communists that they have always been) know what they are doing! Connections with pharmaceutical companies are more than likely, but on the other hand: Why has the process been so eerily similar to communist takeovers of the past? To Czechoslovakia 1948, or even to Mao’s Cultural Revolution? And it’s internationally coordinated. The same methods and tactics! There can’t be a coincidence. This is all coming from the wind direction of Moscow & Beijing. It’s World October, and yet most people in the West have no clue whatsoever what’s happening.

    Can’t help placing here another gem from the era of the First Viennese School (and a most precious one, at that): The famous second movement, Poco Adagio. Cantabile, of Haydn’s string quartet in C major, Hob. III:77, “Emperor”, which then became the official anthem of the Habsburg Empire until its end in 1918. Also, notoriously, this same melody has been in use for Germany’s official anthem ever since 1922, whether during the Weimar Republic, under National Socialism, or ever after. The spirit of the music, however, is Austrian to the core (recording with the legendary Alban Berg Quartet, Vienna):

  44. Hi Jeff!
    I like reading your articles however this one, from my point of view, is filled up with many false or half-true statements. I was born in 1949 in Poland and raised there. I speak Russian as well and I’ve been to Russia and Ukraine a few times. I know the current reality there and also the purposely omitted history of that region of the world.
    Your article is rather long. I can’t analyze and respond to every statement of yours in my commentary.
    Let me focus on the causes of the II World War. I First World War caused a lot of political and social changes to the continent. Some countries fell apart; new ones were created – among them Poland and Czechoslovakia. Although there was hope and happiness in those 2 countries, Russia and Germany were not accepting the outcome of the war! The Russians soon afterwards started plotting how to move westward and the Germans – how to move eastward. In the 30s both countries try to woo Poland and Czechoslovakia to create an alliance and together go against the other one. Neither Czechoslovakia nor Poland wanted their participation in the old German plan/idea : Drunk nach Osten or extending German territory eastward at the cost of Russians and Ukrainians. At the end of 1938 the German knew already that Poland would not join them in a war against the Russians/Soviet Union. Poland tried to fend off war with Germany by forming a military alliance with France and England assuming that the Germans would not dare starting the war. As a matter of fact the Germans clearly stated their plans in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
    The Russians signed a tactical pact with Germany (Ribbentrop-Molotov) dividing Poland in half although both sides knew that it was only a temporary arrangement and sooner or later they would have to fight each other for supremacy in Europe.
    Did the Polish people want to join NATO and European Union? Indeed most of them did and generally only for economic reasons because the mistrust of Germany, France and England in Poland was relatively high at that time. At the moment in Poland (and Hungary for example) people make the calculations of benefits and loses of being a member of these 2 organizations and more and more people there are less and less happy about it.
    And now – Ukraine. The Ukrainians for a long time – a few centuries wanted to have an independent country free from interference of the Russians, the Poles and the Hungarians. As a matter of fact in most cases neighboring countries don’t coexist peacefully. The Russian particularly tormented the Ukrainians in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Up to 4 million Ukrainians died from artificially created famine (food confiscation) because Ukrainian peasants resisted land collectivization in the 30s; the so called Holodomor. At the present most Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians (not the Russians living there) indeed hate the Russians because of the past events.
    The last topic. Will the III World War occur? In my opinion yes because the visions of Globalism – Western ( One Planet, One Race, One Religion as Klaus Schwab says) and Eastern ( Regionalization under control of AI) are not compatible. Personally I claim that the USA will be completely destroyed, Europe mostly and Russia and China partially. Only time will tell….

  45. I may be wrong, but it seems this is another cover up or distraction orchestrated by the US Democrats (and the Chinese CCP) to cover up Bidenstein’s blunders and their lack of. If any false flag occurs, it will be by NATO, not by Russia, but Russia would get the blame.

  46. Great entry.

    Yesterday I spent another hour laying out the case to someone that Russia is dangerous, they won’t leave us alone, and Russia has no moral claim on Ukraine. He was just totally baffled and had no agreement with me at all. All his talking points were very similar to Mearsheimer. I did it simply out of respect to him because he is one of my most thinking friends on Facebook.

    From Russia’s perspective, it seems wise for them to not start a war yet. Better to first wait for China to invade Taiwan, or for a proxy to attack us. Plus they have the WWii blueprint they can follow, they waited for Hitler to kick things off, then invaded Europe w impunity.

    Given the question of whether Russia even needs to invade Ukraine, perhaps they are using Ukraine as cover for them to mobilize for a greater war, either w usa, or even a larger land invasion into Europe far beyond ukraine. That one seems perhaps a bit far fetched by why not what do they have those tanks for

    1. Reminds me of Hitler’s comment when he visited Finland, that the Germans had destroyed over 14,000 Soviet tanks in their invasion of Russia. In other words, if I remember correctly, Stalin had more tanks ready to roll westward than existed in the rest of the world, including Germany. What was Stalin planning to do with all those tanks? After all, did he not have an agreement with fellow socialist government to provide a buffer to the west? Or was he planning to double-cross Hitler?

      Today we have a similar situation—thousands of tanks of the latest designs massed just east of Ukraine, probably more north and south as well. Ukraine is too small a morsel to justify such a build-up. How is this not preparation for an attempt to take over all of western Europe?

    2. I fear that a greater war has been planned. In fact, I was told about this plan by a GRU defector in 1998. And now, everything we see is consistent with this plan.

  47. Any comment Jeff on the arms that are being shipped to Ukraine via Latvia,Lithuania and Estonia?And why the US/NATO felt the need to advertise this arrangement?Arent the Baltic States in enough peril as it is?Seems like they purposely are providing the Russians a pretext.

    1. Stupidity is the usual explanation for such things. But then, treason is also an explanation. Of course, in this instance, it is probably a combination of both. The West would be devastated by a war now. Russia is ready for war, and China is ready. You do not make war on someone who is ready when you have not even bothered to mobilize.

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