Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Ukraine
2. Analysis
3. Energy
4. Canada
1. Ukraine. Seems like the most important news this week is international. Before I begin on Ukraine, we are truly in the Fog of War, where the propaganda / persuasion battlespace is being fought just as bitterly as the air, sea and land battlespace. As of this writing, I don’t believe any claims by either side. One of the reasons is the real lack of photos from Ukraine. As of this morning, the most important indicator is that Putin did not achieve his decapitation strike against the Ukrainian government. The longer this goes on, the worse the outcome is going to be for both Putin and Russia. Ukraine may end up being leveled, but what will happen to Putin and Russia afterwards will be worse. A few bits for your consideration.
- There are reports that at least two IL-76 transports stuffed with Russian Special Operators were shot down enroute to Kiev. This is a C-17 sized airlifter. The jets likely contained decapitation strike and were very likely the best soldiers in the entire theater. They didn’t make it to their objective.
- A month or so before this began, I ran across a piece that claimed the US sent some number of shipments of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine along with Javelin anti-tank missiles. Never saw it confirmed, but the stories since the invasion began indicate that there may have been some truth to the story. Stingers have been around for a long time and did great damage to Soviet helos of all sorts in Afghanistan 40 years ago. Anti-tank missiles similarly are effective against tanks and most importantly against armored personnel carriers which carry the troops necessary to exploit the holes tanks open in any defensive line. APCs are much softer, and nicely package 8-10 fully armed troops inside a metal hull shielded by ammunition and diesel. Tanks are built to survive being shot in the face. They are not so hardened on the sides, rear or top, though armor improvements by the Israelis have been adopted worldwide.
- There was a report this morning on FNC that the Ukrainians are manufacturing napalm, mixing gasoline with soap to make a gel. Nape in Vietnam was locally produced mixing gasoline with tide. It was a most effective weapon.
- Ukrainian women are reportedly greeting Russian soldiers with flower seeds. The thought is that after they are buried, flowers will grow on the fields where they were buried. There was an online effort over the weekend here in the US to do the same thing, sending flower seeds to Russian consulates, embassies, businesses here in the US. Think of it as a love tap.
- US diplomats held several meetings with Chinese diplomats literally begging them to use their influence to stop an invasion. After every meeting, the CCP took the classified information and immediately gave it to their Russian counterparts.
- One of the smart things that it appears the Ukrainians have done is to leave the bridges and highways intact. The armored columns then take the easy route and are channelized on the highways. You can create a lot of paperweights from a line of armor stopped or moving very slowly, which might be happening.
2. Analysis. Best analysis of this event was a piece by Lee Smith in Tablet over the weekend. He blasted both the Ukrainians and the US defense / intel / state department establishment for setting the stage for Putin to launch the attack. That establishment participated in two coups over the last decade, the first targeting the government of Ukraine in 2014 under O’Bama and Hillary Clinton, and the second two years later aimed at the government of the United States under Donald Trump. Indeed, the first impeachment was launched because Trump started asking questions about Ukrainian involvement in some real shady goings on here in the US. Important piece. Read it.
- If you’re going to successfully deal with an adversary, you must at some level at least understand what makes him tick. Trump was blasted endlessly for being respectful to Putin. He still is today. But what was Trump? He was a salesman, perhaps one of the best since Ed MacMahon. What salesman trashes a potential customer prior to the sale (or afterwards)? This sort of approach is still being used by democrats and their media enablers as proof that Trump was and still is colluding with Russia.
- For his part, Putin is mostly rational, though acting highly irrational in this invasion. Perhaps from his perspective, with democrats in charge, having blamed him for everything possible over the last decade, he believes they are predictable and likes his position, at least for a little while. OTOH, perhaps he has miscalculated.
- The CCP is watching this very closely, as they have similar plans for Taiwan. There are those who believe either the Baltics or Taiwan is next. I don’t disagree, though I am skeptical about Putin opening a second front before he puts the first one to bed. With the lack of immediate success by the invasion force into what is an incredibly corrupt nation, perhaps the CCP is reconsidering an attack on a nation, with a well-trained, well-armed, well-trained military that can and will return fire. While the CCP can level Taiwan and make the rubble bounce afterwards, the Taiwanese are not without their capabilities against the mainland and more specifically the 3,000 families comprising the CCP.
- Weapons are particularly important in this. Large quantities of smart surface to air missiles and man portable anti-tank weapons may be a game changer. Couple that with widespread drone capability for what becomes a guerrilla force playing defense, and the modern batlefield may be changing in favor of defense, at least for a little while.
- One of the things that has irritated Putin over the years is the continuing existence of NATO which Russia rightfully views as an offensive force. This is the identical viewpoint that those of us who participated in the Cold War viewed the happily defunct Warsaw Pact. Perhaps we are seeing fallout of retaining the structure that successfully prosecuted the Cold War some 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it is time to declare victory, dismantle that structure, and reconstitute it with a new mission and new members (or even the current group of members). This would be a win for Putin, a win for us, and a win in getting in position to prosecute the next war.
- Final point is that if the corruptocrats in Ukraine knew about how much money was laundered into the Biden family during their dealings with Hunter, then so does Putin. While I don’t think Biden is easily blackmailed, mostly because he simply doesn’t care, I do think that Putin can and will release what he knows whenever it suits him and his goals. When that happens, the cabal that put Biden in office will have a bit of a problem, having a quarterback taken out of the game without a backup ready to take the field.
3. Energy. Of course, none of this is possible unless Russia has enough money to prosecute and sustain a military adventure. What is their primary export? Energy, specifically oil and natural gas. Every time we elect democrats to positions of power, they bring along with them their anti-fossil fuel policies. And when we can’t produce our own, we buy from elsewhere. Late last week, Forbes ran a piece noting that Russia is United States’ Top Source of Imported Gasoline. While the US still exports far more gasoline than it imports, the fact that Russia is our largest import supplier is not without import. In effect, the Harris – Xiden Green nude eel is paying for the Russian war effort. Congratulations guys and gals, you must be very proud. In addition, Russian funding of anti-fracking, anti-nuclear, and anti-oil and natural gas rabble rousing in Europe successfully elected politicians who made Europe dependent on Russian supplied energy. This was known as far back as 2019 with a UK Critic piece entitled The plot against fracking, how cheap energy was killed by green lies and Russian propaganda. It is safe to assume that the war against energy here in the US and the rest of the western world is in part (and likely a large part) funded by national enemies (Russian and China) as a way to weaken the US and Europe. Sadly, it has worked pretty well. Now that we know what is going on and why it is going on, what do we plan on doing about it?
4. Canada. I confess that I am woefully uninformed by the structure of the Canadian system, and that lack of knowledge was nicely used by fake news about Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau winning a parliamentary vote in favor of his emergency decree. As it turns out, only the House of Commons voted to uphold the emergency declaration. But there is another House of Parliament, the Senate which had not yet voted on the declaration. 10 days after the declaration, Trudeau unexpectedly revoked his newfound powers, unfreezing the bank accounts. Here’s where things get interesting. While members of the House of Commons are elected, members of the Senate are appointed by the Governor General, the Crown’s representative in Canada. The Queen appoints the Governor General upon the advice of the Prime Minister. Theoretically, these Senators are all Trudeau supporters. Though in this case, they most assuredly weren’t, which is likely why Trudeau unexpectedly revoked the emergency declaration. Here’s where things get weird, as the speculation on revoking the emergency declaration are running rampant, with the most popular being either a run on Canadian banks underway or Trudeau and his minions got slapped down by the international banking community for screwing up an effort to talk Canadians into a single, unified, electronic ID for all their lives and finances. There does appear to be a run on Canadian banks underway. This has been reported in multiple venues. For the black helo crowd, the Canadian Banking Association, the association that quickly and happily cooperated with Trudeau’s order freezing bank accounts of protesters, is pushing something called a Digital ID. This is a comprehensive digital entry into everything needed to live and work. It is being pushed by something called the World Economic Forum and had pretty good support in the general public. But after demonstrating that your entire life can be summarily halted without benefit of a court order or even a charge based on little more than a $20 donation to a protest against said government, Trudeau, his deputy and Finance Ministers have all demonstrated that digital ID is a terrible weapon to be put in the hands of ANY government. The black helo crowd (and FWIW, they are ALL black today due to the anti-IR paint), believe that the international bankers told Trudeau and his minions to back off before they screwed the pooch. Too late. Discussions for the digital ID are all tied to the COVID passport used in multiple US cities and nations. In Europe, this is known as the EU Green Pass. In Oz, it is used to enforce vax status via QR code on smart phones. While I don’t believe that the international bankers told Trudeau to back off, I do believe his premature ham-fisted actions against the truckers doomed the digital ID in Canada, and very likely here in the US, which may be the best news of the week.
More later –
- AG