Nuclear War is Such a Downer (2) Macron Le Grand

MACRON LE GRAND

In the context of what is at least a temporary cessation of US aid to Ukraine, President Macron of France and the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, have been disseminating the idea of a coalition, possibly involving the Baltic states for sending NATO forces into Ukraine to take over border duties along the border with Belarus, and around Mykolaivka and Odessa and even in Moldava (in the wake of disturbances among pro-Russian populations in Moldava and Transnistria) from where they could also be sent to Odessa in the event of a Russian advance on Odessa. (Note that Ukraine is building up its defenses around the port town of Mykolaivka, and building a new road to accelerate transport to and from Odessa in another measure to deter Russia from moving on Odessa).

NATO AU REVOIR

Senator Mike Lee, Republican from Utah, has said that if NATO permits entry to NATO of Ukraine, that then the US should leave NATO. This of course represents a strong anti-NATO sentiment felt in at least one major wing of the Republican Party. It also accords with Donald Trump’s former and perhaps still present position, that if the US is to remain involved with NATO then NATO countries will have to shoulder a far heavier portion of the financial burden.

It is not clear what Trump would do about NATO were he to be re-elected US president in November this year. Anonymous claims as to what he might do may simply be Democratic propaganda in search of a repeat of Clinton’s efforts in 2016 to fabricate a false image of Trump as Russian stooge, an image that he then felt obliged to stomp on by doing the exact opposite of what the Democrats were warning that he might do. There are rumors, and they may be Democratic propaganda, that certain US officials are advising European leaders to prepare for US withdrawal from NATO. If so, this then might explain the panicked and reckless statements of Macron and Pavel.

SE LAISSER ALLER A PARIS

My readers may forgive me if I confess there have been one or two occasions in my life, quite some time ago, you understand, when I have “let myself go” in Paris, never less than Paris in Springtime. Surrounded by elegance, great art, amazing architecture, good wine and every other sensual temptation, it is difficult to do otherwise. Parisiennes, however, have to live there, and I suppose for them to let themselves go requires rather more effort and determination, and more ambition: like marching on Moscow from Paris, colonizing Africa and Asia, hosting Nazi armies, and ripping up medieval pavestones to get the greatest French president to resign - that kind of thing, such initiatives meeting mostly with hideous ultimate failure, although De Gaulle - unfortunately, as it turns out - did step down in 1969.

So it must come naturally for Emmanuel Macron, having wilfully forced a neoliberal pension law down the throats of unwilling voters, and ignored and abused the most important civil movement of modern European history, the Yellow Vests, undermined French imperialism in West Africa and handed over the imperial keys to its nemesis, Russia, and having thrown away gigantic sums of money to no purpose at all in support of Ukraine’s bid for membership of NATO (which NATO still will not give) should now propose - having first seemingly convinced himself with his own preposterous lie that Russia seriously has any interest in attacking Europe - sacrificing more French lives. These would be in addition to those already lost under the pretense that the French Foreign Legion has any business in Ukraine.

Macron would wants to send Frenchmen to die in place of Ukrainians near Belarus, or Odessa or in Moldova, pushing NATO colleagues to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine that can kill Russians in Russia, and essentially doing whatever he can to provoke a nuclear war.

That’s what happens when pompous, haughty and self-deluded European politicians are allowed too much power for too long. If it didnt threaten the world with extinction one might simply sip more red win and declare C’est la vie, mon ami! Far better if Macron and his generation of cheffes sans billes - leaders who have lost their marbles - turned their attention to real problems such as climate change, rather than ones that have been totally fabricated by serial liars such as Bill Burns, Hilary Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Boris Johnson.

NATO IN UKRAINE

NATO already has forces in Ukraine as has by now been well established. NATO already has forces in Ukraine as has by now been well established. It goes without saying that the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine, whether now or, in greater numbers in the future, to provide so-called non-combatant support to Ukraine, greatly increases the chances of major strikes on NATO forces in Ukraine, or the chances of Russian strikes on NATO positions outside of Ukraine in the event of the firing of western-supplied long-range missiles on Russia from either Ukraine or from NATO countries, and can therefore can quickly lead to nuclear confrontation in which Russia has by far the most superior hyposonic delivery systems.

The line between noncombatant and combatant in French thinking is fragile. All forms of escalation from this point onwards which are being contemplated by people like Emmanuel Macron can accelerate the “escalation escalator” to nuclear war. This would of course be devastating to the world. Nobody is likely to feel they have “won” in any such context and both sides have a very great deal to lose, even assuming something short of the possibility of entire annihilation.

ON NOT AVOIDING NUCLEAR WAR

All sides have so very much more to lose than if the West simply stopped doing what it is doing, now, right away, an outcome that would most likely lead - even in the absence of a forml agreement with Russia, given that Russia knows that the collective West is entirely untrustworthy, but might be persuaded to give a chance to evidence of encouraging behavior and action - to the continuing existence of a smaller (minus four to six heavily ethnic Russian oblasts) but independent Ukraine, albeit a neutralized, demilitarized and denazified version.

It might well be sufficient if Europe by itself was to unilaterally settle on such a strategy, given that the US appears to be withdrawing in any case (even if only to prepare itself for a conflict with China that it will also lose) or would be unlikely to keep the conflict going in the face of strong opposition from Europe. This would provide Europe, and Ukraine, with a back door, a route that would return to both parties to economic prosperity, much cheaper oil and gas, the beginning of a rapprochement between Russia and Europe, welcome detatchment of Europe from the Washington crazies, an opportunity to refocus mutual attention on real human challenges of climate change, and a future for the children and grandchildren of Europe and Russia.

(AGAIN) CAKE OR DEATH?

Cake or Death? Ukraine and Europe appear not to like Cake.

Instead, we are hearing another dreary, unworkable scheme about how Europe can buy a few more shells from dubious sources that will bring Ukraine nowhere nearer to the quantities its forces would need to be able to compete with Russia. If the real agenda is about creating a pretext that would force European taxpayers to go along with the idea of a stronger, executive Europe, one with the power to raises taxes and armies, then this is a thoroughly unconvincing and unworthy incentive for the continuation of a war that might so well cross the red line into nuclear combat.

ZONES OF COMBAT

Russia is reasonably close to storming Orlivka, Tonenke and Berdychi in the Avdiivka area. In Krasnohorivka between Avdiivka and Bakhmut to the north. Russian troops crossed the railway in the south of Krasnahorivka in the past 24 hours, in addition to moving into the east of the settlement from Russian positions in the east, and are clashing with Ukrainian forces north of the railway. (Dima reported yesterday that Russia now has north-south railway connections along the combat lines that allow them to transport men and materiel from Mariupol to Kuypyansk). When Russian action in Krasnohorivka is completed, Russia will likely move on to nearby settlements to the immediate west, including Pervomaiske and Nivelske. Russia has established a presence all around the water resevoir east of Heorhiivka, and Russian forces are said to be in the east end of Heorhiivka. The battle for Novomikhailivka, meanwhile, appears to be nearly complete, to Russian advantage. Russia is storming the Vremevka Ledge, again, meeting little or no opposition. In Robotyne there is now a more determined Ukrainian opposition fired up perhaps by recognition of the old canard that it it is possible for Ukraine to reach down to Tokmak and then proceed to cut Russia’s land bridge in two.

In Mariupol, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Novomykhailivka, Kupyansk, Terny and elsewhere Russian strategy is all about surrounding a target on multiple sides before launching divers assaults into it.

LOSING COUNT OF THE MEN, HUGELY

Zelenskiy is pushing ahead with a plan for demobilization that might bring some small cheer to his depressed countrymen by allowing a number of veterans to return home for at least a year to be replaced by poorly trained, green recruits some of whom will have been press-ganged violently. Videos of such press-gang tactics will not do much to endear Zelenskiy to those two out of three people who have chosen to continue living in Ukraine (many of them escaping, illegally) and, should there ever again be contested elections in this supreme example of NATO-style “democracy” it seems unlikely that Zelenskiy could win them. A new law also allows the mobilization of Ukrainian prisoners of which there is a total population of 100,000, many of whom are draft resisters and other species of refusenik.

One naturally wonders what are the links there between this demobilization push, the continuing inability of the RADA to progress a bill for a new mobilization, and the results of a very recent audit of the Ukrainian army that apparently discloses that whereas the size of the army should be one million it is in fact only 300,000. And if it is really only 300,000 how can Ukraine possibly expect anything other than defeat against an invading Russian force of 600,000 or more?

This is Ukraine, so one must presume the most egregious of egregious scams, one of which the US (with its CIA-SBU branches along Russia’s borders) must surely be aware, one from which it may conceivably profit. Who knows? mAre the missing 700,000 actually dead? Are their salaries still being paid, and to whom? Is there something here that is so profoundly criminal, and that contaminates so many, that the option of ending a war that might be followed by full disclosure is simply not on the table?

How otherwise do you lose 700,000 men in 700 days? That’s 1,000 a day. I guess this must be happening a lot all over since nobody seems interested in the loss of 700,000. I guess in some places people are doing this all the time - who knows, they tell you the “average” family comprises two adults and 1.5 children but maybe parents just keep losing children and that if they didn’t lose them the average family size would be 10 kids and maybe 14 adults. So it’s got to be something really tedious that most commentators can’t be bothered to stifle a yawn over.

Still, I am a bit curious…

FINDING MORE MEN, LESS HUGELY

If Ukraine manages to recruit up to 100,000 prisoners (it is barely conceivable that they would be able to recruit the entire prison population or that more than a small percentage of this population would mbe in any condition to fight a serious war), and if, say, French or Czech or Polish forces were able to undertake border duties along Belarus and around Odessa and thus release up to, say, 150,000 Ukrainian troops for combat readiness, we would be talking about a newly mobilized if deficient army of 250,000 to which, if one adds the 300,000 Ukrainian troops supposedly already in combate, provides an army of 550,000, still smaller than the army already fielded by Russia in Ukraine, bearing in mind that Russia has a far larger pool of reserves, trained, that can be sent to Ukraine to join the 600,000+ Russians already there. These calculations do not keep abreast of current events in the field. In the past month alone, for example, Ukraine has lost ten air defense systems, of which at least three or maybe four were Patriot missile systems. It has lost these primarily because it has had to relocate its air defenses closer to the combat line in order to try to reduce the impact of incessant use by Russia of FAB 1,500 kilo bombs on Ukrainian fortified positions, in addition to artillery and drones and tank assaults. With a weakening, not to say, crippling of Ukrainian air defenses, strong Russian pushes up to or through Ukrainian positions in and around Avdiivka (e.g. near Orlivka, Berdychi, Pervomaiske, Tanenko), (further north around Bakhmut (particularly Ivanivske and Chasiv Yar), and up to Terny near Lyman, and Kupyansk, and even Kharkiv (Russian activity along the border is growing stronger and much more proactive) while (further south) near Novomykhailivka, Vuhledar, the Vremevka salient, and Robotyne, Russia is now close to the point that it can contemplate major offensives westwards and southwards long before Europe will be capable of putting together any kind of coherent strategy.

PALESTINE

I was a guest on this show from presstv.ir:

Gaza, West Bank Economic Crisis

The crux is that Israel is suffering intense and possibly terminal economic damage from this war. The country is losing up to 500,000 emigres and the business, employment and tax advantages these represent. It has to pay the salaries of hundred of thousands of reservists; it has to compensate businesses afflicted by losses of staff and trade; it has to pay compensation for direct and indirect damage to buildings (I assume this is in relation to Israeli owned property only); it has to subsidize housing costs for thousands of settlers dislocated from the northern border with Lebanon; it will likely have to conscript from the Haredim, the ultra-holy, who until now have been exempted from military service; the IDF will likely lose a war with Hezbollah, a war that nonetheless the political leadership is doing its best to provoke; Israel is not ready to fight a long war, as it has always depended on US-style presumptions of air superiority. Israel has to contend with Houthi damage to Israeli-affiliated shipping in the Red Sea and Houthi missile attacks on IDF positions in Israel.