The Terror of Bluff

Havana, Tehran, Pyongyang (etc) v. the US Empire of Bases

One could pick up the story from the Russian naval visit this week to Havana but, more directly enlightening, is Putin’s speech delivered yesterday to the Saint Petersburg economic summit. This took place in the timely context of the World Bank’s rejigging of the economic hierarchy so as to mark Russia as the world’s fourth largest economy ahead of Japan and as much as one third the size of that of the US (much of whose apparent wealth is built on such unproductive things as finance, services and healthcare).

This elevation up the hierarchical ladder of economic power is the result, in its own dialectic way, of Western sanctions that were intended to cripple Russia but have, instead, crippled Europe, made Russia stronger, and drained US weapons stocks (including 155 mm shells, production of which the US is hastily trying to ramp up).

Putin talked of Russia’s response to Western relaxation of what were supposed to be the limitations on Ukrainian use of western weapons on Russian targets within the pre-2014 borders of Russia. The issue is not so much whether Ukraine has shown restraint in such matters in the past,. It hasn’t and, because Ukraine’s deployment of advanced weapons depends on direct Western assistance, we can conclude that neither has the West shown much restraint.

The issue, rather, is whether an intenstification of the use of Western weapons - more intense, say, than strikes on Russian refineries, Russian ships, Russian energy facilities and, most concerning of all, Russian nuclear infrastructure, as in the attacks over the past three weeks, of its nuclear early-warning radar stations, might prompt Russia to a more robust response than it has already demonstrated (beyond the decimation, say, of Ukrainian energy, Ukrainian air defense systems, and the Ukrainian army - which Russia claims is being destroyed at the current rate of 50,000 men a month, while Ukraine’s recent mobilization struggles to reach a replacement rate of 30,000, to which it is now considering the addition of conscripts aged 18-24).

Well, yes, it has. In at least two ways. The first, and most significant, is that Putin has indicated that Russia may do what the collective West has been doing in Ukraine namely sending Russian advanced weapons to its allies, which might then be used by Russian proxies against Western military or other relevant targets anywhere in the world.

Potential candidates, one might surmise, could include Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, to name a few. Perhaps, in view of its current interest in joining the BRICS and maybe abandoning NATO as a lost cause, Turkey should be added to the list (also bearing in mind Turkey’s critical gatekeeping role over the passage of Russian warships through the Dardenelles and into the Mediterranean).

If the Houthis can strike the USS Eisenhower in the Red Sea twice in one week (so the Houthis have claimed), what might they be able to do with, say, Kinzhals or, more relevantly perhaps, Zircons? What might Iran, having recently penetrated Israel’s “iron dome,” do with a broader range of subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic weapons in any face-off with Israel? Or, in the face of the installation by NATO of hybrid conventional-nuclear military tactics against Russia, including F-16s and F-35s, whether in Ukraine or in Poland or Romania, the upgrading of Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy production into a nuclear weapons capability, how might this impact the balance of power in the Middle East?

Secondly, Putin has already indicated that in response to Western escalation, Russia might begin jamming or shooting down the surveillance drones and other Third Party weaponry crossing the Black Sea.

Western analysts and commentators are greatly exercised in assessing the extent to which Putin and the Kremlin’s references to Russia’s nuclear facilities are simply bluff. But they too often forget to consider the extent to which Western posturing, wargames, psychological warfare are bluff. If they are bluff, their purpose, arguably, is to structure the battlefield so as to give additional strength to Ukraine (= the West) from which to negotiate. But the past two years have shown that they cannot achieve this “additional strength.” So nobody can negotiate (Zelenskiy has made negotiation with Putin illegal anyway, and Putin has just demonstrated that Zelenskiy is no longer a legal President).

The game is reduced to keeping the conflict going for long enough so that Biden (who has had to admit that Ukrainian membership of NATO - the fundamental reason for Zelenskiy’s selling out his country to the West - is not even on the cards) gets to November without a deeply embarrassing Western fiasco in Ukraine. It will be a far greater fiasco than Biden’s fiasco in Afghanistan (where Russia is now making overtures to the Taliban, perhaps securing Afghanistan and some of the other Stans to the north in its ring of defense against Western hegemony), its fiasco in Syria (where even the Jihadi king-maker, Qatar, is seeking reconciliation with Assad), its fiasco in Libya (still split between rival governments), its fiasco in Iraq (where Weapons of Mass Destruction as so, well, passe) and so on and so forth, running through the Balkans, Tiananmen Square, back to Vietnam.

The question is less one about whether Russia will resort to tactical nukes, and more one about whether the collective West, in its ever more spectacular “shock and awe” demonstration of the theatre of bluff, will itself approach the ledge of the precipice to nuclear annihilation. In this windy place the slightest misreading can be fatal for the world. Recall the Soviet nuclear submarine commander during the Cuban missile crisis, who would have fired in response to a US depth-charge on the presumption that World War Three had already started.

And there are many other points of horror even before we reach that point. This is in a world where the collective West, as we celebrate D-Day, has inherited the mantle of Naziism for the defence of authoritarian liberalism. This is evident in Western supporting of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, inviting the perpetrator of Palestinian genocide to speak in his nicely tailored suit before Congress while giving more and more bombs for him to preserve US hegemony. It is evident in the dangerous turn of deeply confused and frightened electorates towards the extreme Right in Europe and in the US, the routine Western censorship of expression and debate - with eager support from the US-dominated digital platforms of Silicon Valley, the locking up of people who expose Western war crimes, the threat of sanctions against prosecutors who would seek justice against the Western perpetrators of war crimes, the forced removal of people from airplanes that might fly them to conferences where they might say the “wrong things,” and in the hailing of an era of “pre-bunking” thought control, as insanelt advocated by none other than the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. All this amidst routine mainstream media smearing, under the labels of "misinformation and ‘fact-checking’, often without any evidence whatsoever, of alternative outlets and viewpoints.

The Battlefields

There is a common expectation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian positions in the north of Kharkiv that will draw, first of all, on large numbers of poorly trained Ukrainian conscripts with the purpose of wearing down Russian forces, to be followed up by deployment of Ukraine’s most experienced forces. The trouble with this plan it seems to me, is that Ukraine’s most experienced forces have already lost the war, in effect, mostly dead in the trenches, and after the inexperienced forces are gone there will be no reserves left or worth having to follow through on the supposed victory of the experienced forces.

Zelenskiy is now an illegimate leader - the Ukrainian constitution makes no provision for the extension of a presidency on the grounds of martial law, and no secondary legislation can trump the constitution. He had hoped that by hob-nobbing with the world’s more powerful leaders at a pro-Ukrainian Swiss-held “peace conference” (more accurately, a war pretext conference) in Lucerne in July, he would look important enough, at least in eyes of the remaining citizens of Ukraine, that everyone would forget about his being illegitmate. Well, the leaders are not going: not Putin (who wasnt invited), not Xi Jinping, not Biden, not Lula, not Saudi’s MBS, not Modi. And Zelenskiy, a professional comedian, never did look that serious anyway.

Russia continues to inflict significant losses on Ukraine in Vovchansk, Belly Kolodez, Veseloye, Visokaya, Yaruga, Zhovtnevoye, Tsirkuny. In Vovchansk, Russian forces are gaining slightly (400 meters) over Ukrainian opposition in the northern sector above the Volcha, while consolidating their hold over the territory between Vovchansk and the border with mainland Russia. Russian forces advance west of Vovchansk, from Starytsia, which Russia holds, through to Izbytske Varvarivka and Ternova. Ukraine is expending much effort in developing a defense line between Kharkiv, Chuhuiv and Artemivka, which it doesnt really need in view of the fact that Russia has said Russia doesnt want the city in any case. Russia’s purpose is to establish a buffer zone along the northern border, much of which it has now achieved.

In Kupyansk, Russia has destroyed an ammo depot in Kucherivka near Petropavlivka, is continuing to bombard Stepova Novoselivka, Stelmakhivka and Spirne, and is now advancing from Kolomyichykha towards Vyshneve. The presence of Russian forces is now indisputably confirmed west of the canal south of Chasiv Yar, with an extension of Russian artillery and bombing pressure from the east to the center of the settlement. In Avdiivka, Russian forces remain close to Novooleksandrivka and are advancing in the direction of Kalynove, taking more territory between Novooleksandrivka and Arkhanelske. Russia’s main interest is to move westwards beyond Sokil, which it has begun to penetrate, towards Vozelvyzhenka, striking as far west as Selydove.

There is not a whole lot new to report from other points of the battlefield other than to note strikes on power stations in Zapphorizhzhia (contributing to increasing Ukrainian anxiety about next winter, when availability of power may be limited to just two hours a day), and the discovery by Russia that Ukrainian forces have almost disappeared from the Kherson area so as to supplement Ukrainian strength in Kharkiv. This open up the possibility of a Russian invasion into the Ukrainian held territory west and north of the Dnieper, where Russia is making considerable progress in capturing the river islands.