On Sunday Ukraine delivered not one but at least three reminders that its armed forces are far from toothless and it has the capacity to strike targets within Russia.
"a fresh assault towards Kyiv after the spring thaw in 2023."
So their armor is again restricted to narrow columns on highways lest it get stuck in the mud? Seems to me if they really wanted to do that, it would best be accomplished while the ground is frozen solid?
Unless the armor column is supported by infantry, the best time to mount a fresh drive towards Kyiv is "never".
Without infantry support, plus adequate supplies of fuel and food, tanks are sitting ducks on any highway. Montgomery proved that in 1944 during Operation Market Garden.
So Zalensky is off to DC today to beg / demand more money for this conflict that he, NATO and US leaders could’ve prevented with some assurances and diplomacy while Russia methodically built up forces for its SMO.
And while there were many steps that the west might have taken to avoid war, the unalterable reality is that Putin invaded Ukraine without any actual provocation or justification. He had no casus belli, and he still has no casus belli.
This war has always been Putin's choice. He could end it tomorrow just by pulling his troops out of Ukraine's sovereign territory. That's an option Ukraine does not have.
No it's not aggression against Russia. No shots were fired at Russia.
As for the biolabs, Putin received considerably more funding for Russia's biolabs than Ukraine has from the Nunn-Lugar "threat reduction" programs. It was Russia's VECTOR biolab--previously the Soviet Union's premier bioweapons facility--that teamed up with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome 20 years ago.
As for the Donbass, neither side has ever respected the Minsk Accords. Moreover, the Donbass is Ukrainian sovereign territory, and the residents of the Donbass are Ukrainian citizens. For that to be a reason for Russia to invade Ukraine, we should be invading China over their campaigns of genocide against the Tibetan and Uyghur peoples.
The geopolitical reality here is a few centuries old. Russia's defensive doctrone is for them to expand to naturally defensible borders, which means Putin needs ALL of Ukraine. He also needs half of Poland and the Baltic States.
The challenge has always been that Russia's territorial needs and ambitions put them in direct conflict with the other great powers of Europe.
The flaw in Putin's logic was his failure to realize that, where Russia is concerned, NATO is a defensive alliance; the politics within NATO make military aggression against Russia improbable. The argument that NATO expansion represents an imminent threat to Russia simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Which means Putin could have and should have used diplomacy to address his grievances and security concerns, instead of justifying his invasion with an absurd claim of "denazifying" Ukraine (especially since Putin is far more explicitly ethnonationalist than Zelensky).
He had the leverage, he just never used it.
Putin chose the worst possible option to address Russia's security concerns. Instead of fracturing NATO he renewed its lease on life.
I was appalled that he was even there (via US plane) demanding yet more fiat funding for a war he could’ve stopped. I was also disgusted that our congress us so ecstatic over this groveling and willing to shovel more funds at it without one mention of diplomacy.
Meanwhile in case you haven’t noticed, the USA has myriad domestic and border problems that sure could use some attention.
The propriety of the address is indeed a question--as is typical of political theater (which, to be sure, is what that speech was).
However, reading the text of Zelensky's address, one cannot say that he "demanded" more funding. He used the words "thank you" multiple times, which is inconsistent with the tenor of a demand. He did state that Ukraine needed more support, but a statement of need is not a demand. Nor is taking pains to frame the support as an "investment"--that's a technique of persuasion, not demand.
I read the transcript: Zelensky made no demands.
Technically, Ukraine can stop the war--by ceasing to exist.
Still, there is no getting around the reality that the invasion was Putin's choice, not Zelensky's. There was no existential threat to Russia coming from Ukraine; there is an existential threat to Ukraine coming from Russia, as evidenced by the war on Ukrainian soil.
As much as I pray for peace, I am unwilling to ask Ukraine or any nation to obtain that peace on their knees; I would not want that for this country, and I will not ask that of any other.
Technically, Putin can also stop the war, by pulling Russian forces back to Russia proper. Putin can stop the war by stopping the horrific war crime of destroying civilian infrastructure necessary for survival in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions which Russia ratified and accepted. Putin chose war; he can choose peace. There is no ethical realm where Putin can be exempted from his culpability in starting this war.
And Zelensky did make mention of diplomacy--a 10 point proposal for negotiations. Granted, there is not a snowball's chance in Hell of that proposal ever being put to use, but to say there was no mention of diplomacy is factually false.
Putin's precondition for diplomacy has always been Ukraine's surrender. That was explicitly stated back in April.
Is it proper that Ukraine get funding for its war effort ahead of securing the southern border? As matter of Constitutional obligation, the answer is unambiguously "No"--the Federal government is Constitutionally obligated to ensure this nation's defense and that unquestionably includes making sure the borders are secure. The Executive Branch has the Constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws of this nation are faithfully executed, and that includes the immigration laws. Neither of those duties are being even somewhat faithfully discharged by the present Congress or the present regime.
Yet the US border is not secured with HIMARS munitions or Javelin missiles. Patriot missiles are not a solution to crime within US cities. JDAMS will not fix this country's broken education systems.
While there is no excuse for either the Congress or the current regime to be so completely derelict in their domestic duties, it is not the case that it is a binary choice of supporting Ukraine or securing the border. The US is enough, and has enough, to help others while helping our own people.
IMO this a massive transfer of US wealth - likely involving money laundering and resale of munitions to nefarious actors - with intent to further destroy the economy of our nation while causing monumental harm to energy infrastructures and the poor Ukrainian people. No amount of sophisticated weaponry and fiat funding will stop Putin, Zelensky, or hapless Biden from playing their designated rolls to continue this conflict into the unforeseeable future. The USA is now a corrupt skeleton of its former self with drastic turmoil on the near horizon. Continued nonstop funding of a deeply corrupt undemocratic regime only hastens the planned for downfall. Yes hope I’m wrong, but unfortunately it’s happening and fast.
Sadly, corruption is always a probability where government is concerned. And it's more than a little likely that at least some of the military aid sent to Ukraine gets redirected.
Yet it's also true that there is a war being fought in Ukraine, bloody and barbaric even by war standards. Putin has made it clear this is a war of conquest.
And that is the choice people have to make: turn away and focus on other things, or help Ukraine defend its sovereignty. With plenty of reasons to inform both sides of the debate.
What US policy "should" be with regards to Ukraine is a political question, and people are going to have their opinions on both sides.
My preferred policy is peace. That means both Ukraine and Russia need to stop shooting at each other, and for that to happen Russia needs to pull its forces back to Russia proper.
However, the historical reality is that Ukraine has been part of NATO's "Partnership For Peace" program since 1994, as program whose participants have included Russia herself (Russia is stil technically a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), although its membership is suspended at the present time (for reasons that I trust are obvious).
Russia under Vladimir Putin committed to the NATO-Russia Council, which in the 2002 Declaration of Rome committed NATO and Russia to work together on a variety of issues, including combating terrorism, but also non-combat concerns such as search and rescue at sea and submarine rescue (these were of especial concern after the Kursk disaster).
Nor was NATO the only engagement Russia had following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia was an initial and highly engaged participant in the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the Nunn-Lugar initiative to, among other things, put former Soviet scientists who had been engaged in research for weapons of mass destruction (including biological weapons), to "peaceful" employment and so keep their dark arts off the black market.
Through another outgrowth of the Nunn-Lugar initiatives, the International Science And Technology Center (which was headquartered in Moscow until 2012), Russia received considerable western funding for biological "threat reduction" research involving pathogens such as variola (smallpox), avian influenza, and monkeypox--the latter included a joint project with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome.
There is a lot to question about the propriety of the Nunn-Lugar concept of "threat reduction", but the NATO engagements and the ITSC funding for biological "threat reduction" research does not reconcile well with the narrative of a predatory NATO hell bent on dismantling and dismembering Russia.
Moreover, given that Russia was herself a participant in the same NATO programs as Ukraine for years, and given that Ukraine's involvement with NATO dates back to Ukraine's independence, the idea that NATO represents an existential threat to Russia in 2022 is a narrative in want of evidence.
Why not in 2017, when NATO membership was made an official foreign policy objective for Ukraine by act of the Ukrainian Parliament?
Why not in 2019, when the goal of NATO membership was written into the Ukrainian Constitution?
Why not in 2020, when Zelensky furthered the NATO membership agenda in Ukraine's National Security Strategy?
As regards NATO membership, Ukraine was even before Putin's invasion optimistically YEARS away from accession. At a minimum, the separatist conflict in the Donbass and Russia's occupation of Crimea needed to be fully resolved--this is part of the membership requirements that were laid down by NATO after a 1995 study regarding NATO enlargement.
Viewed historically, NATO is of course a military alliance principally directed against Russia which unites three of the four loci of geopolitical power in Europe--London, Paris, and Berlin--against the fourth, Moscow. From this context, it is not hard to see how NATO expansion reduces Russian influence in Europe and, arguably, Russian security. While the defensive nature of the NATO alliance makes an offensive war against Russia unlikely, the existence of the alliance makes such an offensive war a possibility. For this reason we must acknowledge that Russia has legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion. I have stated in other comments that NATO was reckless in its expansion, because it failed to acknowledge even the existence of Russia's concerns in this regard.
Still, one reason NATO has not faded away after the fall of the Soviet Union is that Russia has always retained the resources which would make a return to Great Power status in Europe inevitable--a status Russia had clearly achieved by 2014. I suspect the reason the NATO relationship with Russia collapsed, and the reason Russia withdrew from CTR and the ISTC in 2012, was because Putin has from the start wanted to return Russia to Great Power status.
This much is made plain in Putin's ethnonationalist essay on Ukraine from July of last year, in which he argued that Ukraine only exists as an appendage to Muscovite Russia.
Much of the conflict Putin sees with NATO is the inevitable clash of territorial and geopolitical ambitions that have informed European history for centuries (and even today, Paris and Berlin jockey for hegemonic influence over the EU while jointly seeking to thwart Moscow's pursuit of hegemonic influence over Europe).
Yet, as the joint history of Russia and NATO shows, this quest for geopolitical influence within Europe has always been something of a balancing act. NATO's engagement with the former Soviet bloc states is in many ways analogous to Bismarck's system of interlocking treaties, through which he gave Europe a longer period of peace between wide continental conflicts than it had enjoyed previously--and which has been surpassed only by the duration of the NATO alliance.
So while NATO expansion and policy arguably create legitimate security and geopolitical concerns for Russia, in no way shape or form can that expansion and policy be deemed in 2022 to constitute an existential threat to Russia that could only be mitigated by conquering Ukraine.
Not for nothing did Sweden and Finland do the math on a militaristic Russian foreign policy as evidence by the invasion of Ukraine and seek the embrace of NATO. By invading Ukraine, Putin in an instant validated all of NATO's logic and rhetoric about a resurgent Russia and the ramifications for Europe.
Thanks for this detailed response. I don’t recall any speeches from Putin threatening to expand into Poland or the Baltic states. Whet you write is contrary to what I’ve read from countless writers and I appreciate an alternative perspective.
A lot of folks get confused about these anti-air missiles, and especially about weapons such as the HARM anti-radar missiles intended to hit enemy radar installations, both mobile and fixed.
But the facts are, there is nothing to prevent you from using them on any ground installation whether radar site or medical center. Including the so-called "anti-air" missiles.
For many years in not only America's military, but essentially every military in the world, the anti-air missiles, while lacking in warhead capacity (except of course in the case of nuclear), were the most accurate surface to surface weapons possessed.
"a fresh assault towards Kyiv after the spring thaw in 2023."
So their armor is again restricted to narrow columns on highways lest it get stuck in the mud? Seems to me if they really wanted to do that, it would best be accomplished while the ground is frozen solid?
Unless the armor column is supported by infantry, the best time to mount a fresh drive towards Kyiv is "never".
Without infantry support, plus adequate supplies of fuel and food, tanks are sitting ducks on any highway. Montgomery proved that in 1944 during Operation Market Garden.
So Zalensky is off to DC today to beg / demand more money for this conflict that he, NATO and US leaders could’ve prevented with some assurances and diplomacy while Russia methodically built up forces for its SMO.
Wish somebody would tell him to PACK SAND.
It's a war, not a special military operation.
And while there were many steps that the west might have taken to avoid war, the unalterable reality is that Putin invaded Ukraine without any actual provocation or justification. He had no casus belli, and he still has no casus belli.
This war has always been Putin's choice. He could end it tomorrow just by pulling his troops out of Ukraine's sovereign territory. That's an option Ukraine does not have.
Well might have to disagree with you there Peter.
NATO expansion from 15 to 30 countries since 1991. Two on the Russian border.
NATO exercises in the Black Sea. That’s not aggression against Russia?
Azov atrocities in the Donbas.
Biolabs in Ukraine.
I would argue that Zalensky could end it immediately by promising to leave Crimea alone and never to join NATO.
No it's not aggression against Russia. No shots were fired at Russia.
As for the biolabs, Putin received considerably more funding for Russia's biolabs than Ukraine has from the Nunn-Lugar "threat reduction" programs. It was Russia's VECTOR biolab--previously the Soviet Union's premier bioweapons facility--that teamed up with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome 20 years ago.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/when-is-bioweapons-research-not-bioweapons
As for the Donbass, neither side has ever respected the Minsk Accords. Moreover, the Donbass is Ukrainian sovereign territory, and the residents of the Donbass are Ukrainian citizens. For that to be a reason for Russia to invade Ukraine, we should be invading China over their campaigns of genocide against the Tibetan and Uyghur peoples.
The geopolitical reality here is a few centuries old. Russia's defensive doctrone is for them to expand to naturally defensible borders, which means Putin needs ALL of Ukraine. He also needs half of Poland and the Baltic States.
The challenge has always been that Russia's territorial needs and ambitions put them in direct conflict with the other great powers of Europe.
The flaw in Putin's logic was his failure to realize that, where Russia is concerned, NATO is a defensive alliance; the politics within NATO make military aggression against Russia improbable. The argument that NATO expansion represents an imminent threat to Russia simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Which means Putin could have and should have used diplomacy to address his grievances and security concerns, instead of justifying his invasion with an absurd claim of "denazifying" Ukraine (especially since Putin is far more explicitly ethnonationalist than Zelensky).
He had the leverage, he just never used it.
Putin chose the worst possible option to address Russia's security concerns. Instead of fracturing NATO he renewed its lease on life.
I would like to see your reaction to these posts.
Like many US citizens, I was disgusted by the appalling Zelensky speech to congress last night and the kowtowing reaction of mainstream media.
https://dpyne.substack.com/p/putin-announces-russia-will-permanently?publication_id=824904&utm_medium=email&action=share&isFreemail=true
https://dossier.substack.com/p/congress-declares-itself-the-enemy?utm_medium=email&isFreemail=false
I do have one question for you:
What specifically was "appalling" in Zelensky's address to Congress?
Transcript link:
https://archive.md/zaFYA
I was appalled that he was even there (via US plane) demanding yet more fiat funding for a war he could’ve stopped. I was also disgusted that our congress us so ecstatic over this groveling and willing to shovel more funds at it without one mention of diplomacy.
Meanwhile in case you haven’t noticed, the USA has myriad domestic and border problems that sure could use some attention.
The propriety of the address is indeed a question--as is typical of political theater (which, to be sure, is what that speech was).
However, reading the text of Zelensky's address, one cannot say that he "demanded" more funding. He used the words "thank you" multiple times, which is inconsistent with the tenor of a demand. He did state that Ukraine needed more support, but a statement of need is not a demand. Nor is taking pains to frame the support as an "investment"--that's a technique of persuasion, not demand.
I read the transcript: Zelensky made no demands.
Technically, Ukraine can stop the war--by ceasing to exist.
Still, there is no getting around the reality that the invasion was Putin's choice, not Zelensky's. There was no existential threat to Russia coming from Ukraine; there is an existential threat to Ukraine coming from Russia, as evidenced by the war on Ukrainian soil.
As much as I pray for peace, I am unwilling to ask Ukraine or any nation to obtain that peace on their knees; I would not want that for this country, and I will not ask that of any other.
Technically, Putin can also stop the war, by pulling Russian forces back to Russia proper. Putin can stop the war by stopping the horrific war crime of destroying civilian infrastructure necessary for survival in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions which Russia ratified and accepted. Putin chose war; he can choose peace. There is no ethical realm where Putin can be exempted from his culpability in starting this war.
And Zelensky did make mention of diplomacy--a 10 point proposal for negotiations. Granted, there is not a snowball's chance in Hell of that proposal ever being put to use, but to say there was no mention of diplomacy is factually false.
Putin's precondition for diplomacy has always been Ukraine's surrender. That was explicitly stated back in April.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/russias-expectations-for-ukraine
The one making demands is Putin, not Zelensky.
Is it proper that Ukraine get funding for its war effort ahead of securing the southern border? As matter of Constitutional obligation, the answer is unambiguously "No"--the Federal government is Constitutionally obligated to ensure this nation's defense and that unquestionably includes making sure the borders are secure. The Executive Branch has the Constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws of this nation are faithfully executed, and that includes the immigration laws. Neither of those duties are being even somewhat faithfully discharged by the present Congress or the present regime.
Yet the US border is not secured with HIMARS munitions or Javelin missiles. Patriot missiles are not a solution to crime within US cities. JDAMS will not fix this country's broken education systems.
While there is no excuse for either the Congress or the current regime to be so completely derelict in their domestic duties, it is not the case that it is a binary choice of supporting Ukraine or securing the border. The US is enough, and has enough, to help others while helping our own people.
IMO this a massive transfer of US wealth - likely involving money laundering and resale of munitions to nefarious actors - with intent to further destroy the economy of our nation while causing monumental harm to energy infrastructures and the poor Ukrainian people. No amount of sophisticated weaponry and fiat funding will stop Putin, Zelensky, or hapless Biden from playing their designated rolls to continue this conflict into the unforeseeable future. The USA is now a corrupt skeleton of its former self with drastic turmoil on the near horizon. Continued nonstop funding of a deeply corrupt undemocratic regime only hastens the planned for downfall. Yes hope I’m wrong, but unfortunately it’s happening and fast.
Sadly, corruption is always a probability where government is concerned. And it's more than a little likely that at least some of the military aid sent to Ukraine gets redirected.
Yet it's also true that there is a war being fought in Ukraine, bloody and barbaric even by war standards. Putin has made it clear this is a war of conquest.
And that is the choice people have to make: turn away and focus on other things, or help Ukraine defend its sovereignty. With plenty of reasons to inform both sides of the debate.
What US policy "should" be with regards to Ukraine is a political question, and people are going to have their opinions on both sides.
My preferred policy is peace. That means both Ukraine and Russia need to stop shooting at each other, and for that to happen Russia needs to pull its forces back to Russia proper.
However, the historical reality is that Ukraine has been part of NATO's "Partnership For Peace" program since 1994, as program whose participants have included Russia herself (Russia is stil technically a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), although its membership is suspended at the present time (for reasons that I trust are obvious).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/51288.htm
Russia's engagement with NATO dates back even farther, as it was a charter member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, EAPC's predecessor.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_69344.htm
Russia under Vladimir Putin committed to the NATO-Russia Council, which in the 2002 Declaration of Rome committed NATO and Russia to work together on a variety of issues, including combating terrorism, but also non-combat concerns such as search and rescue at sea and submarine rescue (these were of especial concern after the Kursk disaster).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_19572.htm
Nor was NATO the only engagement Russia had following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia was an initial and highly engaged participant in the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the Nunn-Lugar initiative to, among other things, put former Soviet scientists who had been engaged in research for weapons of mass destruction (including biological weapons), to "peaceful" employment and so keep their dark arts off the black market.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/when-is-bioweapons-research-not-bioweapons
Through another outgrowth of the Nunn-Lugar initiatives, the International Science And Technology Center (which was headquartered in Moscow until 2012), Russia received considerable western funding for biological "threat reduction" research involving pathogens such as variola (smallpox), avian influenza, and monkeypox--the latter included a joint project with USAMRIID to map the monkeypox genome.
There is a lot to question about the propriety of the Nunn-Lugar concept of "threat reduction", but the NATO engagements and the ITSC funding for biological "threat reduction" research does not reconcile well with the narrative of a predatory NATO hell bent on dismantling and dismembering Russia.
Moreover, given that Russia was herself a participant in the same NATO programs as Ukraine for years, and given that Ukraine's involvement with NATO dates back to Ukraine's independence, the idea that NATO represents an existential threat to Russia in 2022 is a narrative in want of evidence.
Why not in 2017, when NATO membership was made an official foreign policy objective for Ukraine by act of the Ukrainian Parliament?
Why not in 2019, when the goal of NATO membership was written into the Ukrainian Constitution?
Why not in 2020, when Zelensky furthered the NATO membership agenda in Ukraine's National Security Strategy?
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_37750.htm
As regards NATO membership, Ukraine was even before Putin's invasion optimistically YEARS away from accession. At a minimum, the separatist conflict in the Donbass and Russia's occupation of Crimea needed to be fully resolved--this is part of the membership requirements that were laid down by NATO after a 1995 study regarding NATO enlargement.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24733.htm
Viewed historically, NATO is of course a military alliance principally directed against Russia which unites three of the four loci of geopolitical power in Europe--London, Paris, and Berlin--against the fourth, Moscow. From this context, it is not hard to see how NATO expansion reduces Russian influence in Europe and, arguably, Russian security. While the defensive nature of the NATO alliance makes an offensive war against Russia unlikely, the existence of the alliance makes such an offensive war a possibility. For this reason we must acknowledge that Russia has legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion. I have stated in other comments that NATO was reckless in its expansion, because it failed to acknowledge even the existence of Russia's concerns in this regard.
Still, one reason NATO has not faded away after the fall of the Soviet Union is that Russia has always retained the resources which would make a return to Great Power status in Europe inevitable--a status Russia had clearly achieved by 2014. I suspect the reason the NATO relationship with Russia collapsed, and the reason Russia withdrew from CTR and the ISTC in 2012, was because Putin has from the start wanted to return Russia to Great Power status.
This much is made plain in Putin's ethnonationalist essay on Ukraine from July of last year, in which he argued that Ukraine only exists as an appendage to Muscovite Russia.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
Much of the conflict Putin sees with NATO is the inevitable clash of territorial and geopolitical ambitions that have informed European history for centuries (and even today, Paris and Berlin jockey for hegemonic influence over the EU while jointly seeking to thwart Moscow's pursuit of hegemonic influence over Europe).
Yet, as the joint history of Russia and NATO shows, this quest for geopolitical influence within Europe has always been something of a balancing act. NATO's engagement with the former Soviet bloc states is in many ways analogous to Bismarck's system of interlocking treaties, through which he gave Europe a longer period of peace between wide continental conflicts than it had enjoyed previously--and which has been surpassed only by the duration of the NATO alliance.
So while NATO expansion and policy arguably create legitimate security and geopolitical concerns for Russia, in no way shape or form can that expansion and policy be deemed in 2022 to constitute an existential threat to Russia that could only be mitigated by conquering Ukraine.
Not for nothing did Sweden and Finland do the math on a militaristic Russian foreign policy as evidence by the invasion of Ukraine and seek the embrace of NATO. By invading Ukraine, Putin in an instant validated all of NATO's logic and rhetoric about a resurgent Russia and the ramifications for Europe.
Thanks for this detailed response. I don’t recall any speeches from Putin threatening to expand into Poland or the Baltic states. Whet you write is contrary to what I’ve read from countless writers and I appreciate an alternative perspective.
I’ll dig in deeper.
A lot of folks get confused about these anti-air missiles, and especially about weapons such as the HARM anti-radar missiles intended to hit enemy radar installations, both mobile and fixed.
But the facts are, there is nothing to prevent you from using them on any ground installation whether radar site or medical center. Including the so-called "anti-air" missiles.
For many years in not only America's military, but essentially every military in the world, the anti-air missiles, while lacking in warhead capacity (except of course in the case of nuclear), were the most accurate surface to surface weapons possessed.