Is War Inevitable?

Jun 18, 2024

We are accustomed to seeing the tide of history as a series of actions followed by reactions, particularly so in the field of conflict. Friend and foe usually come to blows after some back and forth, with both responsible for their own comportment and the perpetual escalation that results. It is not uncommon to find one party behaving in such a fashion as to give the other no real option other than the joining of battle. A notable example concerns the American entry into World War II, an outcome that was choreographed across both theaters of the war as it stood in 1941 – it was simply a matter of which clandestine plan came to fruition first.

Notwithstanding the legitimacy (or otherwise) of Japan's territorial ambitions in 1941, FDR still lit the blue touch paper in the Pacific and left his own in harms way, knowing that an explosion was inevitable. As Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, put it:

“The question was how we should manoeuvre them into a position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”(1)

FDR moved the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor in 1940, ensuring that it was under-supplied, under-manned, unprepared for war and devoid of the auxiliary ships it would need if it were to undertake active operations.(2) In so doing, the president made the fleet a much more attractive target; and a much closer one, by the small matter of 2,500 miles. Any supposed deterrent effect was more than offset by the known decline in the fleet's battle readiness, a state of affairs obvious to both FDR and the Japanese.

He then cut off supplies of American oil on July 26^th, 1941 leaving Japan with just eighteen months supply,(3) or less depending on the conduct of its ongoing war with China. The Japanese military were the de facto ruling class, having brazenly assassinated several anti-war politicians and could be relied upon to possess the shortest of fuses.(4) The June 1941 Japanese invasion of French Indochina (now Vietnam and Cambodia) was the pretext for the oil ban (and a further ban on the sale of iron and steel), which left the nascent Empire of the Rising Sun in an invidious position; either pack up its tent and return to the Home Islands with its tail between its legs, or go for broke and invade the Dutch East Indies, the nearest available source of plentiful oil.

Inevitably, the militarists opted for the latter option, knowing that they would likely draw the US into war, but aiming to cripple the Pacific fleet for long enough to do the necessary. Hence, the attack on Hawaii and the “date which will live in infamy.”(5)

“Undeniably, the U.S. oil embargo had backed Imperial Japan into a corner. The Japanese military’s instincts, supported by a succession of victorious conflicts against numerically superior foes, was to strike out. Tokyo trusted in the valor and prowess of its soldiers and the incompetence of its enemies rather than deciding to back down before a superior correlation of forces.”(6)

What is less widely known (perhaps less acknowledged would be better phrasing, as the evidence is plentiful) is that FDR knew they were coming. The Americans had broken a number of Japanese codes. As early as August 1941, the president knew that “in the event of a collision between Japan and the United States, Germany would at once open hostilities with America.”(7) Thus, when Yamamoto's fleet set out from the Kurile Islands, Roosevelt knew. He also knew that the fleet had orders to turn back if a previously agreed supply of another three months of US oil was honoured – so, he broke the agreement and then sat back as US naval intelligence tracked the fleet across the Pacific.(8)

He neglected to tell Admiral Kimmel, the man in command at Pearl Harbor,any of this information, (Kimmel didn't even know that the Japanese code had been broken), an act that condemned well over 2,000 personnel to death and also destroyed the admiral's reputation. But, no matter – the American public were outraged by the 'sneak attack' and rallied to the flag. Shortly thereafter, the Germans declared war on the US and FDR, instead of being impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors for abrogating his responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, instead became a heroic wartime leader, revered by Americans who cannot bring themselves to revise their curated narrative.

These shenanigans had been 'necessary' – to FDR's way of thinking – because he and the voting public were not on the same page with regard to war. Polling, in its infancy but nonetheless impactful, showed that the electorate was completely at odds with the ruling class - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. In May 1940, 93% of respondents did not want to declare war on Germany and send Americans overseas.(9) In October of the same year, Roosevelt (whilst campaigning for his third term) promised an audience:

“While I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”(10)

He didn't mean it. He pressured Congress into passing the Lend-Lease legislation, a huge escalation of materiel production (an act invoked by Pelosi in April 2022, vis-a-vis Ukraine). According to her, the United State was, once again, “the arsenal of democracy.”(11) Roosevelt, and now Biden, preferred to wage war without declaring it – at first. Not everyone on the Hill was taken in; it was clear to some that incrementalism was highly likely and that Lend-Lease would “almost certainly involve the United States in direct participation in the European war.”(12)

And, within a month, FDR approved a plan to escort the North Atlantic convoys, thus deploying an ostensibly neutral country's vessels into an active war zone. Within four months, he had occupied Iceland. Neither Congress nor the public was informed in advance. Even Hitler could discern the direction of travel that Lend-Lease represented:

“The Americans have finally let the cat out of the bag; if one felt so inclined, it would be legitimate to interpret this as an act of war… the war with the US was sure to come sooner or later.”(13)

By September 1941, German submarines and American ships were firing at each other in the North Atlantic. Roosevelt entirely ignored all the assurances that he and his cabinet had previously given to Congress and the public (including repeated statements abjuring convoy duty) and, when a German torpedo struck a US destroyer in October, he declared that “America has been attacked...Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American.”(14) Now the US Navy was publicly ordered to shoot on sight in “active defense” mode. Conflict (at least initially, always instigated by the Americans) became much more frequent.

The continual escalation, which ineluctably drew a response, was now working its magic. By November, 68% of Gallup respondents wanted to help the Brits defeat Germany,(15) an outcome no doubt influenced by yet another Roosevelt deception – a map of South and Central America, allegedly of German origin, which was said to illustrate how they would carve that continent up once they'd conquered it.(16) I appreciate that it's probably not a surprise to learn that ruling class lies and misdirections were also a feature of Leftists of an earlier vintage, too. These were far from the only provocations:

“The war with Germany was also very largely the result of the initiative of the Roosevelt Administration. The destroyer deal, the lend-lease bill, the freezing of Axis assets, the injection of the American Navy, with much secrecy and doubletalk, into the Battle of the Atlantic: these and many similar actions were obvious departures from neutrality, even though a Neutrality Act, which the President had sworn to uphold, was still on the statute books.”(17)

War with Germany was unavoidable because Roosevelt made it so and it was being waged for months prior to the official start date. He was just another Leftist with a Messiah complex and, while he did not collude with America's eventual enemy, he conspired with them without their knowledge and, in so doing, betrayed his country. Although Hitler refused to rise to the bait, FDR still had options, as there were two possible routes into the war. The Tripartite Pact tied Germany to Japan and Hitler would be obliged to declare war on the US once Roosevelt had done likewise with Japan. FDR's second bite at the cherry was the decisive one.

Whether we agree with the proposition that the choice to fight the Nazis was morally unambiguous or not, the means that were required to get to the desired end were, instead, morally problematic, but the keepers of the secret stayed silent and were duly rewarded. Roosevelt had allowed a four star to be professionally crucified and quite a lot of “boys” were sent to fight “foreign wars” - nearly 14 million, to be precise, 419,000 of whom were repatriated in body bags.(18)(19) And for what? I would agree that something needed to be done about this map.

Figure 1

I just don't think that it should have been this.

Figure 2

Instead of a return to something approximating this.

Figure 3

But that's what you got when FDR was paired with another Leftist unhindered by a moral compass – Stalin, who Roosevelt felt was a man he could charm and do business with. He didn't live to see how wrong he was, but I would imagine that the Poles, amongst others, would not hold the view that the Allies 'won' World War II. Instead, they exchanged one totalitarian regime for another. Additionally, communism and fascism – ideological first cousins – spread like a cancer. Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, France; even with the US wielding its promise of economic aid like a cudgel in its attempts to keep Europe right-of-center, communism metastasized.

There is also plentiful evidence demonstrating that America's entry into the war “had a direct bearing on Nazi policy towards the Jews.”(20) Prior to August 1941, when FDR made it clear that the US might enter the war on Britain's side, Hitler's postponed Final Solution had deterrent value – at least, it id in Hitler's eyes. The Führer had clung to the belief that using the German Jews as hostages would ensure America's neutrality and, up to that point, no death factories had been constructed; nor were any planned. In fact, the first mass gassings didn't take place until the day after Pearl Harbor, at Chelmno, and they took place in the back of a van.(21)

Hitler didn't view the war as a World War until the United States joined the fray and, in typical fashion, he blamed the Jews. In a speech to the Reichstag in January 1939, he had been explicit:

“If the world of international financial Jewry, both in and outside of Europe, should succeed in plunging the nations into another world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the world and thus a victory for Judaism. The result will be the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.”(22)

Hitler blamed the Jews for the First World War, too. I didn't say it had to make sense. But, during the second half of 1941, he became increasingly convinced that it was only a matter of time before America embroiled itself in the conflict and he gradually talked himself into exterminating millions of Jews, rather than evicting them from Germany. This is not to say that he wouldn't have arrived at this decision anyway, at some point in the future, but the first time he explicitly mentioned extermination was in October 1941 and, over the course of the next two months, there were seven such occasions, five of them within a few days of December 11^th, the date Hitler declared war on the United States.(23) The actual decision seems to have been made in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Of course, if provocations don't work there's always the option of the false flag operation. Hitler's invasion of Poland is one infamous example – Polish troops were alleged to have mounted a cross-border raid, but these troops were, in fact, Germans in disguise. The Soviets used a similar approach in starting the Winter War with Finland, by shelling one of its own border villages. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, leveraged by LBJ, was almost certainly another such occasion or, conceivably, a deliberate overreaction to a minor incident. In each case, a country had decided that it wanted a war and there wasn't a lot that the putative opponent could do to prevent that outcome. Which brings me nicely onto the subject of Russia.

This will be the only time that I compare Putin to Hitler or give the latter props for anything, but Putin is so far playing the Hitler role opposite Biden's FDR – he is refusing to take the bait. And, boy has there been plenty of bait. It is increasingly apparent that the West (primarily the US and the UK, ably supported by the likes of Poland, France and Germany) has wanted to destroy Russia for decades and has been subverting East European democracies for over over twenty years, firstly in Serbia in 2000 and then, subsequently, in Georgia and then Belarus (unsuccessfully in the latter).

By 2004, it was Ukraine's turn. Mainstream media present the campaigns as heroic resistance in the face of despotic regimes, popular uprisings that unseat dictators, and talk up the involvement of Western NGOs and government officials who are portrayed as the good guys – their meddling is justified by their commitment to the preservation of overseas democracy. The Guardian ('reporting' on the Orange Revolution in Ukraine) provides us with a typical example of the genre;

“...the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes....The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.”(24)

Notably, this commitment to democracy only tends to flower when officials friendly to Russia are elected. It is then that elections are found to 'rigged' and must be redone. So it was in Ukraine. The incumbent, Yanukovych, faced east. His challenger, Yushchenko, faced west. Their support was sharply differentiated and the voting maps serve to illuminate the current conflict, also. Yanukovych first.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Almost looks like two separate countries, does it not? On this occasion, the election was redone and, due to an 11% swing, the meddlers chalked up another win and went three for four in the East. It didn't really take, though. In the 2010 presidential election, Yushchenko only managed 5.45% of the vote and Yanukovych returned to power – interestingly, international observers lavished that election with their “free and fair” moniker.(25) The Leftists spun, naturally, but it was a comprehensive defeat. The post-Orange Revolution constitutional amendments, designed to weaken the office of the president, were also revoked by Ukraine's highest court. Further Western meddling was inevitable. And, sure enough, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a CIA front – got busy, disbursing tens of millions of dollars from its government funded slush fund to the usual suspects,

“...a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.”(26)

That moment duly arrived when Yanukovych backed out of a new trade deal, demanded by the EU (plus reforms insisted upon by the IMF) in favor of closer alignment with Russia, in 2013. The media dutifully parroted the company line, that Putin had pressurized the president to change his mind and that most Ukrainians wanted to be in bed with the EU instead. The network of troublemakers and neo-Nazis was activated. In December, Senator McCain paid a flying visit and spoke to the Maidan protesters (the Maidan being the main square in Kyiv), whilst flanked by this sweetheart.

Figure 6

Two staunch supporters of Our Democracy^TMright there. The protests continued, having been initiated by a character called Mustafa Nayyem, an 'online journalist' in the pay of NED and USAID (yet another CIA front) and, on February 4^th 2014, a conversation between two US officials was intercepted. They spoke of 'midwifing' the duly elected president's ouster and discussed who ought to be brought in to replace him. This was somewhat prescient as the success of the attempted coup was by no means assured at this juncture.

The Ukrainian media was busy running interference for the protesters, claiming that “the movement as a whole...reflects the entire Ukrainian population, young and old” - the kind of by-the-numbers conceit that usually accompanies a colour revolution.(27) In fact, the movement was riddled with neo-Nazis.(28) A startlingly truthful piece, written by a duo and published in February in The Washington Post (of all places), demolished that narrative and then some:

“The pair forensically exposed how less than 20 percent of protesters professed to be driven by “violations of democracy or the threat of dictatorship,” only 40 - 45 percent of Ukrainians were in favor of European integration, Yanukovych remained “the most popular political figure in the country,” and no poll conducted to date had ever indicated mass support for the uprising.”(29)

As was the case elsewhere, much astroturfing was abroad. Colour revolutions aren't organic protest movements which are then given wings by foreign funding. They are the creations of the funders – in this case, NED, USAID, the US Embassy in Kyiv and George Soros, amongst others.(30) They don't represent the will of the majority but, rather, are a minority rabble of malcontents whose interests align with (and are financed by) foreign actors. In Eastern Europe, they are paid to stage a coup and to loudly declaim Russia, the latter sentiment not a vote-winner in Ukraine:

“Anti-Russian forms of Ukrainian nationalism expressed on the Maidan are certainly not representative of the general view of Ukrainians. Electoral support for these views and for the political parties who espouse them has always been limited...Their presence and influence in the protest movement far outstrip their role in Ukrainian politics and their support barely extends geographically beyond a few Western provinces.”(31)

In February 2014, someone within the movement decided that a galvanic event was required and, in time honored fashion, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself. And so, on 20^th February, the Maidan massacre was staged – by the same people that the US was funding. Forty-nine Maidan protesters were killed that day and 80 were wounded.(32) Many were members of Svoboda, led by McCain's Nazi buddy. Others were affiliated with the Maidan Defence Group. The narrative, rigorously enforced, is that the police shot at least 40 of them, but this is false.

Most were shot by snipers who were ensconced in Maidan-controlled buildings, such as the Ukraina Hotel, Zhovtnevyi Palace and the Music Observatory. They were killed by their own side, frequently shot in the back while facing police lines, having been led into a compromised position by fellow protesters who then escaped unharmed.(33) The police were in retreat at the time, as they were also being fired upon by the same snipers and suffered casualties of their own, including 17 dead.

The evidence for these conclusions is overwhelming and ruthlessly suppressed, but hundreds of witnesses have nonetheless testified that they were shot at from buildings controlled by the Maidan protesters. There is copious video footage showing exactly that.(34) The massacre was a barbaric false flag event, planned in advance and pitilessly executed over several hours. And so, naturally, the police were charged and taken to court instead and all evidence of the deception was excluded.

That evidence includes 14 of the snipers' admissions, too, all of which pointed the finger at leaders of Maidan groups as being the instigators.(35) Instead, three former police officers were eventually sentenced to prison terms in absentia and Yanukovych was found to have ordered the massacre.(36) Just another standard-issue put-up job:

“There are other reasons to suspect the verdict will be a whitewash. For one, the risk that the truth behind the events could implicate US officials directly in the killings, and more generally the Maidan coup, is considerable. It is an axiomatic article of faith in the Western mainstream that Washington was in no way involved in the upheaval, despite mountains of hard proof to the contrary.”(37)

But the massacre proved to be the inflexion point. Immediate and relentless gaslighting by the opposition-controlled parliament and the abandonment of central Kyiv by the police forced Yanukovych to flee for his life, while the 'democracy lovers' in Washington DC hailed the overthrow of a properly elected leader. The pro-Russian oblasts in the East voted to secede, so the Ukrainian army began shelling them and Crimea's authorities declared independence and the peninsula was annexed by Putin. But the Ukrainian Civil War had started.

I appreciate that this is not the moniker the conflict has been ascribed, but it seems to be the most accurate descriptor. If we are to invoke the 'rules-based international order' so beloved (and routinely abused) by the hypocrites inside the beltway, the successor government of Poroshenko was illegitimate. That being so, the breakaway republics' rejection of it was not unreasonable, whereas the aggression shown them by the Ukrainian Army, was. Further, Russia did not annex these regions – they were either still part of Ukraine or autonomous regions, depending on one's view. Given the fact that the ruling class narrative paints their secession as invalid, they ought to acknowledge that the war – between 2014 and 2022 – was between Ukrainians.

But what is it about Ukraine that so tempts the globalist elites? Why have they invested so much (as of 2014, it was already $5 billion and counting)?(38) What do they stand to gain? As always, it comes down to power and treasure. But not just in Ukraine – in Russia, too. And this game has been in the making since before the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev proposed disbanding both NATO and the Warsaw Pact in 1989, but the US demurred. Instead, at the Malta Summit that ended the Cold War, Western leaders assured him that NATO would not expand “one inch westward”. These leaders include Bush the Elder, Helmut Kohl, Mitterand, Thatcher, John Major and others but, by 1994 (with Russia in turmoil), NATO was on the march.

Some prescient souls opposed expansion, George Kennan amongst them:

“...expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era…Why with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom.”(39)

But he was ignored. The prevailing American view was that Russia was a third-rate country that would just have to suck it up. In essence, “the justification of NATO’s post-Cold War existence was therefore to respond to the security threats that had been created by its expansion.”(40) Instead of securing Europe's borders against a non-existent aggressor, the US made the continent less secure by continually provoking the Russians. Kennan again:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war…There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves…Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are–but this is just wrong.”(41)

In 2007, Putin registered his disquiet at the placing of US missiles in Eastern Europe and was mocked for his trouble. In 2008, he proposed a new pan-European security architecture, which was rejected on the grounds that it would weaken NATO. At the NATO summit of that year, it was agreed that Georgia and Ukraine would become NATO members. This, despite polling in the latter country which demonstrated that 46% wanted closer ties with Russia and only 10% wanted to cosy up to the US.(42) Both the US and UK ambassadors to Ukraine were appalled. Roderic Burns, the UK official, stated that “it was stupid on every level. If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it.”(43) William Burns, currently Biden's CIA Director, went further:

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)...I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests…Today’s Russia will respond.”(44)

Merkel thought that Russia would see the move as a declaration of war, especially as it followed the blatantly US-backed Orange Revolution. Putin kept trying to salve the wounds, but his proposals were repeatedly rejected – in 2010, an EU-Russia Free Trade Zone was dismissed out of hand. Ukraine's Yanukovych did his bit when returned to power the same year and signed into law a bill that cemented Ukraine's status as a permanently neutral state.

Putin registered no objection but the West couldn't leave it alone. The EU, while pressuring Ukraine to abandon its neutrality, tried to force their trade bill on Yanukovych, which was a de facto ultimatum to choose West over East. When the Russians countered with an inclusive EU-Ukraine-Russia deal, the Commission dumped it in a circular file without bothering to negotiate and the stage for coup number two was set. NED wasn't shy about its intentions:

“Ukraine is the biggest prize…Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”(45)

Ukraine is a prize for a number of reasons. In 2014, Russia's historic warm-water naval base in Crimea was the immediate prize, one that was denied to the US by Putin's annexation. Around 75% of Ukraine's naval personnel either defected to Russia or quit the Ukrainian navy.(46) The army fell apart, as soldiers were unwilling to serve the new regime and deserted en masse. As one observer noted at the time:

“The real question, however, is why Obama and his advisors thought the United States and the European Union could help engineer the ouster of a democratically elected and pro-Russian leader in Ukraine and expect Vladimir Putin to go along with it.”(47)

Ukraine is also 'the Breadbasket of Europe', boasting some of the most fertile land on earth, with the ability to provide enough food for at least a half billion people – 55% of the country is arable farmland.(48) And, as the rabidly hawkish Senator Graham disclosed recently, there's the small matter of $12 trillion of critical mineral assets beneath the soil which he doesn't want to “give to Russia and China”. In his view, Ukraine might well be the richest country in Europe and so, “this is a very big deal how Ukraine ends. Let’s help them win a war we can’t afford to lose.”(49) Yes, you read that right. Apparently they need to prevail, so that we can benefit.

Then there's the prize of Russia itself. The largest nation in the world, it is also the richest in terms of natural resources:

“The nation is a leading producer of … diamonds, aluminum, asbestos, gemstones, diamonds, lime, lead, gypsum, iron ore, bauxite, gallium, boron, mica,...potash, ...rare earth metals, pig iron, peat, nitrogen, cadmium, arsenic, magnesium, molybdenum, phosphate, sulfur, titanium sponge, silicon, uranium, tellurium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, graphite, silver, vermiculite, selenium, rhenium, copper, and gold.”(50)

Plus palladium (a key component in fuel cells and electronics) and platinum. And oil. And natural gas. And coal. Russia is amongst the top three oil producers, supplies 19% of the world's natural gas and possesses the second highest coal deposits.(51) Russia is a regional hegemon in Eurasia and US policy has, for the longest time, been to dominate Central Asia and, in the process, obliterate the Russian Federation. Bzezinski wanted to partition Russia, leaving it vulnerable, toothless and unable to defend its borders;

“...its vast resources must be transferred to the iron grip of global transnationals who will use them to perpetuate the flow of wealth from east to west. In other words, Moscow must accept its humble role in the new order as America’s de-facto Gas and Mining Company.”(52)

The US foreign policy establishment, oozing hubris, believes that American exceptionalism entitles it to interfere anywhere, anytime. It has held this view for decades and still does, as is apparent from the latest National Security Strategy.(53) This stance doesn't get a lot of attention, but regarding any competitor in Central Asia as a “national security threat” is clearly nonsensical. Such a competitor may be a threat to global domination, but that is hardly the same thing. In that light, it is clear that BRICS (and Russia's prominent role within it) is a huge threat to 'the established international order' and is no doubt seen as a direct challenge by the globalists. They even know how they're going to divide Russia after what they openly refer to as World War III.

Figure 7

One shouldn't underestimate the personal animus towards Putin himself, either. Not only is he insufficiently deferential, he is a patriot and has encouraged the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church.(54) Progressives detest Christianity. He is also scathing towards the woke canon, making all the common-sense points that can no longer be articulated by many right-thinking people in the West, for fear of cancellation. He excoriates critical race theory, labeling it 'reverse racism'. He identifies that intolerance has been elevated by 'identity politics'.

He (along with the vast majority of Russians) is against same-sex marriage, seeing it as a vehicle for the recasting of traditional values.(55) He's not overly keen on the oppressive and aggressive LGBTQ agenda, either. The Russian Supreme Court has also committed the most cardinal of errors (to progressive eyes) by declaring the international gay rights movement an “extremist organisation” due to its “incitement of social and religious hatred”.(56) We all now how these retrograde opinions are greeted by our progressive elites; caterwauling and exploding heads are the order of the day whenever they are opposed. Putin rejects the West's contemporary culture, terming it neo-Bolshevik:

“Instead, the Russian leader is now calling for a “healthy conservatism”, traditional family and Christian morality. From this perspective, Russia is not abandoning the cultural heritage of the West, but it is the West that has abandoned its own Christian heritage in favour of ideological values that mimic Bolshevism.”(57)

So, they hate Putin with a passion. Our ruling class cannot deal with rivalry nor with a rejection of what they believe to be their inherent superiority. And so, all things considered, Russia has to go. They believe(d) that the way to make that happen was through war in Ukraine, but that wasn't going to be possible with a pro-Russian president at the helm. Hence, the Maidan Revolution. With more pliant leadership, a military build-up – with the sole aim of attacking Russia – was green lit.

What was needed was time and so, in the aftermath of the 2014 unpleasantness and the ongoing war of attrition across the line of contact in the Donbass, Ukraine signed up to the Minsk Accords – twice – with no intention of actually abiding by them. There would be no autonomy for the eastern oblasts. The French and the Germans – the brokers of the deals – knew this, too. Comrade Merkel belatedly admitted that Kyiv and Washington were never interested in peace; they were simply playing for time while the Ukrainian military was reconstituted and trained up. In the meantime, the neo-Nazis in the Azov Battalion kept the pot boiling in the East.(58) For Putin, it was just the latest Western deception in an ever-growing string of them. This is the Azov Battalion.

Figure 8

Their mission statement is disarmingly straightforward. They will “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival… against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”(59) Not a huge amount of wiggle room there. Neither they, nor their masters in Kyiv, care about the populations of the Donbass. So says the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, no friend of the Russians:

“Quite a few politicians in Kiev regard the Donbas as an unnecessary economic burden and its population as backward-looking and politically unreliable. Its willingness to work to alleviate humanitarian hardship in the areas affected by conflict is correspondingly low.”(60)

Which would be why thousands have been killed over the eight years to 2022 and also why UN research shows that between 2018-2021, 80% of those casualties were on the Donbass side.(61) In the meantime, NATO forces trained a new Ukrainian military and armed it to the teeth. By 2022, it was one of the world's biggest. A bigger army than the United States, with a ninth of the population.

Figure 9

Putin appears to have hoped against hope, even while his intelligence chiefs were briefing him about the military build-up. Presumably that mindset was altered in June 2021, when the US set out a roadmap for Ukraine to join NATO and then, in November, signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership with Zelensky.(62) It wasn't until then that Russian troops began massing on Ukraine's border, not before. Even then, Putin asked for guarantees that, among other things, there would be no more NATO expansion to the east. He didn't get them.(63) What he got instead, was a dramatic intensification of the shelling of civilian areas in the breakaway regions,(64) and a concentration of perhaps 125,000 troops on the Ukrainian side of the border. And so, Putin launched his special military operation (SMO).

There is little doubt that's what it was. It was a small force, perhaps 150,000 strong. Capturing the entire country and pushing on into Poland and then further afield, as the West contends he will do now, was never the plan then. Words matter and, if approached without prejudice, there is a considerable distance between 'invasion' and 'special military operation'. While both involve crossing a border, an invasion involves conquering a territory. Putin simply wanted to force the Ukrainians to the negotiating table and he succeeded. Both parties swiftly convened in Ankara and Putin, as a gesture of goodwill, retreated from the outskirts of Kyiv in anticipation of a deal.

It didn't come, reportedly at the behest of Boris Johnson who unexpectedly flew to Kyiv to give Zelensky his orders in person,(65) but its terms would have included a withdrawal of Russian troops from the disputed oblasts. So, not an invasion, at least at the outset – I suspect Putin will now seek to retain territory, if only to put some distance between Russia and those who wish to destroy her, but it suits the troika of propagandists that are Western leaders, the media and NATO to portray it as such, because it suits their narrative that Putin has plans beyond Ukraine, when he has repeatedly insisted that he doesn't.

And so Putin withdrew, established a solid defensive line and went about calling up troops and expanding the operation. The Ukrainians, possessed of the desire to earn more funding, have repeatedly attacked and been ground down. Their casualties have been appalling, especially at Bakhmut. Last summer's offensive was a flop, Western weapons have proven to be more fallible than advertised and the Russians are on the advance. Along the way, Putin has discovered that being the only adult in the room has its limitations, particularly when dealing with sociopaths who are intent on separating you from what's yours. Red lines give sensible people pause, but when the object of the exercise is to provoke a reaction, crossing them advances the cause. At some point, he will have to bite. So far, he has resisted, but there have been provocations aplenty.

In most people's books, giving a country billions of dollars, along with vast quantities of weapons and ammunition makes one a co-belligerent, but the Russian president (while regularly noting it) has let that go. There was the Bucha false flag massacre, at the beginning of April 2022, perhaps designed to sabotage the ongoing peace talks. The mainstream, of course, blamed the Russians and swiftly moved on when the facts clashed with narrative, leaving their original reporting uncorrected.

There is a well documented pattern of behaviour by the Ukrainian military. They set up offensive positions in civilian areas, using the locals as human shields,(66) they've shot prisoners of war (67) and tortured civilians, especially those who looted or accepted assistance from the Russians.(68) They have freed imprisoned criminals with combat experience and armed them, too.(69) Ukraine is ripe for war crimes.

There were already any number of incidences of Ukrainians killing fellow citizens who they suspect of being spies or saboteurs.(70) More specifically, Russian forces left Bucha on 30^th March.(71) On March 31^st, the local mayor gave an upbeat media interview. There was no mention of bodies littering the streets.(72) Next, the Ukrainian security forces (SBU) announced that they would conduct a cleansing operation against saboteurs and traitors on April 2^nd.(73) Photographs of the dead start appearing on this day.

Many pictures show the victims wearing white armbands, a precaution taken by the locals to ensure that the Russians knew that they were not enemy combatants. One might think that these people might be viewed as traitors by the SBU and punished accordingly. Lastly, it was Russia that called for an independent investigation of the massacre by the UN (not Ukraine), a request that was denied by the UK who refused to allow the council to even meet and discuss the proposal.(74)

It would seem, given these circumstances and the propensity for Zelensky to spew forth any propaganda that might lead to an escalation of Western involvement (such as the earlier stories about Russia attacking nuclear plants or hospitals and schools),(75) that the much more likely explanation for Bucha involves the home team; it doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to calculate probabilities.

April 2022 was also the month of the sinking of the the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, the Moskva. While the Ukrainians took credit for it, the US was most keen to notify Putin that it was their intelligence product that made it possible.(76) This was followed by the provision of longer range missiles to Ukraine in June of the same year, after Zelensky gave assurances that he would not use them to strike inside Russia, which was fine because there was absolutely no way that a country that was already losing the war would do that – under any circumstances.(77)

September saw the destruction of the three of the four undersea pipes of Nordstream II. The attack occurred off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm, in international waters. At this location, the pipelines are in 60-70 metres of sea which makes them reasonably accessible – presumably that's one of the reasons this route was chosen by those that constructed the pipelines. There is no doubt that there were explosions, either; sensors picked up sudden seismic activity that registered up to 2.3 on the Richter scale. Nordstream 2 was filled with gas, around €800 million worth, which escaped into the atmosphere over the period of about a week.(78)

Co, cui bono? Historically, the US had always been against the pipelines and they haven't been shy about voicing their objections:

“If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nordstream 2 will not move forward.”(79) Under secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Jan 27^th 2022

Biden, while standing next to the German Chancellor, also made clear that he would put an end to it in some unspecified way.(80) Schulz raised no objections, although one might be forgiven for thinking that decisions about energy provision in the EU ought to be made by the EU themselves. But this type of rhetoric was merely a continuation of a long-standing antipathy. In addition, Putin had no motivation to blow up his own pipeline. On top of being hugely out of pocket, he only had to turn off the taps to prevent supply reaching Germany.

The location of the attack, in the Baltic Sea, is not inaccessible to Russia as the country possesses a Baltic coastline. However, their neighbors include NATO members Germany, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Norway and soon-to-be members Finland and Sweden. If Russian naval vessels wish to exit the area, they are required to sail past all these countries. The Baltic is, therefore, overwhelmingly a NATO playground.

Figure 10

It is reasonable to speculate that any Russian incursion would not go unnoticed and in the diplomatic tumult that erupted since the sabotage (which was much less strident than it ought to have been), no-one in NATO has produced evidence of the physical presence of any Russian asset, which they certainly would have done had they proof. However, the same cannot be said of the British or the Americans. The UK has had an expedition vessel loitering in the area for at least a month and the Americans have also been present on numerous occasions in the very recent past.

In fact, US helicopters had been hovering over the exact site of the bombing for a good proportion of September, day and night. These helicopters have flown from Gdansk in Poland, a country which should properly be viewed as a beneficiary of the attack – in the short term, at least. Now the only pipeline to Germany runs through Poland (with the exception of the undamaged NII pipe).(81)

The Russians had the means, but it's highly unlikely that they had the opportunity. The location of the attack is one of the clearest indicators of NATO guilt – it wasn't sabotaged near the other end, in waters that would have been friendlier to Russian assets. The proposition that the sabotage was a false flag attack by Russia, who launched the attack and then attempted to blame the West for it, founders on this lack of opportunity.

Coincidentally, in June 2022 the US Navy's Sixth Fleet deployed to the coast just off Bornholm to experiment with 'underwater unmanned vehicle mine hunting technology' – I kid you not. All of the participating vessels were American.(82) They were there for ten days. Given the evidence available and without working backwards from an agreed conclusion, the obvious chief suspect is NATO, or the US alone.

Western denials were further undermined by the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which links mainland Russia with the Crimea. The truck bomb that did the damage originated in Ukraine; the driver of it was blissfully unaware of the true nature of his load. The Ukrainians, while officially not claiming responsibility – tweeted this;

“The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge – two notorious symbols of russian power in Ukrainian Crimea – have gone down. What’s next in line, russkies?”(83)

...which might easily be interpreted as unofficially claiming credit. In addition, two days later, Ukraine launched a new stamp celebrating the event.(84) This is a remarkable effort – minting a new stamp over the weekend. One might conclude that the stamp had been rather longer in the making. One might also realize that the destruction of the bridge would almost certainly lead to the Russians securing a permanent land-bridge by fighting on and occupying more of south-eastern Ukraine; which is exactly what has happened.

Figure 11

The Russians named names, blaming Ukrainian agents for the bridge attack and responded by attacking Zelensky's energy grid. They didn't escalate further – they didn't make the passing observation that, without US funding, Ukraine would no longer be in the fight.

2023 also saw further escalations from the West. From May onwards, the Ukrainians used their recently acquired cluster bombs – banned in more than 120 countries – to attack Russia's Belgorod region, targeting villages according to the local mayor. This was merely the latest in a string of attacks, going back a year or so.(85)

Figure 12

Shelling and drone attacks continued on into 2024 but, even though Putin read the riot act once again, he resisted escalation, despite the fact that every attack cost him a loss of face – a big deal in counties such as Russia:

“Russia has throughout nearly two years of war warned that countries externally supplying weapons to Ukrainian forces would be treated as direct participants in the conflict if their weapons are found to be used against Russia. The US in particular has been the biggest supplier of heavy weaponry, followed by NATO and EU countries.”(86)

June was a busy month. On the 6^th, the Kakhovka Dam in the Kherson region was destroyed in an explosion. As usual, both sides pointed their finger at the other, but the evidence points to the Ukrainians, once again. They had repeatedly bragged about hitting the dam previously and they were the net beneficiaries. Even the Russophobic press had previously noted that destroying the dam “would mean Russia blowing its own foot off”.(87) And, once again, it is likely that the weapon of choice was a HIMARS rocket launcher supplied by the US.

On the 23^rd of the month, the Russians detained five individuals who were trying to buy a kilo of radioactive Caesium 137 for a client in Ukraine.(88) Caesium can be used to make a dirty bomb and the Russians claim that Kyiv was working on just that, whether to attack them with it or stage a false flag event.(89) On the same day, Yevgeny Prigozhin (the head of Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group and perennial loudmouth) launched what appeared to be a coup attempt and announced that he was marching on Moscow. He didn't get there – in a matter of hours, he had a change of heart and headed for Belarus instead, where he was to live in exile.

At first blush, there didn't appear to be any suggestion that the West had anything to do with, notwithstanding the fact that an overthrow of Putin would have been right in their wheelhouse. It wasn't long before that changed and claims were made that Prigozhin had been seen in the company of a known CIA operative. President Trump was alleged to have confidentially confirmed that he was an asset.(90) The rumor-mill has it that the Russian was paid billions to stage his insurrection.(91) We may never know for sure, but it looks an awful lot like one of those 'coincidences' that isn't:

“Now, let’s bring in the external factor here, the enemy, NATO. But really it is the US/UK neoconservatives who have been the ones spending every waking hour punching Russia in the face with blatant escalatory moves to try and draw Russia and Putin offside.

Nordstream 2, the Kerch Strait Bridge bombing, the staged massacre at Bucha, the Kakhovka dam explosion, the attacks at Belgorod, the arms smuggling into Odessa under the auspice of the ‘Grain deal…” The list is nearly endless.”(92)

But, once again, Putin led it ride. Prigozhin and Wagner were treated with kid gloves, although the former wasn't long for this world, whether by Putin's hand or by that of A N Other. His private jet came down two months later and that was that.(93) Putin claimed that grenade shrapnel was recovered from several of the dead and implied that explosives and cocaine were not a winning combination, but who knows?(94) Perhaps Ukraine or NATO weren't ecstatic with the outcome that they thought they had purchased. What we do know is that while the attempt was ongoing, the neocons could hardly contain their excitement and then “went from drooling in anticipation to crying in their lattes in about 15 minutes.”(95)

And, for a period in mid-to-late 2023, while the much heralded summer offensive slowly guttered, extra-curricular activity seems to have been shelved. NATO clung to the fantasy that Ukraine could do it all by itself with Leopard tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and artillery. It couldn't. NATO's largesse counted for very little; the Russians were still using ten shells to Ukraine's one, as the latter sought to husband their meager resources. It seemed as if a healthy dose of reality was infusing Western thinking in the weeks before Christmas and the odd 'ceasefire' trial balloon was floated. But by January sinews had been stiffened.

The new-kid-on-the-block, Finland, was the unlikely source of the renewed Bear poking. It's infantile Interior Minister reached into his grab-bag of discredited tactics and selected one known as 'the invented threat'. This time it was an alleged migrant crisis on its Russian border that apparently could only be resolved by closing it.(96) This then morphed into talk of a Baltic Defence Line, in the absence of any evidence that such a thing was needed -(97) simply more Kabuki theater with which to gull the unwary by portraying Russia as a threat in the north as well.

But it wasn't until March that the next major step-change occurred with the terrorist attack on the Crocus Theatre in Moscow on the 22^nd of the month, during which 139 people were killed, with a further 182 wounded. The story is that ISIS-K did it. All parties (other than the Russians) are very keen to ensure that we know this, including ISIS-K itself. Mainstream Western leadership was somehow convinced of the veracity of this version of events from the get-go, although how they could possibly be certain of it is unclear. The Russians certainly had their doubts:

“Of course, the speed with which they were able to [come to such forthright conclusions] is astonishing. It took them only a few hours to get to a microphone, turn on the lights, summon the press, and draw a conclusion about who is to blame for this horribly bloody terrorist attack."(98)

The four Tajik gunmen, who had escaped from the scene, were apprehended before they could cross the Russian border into – you've guessed it – Ukraine.(99) They are allegedly radical Muslims who were paid to do a job. That scenario is itself contentious, as 'radical Muslims' don't commit terrorist attacks for money. Neither do they tend to do so during Ramadan. Nor do they usually plan their escape. Additionally, some ISIS factions have been the playthings of Western intelligence agencies for years – especially the UK's. MI6's fingerprints are to be found on pretty much all of the terrorist attacks in Russia in the post-Soviet period.(100) It is claimed that the scale of the British use of ISIS-K proxies even caused a rift with the US, who came to believe that their Middle Eastern hegemony was being undermined.

Standard operating procedure is to use cut-outs so that the shooters believe that the client is the middle-man, rather than the paymaster lurking in the shadows. That may very well be the case in this instance as the Russians believe that the UK, US and Ukraine were involved.(101) They state that they have “substantial evidence” that Ukraine paid for the attack with cryptocurrency.(102) And there is no doubt that the British and the Americans knew that the attack was coming, as their Moscow embassies warned their staff to avoid concerts and gatherings over the weekend of 8^th/9^th March as a terrorist attack was incoming.(103) In fact, one of the Tajiks visited the venue on 7^th March.

The Americans claim that they told Moscow all that they could, without revealing their sources, and that the Russians knew that the threat was against “large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts.”(104) There was one such concert at the Crocus venue that very weekend, but the security presence was prohibitive and no attack was launched. It may be, however, that it was now impossible to cancel the operation. It may also be that rogue elements within the US State Department cooked up the operation in a somewhat off-the-books fashion. It's probably not a coincidence that the most anti-Russian US official, Victoria Nuland, 'retired' on 5^th March. This is the woman who was integral to the 2014 coup, somebody who had publicly threatened Putin with “nasty surprises” just a month prior.(105)

The Russians were already in possession of evidence showing that US intelligence services were financing terrorist attacks inside Russia, including several assassinations and a drone attack on the Kremlin.(106) Nonetheless, if the after-action reactions are anything to go by, it would appear that the UK was likely up to its neck in this attack, possibly in concert with Nuland, as the US actually issued condolences (very much a first), whereas the Brits couldn't even wholeheartedly acknowledge the Russian loss of life. Jeremy Hunt's parseltongue was characteristic of the response; he stated that he took “what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt… after what we have seen from them over the last few years.”(107)

Putin has vowed that he will avenge the “bloodbath” and the Russians are still investigating but, thusfar, the Russians have not retaliated.(108) However, whatever the truth of which specific individual or faction was the author of the attack, it wouldn't have been possible without US support and financing, so whichever combination of Nuland, the Ukrainian security forces (the GUR, whose chief had recently warned of strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia)(109) and MI6 was involved, it's still on the West. As is the fact that the US did not share its full intelligence prior to the attack.

However, it is in the very recent past that the pedal has been fully mashed into the metal. The imminent arrival of F-16s is notably problematic, in a way that is obvious to NATO, which is pressing on regardless. There are three particular issues, none of which is germane to their likely performance on the battlefield, where they won't be a game-changer. Firstly, F-16 fighter jets can accommodate nuclear weapons and the Russians can't be sure that they won't be on board.(110)

Secondly, the aircraft requires pristine runways and robust, bomb-proof shelters. There are few such airfields in Ukraine, raising the prospect of the fighters flying missions from NATO bases in surrounding countries. Putin has stated that while he won't start a war with NATO, any such bases will be regarded as legitimate military targets.(111) And, thirdly, a Greek trainer is now 'officially' on the ground in Ukraine, upping the ante once more,(112) although the Russians are aware that NATO personnel are already operating weapons systems within Ukraine, including the Storm-Shadow missile, which has a range of 350 miles.(113)(114) In addition, some guidance systems require satellite guidance, a capability that the Ukrainians do not possess.

Then, at the end of May - in the latest example of mission creep – the United States gave Zelensky 'permission' to use US-made weapons to strike inside Russia, thus crossing yet another of Putin's red lines. Most NATO members were also in favor of this volte-face.(115)(116) This has not gone down well, to say the least. Dimitri Medvedev, the former president and designated hothead made the following observations:

"NATO countries that have approved strikes with their weapons on Russian territory should be aware that their equipment and specialists will be destroyed not only in Ukraine, but also at any point from where Russian territory is attacked.”(117)

In typical fashion, the reckless Ukrainians (for which – in Russian eyes - read NATO, as it is their belief that all long-range weapons supplied to Ukraine are "directly operated by servicemen from NATO countries")(118) immediately targeted Russia's early-warning system, radars which detect incoming over-the-horizon nuclear strikes. Not once – twice. These radar stations were at least 1,200 miles from Ukraine and weren't even aimed at Ukraine.(119) Of all the locations to be targeted, going after Russia's nuclear defenses is reckless in the extreme, as it reduces the ability to identify false positive alerts and it “meets the conditions the Russian government laid out publicly in 2020 for actions that could trigger a nuclear retaliatory strike. Russia’s early warning network is part of the country’s broader nuclear deterrent posture.”(120)

Figure 13

NATO knows this, but facilitated the strikes anyway. Yet still Putin has not responded in kind, even though he must be thinking through the permutations, chief among them the possibility of a genuine nuclear strike directed at Russia or further conventional, high altitude missile attacks that cannot now be definitively identified. In which case, he would be forced to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes without warning. He knows that, despite him pledging not to use nuclear weapons unless NATO does so first, the US has not responded in kind. He must also be aware that a modern-day Pearl Harbor, to astroturf American support for World War III, would suit Biden's handlers down to the ground.

Other provocations are coming thick and fast. A week ago, the US lifted the ban on arming the Azov Battalion.(121) This had no practical effect, as the US army has been training and supplying them for the past decade, in open defiance of Congress.(122) But it sure sends a message, doesn't it?

Figure 14

Le petit roi and others have repeatedly called for boots on the ground in Ukraine. 'In-country training' is the current escalatory weapon of choice, just as it was in Vietnam.(123) Plans for the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine are publicly proposed.

Figure 15

The circumstances under which NATO would deploy are, as ever, obscure. Macron, like all the other NATO leaders, simply says that Russia must not 'win' the war, without defining what that win looks like, while simultaneously averring that only the Ukrainians can decide that – which is obvious BS, because all the West has to do is turn off the financial spigot and Zelensky would be suing for peace the very next day. As it stands, the Ukrainian terms for peace require Russia's complete military defeat, a task clearly beyond them.(124)

Having said that, the Estonian Prime Minister may have been tasked with taking Zelensky down a peg or two. She recently declared that “victory in Ukraine is not just about territory. If Ukraine joins Nato, even without some territory, then that’s a victory because it will be placed under the Nato umbrella."(125) If bilateral security pacts could be substituted for NATO membership, the plan might have legs as a Korean-style armistice, an idea that was floated back in November when NATO looked to be searching for an off ramp.(126)(127) It might also be Ukraine's only option, as Stoltenberg (the NATO DG) recently unloaded on Zelensky from a very great height by for the first type stipulating that Ukraine must defeat Russia to become a member of the alliance.(128)

What is certain is that our leaders are enduring an attack of the heebie-jeebies as Russia makes advances across most of the front. Putin's new front near Kharkiv in the north – designed to make it more challenging for the Ukrainians to attack the Belgorod region – is a particular worry to them. Not because they think he'll proceed to the Polish border and then over it, which is clearly not his intention. In the first instance, he has never said that it was and, in the second instance, he keeps coming up with peace proposals, which are then kicked into the long grass by Zelensky and Biden's handlers.

His latest effort, last week, contained two main provisions – Ukraine to withdraw from the four eastern oblasts and renounce plans to join NATO.(129) Prior to that he wrote to Biden telling him that he'd end the war if Biden stopped supplying Zelensky with weapons.(130) But whoever is calling Western shots has yet to experience their 'come to Jesus moment' and it went the way of all the other efforts to freeze the conflict.

Instead, we are treated to a pissing contest, whereby NATO's annual Baltic Sea drills are offset (in a minor key) by Russian vessels paying an unscheduled visit to Cuba, eighty miles off the US coastline.(131)(132) Biden's handlers can't say that they weren't warned – in the aftermath of the radar strikes, Putin had stated that if was acceptable for the Americans to “arm a small national on its southern border with offensive weapons “to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?””(133)

Additionally, NATO is planning to boost its 'high readiness' troops to 300,000.(134) Biden's handlers are enacting a near carbon copy of FDR's undeclared war. But is it intended to end the same way, with a hot war? Or is it simply a case of brinkmanship running dangerously wild?

Well, a sensible person would know that there are some resource issues to contend with. Not only has NATO severely depleted its stockpile of materiel; it is also losing the production battle. As an example, the Russians can produce artillery shells at three times the rate of all NATO countries combined and at a quarter of the price.(135) In addition, the Kremlin has doubled defense spending and nationalized industries across the board.(136) The West isn't going to catch up anytime soon, if ever, and has demonstrated no desire to do so over the past two years and change.

A sensible person might also realize that replenishing these stocks would, in any event, be of limited utility as these weapons have been countered at every turn. Many modern Western weapons, reliant on GPS and other electronic aids, are being jammed by the Russians, Who'd have thought that might happen, eh? Current accuracy of such projectiles is a measly 10%.(137)

Figure 16

The much vaunted HIMARS is now completely ineffective. The Russians “deployed electronic warfare, disabled satellite signals” and that was that.(138) Missiles that cost $160,000 a pop are being spoofed on the cheap “by software-defined radio and open-source software.”(139)

A sensible person would be aware that the NATO tactical play-book, used to train Ukraine's army and further deployed when the Wunderwaffen were shipped to Ukraine for the 'summer offensive' has also proved to be hopelessly ineffective, and that going up against battle-hardened troops with two years experience of pretty much everything that NATO can throw onto the battlefield is a recipe for disaster. Especially so when Western armies have been knee-capped by the woke, DEI inspired mind-virus and have only fought goat herders for the past thirty years; sending these troops into battle would likely result in a colossal cluster.

And, finally, a sensible person would not want their complex, suffocating control system – one that has taken decades to stealthily construct – vaporized by a nuclear strike. But these are not sensible people. They are, instead, ruthless sociopaths and, while they would almost certainly eschew mutually assured destruction, it's not at all clear to me whether they'd be averse to a nuclear strike which elicited no response. I'm reasonably confident that Putin and co have probably reached the same conclusion, particularly after the radar strikes which may well be a beta test, calibrated to take the measure of Putin's resolve.

Putin may also have finally worked out how they think. In my assessment, he has been extremely circumspect, unwilling to make any sudden moves that might provoke a hysterical reaction from the West. If so, this is a shrewd move, as Russian advances are continually met with yet more escalatory language, with Poland increasingly to the fore. Tusk's government is now mulling whether to shoot down Russian missiles over Western Ukraine and won't rule out a conventional intervention in a conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with them.(140)(141)(142)

In short, the Western penny hasn't dropped and there is no indication that it ever will. The elites who make the decisions aren't like us. They genuinely don't understand many of the things that are obvious to us. By way of example; 82% of the elite 1% and the political obsessives believe that most people agree with them on most issues.(143) They think that most voters are prepared to pay $250 a year to fight non-existent climate change, when about half of the ordinary folk aren't willing to pay a bean. In the US, they also think that most Americans trust the government when the actual figure is 22%. They are delusional. Expecting them to make sensible decisions is, therefore, also a delusion. It would be far more logical to expect them to make incoherent, self-serving decisions with an expectation that the mewling masses are fully on board.

Figure 17

A majority of these people believe that the Government should be allowed to censor social media and that voting should be limited to college graduates. They are obsessed with beating Russia. They either don't know or don't care that support for Ukraine is steadily decreasing. In March 2022, only 7% of Americans believed that the US was providing too much support for Ukraine; that figure is now 31%.(144) On a list of top concerns for American voters, the war in the East doesn't even make the top ten.(145) It's the same dynamic in Europe, as the recent populist gains have underlined:

“The EU populists know Ukraine is a proxy fight driven by the United States and they do not want to participate. The European Union leadership wants war and leftist policy, the European Union citizens want peace and increased national sovereignty. The two EU political preferences are diametrically in conflict.”(146)

Barring New Zealand and Australia, the rest of the Global South likes and respects Russia. In fact, of the 6.6 billion people who live outside the West, 66% feel positively towards Russia.(147) They can see the 'rules-based international order' for what it is – a fake construct, conceived by the West and then imposed on other countries. They want no part of it (148) and they are not going to assist in a take-down of Russia.

None of this makes any impression on our leadership. The fact that they are increasingly being rejected at the ballot box (in fair elections, not American ones) matters not. And so, once more they are doubling down. Now they want to force their populations into uniform. The Democrats want to introduce a measure that automatically registers men for the draft at age 18.(149) So do the House Republicans, which is why they voted in favor of it last week.(150) Not just the men, though. The Senate version of the bill requires women to register, too.

Figure 18

The memo has also been disseminated to some of the usual European suspects. Sunak is proposing to bring back mandatory national service and the head of the UK army wants to train a 'citizen army' to take on the Russians.(151)(152) The Germans want to do likewise and are also debating whether to activate 900,000 reservists.(153)(154) I strongly suspect that this is going to be a hard sell, not that our leaders care.

My view, which won't be uncommon, is that I'm a member of a tribe and when that tribe faces an existential threat from another tribe, it's my duty to fight for it. The key word being 'existential'. However, when the leadership of my tribe goes rogue, simple becomes complicated. But it is not my duty to fight wars to enrich my tribe, nor to liberate wealth from other tribes – particularly when that wealth will be distributed amongst the ruling class. In fact, it's my duty to oppose such wars.

Russia is not a danger to the West and no amount of pontificating about Putin's threat to our way of life will change that.(155) The recent EU elections are a clear indication that on the subject of Russia, and much else besides, the ruling class is not on the public's wavelength. However, there will be no self-reflection or navel-gazing by our leaders. Taking down Russia has been a three-decade undertaking and there is no sign that they have accepted that it just ain't going to happen.

It's got nothing to do with the sanctity of borders or the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people. NATO occupied Kosovo and promoted its secession, after all. Plus, of course, Obama and Biden were the ones who trampled all over Ukraine's democracy in 2014. They don't give a tinker's toss about the d-word – they just want to pillage Ukraine and destroy Russia, so that they might repeat the dose. Their problem is that the chance of them managing to accomplish these ends by conventional means is vanishingly small. Our problem is that they may not realize this.

As things stand, it seems that they want to burn everything down. If they can't prevent the arrival of the multipolar world, perhaps they'll be willing to ruin everything, instead. Perhaps a hot war is part of the plan, whatever:

“Governments need war because their debts are no longer sustainable. They will use the war as the excuse for defaults – as was the case for WWII. They will create Bretton Woods II with the IMF digital currency as the reserve.”(156)

A war would also provide opportunities for silencing dissent, which could then be repackaged as sedition. It would distract us, it could be weaponized by the imposition of martial law. And our illustrious leaders are certainly doing their level best to provoke a reaction but, so far, Putin isn't playing. That's not to say that he won't – especially if his early warning system is repeatedly targeted.

Biden doesn't have FDR's two routes to war; he only has one sandbox to play in. But, if his handlers have decided that they want war, then they'll get it whether Putin responds or not. Perhaps they are more savvy than they appear. Perhaps they have accepted that they are unable to win conventionally. Maybe they've also realized that they will need to manufacture consent, in which case a false flag dirty bomb might be just the ticket. They are not the types to let nature run its course. They will want to control both the action and the reaction. And most disturbing of all is the possibility that they have concocted a plan that circumvents the mutual part of mutually assured destruction. Or a plan that they think does. I wouldn't put anything past them.

Citations

(1)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/did_fdr_bait_the_japanese_to_attack_pearl_harbor_to_arouse_usa_isolationists_to_enter_world_war_ii.html

(2) https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/fdr-bluff-relocating-us-fleet-to-pearl-harbor

(3) https://www.thehour.com/opinion/article/U-S-decision-to-cut-off-oil-to-Japan-led-to-8300872.php

(4) https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/before-abe-a-brief-history-of-political-assassinations-in-japan/

(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Infamy_speech

(6) https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/1-reason-imperial-japan-attacked-pearl-harbor-oil-88771

(7)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/did_fdr_bait_the_japanese_to_attack_pearl_harbor_to_arouse_usa_isolationists_to_enter_world_war_ii.html

(8)https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/did_fdr_bait_the_japanese_to_attack_pearl_harbor_to_arouse_usa_isolationists_to_enter_world_war_ii.html

(9) https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941

(10)