The whole narrative of “giving Ukraine a long range striking capability won’t make any difference” is nonsense. If it makes no difference, why not giving it to Ukraine anyway? Not like US needs these capabilities for another war?
The truth is that it does make a huge difference and they know it.
The problem is that Biden now has to say no to Ukraine directly post Zelenskyy visit (which is a genius move to do it during the election campaign when a general public is more tuned in and listening).
The map comparison shocked me tbh. As Ukrainian who is monitoring the war development daily, reading the reports from DeepState channel about Russian taking over villages one by one, and now seeing that it has translated into a small bulge on the map!! And I’m ignoring the astronomical cost to Russians and it’s their choice in the end of the day. I’m just looking at the results only and it’s negligible. Also, it’s not like they took over actual settlements/towns with buildings relatively intact, they flatten those towns with glide bombs so they get ruins in the end.
HI IG, yes the long-range arguments are fundamentally contradictory. It seems to be that they wont make a difference--and yet at the same time the Russians will be so hurt that they will escalate. Why would the Russians escalate if they wont make a difference? Truth is, i bet, that they know they could make a big difference and thats why they dont want Ukraine to have them.
You're conflating two differing opinion as one and syllogistically using that obvious contradiction as your reason to go ahead and escalate the war.
There is one general group who just simply doesn't want to be involved in the war at all and therefore doesn't wan't to give any more, and there is another who are fearful of escalation.
Russia has been waging hybrid war for about a decade or longer. I don’t think it’s possible to sit this one out, even if one incorrectly concluded that doing so would be a good idea.
I’ll add there were plenty of British and Americans who thought they wouldn’t need to get involved in Hitler’s wars. But war came knocking.
in case you forgot it was Russia who fought and defeated the Nazis so conflating Russia to Hitler is a stretch.
Putin is most definitely not a nice guy but he also is not Hitler, having studied him since day one I can confidently say that he has no intention of attacking Europe nor, as the tropes have portended, does he with the return of the Soviet Empire.
How do I know this? Simple, because before this Putin had drawn down the number of Russian troops from 1.2 million to 900K.
That's not the actions of a dictator planning to wage war on a vastly numerically and technologically superior Nato, but the war mongers and war grifters want you to believe he is.
Anyone paying attention knows that we covertly provoked this war... why not... we're really good at doing that by now.
To directly address your main point, you’re right, Putin did not want direct war with NATO countries for exactly the reasons you mention. Instead, it seems he seeks to divide and separately weaken individual member countries while in parallel attempting to fracture the alliance. In this latter objective, he has both failed miserably (addition of the Nordics) and succeeded beyond the bounds of my imagination (weakening of allies’ commitment to one another), via the mouth and actions of one Donald John Trump. Whether DJT’s actions were intentional or the result of psychological manipulation, I guess we can’t know.
Personally, I also blame, of course a much smaller extent, Biden and the vast majority of Senators etc. who have declined to forcefully educate the American public as to the value to the US of a strong NATO.
Your history is strange. The USSR - powered by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians - fought Hitler only AFTER he betrayed their years-long alliance with a surprise invasion.
It wasn't a suprise. The Soviets were preparing for it, they just did so in a rather incompetent way (see David Glantz's work). They learned though, took them a while, but they learned. That's what they do.
And to make it explicit, my point is that the Kremlin would only attack NATO after sufficiently weakening the alliance, which it is already trying to do. They are laying the groundwork for war. And of course, Moldova could be the next target before NATO.
One person the commentariat has not been able to discourage is Zelensky. After my initial surprise, I thought it was gutsy and very smart to come to the US with a Victory Plan.
Given that the audience for the candidate of a major political party now cheers at the very mention of the name 'putin', I think the word guts is appropriate. The trump supporters have proven themselves capable of anything.
There is no "they" who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. There were two lone wolf individuals who acted for their own reasons and cited no one else as inspiration for their actions. One of the two was indifferent to whether he assassinated Biden or Trump. Thus, there is no "they" who are morally superior and another "they" who is morally inferior.
I doubt very much that there any Trump supporter "cheers at the name of Putin". Are you so divorced from reality that you actually believe this drivel?
I'm a 'supporter' of fact and truth and yourself and most of this entire thread for that matter has yet to provide either a single fact or a logical argument
so if you're so sure that Trump supporters love Putin please provide some unedited examples of Trump supporters saying they are fans of Putin... in science that would be called evidence of your claim
A discussion framed around the analytical community may be more effective in influencing political decisions than would be challenging leadership directly.
Thats part of our thinking. The analytical community, as the report shows, made strong (and wrong) policy recommendations. Challenging the basis of those recommendations is the first step to getting the right aid to Ukraine.
One argument especially irritates me: we don't have the weapons to send. It is stated as if it is a consequence of God or nature. If we are pursuing an "as long as it takes" strategy, why haven't we geared up to win a war of attrition? If it is true we don't have more to send (dubious), why wasn't production ramped up through the Defense Production Act? Obviously it was and remains a choice.
Some production has been ramped up, but since the US itself isn’t at war, using the DPA would most likely be viewed as *overkill* by most Americans. The big problem with the US is that the doctrine calls for the military to have enough kit on hand to fight 2 wars concurrently. The sheer amount of stuff we have stashed away all over the world is truly mind boggling. And why we can’t give it to the Ukrainians NOW and backfill our own stocks as needed is also beyond my powers of comprehension.
All I can do is keep working to get Kamala Harris elected and hope that her words on the campaign trail translate into action by my government once she’s elected in November. With any luck, Biden will begin to allow the *Harris Doctrine* to be implemented prior to next January.
One bright spot, maybe? Biden is shoving all the aid the money he secured from Congress earlier this year will procure out the door. I believe there is around $6 billion left in the cash pile.
Philips, do you think there is any chance the US will permit strikes into Russia and not publicly announce it (like they did with ATACMS when they were first delivered)? This is the hope I’m holding out for - against the odds.
Today Stefan Korshak breaks down in detail how minimal our arms supply is to Ukraine:
US Arms Assistance to Ukraine — Time for Another Reality Check
Yes the US just offered up close to $8 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, and it will be helpful, but it will be neither decisive nor is it a policy shift. It’s mostly ammunition, which obviously Ukraine needs.
But it isn’t massive amounts of ammunition of the scale that would allow Ukraine defenses to blast Russian attacks to bits.
Nor is it the kind of high-tech ammunition that would allow Ukraine to smash major Russian targets.
Key weapons systems Ukrainian critically needs and has used with devastating effect, are short or are just missing.
By the line items…
- 155mm and 105mm artillery shells but given US production capacity it won’t be enough to give the UAF firepower dominance on the battlefield
- No ATAMCS missiles, period. This is the single most effective ground system the US has given Ukraine, and unlike a lot of other systems there aren’t really alternatives from Europe.
- The AGS 154 glide bomb is not quite useless, but to get its maximum range the Ukrainian airplane dropping it has to fly high, and high-flying Ukrainian airplanes get shot down
- One Patriot missile system. Ukraine needs between 15–30 to cover all its air space.
- Expanding US-based F-16 pilot training for Ukrainians from six slots every 14 months to eighteen means that it will be about 2026 before Ukraine would have enough F-16 pilots to fly the F-16s donated by Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.
- Zelensky et al. have been telling anyone who will listen for months they have about 6–8 brigades of men that can’t go fight because weaponry promised by the West, hasn’t arrived. This is basically infantry fighting vehicles, artillery and tanks. The US has thousands sitting in mothballs. This arms assistance contains, as I read it, zero heavy weapons for Ukraine
It is of course absolutely fair and correct to point out that the US national security interest might not be best served by handing over all of the US Army’s ATACMS missiles and Patriot anti-aircraft systems wholesale to the UAF.
But anyone who says this scale of support is decisive and major US assistance to Ukraine, is selling you snake oil. This is six months of the US not assisting Ukraine at all, packed up all together at once, and dressed up like major assistance.
When US government officials say they are backing Ukraine, we need to be clear, that support is limited and it is not intended to get decisive effects.
And it really doesn’t matter how administration officials spin it, because we have 30 months of war that has given us an absolutely crystal clear picture of how battles are won and lost in actual combat. We can look at the facts and judge for ourselves.
Not that I am discounting any reporting, but that seems like an awfully large sum of money to provide the *meh* supplies the US plans to fork over. I don’t have any facts to back this up, but my gut tells me that someone has finally learned their lesson about broadcasting every item being sent over prior to its being sent. I hope I’m right about this. I guess we will know soon enough.
I don't agree that much of the public would have seen a DPA invocation as overkill. Either Putin's aggression is a serious threat to our long term security or it isn't. I seriously doubt that even the majority of Republicans would have objected in an era when public support for rebuffing putin had large supermajority support. A demonstration of real commitment to a successful outcome would have changed everything. If you oppose such action, you must own the grim facts we face today.
Biden didn't even accelerate weapons production meaningfully with actions short of DPA.
The U.S. has left Ukraine twisting in the wind. This at a time when analysts generally agree that both the U.S. and Europe are playing catch up on arms production.
We have no other plan underway other than to hope that Ukraine will be pressured into a partition sooner than later. People like Biden & Ignatius & Haass sincerely hope for a good settlement for Ukraine. But they aren't willing to offer the weapons to achieve even that minimal goal. They accept defeat with thoughts & prayers & "we tried our best under a nuke threat."
Richard, I think this war was Biden's chance - and responsibility - to step up as an unofficial "war time president"; even if the war between Ukraine and Russia is not an official war with NATO and the west, this was his opportunity to maximize the chances of preventing that from happening in the foreseeable future. A true and very unsettling strategic blunder.
- Only materiel donated via the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (and separately, Patriot missiles) is donated quickly. The rest is new contracts, which takes many months or years. (In the last aid package approved by Congress, PDA funds were rather modest)
- That much of the aid to Ukraine means jobs for US workers, profit for US companies, consequently taxes paid to US governments, a stronger US defense industrial base, and brand new replacement materiel for the US military. Not to mention the many indirect benefits to the US military and also the US national interest.
- Sanctions are incredibly half hearted, with priority clearly on minimizing even slight collateral damage in home markets over throttling the Russian war machine. Specifically speaking to large and easily trackable goods not being sanctioned for years while small and impossible to effectively sanction goods are, or Russian defense contractors not being sanctioned for years, in some cases gross incompetence appears to also be a culprit.
- Australia as a country mothballing (and -in some cases destroying!!!) useful equipment because its government can’t get organized enough to get the equipment to Ukraine
FYI, the US does have thousands of ATACMS to send from stockpiles, and new production started months ago. The US military does not want these missiles for its own use, as deliveries of the replacement to these decades-old missiles already started last year.
The newsweek article contradicts reporting from a year ago that ATACMS production was ending (other than a small number to fulfill contracts with foreign govs, I think mainly Turkey.)
THe situation is always murky. Your interpretation could be right. The pentagon is free to say whatever works for them.
The shortcomings of analysts? Colleges for example are limiting and closing history departments. We are producing computer coders and finance analysts. The intellectual base is becoming limited. Prior to medicine I was a history major in college. Why? I saw the faculty was educated in science, economics, sociology and more. A college education does not equal educated.
Phillips, as one of your paying subscribers I am humbled to be part of the loyal following you have amassed and the thinking we have seen on Ukraine, US politics, and strategy in general. Thank you for all you do!
As for the CSIS report, I look forward to digesting it when time permits, but knowing you and Eliot Cohen are leading this, I expect some eye opening findings. I do agree that we need more and varied expertise looking at these matters as you suggest in this update. It is too easy for groups of like minded and trained individuals to miss so much, and frankly to slant analysis to a place that gives them job security. I am so glad you mentioned economists and historians (my two fields of study!) but also linguists, game theorists (subset of economics) as well as sociologist and political scientists and mix it all together.
I also think this would help with forward looking strategy such as the horrifically mistaken position taken by the Biden Administration to not green light long range strikes immediately. This too suffers from narrow minded thinking. It seems the only place of reasonable thinking is coming from Foggy Bottom these days with Tony Blinken!
This group has been a breath of fresh air as it’s the only place where we can have civil discussions about this war and still have differences of opinions.
Ironically, I do think that when you start having trolls signing up to your subscription, this means you are making an impact Professor! Keep on doing what you’re doing. It’s clearly working.
If you find this so distasteful I suggest you depart this forum and find one that satisfies your hateful rhetoric.
I have been part of this community for over a year as a subscriber and whilst I do not agree with everything, I value everyone's considered contributions. Your contribution does not add value.
I will admit that calling this forum a group of ball cuppers was probably a little antagonistic and unnecessarily graphic, I'll make you a deal, I'll try to avoid such comments if you stop abusing the meaning of words and stick to only fact filled or logical opinions :) I hope yoyu have a nice day!
This doesn't read like an apology, but rather a threat to continue being offensive if you don't agree with what someone else writes. You shouldn't need any special incentive to treat others with respect.
I'm not sure what precisely in my comment warrants your 'hateful' badge??
though I'm not surprised that you find my comment distasteful because as a leftist you're programmed to only agree with the groupthink logic, so anyone who challenges even a single tenet of your narrative is viewed and labeled as 'hateful' so you can dismiss anything they say without being exposed to any truths which may pose potential threats to the authoritarian power your side so clearly seeks.
"If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you aren't allowed to criticize."
I believe in time that people who abuse language for political power the way you are here will be viewed with the likes of people like Hitler, Stalin and yes even Putin, all of whom did not tollerate any speech or even though outside of the strict dictate of the collective.
Your "suggestion" is duly noted sir, though it reads to anyone with an acute knowledge of history more like a typical leftist threat
Peter. Please don't you yourself abuse language by calling the commentors at this Neoconservative Professor's Substack 'leftists'. They may consider themselves 'Liberal' and most seem to be what we here in the UK call 'Centrists', but these people aren't of the Left - not even close.
I am a life long liberal. The Democratic party however is no longer liberal.
The Democratic party is no longer the party of working people (as illustrated by latest vote by the Teamsters who favored Trump by some 60% to 40%).
The formerly liberal party has been taken over by leftists so that's how I describe them.
The root of the word Liberal is 'Liberty' and the Dems seem to be very anti-Liberty and regularity say such things like "f*ck your freedom" for instance
Liberals don't censor speech,
Liberals don't cheer on the military industrial complex,
Liberals don't root for corporate capture of government agencies
Liberals don't acquiesce to the whims of big Pharma
Maybe you were once liberal, but if you support the Democratic Party, the same party that just very "democratically" installed a hate filled, racist against her own people, do nothing, candidate who nobody voted for, then you my friend are little more than a 'useful idiot' for those who would bring Socialism and or Communism to America like your biggest funder George Soros
Actually Peter - scrap what I just said about being more frightened by a Harris presidency than a Trump one. I've just seen his comments about blowing Iran to smithereens because the likes of Avril Haines showed him some cak about them trying to kill him. These were the VERY people who stoked the Russiagate hoax. Haines was the one who decided not to prosecute those who bugged Caongress and she's responsible for sky-robot murders the world over. She was an employee of Anthony Blinken's company FFS. He rolls over to the blob every time. He's learned nothing, nothing at all - do not expect him to change a thing.
Thanks Peter, but it’s a bugbear of mine. For context I’m an Englishman who lives in Hove who subscribed here first because I came across the Professor’s SWW work & then stuck around because I don’t like echo chambers (which is an unfortunate consequence of Substack’s model). The longer I’ve been here the more obvious it has become that the Professor is just another, off-the-shelf, no-reverse-gear, chicken-hawk Neoconservative and it’s worth £8 every now and then to dip in and challenge his BS.
My current subscription has only a couple of weeks to go so I’m going to bow out of this particular chamber by taking every opportunity to tell the Prof and his acolytes what I think of them. I was polite when I arrived, but months of not getting straight answers wears you down – particularly regarding the AFU’s horrendous casualties – something the maniacs around here never try to quantify.
My politics are those of ‘The Left’ - mostly those of Tony Benn & Jeremy Corbyn – or similarish to Jimmy Dore, George Galloway’s & Roger Water’s if those first two names don’t mean anything to you. In the US this might have been called Democratic Socialist until they shat the bed. I’m a free speech absolutist and believe that the level of privacy afforded to anyone or anything should be in indirect proportion to their size & power (so the Government have none, Google, Pfizer, FB etc have very little – and everyday citizens have plenty with the likes of Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk and yes (Atlanticist tw*t) Soros somewhere in between).
I’m in my mid 50s so well remember the Cold War – and watched Threads on its first release and am staggered with how indifferent these lunatics are regarding escalation towards nuclear war. The level of propaganda we’ve received re the Russians is staggering – Russiagate, election meddling, CW attacks, poisonings, hacks they’ve been accused of everything and it’s all been either absolute rubbish or massively exaggerated.
I’d almost certainly be voting for Jill Stein were I in the US, but fear a Harris/Waltz/Cheney Presidency very much more than I do a Trump one – although they’re both in hock to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv so they’re scum in equal measure.
That the PMC, sh*tLibs that dominate the mainstream are called left irritates the hell out of me.
Good luck with your subscription here – don’t expect any straight answers from the Prof, don’t expect many from his commentors (there are one or two exceptions), do expect a load of the zombie Russiagate stories, do expect to be accused of being paid by Putin and do expect a bit of flip-flopping (e.g. areas on maps only matter when the RF are attacking, Bakhmut was not strategically important according to the Prof until his report with Cohen this week, weapons are critical then over-rated etc). Have fun.
"So the analysis for Russia and Ukraine was not only off, it represented the greatest strategic failure in analysis in modern history. If you don’t believe me—try and find a worse case."
and
"...the expertise that studied the Russian and Ukrainian military was actually quite limited, and focussed in a small group of analysts of the Russian military."
My challenge / thought to you on this, although I think you're broadly correct, is to place this in a wider context of failure of strategic thinking. Again, I bring this back to the Middle East in general and Syria in particular.
The 'West' seized one huge opportunity after the collapse of the Soviet Union by assisting much of the (European) soviet block in to the EU and NATO, reinforcing trends and desires that were already part of those societies and massively strengthening the democratic capitalist world at the same time.
The 'West' missed another huge opportunity with the Arab Spring, which can probably be traced back to the failure of Bush's invasion of Iraq (at least its failure to deliver a successful, pro-Western government). The Arab Spring was another opportunity to support much more democratic, liberal and liberalising trends throughout much of the Middle East. Instead, after flirting with support for reformers and rebels, the West got cold feet and threw its weight behind the dictators (whether they be pro or anti Western) in the name of 'stability'.
This undermined western influence and encouraged our opponents - like Putin - to believe that they could outlast us. And we're yet to prove them wrong. We could win if we made the decision that we wanted to win. But Biden is the latest in a line of western leaders that is scared of victory. (This is different to Trump's desire that the forces of corruption and dictatorship win, but it's still not a good place to be.)
I think it's this fear of victory that underpins much of the analytical thinking in the west, and which encouraged policymakers to assume that Russia would win, despite evidence from e.g. Syria that this needn't be a foregone conclusion if only Russian imperialism's (much more motivated) opponents would be given support.
I think it's absolutely wrong to see this analytical failure as a one-off. The US has a *spectacular* history of *total* analytical failure dating back to... hmmm.... well, the Vietnam War at least. Just constant, constant analytical failure.
The Vietnam War was a fundamental analytical failure because US analysts treated it as a proxy war about communism, when it was ACTUALLY an anti-colonial national liberation war. Whoops.
I would also challenge Phillips O'Brien to situate this analytical failure in the context of the constant analytical failures of the US government.
Not noticing the collapse of the USSR happening. Not seeing Chernobyl coming. Supporting dictators repeatedly (this problem dates back to *President Monroe*) even when the democratic governments really would have been better for the US, according to historians.
It is hard to gauge the depth of Democratic support for Ukraine without a well elucidated plan. During election campaign it's probably right of Harris to be vague so as not to alienate any supporters but when/if US support ramps up to the level it should be for the protector of Western Democracy the Republicans will pounce on the slightest failure. We are in an era where hyper politics passes through the border.
The so-called "public health" leadership at CDC, WHO, state health departments, the NHS, has learned nothing. They are still refusing to use respirator masks (N95, P100) even in HOSPITALS.
I've been working with the actual aerosol science experts on this fight for several years now. The utter, dogmatic resistance and hostility to evidence is extraordinary. It is stone-cold proven fact that FFP3 masks stop Covid, and garbage loose surgical masks do not. NHS refuses to listen. Same thing happening in the US with CDC.
BMA statement on this atrocity (note sections 9 through 11):
I'd actually suggest you correct the Atlantic article because "public health leadership" has been even worse than Russocentric "Russia analysts". Far worse actually. They're *physics deniers* (it's aerosol physics which they're denying). And they've killed more people.
You want a worse case of analysis? How about you read anything provided by the 'Project for the New American Century'. With Brown University estimating at least five million dead from the subsequent War On Terror I think the Ukraine-Russia errors have been rather mild in comparison.
It has been clear to me for many years now that the Republicans under Trump would like to grease Putin but are confined politically. Including Speaker Mike Johnson. This is why Trump was impeached! And now Republicans are wholly a cult of personality surrounding Trump, someone that will not criticize or really do anything in opposition of Putin. We can only speculate why this is, but it is a clear pattern over years. The Republicans are captured by Trump. Trump is captured by Putin.
And consider the possibility Putin and Trump have coordinated messaging surrounding Ukraine, if not explicitly, then by nodding and winking. Russia tries to advance the narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the fault of the West, NATO expansion and provocations against Russia. And they are trying to telegraph that similarly, an expansion of authorization of Western weapons against Russian targets would cause Russia to escalate against NATO or use WMDs. So Americans now hear this from the adversary directly and one of two domestic political parties. So, no matter how bogus, the Russia-friendly narrative *sounds* legitimate if you are not following very closely.
It is next-level reflexive control. And it is not necessarily a bluff, it may be a trap. If Biden makes the authorization, Putin can drop WMDs or attack NATO, right before the election takes place. It is truly a pickle.
The Russians have deep influence over the American opposition party. Biden’s leadership has been too weak, I could not agree more. But we should also be eyes-wide-open about the severe challenges here, political and informational more than material and economic.
This is Russia’s hybrid world war, and if Trump wins the election, it nearly assures Russia gets to win the war in Ukraine, it can take at least 4 years to consolidate its winnings, swallow the spoils, rebuild its war machine and set its sights further West, likely against a fractured NATO.
The US political battle for the White House remains the decisive, critical front of the conflict imo
I’ve posted this little list here previously – and updated it from time to time – it shows some of the things that Trump actually did whilst in power and since. It shows very little evidence of being in the pocket of Putin.
Trump sent arms to Ukraine after Obama had not. He was impeached for threatening to delay these payments – not cancel them.
Trump’s forces illegally occupied 1/3 of Syria (Russian ally), bombed it and killed Russian civilians there in a number of attacks.
Trump supported a coup attempt and all sorts of shenanigans in Venezuela (Russian ally)
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty.
Trump sold Patriot missiles to Poland and sentan extra 1,000 US troops there.
Trump sent Abrams tanks to Estonia (Atlantic Resolve) and trained Baltic States & Polish forces in resisting Russian aggression – including insurgency (Operation Ridge Runner).
Trump imposed sanctions following annexation of Crimea (Russia expelled US diplomats).
Trump imposed two more rounds of sanctions and mass expulsion of Russian diplomats after the Skripal fairytale.
Trump sanctioned Prigozyn and others following Mueller’s IRA hysterics.
Trump forced RT reporters to register as Russian agents.
Trump refused to recognise Russian’s ownership of Crimea, but happy to do so for the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights & their moving of capital to Jerusalem.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran nuclear deal (very much against Putin’s wishes).
Trump repeatedly threatened Nordstream II – threatened to sanction Germany and associated companies repeatedly.
And even this summer he did plenty of work to get those billions released to Ukraine:
Trump says a lot of different guff to different people – what do you expect, he’s a prick – but this view that he’s Putin’s puppet is childish nonsense. The Mueller report came up with nothing. The FISA/Carter Page scandal showed that the FBI were bugging his entire campaign in 2016, but they came up with nothing. That’s because there is nothing.
Your list of things that the US did under Trump that were done to contain Russia would be laughable next to a list from any other President Especially because it is written from the viewpoint of Russian state propaganda and contains items that were on Russias wish list like the treaty withdrawals. US forces returned fire against attacking Russian mercenaries in Syria for example, not Trump ordering attacks on Russian civilians. That is an absurd framing obviously stretching hard to cover the truth. That Trump has helped not hurt the effort to fund Ukraine’s defense is also an absurdity, one that I found insulting to my intelligence tbh. Trump caved to political pressure after single handedly holding the funding up for months.
I’m not going to bother to list all the things Trump has done to stroke Putin and degrade NATO — it could not be a more consistent and obvious pattern, shocking as it is
I think you should maybe review the evidence against Paul Manafort if you don’t believe collusion occurred. Mueller isn’t infallible by any stretch. I wrote about it in detail here:
Oh and that substack pice takes as fact that there was a hack of the DNC - but Crowdstrike's Sean Henry testified under oath that they had no evidence that data was ever hacked - despite them forensically monitoring the servers at the time.
Re the Manaford accusations it includes - you'd have thought that some of those claims might have shown up in the phone calls in the Trump campaignb - which were being tapped by the FBI at the time. None did.
Oh go on give me the list of things Trump did to 'stroke Putin' - I'd love to hear them.
What did Manaford do? You're not talking about all the poll data stuff are you? That's his links with Konstantine Killimnik was it? The supposed Russian spy who had plenty of links with various US embassies who flagged nothing about his Russian spying? The Killinmik that Mueller didn't bother to try to interview?
I wrote this for a comment elsewhere, but here’s why the UK gov’s Skripal story doesn't stand up:
I don’t know what happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal – or Dawn Sturgess & Charlie Rowley for that matter, but what I do know is that the UK government’s story is shot through of bizarre coincidences and near-impossiblities that make it almost certainly bogus.
Seeing this evolve in real-time (with some friends who live in Salisbury and have ‘walked the ground’) wasn’t so much a ‘red pill’ for me as it was a London bus suppository such was my amazement at our Establishment media’s complicity at the time. Here are some fun facts that you HAVE to accept to believe the UK government’s version of events as they are in the public domain:
That a 60 year old diabetic man and a 30 year old, fit and healthy woman received a dermal dose of a nerve agent from a door handle. The two remained symptom-free and in health good enough to go for a drive, a walk in a park, feed some ducks, have a few pints in a pub and a multi-course Italian meal before collapsing on a park bench four hours after the dose. The collapses were so simultaneous that neither was able to raise the alarm for the other. Their symptom-free-then-rapid-collapse response to the (alleged) novichok poisoning were in stark contrast to those displayed by the other individual who (allegedly) suffered in those first few days – PC Nick Bailey. He became ill over a period of at least 48 hours first going to work and returning home.
No one in the Establishment media has asked, let alone, received an answer to, any question regarding the physiological mechanism behind this, hitherto unknown to science, delayed-action nerve-agent effect in the Skripals or why PC Bailey’s reaction was completely different. (Please post links if you have any – I’d love to be corrected on this).
The first medic at the scene at the park bench was a nurse, a non Salisbury resident who happened to be passing by doing some shopping after a birthday party with her daughter. This nurse just happened to be Colonel Alison McCourt - the most senior nurse in the entire British Army - and one who had received training in the treatment of the effects of nerve agents. No one in the Establishment media has questioned the likelihood of this quite astonishing coincidence.
Despite there being no suggestion that the two alleged Russian agents ever entered Sergie Skripal’s house or did anything other than spray ‘Novichok’ on the door handle, some weeks later the roof was considered to be so badly contaminated with the nerve agent that it had to be removed and destroyed. Only the roof – not the storeys in between. No one in the Establishment media has questioned why this was considered necessary, given the nature of the governments story.
The perfume bottle of novichok that killed Dawn Sturgess weeks after the poisoning of the Skripals, was found by her partner, Charlie Rowley, unopened in a charity bin four weeks after the original poisoning. A later BBC dramatisation of the events obfuscated this fact with cutting that made it appear that Rowley had found the perfume in the hours after the Skripals were found – not weeks later. No one in the Establishment media has questioned the likelihood of this occurrence.
This perfume bottle was found on the worktop in Sturgess’s house ELEVEN DAYS after the police had begun a thorough search of the property looking for just such an object. No one in the Establishment media has questioned quite how they managed to miss it.
Despite Salisbury council having recently installed a multi-million pound, city-wide CCTV system – the recordings of which were seized by the Met Police - the UK authorities claim not to be able to account for the movements of the Skripals or the two alleged Russian agents on the day of the poisoning. FoI requests (from local citizens, not the Establishment media) have confirmed that all the cameras – including one pointed directly at the bench where the Skripals were found – were functioning on the afternoon of the events. No one in the Establishment media has asked why the ahthorities have produced only fragments of what must be a very extensive picture of both the Skripals and the two Russian suspects movements on that weekend. No one in the Establishment media bothered to attempt to retrace the Russian’s steps on the days they were in Salisbury – if they had they may have noticed how close they came at various times and why the alleged agents routes were bizarre given what we know from the fragments released.
I could go on – there’s the videos of un-gloved security personnel using the doorhandle in the 48 hours before the doorhandle story became public, the UK Government’s media-gagging DSMA notices, there’s the not at all ill children the Skripals handed bread to to feed the ducks, there’s the hotel room in London that was allegedly contaminated with novichok that the British authorities didn’t bother to warn was a potential health risk for months after the event and the BBC’s Mark Urban’s ‘news’ that he’d been interviewing Skripal in the months prior to his poisoning which he kept to himself until months after the globe was focussed on this furore and much, much more.
But this is all accepted and acceptable by our Establishment media because to do otherwise would prove them to be wild conspiracy theorists and apologists for Putin.
As I said, I’ve no real idea what went on that weekend – those two Russians were up to something -, but I do know that the official narrative is nonsense – and don’t forget it was being fed to us in real-time by that paragon of proberty Boris Johnson who was Foreign Secretary at the time.
You can find links to news and other articles here:
STOP PRESS: Just last week the UK’s long-delayed ‘inquiry’ into the death of Dawn Sturgess is continuing without any input from the Skripals at all. Not by video link, not with voices distorted, not at all. Apparently this is just too much of a risk for them – the UK with all it’s military and intelligence might – just can’t protect them. I think that’s as ludicrous as the hodge-podge of coincidences and strange events that form the UK’s story above – what do you think?
“ The Killinmik that Mueller didn't bother to try to interview?”
Another gross absurdity desperately trying to cover the obvious truth. Icymi, the Russian spy’s “wanted by the FBI” photo, stemming from charges brought by Mueller, is a cover photo to a piece I wrote about how 2016 collusion relates to the Ukraine struggle today
Thanks for the piece - I note you call Kilimnik a Russian Agent - but neither the Mueller or Intel Reports do so and offer no evidence that he is or was. What makes you so sure?
Also what makes you so sure about the UK's Skripal story?
The Mueller report also notes the FBI assessment that Kilmnik is tied to Russian intelligence. It also details how Manafort’s assistant Rick Gates told investigators he’s surmised Kilimnik was a Russian spy and had discussed this with Manafort.
That much is not debated seriously, nor is that the DNC was hacked. One step further, the CIA assessed that the info passed to Kilimnik by Gates and Manafort made its way back to Russian intelligence to be used in on-line influence campaigning to assist the Trump campaign.
Congratulations on the success of the Substack, Phillips, and thanks for all the work you put into it. I come here for the high quality of analysis and for the straightforward way that you have of explaining things. I've learned a lot, not only from you, but also from commenters.
I really appreciate that you were able to take some of the subscription income and forward it on to Come Back Alive. I donate $20 a month, which honestly isn't very much, but I know that every bit counts.
I personally believe that if Harris is elected, we see the outgoing Biden administration ceding to Harris’s wishes on permissions and longer ranged strikes begin basically the day after the results are clear. I also think the Biden admin is cautious about not escalating the war or doing anything that might negatively impact Harris politically on one of her unfavorables, which is the same for Biden— foreign policy. Despite support for Ukraine remaining popular in the US overall, they seem concerned that at the same time it all gets laid, fairly or unfairly, at their feet, which is true. They want the war in Gaza and Lebanon over for sure, but with Ukraine they want the war in stasis for the time being.
It’s not fair to Ukraine, and quite sad, but their future is wrapped up in our contentious political contest, sure to be decided by people who could not place Ukraine (or Lebanon for that matter) on a map.
> I personally believe that if Harris is elected, we see the outgoing Biden administration ceding to Harris’s wishes on permissions and longer ranged strikes begin basically the day after the results are clear.
I'm doubtful about this. I think that usually the presidential lame duck period is a time where the outgoing administration tries not to rock the boat, so as not to create any new crisis for the incoming administration. Maintain the status quo, and wait for the incoming administration to take the reins and make the changes they want.
The whole narrative of “giving Ukraine a long range striking capability won’t make any difference” is nonsense. If it makes no difference, why not giving it to Ukraine anyway? Not like US needs these capabilities for another war?
The truth is that it does make a huge difference and they know it.
The problem is that Biden now has to say no to Ukraine directly post Zelenskyy visit (which is a genius move to do it during the election campaign when a general public is more tuned in and listening).
The map comparison shocked me tbh. As Ukrainian who is monitoring the war development daily, reading the reports from DeepState channel about Russian taking over villages one by one, and now seeing that it has translated into a small bulge on the map!! And I’m ignoring the astronomical cost to Russians and it’s their choice in the end of the day. I’m just looking at the results only and it’s negligible. Also, it’s not like they took over actual settlements/towns with buildings relatively intact, they flatten those towns with glide bombs so they get ruins in the end.
Nonsensical stuff
HI IG, yes the long-range arguments are fundamentally contradictory. It seems to be that they wont make a difference--and yet at the same time the Russians will be so hurt that they will escalate. Why would the Russians escalate if they wont make a difference? Truth is, i bet, that they know they could make a big difference and thats why they dont want Ukraine to have them.
That bigger map is rather telling I think
You're conflating two differing opinion as one and syllogistically using that obvious contradiction as your reason to go ahead and escalate the war.
There is one general group who just simply doesn't want to be involved in the war at all and therefore doesn't wan't to give any more, and there is another who are fearful of escalation.
Both group have merit to their argument.
Russia has been waging hybrid war for about a decade or longer. I don’t think it’s possible to sit this one out, even if one incorrectly concluded that doing so would be a good idea.
I’ll add there were plenty of British and Americans who thought they wouldn’t need to get involved in Hitler’s wars. But war came knocking.
in case you forgot it was Russia who fought and defeated the Nazis so conflating Russia to Hitler is a stretch.
Putin is most definitely not a nice guy but he also is not Hitler, having studied him since day one I can confidently say that he has no intention of attacking Europe nor, as the tropes have portended, does he with the return of the Soviet Empire.
How do I know this? Simple, because before this Putin had drawn down the number of Russian troops from 1.2 million to 900K.
That's not the actions of a dictator planning to wage war on a vastly numerically and technologically superior Nato, but the war mongers and war grifters want you to believe he is.
Anyone paying attention knows that we covertly provoked this war... why not... we're really good at doing that by now.
To directly address your main point, you’re right, Putin did not want direct war with NATO countries for exactly the reasons you mention. Instead, it seems he seeks to divide and separately weaken individual member countries while in parallel attempting to fracture the alliance. In this latter objective, he has both failed miserably (addition of the Nordics) and succeeded beyond the bounds of my imagination (weakening of allies’ commitment to one another), via the mouth and actions of one Donald John Trump. Whether DJT’s actions were intentional or the result of psychological manipulation, I guess we can’t know.
Personally, I also blame, of course a much smaller extent, Biden and the vast majority of Senators etc. who have declined to forcefully educate the American public as to the value to the US of a strong NATO.
Your history is strange. The USSR - powered by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians - fought Hitler only AFTER he betrayed their years-long alliance with a surprise invasion.
It wasn't a suprise. The Soviets were preparing for it, they just did so in a rather incompetent way (see David Glantz's work). They learned though, took them a while, but they learned. That's what they do.
And to make it explicit, my point is that the Kremlin would only attack NATO after sufficiently weakening the alliance, which it is already trying to do. They are laying the groundwork for war. And of course, Moldova could be the next target before NATO.
One person the commentariat has not been able to discourage is Zelensky. After my initial surprise, I thought it was gutsy and very smart to come to the US with a Victory Plan.
coming to ask for more US aid money and involvement is neither novel, nor in my opinion can it be described as "gutsy"
Given that the audience for the candidate of a major political party now cheers at the very mention of the name 'putin', I think the word guts is appropriate. The trump supporters have proven themselves capable of anything.
I think thats right--the Trump meeting was very well done
So far they've not attempted to assassinate Kamal Harris so in that respect they're morally superior.
There is no "they" who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. There were two lone wolf individuals who acted for their own reasons and cited no one else as inspiration for their actions. One of the two was indifferent to whether he assassinated Biden or Trump. Thus, there is no "they" who are morally superior and another "they" who is morally inferior.
I doubt very much that there any Trump supporter "cheers at the name of Putin". Are you so divorced from reality that you actually believe this drivel?
Uh, no! Feel free to check out the hate rallies trump has performed in, where he mentions putin, and the applause from the crowd.
I've watch entire Trump rallies and not seen this once. This is either complete fallacy of fanciful editing.
Uhhh huhhh
Yr a trump supporter and you think I'm divorced from reality?
Ps: trump lost in 2020
I'm a 'supporter' of fact and truth and yourself and most of this entire thread for that matter has yet to provide either a single fact or a logical argument
so if you're so sure that Trump supporters love Putin please provide some unedited examples of Trump supporters saying they are fans of Putin... in science that would be called evidence of your claim
Here is a whole story on the subject from a few months ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/briefing/putin-republicans-trump-tucker-carlson.html
Trump is clearly a fan of Putin, and if you back Trump you are supporting Putin's aims too.
Fact and truth. I don't think you'd recognize it, if it ran over you.
In FACT, and to be truthful, I think you are on here and trolling.
Try looking at trumps recent north carolina speech. There is evidence of one trump supporter who is a fan of putin: trump.
Ps: the antisemitic tropes he uses to attack Presiden Zelensky are jaw dropping. See today's substack by Timothy Snyder.
Well supporter of fact and truth. Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/live/lJIPgUP-rPY?si=dixl7pYYUHDJQHSZ
Thank heavens for your reporting to counteract all the false information out there. Renewing my subscription.
Thats extremely kind HC.
It's also extremely true Phil. History will look kindly on your work. You have definitely left your mark!
A discussion framed around the analytical community may be more effective in influencing political decisions than would be challenging leadership directly.
Thats part of our thinking. The analytical community, as the report shows, made strong (and wrong) policy recommendations. Challenging the basis of those recommendations is the first step to getting the right aid to Ukraine.
The Washington Post piece you linked to was somewhat balanced. The NY Times had a truly awful justification of Biden's decision/non-decision.
"U.S. Intelligence Stresses Risks in Allowing Long-Range Strikes by Ukraine" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/us/politics/us-ukraine-strikes.html
One argument especially irritates me: we don't have the weapons to send. It is stated as if it is a consequence of God or nature. If we are pursuing an "as long as it takes" strategy, why haven't we geared up to win a war of attrition? If it is true we don't have more to send (dubious), why wasn't production ramped up through the Defense Production Act? Obviously it was and remains a choice.
Some production has been ramped up, but since the US itself isn’t at war, using the DPA would most likely be viewed as *overkill* by most Americans. The big problem with the US is that the doctrine calls for the military to have enough kit on hand to fight 2 wars concurrently. The sheer amount of stuff we have stashed away all over the world is truly mind boggling. And why we can’t give it to the Ukrainians NOW and backfill our own stocks as needed is also beyond my powers of comprehension.
All I can do is keep working to get Kamala Harris elected and hope that her words on the campaign trail translate into action by my government once she’s elected in November. With any luck, Biden will begin to allow the *Harris Doctrine* to be implemented prior to next January.
One bright spot, maybe? Biden is shoving all the aid the money he secured from Congress earlier this year will procure out the door. I believe there is around $6 billion left in the cash pile.
Philips, do you think there is any chance the US will permit strikes into Russia and not publicly announce it (like they did with ATACMS when they were first delivered)? This is the hope I’m holding out for - against the odds.
Today Stefan Korshak breaks down in detail how minimal our arms supply is to Ukraine:
US Arms Assistance to Ukraine — Time for Another Reality Check
Yes the US just offered up close to $8 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, and it will be helpful, but it will be neither decisive nor is it a policy shift. It’s mostly ammunition, which obviously Ukraine needs.
But it isn’t massive amounts of ammunition of the scale that would allow Ukraine defenses to blast Russian attacks to bits.
Nor is it the kind of high-tech ammunition that would allow Ukraine to smash major Russian targets.
Key weapons systems Ukrainian critically needs and has used with devastating effect, are short or are just missing.
By the line items…
- 155mm and 105mm artillery shells but given US production capacity it won’t be enough to give the UAF firepower dominance on the battlefield
- No ATAMCS missiles, period. This is the single most effective ground system the US has given Ukraine, and unlike a lot of other systems there aren’t really alternatives from Europe.
- The AGS 154 glide bomb is not quite useless, but to get its maximum range the Ukrainian airplane dropping it has to fly high, and high-flying Ukrainian airplanes get shot down
- One Patriot missile system. Ukraine needs between 15–30 to cover all its air space.
- Expanding US-based F-16 pilot training for Ukrainians from six slots every 14 months to eighteen means that it will be about 2026 before Ukraine would have enough F-16 pilots to fly the F-16s donated by Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.
- Zelensky et al. have been telling anyone who will listen for months they have about 6–8 brigades of men that can’t go fight because weaponry promised by the West, hasn’t arrived. This is basically infantry fighting vehicles, artillery and tanks. The US has thousands sitting in mothballs. This arms assistance contains, as I read it, zero heavy weapons for Ukraine
It is of course absolutely fair and correct to point out that the US national security interest might not be best served by handing over all of the US Army’s ATACMS missiles and Patriot anti-aircraft systems wholesale to the UAF.
But anyone who says this scale of support is decisive and major US assistance to Ukraine, is selling you snake oil. This is six months of the US not assisting Ukraine at all, packed up all together at once, and dressed up like major assistance.
When US government officials say they are backing Ukraine, we need to be clear, that support is limited and it is not intended to get decisive effects.
And it really doesn’t matter how administration officials spin it, because we have 30 months of war that has given us an absolutely crystal clear picture of how battles are won and lost in actual combat. We can look at the facts and judge for ourselves.
Here’s the KP article for more:
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/39633
https://substack.com/@stefankorshak/p-149552308
Not that I am discounting any reporting, but that seems like an awfully large sum of money to provide the *meh* supplies the US plans to fork over. I don’t have any facts to back this up, but my gut tells me that someone has finally learned their lesson about broadcasting every item being sent over prior to its being sent. I hope I’m right about this. I guess we will know soon enough.
I don't agree that much of the public would have seen a DPA invocation as overkill. Either Putin's aggression is a serious threat to our long term security or it isn't. I seriously doubt that even the majority of Republicans would have objected in an era when public support for rebuffing putin had large supermajority support. A demonstration of real commitment to a successful outcome would have changed everything. If you oppose such action, you must own the grim facts we face today.
Biden didn't even accelerate weapons production meaningfully with actions short of DPA.
The U.S. has left Ukraine twisting in the wind. This at a time when analysts generally agree that both the U.S. and Europe are playing catch up on arms production.
We have no other plan underway other than to hope that Ukraine will be pressured into a partition sooner than later. People like Biden & Ignatius & Haass sincerely hope for a good settlement for Ukraine. But they aren't willing to offer the weapons to achieve even that minimal goal. They accept defeat with thoughts & prayers & "we tried our best under a nuke threat."
Richard, I think this war was Biden's chance - and responsibility - to step up as an unofficial "war time president"; even if the war between Ukraine and Russia is not an official war with NATO and the west, this was his opportunity to maximize the chances of preventing that from happening in the foreseeable future. A true and very unsettling strategic blunder.
...by ensuring that Ukraine was appropriately and sufficiently well armed so that it could actually win the war.
Thank you Richard. Let me add:
- Only materiel donated via the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (and separately, Patriot missiles) is donated quickly. The rest is new contracts, which takes many months or years. (In the last aid package approved by Congress, PDA funds were rather modest)
- That much of the aid to Ukraine means jobs for US workers, profit for US companies, consequently taxes paid to US governments, a stronger US defense industrial base, and brand new replacement materiel for the US military. Not to mention the many indirect benefits to the US military and also the US national interest.
- Sanctions are incredibly half hearted, with priority clearly on minimizing even slight collateral damage in home markets over throttling the Russian war machine. Specifically speaking to large and easily trackable goods not being sanctioned for years while small and impossible to effectively sanction goods are, or Russian defense contractors not being sanctioned for years, in some cases gross incompetence appears to also be a culprit.
- Australia as a country mothballing (and -in some cases destroying!!!) useful equipment because its government can’t get organized enough to get the equipment to Ukraine
FYI, the US does have thousands of ATACMS to send from stockpiles, and new production started months ago. The US military does not want these missiles for its own use, as deliveries of the replacement to these decades-old missiles already started last year.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-new-atacms-ukraine-1897435
https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2023-12-11/army-precision-strike-missile-12323575.html
The newsweek article contradicts reporting from a year ago that ATACMS production was ending (other than a small number to fulfill contracts with foreign govs, I think mainly Turkey.)
THe situation is always murky. Your interpretation could be right. The pentagon is free to say whatever works for them.
The shortcomings of analysts? Colleges for example are limiting and closing history departments. We are producing computer coders and finance analysts. The intellectual base is becoming limited. Prior to medicine I was a history major in college. Why? I saw the faculty was educated in science, economics, sociology and more. A college education does not equal educated.
Phillips, as one of your paying subscribers I am humbled to be part of the loyal following you have amassed and the thinking we have seen on Ukraine, US politics, and strategy in general. Thank you for all you do!
As for the CSIS report, I look forward to digesting it when time permits, but knowing you and Eliot Cohen are leading this, I expect some eye opening findings. I do agree that we need more and varied expertise looking at these matters as you suggest in this update. It is too easy for groups of like minded and trained individuals to miss so much, and frankly to slant analysis to a place that gives them job security. I am so glad you mentioned economists and historians (my two fields of study!) but also linguists, game theorists (subset of economics) as well as sociologist and political scientists and mix it all together.
I also think this would help with forward looking strategy such as the horrifically mistaken position taken by the Biden Administration to not green light long range strikes immediately. This too suffers from narrow minded thinking. It seems the only place of reasonable thinking is coming from Foggy Bottom these days with Tony Blinken!
Keep fighting the good fight, Phillips!
I've gotten quite used to reading sycophantic comments on X but this group of professional ball cuppers really takes the cake!
I would really not have you here if you are going to hurl childish insults. Your money is unimportant. Either engage civilly or you will be removed.
This group has been a breath of fresh air as it’s the only place where we can have civil discussions about this war and still have differences of opinions.
Ironically, I do think that when you start having trolls signing up to your subscription, this means you are making an impact Professor! Keep on doing what you’re doing. It’s clearly working.
If you find this so distasteful I suggest you depart this forum and find one that satisfies your hateful rhetoric.
I have been part of this community for over a year as a subscriber and whilst I do not agree with everything, I value everyone's considered contributions. Your contribution does not add value.
Have a nice day!
I will admit that calling this forum a group of ball cuppers was probably a little antagonistic and unnecessarily graphic, I'll make you a deal, I'll try to avoid such comments if you stop abusing the meaning of words and stick to only fact filled or logical opinions :) I hope yoyu have a nice day!
This doesn't read like an apology, but rather a threat to continue being offensive if you don't agree with what someone else writes. You shouldn't need any special incentive to treat others with respect.
I'm not sure what precisely in my comment warrants your 'hateful' badge??
though I'm not surprised that you find my comment distasteful because as a leftist you're programmed to only agree with the groupthink logic, so anyone who challenges even a single tenet of your narrative is viewed and labeled as 'hateful' so you can dismiss anything they say without being exposed to any truths which may pose potential threats to the authoritarian power your side so clearly seeks.
"If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you aren't allowed to criticize."
I believe in time that people who abuse language for political power the way you are here will be viewed with the likes of people like Hitler, Stalin and yes even Putin, all of whom did not tollerate any speech or even though outside of the strict dictate of the collective.
Your "suggestion" is duly noted sir, though it reads to anyone with an acute knowledge of history more like a typical leftist threat
Peter. Please don't you yourself abuse language by calling the commentors at this Neoconservative Professor's Substack 'leftists'. They may consider themselves 'Liberal' and most seem to be what we here in the UK call 'Centrists', but these people aren't of the Left - not even close.
I am a life long liberal. The Democratic party however is no longer liberal.
The Democratic party is no longer the party of working people (as illustrated by latest vote by the Teamsters who favored Trump by some 60% to 40%).
The formerly liberal party has been taken over by leftists so that's how I describe them.
The root of the word Liberal is 'Liberty' and the Dems seem to be very anti-Liberty and regularity say such things like "f*ck your freedom" for instance
Liberals don't censor speech,
Liberals don't cheer on the military industrial complex,
Liberals don't root for corporate capture of government agencies
Liberals don't acquiesce to the whims of big Pharma
Maybe you were once liberal, but if you support the Democratic Party, the same party that just very "democratically" installed a hate filled, racist against her own people, do nothing, candidate who nobody voted for, then you my friend are little more than a 'useful idiot' for those who would bring Socialism and or Communism to America like your biggest funder George Soros
LOL!
Actually Peter - scrap what I just said about being more frightened by a Harris presidency than a Trump one. I've just seen his comments about blowing Iran to smithereens because the likes of Avril Haines showed him some cak about them trying to kill him. These were the VERY people who stoked the Russiagate hoax. Haines was the one who decided not to prosecute those who bugged Caongress and she's responsible for sky-robot murders the world over. She was an employee of Anthony Blinken's company FFS. He rolls over to the blob every time. He's learned nothing, nothing at all - do not expect him to change a thing.
Thanks Peter, but it’s a bugbear of mine. For context I’m an Englishman who lives in Hove who subscribed here first because I came across the Professor’s SWW work & then stuck around because I don’t like echo chambers (which is an unfortunate consequence of Substack’s model). The longer I’ve been here the more obvious it has become that the Professor is just another, off-the-shelf, no-reverse-gear, chicken-hawk Neoconservative and it’s worth £8 every now and then to dip in and challenge his BS.
My current subscription has only a couple of weeks to go so I’m going to bow out of this particular chamber by taking every opportunity to tell the Prof and his acolytes what I think of them. I was polite when I arrived, but months of not getting straight answers wears you down – particularly regarding the AFU’s horrendous casualties – something the maniacs around here never try to quantify.
My politics are those of ‘The Left’ - mostly those of Tony Benn & Jeremy Corbyn – or similarish to Jimmy Dore, George Galloway’s & Roger Water’s if those first two names don’t mean anything to you. In the US this might have been called Democratic Socialist until they shat the bed. I’m a free speech absolutist and believe that the level of privacy afforded to anyone or anything should be in indirect proportion to their size & power (so the Government have none, Google, Pfizer, FB etc have very little – and everyday citizens have plenty with the likes of Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk and yes (Atlanticist tw*t) Soros somewhere in between).
I’m in my mid 50s so well remember the Cold War – and watched Threads on its first release and am staggered with how indifferent these lunatics are regarding escalation towards nuclear war. The level of propaganda we’ve received re the Russians is staggering – Russiagate, election meddling, CW attacks, poisonings, hacks they’ve been accused of everything and it’s all been either absolute rubbish or massively exaggerated.
I’d almost certainly be voting for Jill Stein were I in the US, but fear a Harris/Waltz/Cheney Presidency very much more than I do a Trump one – although they’re both in hock to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv so they’re scum in equal measure.
That the PMC, sh*tLibs that dominate the mainstream are called left irritates the hell out of me.
Good luck with your subscription here – don’t expect any straight answers from the Prof, don’t expect many from his commentors (there are one or two exceptions), do expect a load of the zombie Russiagate stories, do expect to be accused of being paid by Putin and do expect a bit of flip-flopping (e.g. areas on maps only matter when the RF are attacking, Bakhmut was not strategically important according to the Prof until his report with Cohen this week, weapons are critical then over-rated etc). Have fun.
"So the analysis for Russia and Ukraine was not only off, it represented the greatest strategic failure in analysis in modern history. If you don’t believe me—try and find a worse case."
and
"...the expertise that studied the Russian and Ukrainian military was actually quite limited, and focussed in a small group of analysts of the Russian military."
My challenge / thought to you on this, although I think you're broadly correct, is to place this in a wider context of failure of strategic thinking. Again, I bring this back to the Middle East in general and Syria in particular.
The 'West' seized one huge opportunity after the collapse of the Soviet Union by assisting much of the (European) soviet block in to the EU and NATO, reinforcing trends and desires that were already part of those societies and massively strengthening the democratic capitalist world at the same time.
The 'West' missed another huge opportunity with the Arab Spring, which can probably be traced back to the failure of Bush's invasion of Iraq (at least its failure to deliver a successful, pro-Western government). The Arab Spring was another opportunity to support much more democratic, liberal and liberalising trends throughout much of the Middle East. Instead, after flirting with support for reformers and rebels, the West got cold feet and threw its weight behind the dictators (whether they be pro or anti Western) in the name of 'stability'.
This undermined western influence and encouraged our opponents - like Putin - to believe that they could outlast us. And we're yet to prove them wrong. We could win if we made the decision that we wanted to win. But Biden is the latest in a line of western leaders that is scared of victory. (This is different to Trump's desire that the forces of corruption and dictatorship win, but it's still not a good place to be.)
I think it's this fear of victory that underpins much of the analytical thinking in the west, and which encouraged policymakers to assume that Russia would win, despite evidence from e.g. Syria that this needn't be a foregone conclusion if only Russian imperialism's (much more motivated) opponents would be given support.
<--- This.
I think it's absolutely wrong to see this analytical failure as a one-off. The US has a *spectacular* history of *total* analytical failure dating back to... hmmm.... well, the Vietnam War at least. Just constant, constant analytical failure.
The Vietnam War was a fundamental analytical failure because US analysts treated it as a proxy war about communism, when it was ACTUALLY an anti-colonial national liberation war. Whoops.
I would also challenge Phillips O'Brien to situate this analytical failure in the context of the constant analytical failures of the US government.
Not noticing the collapse of the USSR happening. Not seeing Chernobyl coming. Supporting dictators repeatedly (this problem dates back to *President Monroe*) even when the democratic governments really would have been better for the US, according to historians.
Well done on the substack success. You deserve it. Happy to be a paying subscriber and happy to be giving 30 quid a month to Come Back Alive.
Thats awesome news about CBA!
It is hard to gauge the depth of Democratic support for Ukraine without a well elucidated plan. During election campaign it's probably right of Harris to be vague so as not to alienate any supporters but when/if US support ramps up to the level it should be for the protector of Western Democracy the Republicans will pounce on the slightest failure. We are in an era where hyper politics passes through the border.
I read the Atlantic article.
I gotta correct you on a tangential point.
The so-called "public health" leadership at CDC, WHO, state health departments, the NHS, has learned nothing. They are still refusing to use respirator masks (N95, P100) even in HOSPITALS.
I've been working with the actual aerosol science experts on this fight for several years now. The utter, dogmatic resistance and hostility to evidence is extraordinary. It is stone-cold proven fact that FFP3 masks stop Covid, and garbage loose surgical masks do not. NHS refuses to listen. Same thing happening in the US with CDC.
BMA statement on this atrocity (note sections 9 through 11):
https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/covid-19/what-the-bma-is-doing/bma-closing-statement-to-the-uk-covid-19-module-2
I'd actually suggest you correct the Atlantic article because "public health leadership" has been even worse than Russocentric "Russia analysts". Far worse actually. They're *physics deniers* (it's aerosol physics which they're denying). And they've killed more people.
All your analysis over the last two years has been very worthwhile. Thanks for taking the time to publish it.
You want a worse case of analysis? How about you read anything provided by the 'Project for the New American Century'. With Brown University estimating at least five million dead from the subsequent War On Terror I think the Ukraine-Russia errors have been rather mild in comparison.
Both are humanitarian catastrophes. I wouldn't feel comfortable calling the Russian war on Ukraine "mild".
Solid analysis as always, thank you
It has been clear to me for many years now that the Republicans under Trump would like to grease Putin but are confined politically. Including Speaker Mike Johnson. This is why Trump was impeached! And now Republicans are wholly a cult of personality surrounding Trump, someone that will not criticize or really do anything in opposition of Putin. We can only speculate why this is, but it is a clear pattern over years. The Republicans are captured by Trump. Trump is captured by Putin.
And consider the possibility Putin and Trump have coordinated messaging surrounding Ukraine, if not explicitly, then by nodding and winking. Russia tries to advance the narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the fault of the West, NATO expansion and provocations against Russia. And they are trying to telegraph that similarly, an expansion of authorization of Western weapons against Russian targets would cause Russia to escalate against NATO or use WMDs. So Americans now hear this from the adversary directly and one of two domestic political parties. So, no matter how bogus, the Russia-friendly narrative *sounds* legitimate if you are not following very closely.
It is next-level reflexive control. And it is not necessarily a bluff, it may be a trap. If Biden makes the authorization, Putin can drop WMDs or attack NATO, right before the election takes place. It is truly a pickle.
The Russians have deep influence over the American opposition party. Biden’s leadership has been too weak, I could not agree more. But we should also be eyes-wide-open about the severe challenges here, political and informational more than material and economic.
This is Russia’s hybrid world war, and if Trump wins the election, it nearly assures Russia gets to win the war in Ukraine, it can take at least 4 years to consolidate its winnings, swallow the spoils, rebuild its war machine and set its sights further West, likely against a fractured NATO.
The US political battle for the White House remains the decisive, critical front of the conflict imo
I’ve posted this little list here previously – and updated it from time to time – it shows some of the things that Trump actually did whilst in power and since. It shows very little evidence of being in the pocket of Putin.
Trump sent arms to Ukraine after Obama had not. He was impeached for threatening to delay these payments – not cancel them.
Trump’s forces illegally occupied 1/3 of Syria (Russian ally), bombed it and killed Russian civilians there in a number of attacks.
Trump supported a coup attempt and all sorts of shenanigans in Venezuela (Russian ally)
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty.
Trump sold Patriot missiles to Poland and sentan extra 1,000 US troops there.
Trump sent Abrams tanks to Estonia (Atlantic Resolve) and trained Baltic States & Polish forces in resisting Russian aggression – including insurgency (Operation Ridge Runner).
Trump imposed sanctions following annexation of Crimea (Russia expelled US diplomats).
Trump imposed two more rounds of sanctions and mass expulsion of Russian diplomats after the Skripal fairytale.
Trump sanctioned Prigozyn and others following Mueller’s IRA hysterics.
Trump forced RT reporters to register as Russian agents.
Trump refused to recognise Russian’s ownership of Crimea, but happy to do so for the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights & their moving of capital to Jerusalem.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran nuclear deal (very much against Putin’s wishes).
Trump repeatedly threatened Nordstream II – threatened to sanction Germany and associated companies repeatedly.
And even this summer he did plenty of work to get those billions released to Ukraine:
https://www.mtracey.net/p/never-forget-that-donald-trump-snookered?utm_source=publication-search
Trump says a lot of different guff to different people – what do you expect, he’s a prick – but this view that he’s Putin’s puppet is childish nonsense. The Mueller report came up with nothing. The FISA/Carter Page scandal showed that the FBI were bugging his entire campaign in 2016, but they came up with nothing. That’s because there is nothing.
Your list of things that the US did under Trump that were done to contain Russia would be laughable next to a list from any other President Especially because it is written from the viewpoint of Russian state propaganda and contains items that were on Russias wish list like the treaty withdrawals. US forces returned fire against attacking Russian mercenaries in Syria for example, not Trump ordering attacks on Russian civilians. That is an absurd framing obviously stretching hard to cover the truth. That Trump has helped not hurt the effort to fund Ukraine’s defense is also an absurdity, one that I found insulting to my intelligence tbh. Trump caved to political pressure after single handedly holding the funding up for months.
I’m not going to bother to list all the things Trump has done to stroke Putin and degrade NATO — it could not be a more consistent and obvious pattern, shocking as it is
I think you should maybe review the evidence against Paul Manafort if you don’t believe collusion occurred. Mueller isn’t infallible by any stretch. I wrote about it in detail here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/radmod/p/manaforts-collusion-post-soviet-machinations
And here:
https://radmod.substack.com/p/flashback-to-2016-the-5-year-mariupol
And anyone calling Skripal a fairy tale is suspect AF in my book. Why cover for a WMD terror attack on British soil if you are not a Russian stooge?
Oh and that substack pice takes as fact that there was a hack of the DNC - but Crowdstrike's Sean Henry testified under oath that they had no evidence that data was ever hacked - despite them forensically monitoring the servers at the time.
Re the Manaford accusations it includes - you'd have thought that some of those claims might have shown up in the phone calls in the Trump campaignb - which were being tapped by the FBI at the time. None did.
Oh go on give me the list of things Trump did to 'stroke Putin' - I'd love to hear them.
What did Manaford do? You're not talking about all the poll data stuff are you? That's his links with Konstantine Killimnik was it? The supposed Russian spy who had plenty of links with various US embassies who flagged nothing about his Russian spying? The Killinmik that Mueller didn't bother to try to interview?
I wrote this for a comment elsewhere, but here’s why the UK gov’s Skripal story doesn't stand up:
I don’t know what happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal – or Dawn Sturgess & Charlie Rowley for that matter, but what I do know is that the UK government’s story is shot through of bizarre coincidences and near-impossiblities that make it almost certainly bogus.
Seeing this evolve in real-time (with some friends who live in Salisbury and have ‘walked the ground’) wasn’t so much a ‘red pill’ for me as it was a London bus suppository such was my amazement at our Establishment media’s complicity at the time. Here are some fun facts that you HAVE to accept to believe the UK government’s version of events as they are in the public domain:
That a 60 year old diabetic man and a 30 year old, fit and healthy woman received a dermal dose of a nerve agent from a door handle. The two remained symptom-free and in health good enough to go for a drive, a walk in a park, feed some ducks, have a few pints in a pub and a multi-course Italian meal before collapsing on a park bench four hours after the dose. The collapses were so simultaneous that neither was able to raise the alarm for the other. Their symptom-free-then-rapid-collapse response to the (alleged) novichok poisoning were in stark contrast to those displayed by the other individual who (allegedly) suffered in those first few days – PC Nick Bailey. He became ill over a period of at least 48 hours first going to work and returning home.
No one in the Establishment media has asked, let alone, received an answer to, any question regarding the physiological mechanism behind this, hitherto unknown to science, delayed-action nerve-agent effect in the Skripals or why PC Bailey’s reaction was completely different. (Please post links if you have any – I’d love to be corrected on this).
The first medic at the scene at the park bench was a nurse, a non Salisbury resident who happened to be passing by doing some shopping after a birthday party with her daughter. This nurse just happened to be Colonel Alison McCourt - the most senior nurse in the entire British Army - and one who had received training in the treatment of the effects of nerve agents. No one in the Establishment media has questioned the likelihood of this quite astonishing coincidence.
Despite there being no suggestion that the two alleged Russian agents ever entered Sergie Skripal’s house or did anything other than spray ‘Novichok’ on the door handle, some weeks later the roof was considered to be so badly contaminated with the nerve agent that it had to be removed and destroyed. Only the roof – not the storeys in between. No one in the Establishment media has questioned why this was considered necessary, given the nature of the governments story.
The perfume bottle of novichok that killed Dawn Sturgess weeks after the poisoning of the Skripals, was found by her partner, Charlie Rowley, unopened in a charity bin four weeks after the original poisoning. A later BBC dramatisation of the events obfuscated this fact with cutting that made it appear that Rowley had found the perfume in the hours after the Skripals were found – not weeks later. No one in the Establishment media has questioned the likelihood of this occurrence.
This perfume bottle was found on the worktop in Sturgess’s house ELEVEN DAYS after the police had begun a thorough search of the property looking for just such an object. No one in the Establishment media has questioned quite how they managed to miss it.
Despite Salisbury council having recently installed a multi-million pound, city-wide CCTV system – the recordings of which were seized by the Met Police - the UK authorities claim not to be able to account for the movements of the Skripals or the two alleged Russian agents on the day of the poisoning. FoI requests (from local citizens, not the Establishment media) have confirmed that all the cameras – including one pointed directly at the bench where the Skripals were found – were functioning on the afternoon of the events. No one in the Establishment media has asked why the ahthorities have produced only fragments of what must be a very extensive picture of both the Skripals and the two Russian suspects movements on that weekend. No one in the Establishment media bothered to attempt to retrace the Russian’s steps on the days they were in Salisbury – if they had they may have noticed how close they came at various times and why the alleged agents routes were bizarre given what we know from the fragments released.
I could go on – there’s the videos of un-gloved security personnel using the doorhandle in the 48 hours before the doorhandle story became public, the UK Government’s media-gagging DSMA notices, there’s the not at all ill children the Skripals handed bread to to feed the ducks, there’s the hotel room in London that was allegedly contaminated with novichok that the British authorities didn’t bother to warn was a potential health risk for months after the event and the BBC’s Mark Urban’s ‘news’ that he’d been interviewing Skripal in the months prior to his poisoning which he kept to himself until months after the globe was focussed on this furore and much, much more.
But this is all accepted and acceptable by our Establishment media because to do otherwise would prove them to be wild conspiracy theorists and apologists for Putin.
As I said, I’ve no real idea what went on that weekend – those two Russians were up to something -, but I do know that the official narrative is nonsense – and don’t forget it was being fed to us in real-time by that paragon of proberty Boris Johnson who was Foreign Secretary at the time.
You can find links to news and other articles here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/04/pure-ten-points-i-just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/
And a longer discussion here:
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/the-day-of-the-skripal
STOP PRESS: Just last week the UK’s long-delayed ‘inquiry’ into the death of Dawn Sturgess is continuing without any input from the Skripals at all. Not by video link, not with voices distorted, not at all. Apparently this is just too much of a risk for them – the UK with all it’s military and intelligence might – just can’t protect them. I think that’s as ludicrous as the hodge-podge of coincidences and strange events that form the UK’s story above – what do you think?
https://johnhelmer.org/the-end-of-the-skripals/
“ The Killinmik that Mueller didn't bother to try to interview?”
Another gross absurdity desperately trying to cover the obvious truth. Icymi, the Russian spy’s “wanted by the FBI” photo, stemming from charges brought by Mueller, is a cover photo to a piece I wrote about how 2016 collusion relates to the Ukraine struggle today
https://radmod.substack.com/p/flashback-to-2016-the-5-year-mariupol
Thanks for the piece - I note you call Kilimnik a Russian Agent - but neither the Mueller or Intel Reports do so and offer no evidence that he is or was. What makes you so sure?
Also what makes you so sure about the UK's Skripal story?
I quoted the US Senate Intelligence Committee Report’s executive summary in my other piece on the topic:
“ Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer.”
Here:
https://substack.com/@shucks/p-88995105
The Mueller report also notes the FBI assessment that Kilmnik is tied to Russian intelligence. It also details how Manafort’s assistant Rick Gates told investigators he’s surmised Kilimnik was a Russian spy and had discussed this with Manafort.
That much is not debated seriously, nor is that the DNC was hacked. One step further, the CIA assessed that the info passed to Kilimnik by Gates and Manafort made its way back to Russian intelligence to be used in on-line influence campaigning to assist the Trump campaign.
Can you include in your list all the rebuttals you’ve received as to why your list is garbage?
Congratulations on the success of the Substack, Phillips, and thanks for all the work you put into it. I come here for the high quality of analysis and for the straightforward way that you have of explaining things. I've learned a lot, not only from you, but also from commenters.
I really appreciate that you were able to take some of the subscription income and forward it on to Come Back Alive. I donate $20 a month, which honestly isn't very much, but I know that every bit counts.
Keep it up Paul. I'm giving 30 euros a month. It's not much but together, we make 50€/$.
As a paying subscriber I appreciate your gratitude, but I want to thank you for providing such a wonderful resource. Thank you so much!
I personally believe that if Harris is elected, we see the outgoing Biden administration ceding to Harris’s wishes on permissions and longer ranged strikes begin basically the day after the results are clear. I also think the Biden admin is cautious about not escalating the war or doing anything that might negatively impact Harris politically on one of her unfavorables, which is the same for Biden— foreign policy. Despite support for Ukraine remaining popular in the US overall, they seem concerned that at the same time it all gets laid, fairly or unfairly, at their feet, which is true. They want the war in Gaza and Lebanon over for sure, but with Ukraine they want the war in stasis for the time being.
It’s not fair to Ukraine, and quite sad, but their future is wrapped up in our contentious political contest, sure to be decided by people who could not place Ukraine (or Lebanon for that matter) on a map.
Same was true in 2019-2020, sadly. Remember the orange monster’s illegal yet “perfect call” to Zelensky that got him impeached when reported on?
> I personally believe that if Harris is elected, we see the outgoing Biden administration ceding to Harris’s wishes on permissions and longer ranged strikes begin basically the day after the results are clear.
I'm doubtful about this. I think that usually the presidential lame duck period is a time where the outgoing administration tries not to rock the boat, so as not to create any new crisis for the incoming administration. Maintain the status quo, and wait for the incoming administration to take the reins and make the changes they want.