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CrossTalk: Poroshenko's War
While
it appears there is a commitment to a multilateral ceasefire in the
country, the fighting continues. Is Kiev's "anti-terrorist
operation" in eastern Ukraine generating results beyond the
killing of civilians? Is Poroshenko likely to fail as Ukraine's new
president? And where does Ukraine go from here? CrossTalking with
Alexander Nekrassov, John Robles and Padraig Belton.
Сводка
новостей Новороссии (ДНР,ЛНР) 04 июля
2014 - Summary of Novorossia news 04.07.2014
For
the record: Strelkov, Iazov and my position concerning a Russian
intervention in Novorussia
4
July, 2014
Today,
as soon as I published the appeal by Strelkov I got comments
apparently telling me ("sorry Saker") that Strelkov was not
very credible. Now that I have also posted a report about Iazov's
views, I suppose that others will accuse me of "waiting too
long" or for, as always, "worshiping Putin". So,
again - I have done so many times already - I will try to explain my
personal position on these issues.
First,
the fact that I post something here does not, repeat, not mean that I
endorse it or agree with it. All you can conclude from me posting
here is that I find what I post of interest, either factual, or as a
possible contribution to an intelligent discussion.
Second,
my position on Strelkov and other Novorussian sources. I will be
honest with you, I rate the public information record of Strelkov,
ANNA news, Golos Sevastopolia and others as completely inadequate,
primitive and unreliable. I am, in fact, immensely frustrated by
this. But I am also aware that not only are these guys not PR pros,
they are not even amateurs. They are trying their very best and
their very best is the best I can get for this blog. Who am I to
decide not to post something here only because it is poorly presented
or because the source has already made widely exaggerated claims?!
We are not talking about a poorly made report about the latest
results from the World Cup in Brazil or tennis from Wimbledon. We
are talking about reports made by people who undeniably put their
lives at risk (very much including the folks at ANNA-news and all
other real journalists) and who are working in horrendous
circumstances. Furthermore, in a war zone the people on the ground
often know less than the folks safely hidden in underground bunkers
or outside the conflict area altogether. Also, and this is always
overlooked, folks in a warzone are often very severely sleep
deprived. So many Strelkov really thinks that by his statements he
can save the lives of some of his men? He might even sincerely
believe that a Russian intervention is necessary. The bottom line is
this: Stelkov, ANNA-news and the others are giving us what they can,
it is their very best effort, and that is all that I have to oppose
to the phenomenally sophisticated, multi-billion dollar worldwide
propaganda network of the AngloZionist Empire.
Have
you seen the footage of the Novorussian soliders taking old WWII
tanks (a T-34 and a IS-1) off their plinths, cleaning them and,
amazingly, re-starting their engines (which says a lot about the
quality of Soviet weapons!)? One of the NDF soliders said to the
camera "sure its old, but it can still shoot straight through a
APC". Well, the same goes for the information war, which I have
to fight it with what I have, not with what I wish I had. This is
why I will continue to post views in favor and against a direct
Russian intervention, and why I will continue to post ANNA-news or
Strelkov reports as long as they are available. I will not post
facts which I know are false, nor will I deliberately lie, of course.
But censoring Strelkov on the grounds that his credibility is shaky
at best? Nope, that would be morally wrong.
As
for my personal position it is this:
In
my heart I felt that a Russian intervention was justifiable and
needed as soon as I heard Poroshenko's inauguration speech. I fact,
I had predicted that it would happen within days. It did not. Well,
even though it did not, my heart still believes that it should have
happened right then, and that it for sure should happen right now,
that waiting any further is both morally and pragmatically wrong.
In
my mind, I am much more cautious. As soon as I heard Poroshenko's
inauguration speech I did conclude that Russia had no other choice
but to intervene. To my surprise, that intervention never
materialized, at least overtly. As a ex-professional military
analyst I know that there are some explanations for this which make
sense, other which don't. Explanations such as "Putin is a
coward" or "Putin was bought off" are, what I call
"Gunfight at the OK Corral" kind of explanations: simple,
clear and ideally adapted to a primitive Hollywood western movie type
of plot. In real life, things are much more complex and the reality
is that Putin, along with his Security Council, has made a judgment
call with which one can agree or not, but which does not have to be
simplified and reduced to "Gunfight at the OK corral" type
of level.
For
example, we know that the Russian intelligence services conducted
covert polls in Crimea which assured them that the support for a
Russian intervention was even higher than what they had predicted.
Putin himself revealed that. We can be absolutely sure that such
covert polls were also conducted - and still are - in the Donbass.
What we do not know is what these polls show. So let's make a simple
thought experiment, in particular with those of you who are
categorically in favor of a Russian intervention. Would you still
support a Russian intervention if you found out that only 60% of the
people in Novorussia wanted it? What about 50%? Or 45%? What if it
was only 30% or even less? Keep in mind that, at least so far, the
worst hit by the Ukie invasion are small towns while the majority of
the population lives in the bigger cities. Also keep in mind that a
good chunk of the locals work in companies belonging to the oligarch
Renat Akhmetov who is categorically opposed to an intervention and
who declared that he would not pay salaries to those who go on strike
or do not work. Are you still convinced that a majority of
Novorussians want an intervention? And assuming that yes, did you
ever ask yourself what else they might want? What if they also want
Russia to pay for their social services (Kiev sure ain't!), what if
they want Russia to pay for the complete reconstruction of the
region? Do you believe that Russia ought to pay for what was
destroyed by Nazis under US control?
I
was recently listening to a very interesting panel of experts
discussing Crimea and it is pretty clear that while Russia has the
means and the will to make Crimea prosperous again, it is also rather
obvious that this will take time and that in the initial stage Crimea
is a mess and a heavy burden for the Russian economy (it's mid to
long term prospects are fantastic - no worries here).
There
is another factor to consider: what will happen to the rump-Ukraine
(aka "Banderastan") and even the rest of the EU if Russia
intervenes directly. Let's make one more thought experiment, ok?
Say
the Russian intervene - they basically destroy all of the Ukrainian
armed forces and national guard within, say 48 hours. I don't mean
just the forces in the Donbass, I mean all of it. Just like they did
in Georgia. In Georgia the Russians did not have to enter Tbilissi
or or Batumi to basically completely disarm Saakashvili. They could
do that in the Ukraine too: encircle and destroy all the forces in
the East and use air and missile strikes to destroy whatever is left
in the rest of the country from the western border of Novorussia to
the Polish border. Then what?
Well,
the Novorussians would be safe, and I would be drinking Champagne
with my wife. But what would happen to the rest of the Ukraine? It
would be disarmed and totally cut-off from the Donbass and Crimea.
It's economy would have collapsed (it will anyways, no matter what
the Russians do) and nobody out there will have the money to pay for
a reconstruction. Heck, nobody out there would even have a plan on
how to resurrect a dead economy. Who do you think would fare best
and be in power then? That's right - the extremists. So just
imagine a President Iarosh backed by Prime Minister Kolomoiski ruling
their Nazi Banderastan with the help of their death squads. Can you
imagine what the pressure would be on Russia to take further action?
And, in the meantime, you can bet that NATO would go into
full-paranoia mode, with possibly US and Polish forces sent to
"protect" and "defend" the "Ukrainian
people" from the "Russian imperialist bear and Czar Putin".
In the meantime, Russia would have to shoulder the full price-tag
for such an immensely expensive operation while also paying for the
resurrection of the Donbass economy. As for the Russian military,
not only would it have to deal with the inevitable anti-Russian
partisan movement in the part of the Ukraine it would control, it
would also have to worry about deterring an always theoretically
possible US aggression while at the same time avoiding making things
worse and preventing a WWV (if WWIII was Cold War, and WWIV is the
current one, then the next one would be WWV, right?).
And
what do you think would be happening in the EU if the scenario above
plays itself out? Not only would the EU economy collapse (it might
do so even without a war in the Ukraine or sanctions against Russia),
but NATO would further squeeze its iron claws so deep into the Body
of Europe that it would be secure for decades. The EU would turn
into a US protectorate for the duration for yet another Cold/Warm War
which, again, could last for decades and waste a truly phenomenal
about of human and financial resources.
Do
you really want that?
Oh
I can already hear the armchair strategists pounding their fists in
indignation at, well, their armchairs, and saying:" but that is
not at all what we are saying, we only support a limited
intervention". Oh yeah? Let's look at these a little more
closely.
Usually,
the defenders of the limited intervention scenario offer three
options, or a combination thereof:
a)
a no-fly zone.
b)
a rapid in-and-out operation.
c)
an intervention limited "only" to the Donbas and not a step
further.
All
three of these options suffer form the same fatal flaw. They assume
that the other side will play ball and accept the limited nature of
that intervention. Take the no-fly zone. It is an act of war and
the Ukies would be fully justified in retaliating against it, no only
in the Donbass, but elsewhere. So what would you do if you were the
Russian President, you declared a no-fly zone over the Donbass, your
forces easily shoot out a number of Ukie airplanes out of the sky and
if the Ukie President decided to begin lobbing missiles at Sebastopol
or Rostov-on-the-Don? Would you expand the no-fly zone to the
Zaparozhskaia Oblast? What about the ground to ground missiles,
would you allow airstrikes to hunt them down like the US tried to do
with Saddam's Scuds?
The
fact is that these so-called "limited" options have a huge
tendency to grow in most unpredictable and, usually, painful manner.
No
offense to anybody, but I have to be blunt here: the so-called
"limited operations with no boots on the ground" are a myth
created by the US propaganda machine to justify US interventions
worldwide. And, to the extend that they truly can contribute to make
a bad situation infinitely worse, they do kinda "work" for
the US, but since Russia's goal is not just to make things worse in
the Ukraine, but to make them better, these limited operations are
most certainly not some kind of obvious panacea or even a good
choice.
As
for the US, which has been using such "limited"
interventions from Vietnam to Libya, when was the last time when such
a limited intervention stayed limited or made things better for the
country "hosting" it?
Does
that mean that I am opposed to a Russian intervention?
No,
not at all. What the above means is that unlike some commentators
and bloggers I am aware of the infinitely complex and numerous
factors which must be considered before the decision to send in
Russian forces is made. What the above means is that I am aware of
at least some, but not all, of the implications of such a situation.
This means that while Russia might have to intervene, the fact that
the Kremlin tries has hard as possible to avoid such a move is a sign
of wisdom, not of cowardice, stupidity or betrayal.
My
gut tells me that the US is so hell-bent on confrontation that Russia
will have no other choice than to intervene, possibly by imposing a
no-fly zone first. The sad reality is that while peace takes two,
war takes only one, and when I listen to the psychopathic freaks in
Kiev I have no hope at all for peace. There cannot be peace with
Nazis any more than with Wahabis: the only way to deal with these
freaks its to offer them a simple choice: desist or die. That is a
terrible thing to say, and it goes deeply against my personal
inclinations, but that is the terrible personal conclusion to which I
have come.
By
the way, Russia tried to ignore the Wahabi crazies in Chechnia and
they proved Russia wrong. Russia also tried to ignore Saakashvili
and his crazies, and they proved Russia wrong. Now Russia is trying
hard to ignore the Nazis in Banderastan, and I don't see any reason
believe that this time around this will work. But also please notice
this, Russia did not really intervene in Chechnia until the Russian
public opinion was fully and totally supportive for such an
intervention. Russia did not intervene in South Ossetia until the
Russian public opinion was fully in favor of that operation too
(although that is harder to prove, considering that Russia did only
wait 24 hours before deciding to really go after Saakashvili rather
than just protect or evacuate the Russian peacekeepers). It might
well be that Putin and his advisers have already come to the
conclusion that an overt intervention is inevitable, but that they
are waiting for the public opinion in Russia and even in Novorussia
to really back that option.
Again,
me? I am all for it. Now. But I am nobody and my opinion is
irrelevant. This is a judgment call to make for those who truly have
all the fact and who will shoulder the responsibility for making (or
not making) that call. Not me, not you, not even Mr Strelkov or Mr
Glazev: that is a decision which can only be made by the Russian
Security Council and, in the end, by Putin.
I
really don't envy him.
The
Saker
PS:
I suppose that some frankly stupid or simply dishonest and hostile
commentators or bloggers still will manage to take a sentence out of
context and make me say something I never did. Or they will
personally attack me again as if I had a say in what the Kremlin
decides. Frankly, I am tired of dealing with all sorts of strawman
arguments and of trying to set the record straight. Folks, contrary
to what you seem to think, I am not a Kremlin spokesman (that would
be Mr. Peskov) nor does being aware of the complexities of the real
world out there automatically make me a Putin apologist. For those
of you who have simple and obvious solutions I have just this to say:
"good for you, now please go to your room and let the adults
continue their conversation".
Keeping
things in perspective - it's not only Putin
4
July, 2014
It
is natural to try to personify the current stance of Russia by saying
that "Putin did this" or "Putin did that" but the
danger of this Putin-centric view is that if overlooks a far more
complex reality. In particular,
1)
This approach implies that Putin is all-powerful and does not have to
take other people or powers into account.
2)
It overlooks the role of Russian public opinion.
Contrary
to the western MSM propaganda, Russia is not a dictatorship or even
some special sort of authoritarian regime. I would even argue that
Russia is far more democratic than most western regimes, especially
if real pluralism and diversity is the criterion by which "democracy"
is measured (there can be no possible denial that Russia is
infinitely more democratic than the USA which is neither a democracy
nor a republic, but a dictatorship run by and for the 1% plutocracy
which keeps the 99% in a conditional similar to modern version of
feudal serfdom). True - Putin has succeeded in concentrating most of
state power in his hands, but he is far from having the control of
most economic power in Russia, nor is the bureaucracy he rules over
monolithic: there are powerful clans and lobbies inside it fighting
for power, including the pro-Western "Atlantic Integrationists".
One of such powerful lobbies is the Russian military.
Recently,
the ex-Soviet Minister of Defense, Dimitri Iazov, the only Soviet
Marshal still alive, spoke before a meeting of the Association of the
All-Army Reserve Officers and declared that:
"Some
hotheads are in favor of sending our armed forces into the territory
of South-Eastern Ukraine, where there is a war taking place. We
cannot allow this. We cannot send out troops into the territory of
People's Republics of Donbass and Lugansk, which are unrecognized
republics and which are part of another country - Ukraine. Such
reckless actions could lead to a third world war."
Now
Iazov is hardly a softie or a pot-smoking peacenik. In fact, Iazov
was not only the last Minister of Defense and Marshal of the USSR up
until 1991, he also a member of the GKChP or State Committee on the
State of Emergency which tried to overthrow Gorbachev in the 1991
coup. We are talking about a man who fought during WWII and who
later rose through the ranks to become a Candidate Member of the
Soviet Politburo. In other words, a pure product of the Soviet era,
a sincere and dedicated Communist, and a man who remembers the wars
in Afghanistan and Nagorno-Karabach. Just look at this guy's mug -
he is a typical Soviet tough guy.
And
yet, this putative "hardliner", is clearly categorically
opposed to any deployment of Russian troops in Novorussia. Not only
that, but his reason for doing so is that he clearly considers that
Novorussia is still legally part of the Ukraine and that such legal
categories really matter. I would say that this is interesting, to
say the least.
But
even more interesting is the reaction of the readers of the website
Vzgliad which is most definitely 100% anti-Ukrainian and anti-Nazi.
I doubt that very many Russian "liberals" are reading
Vzgliad. And yet, when the readers were polled about their reaction
to Iazov's statement, a full 59% (at the time of writing this
supported it:
Question:
Marshal Yazov is against the deployment of Russian forces in the
Ukraine. How do you react to his words?
Support:
59.0%
Do
not support: 41.9%
Total
number of votes: 30371 people
Amazing
no? Almost 2/3rds of the readers of Vzgliad oppose an intervention.
And,
believe me, it is not the pathetic Ukie army which matters here.
Everybody in Russia knows that the full power of the "Glorious
And Invincible Ukrainian Army - Glory to the Ukraine, to the Heroes
Glory!!" is barely enough to fire massive artillery salvos at
the poor and sick civilians of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk who did not
have the means to leave. The Ukie army is despised and loathed for
what it does, but not feared. Nobody, and I really nobody, has ever
made the case that the Ukies could even offer a modicum of resistance
against the Russian military. And now that the Ukies have massed
their entire military inside the "Novorussian sack" it can
easily be enveloped and destroyed. No, the problem is not one of
"victory versus defeat", but one of "does Russia want
such a victory?"
What
people in the West fail to fully understand, by no fault of theirs,
considering the kind of 'informaton' they are fed by the corporate
media, is that the Russian people do not want Russia to become yet
another empire or a Soviet Union v2 (these theories are just Hillary
and Zbig projecting their own, ugly, motivations on Russia). Most
Russians want Russia to be a prosperous and powerful country, yes,
but a regular country, not a global power with USA-like "world
police" functions.
I
am not saying that Iazov is right (or wrong, for that matter), all I
am saying that the views in Russia about the merits (or lack thereof)
on a direct and open intervention in Novorussia are far more complex
and nuanced that the views of those who post simple black and white
comments about why Russia "has to" intervene "now".
To them I am saying that even Russian "hardliners" (not
that this terms really has any meaning) take a much more nuanced
views than some armchair strategists in the West.
The
Saker
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Despite
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