Who Owns The CDC?

amidwesterndoctor |  In democratic republics, it should not be possible for unelected groups to forcefully dictate the lives of citizens without those policies being legalized by the legislative process. Unfortunately, our bureaucracy has bypassed that process by allowing committees (whose members are appointed rather than being elected democratically) to craft “guidelines” (as this is the limit of their authority), and then have the rest of the government (and media) treat those guidelines as law. Unfortunately, the members of these committees tend to be individuals who have been bribed and inevitably arrive at conclusions that support their sponsors. 

Two excellent recent examples were the NIH panel (directly appointed by Fauci) recommending remdesivir while prohibiting ivermectin while having extensive financial ties to remdesivir’s manufacture, and that of the committee which made the highly questionable guideline for almost everyone to take statins having extensive financial ties to the statin manufacturers.

Although guidelines should only be treated as advice rather than law (this in fact was the decision of a federal judge), there has instead been a continual push to strengthen the guidelines and force ones that border upon absurdity onto the American people. In California for example, the state chosen to pioneer vaccine mandates for our nation, countless parents have been forced to flee the state so their children can remain in school, and parents who are not financially advantaged have been forced to make many very difficult decisions because of these mandates (many of these stories are quite tragic).

Recently this guideline-based governance ratcheted up another notch as California passed a law that stated anyone physician who provides advice to a patient that conflicts with a CDC guideline is guilty of professional misconduct. As you can imagine, this sets a variety of concerning precedents, such as how “advisement that does not carry the weight of law” can be allowed to supersede our sacred constitutional freedoms that have been enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and previously have been consistently upheld by our courts.

Throughout its history, the CDC and its advisory committee the ACIP, have consistently voted to approve each vaccine presented before them, regardless of the evidence against doing so (and as Steve Kirsch recently proved, its leadership has willfully disregarded that evidence). This raises an obvious question; why is it that the ACIP always acts in this way?

When examining complex questions, one helpful strategy, Occam’s Razor, is to first consider the simplest explanation and see if it fits relatively well to addressing the question at hand. In many areas of medicine (e.g. journal publications, research findings, and medical practices chosen by physicians or hospitals), there is a tendency to adhere to the financial interests of the involved parties. Not surprisingly, this is also the behavior guideline committees typically follow so the question naturally becomes: what are the financial conflicts of interest of the CDC?

Authoritehs Are Far From Done With You Dissenting Deviants

consentfactory  |  The main goal of gaslighting is to confuse, coerce, and emotionally manipulate your victim into abandoning their own perception of reality and accepting whatever new “reality” you impose on them. Ultimately, you want to completely destroy their ability to trust their own perception, emotions, reasoning, and memory of historical events, and render them utterly dependent on you to tell them what is real and what “really” happened, and so on, and how they should be feeling about it.

Anyone who has ever experienced gaslighting in the context of an abusive relationship, or a cult, or a totalitarian system, or who has worked in a battered women’s shelter, can tell you how powerful and destructive it is. In the most extreme cases, the victims of gaslighting are entirely stripped of their sense of self and surrender their individual autonomy completely. Among the best-known and most dramatic examples are the Patty Hearst case, Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, the Manson family, and various other cults, but, the truth is, gaslighting happens every day, out of the spotlight of the media, in countless personal and professional relationships.

Since the Spring of 2020, we have been subjected to official gaslighting on an unprecedented scale. In a sense, the “Apocalyptic Pandemic” PSYOP has been one big extended gaslighting campaign (comprising countless individual instances of gaslighting) inflicted on the masses throughout the world. The events of this past week were just another example.

Basically, what happened was, a Pfizer executive confirmed to the European Parliament last Monday that Pfizer did not know whether its Covid “vaccine” prevented transmission of the virus before it was promoted as doing exactly that and forced on the masses in December of 2020. People saw the video of the executive admitting this, or heard about it, and got upset. They tweeted and Facebooked and posted videos of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Bill Gates, the Director of the CDC, official propagandists like Rachel Maddow, and various other “experts” and “authorities” blatantly lying to the public, promising people that getting “vaccinated” would “prevent transmission,” “protect other people from infection,” “stop the virus in its tracks,” and so on, which totally baseless assertions (i.e., lies) were the justification for the systematic segregation and persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” and the fomenting of mass fanatical hatred of anyone challenging the official “vaccine” narrative, and the official New Normal ideology, which hatred persists to this very day.

The New Normal propaganda apparatus (i.e., the corporate media, health “experts,” et al.) responded to the story predictably. They ignored it, hoping it would just go away. When it didn’t, they rolled out the “fact-checkers” (i.e., gaslighters).

The Associated Press, Reuters, PolitiFact, and other official gaslighting outfits immediately published lengthy official “fact-checks” that would make a sophist blush. Read them and you will see what I mean. They are perfect examples of official gaslighting, crafted to distract you from the point and suck you into an argument over meaningless details and definitions. They sound exactly like Holocaust deniers pathetically asserting that there is no written proof that Hitler ordered the Final Solution … which, there isn’t, but it doesn’t fucking matter. Of course Hitler ordered the Final Solution, and of course they lied about the “vaccines.”

The Internet is swimming with evidence of their lies … tweets, videos, articles, and so on.

Which is what makes gaslighting so frustrating for people who believe they are engaged in an actual good-faith argument over facts and the truth. But that’s not how totalitarianism works. The New Normals, when they repeat whatever the authorities have instructed them to repeat today (e.g., “trust the Science,” “safe and effective,” “no one ever claimed they would prevent transmission”), could not care less whether it is actually true, or even if it makes the slightest sense.

These gaslighting “fact-checks” are not meant to convince them that anything is true or false. And they are certainly not meant to convince us. They are official scripts, talking points, and thought-terminating clichés for the New Normals to repeat, like cultists chanting mantras at you to shut off their minds and block out anything that contradicts or threatens the “reality” of the cult.

You can present them with the actual facts, and they will smile knowingly, and deny them to your face, and condescendingly mock you for not “seeing the truth.”

The Pontificating Pustule Of Political Pomposity Dindu Nuffin!!!

19th Valdai: Subtitles, Transcripts, Machinic Translations Will Become Available

valdaiclub |  On October 24-27, 2022, the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone”, opens in Moscow. The annual Valdai Club Report “A World Without Superpowers” will be presented at the conference. This year’s report is based on the Valdai Club’s hypothesis about the inevitable oblivion of the “superpower” concept. The opening of the meeting and the presentation of the new Valdai Report can be viewed here.

Live broadcast on the site begins October 24, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. Moscow Time (GMT+3)

The meeting will be attended by 111 experts, politicians, diplomats and economists from 41 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, the United States, Uzbekistan, and others. Traditionally, more than half of the participants in the Valdai Club meeting are representatives of foreign countries, and this year is no exception.

Read the programme for details.

Not Psychological Warfare But Failure To Recognize Objective Reality...,

TAC  |  Given that American politicians are always more preoccupied by domestic affairs than foreign policy, members of Congress are quick to adopt the “true faith.” This faith explains why for the last eight years members thought a future war with Russia was a low-risk affair. Ukrainians would provide the cannon fodder and Washington would provide the expensive weaponry and munitions. 

Predictably, Washington’s governing strategic principles are unchanged from previous U.S. interventions around the world. Muddle through: masses of soldiers—in this case Ukrainians advised by U.S. and allied officers—and huge infusions of cash, equipment, and technology can and will permanently alter strategic reality in America’s favor. 

The stupefying air of self-righteousness the Biden administration assumes when it attacks erstwhile strategic partners such as Saudi Arabia or delivers moralizing lectures to Beijing’s leadership, or when its media surrogates express contempt for the Russian state, is downright dangerous. Political figures in Washington are ready to indulge any transgression if it is committed in the name of destroying Russia. They do not view U.S. foreign policy in the context of a larger strategy, nor do they comprehend Russia’s capacity to hurt the United States, a bizarre judgment of Russia’s actual military and economic potential. 

The result is a toxic climate of ideological hatred making it hard to imagine a contemporary U.S. secretary of State ever signing an international agreement renouncing war as an instrument of U.S. national policy, as Secretary of State Frank Kellogg did in 1928. But as one of Shakespeare’s characters in the Merchant of Venice warned, “The truth will out.” 

The ongoing buildup of 700,000 Russian forces with modern equipment in Western Russia, Eastern Ukraine and Belorussia is a direct consequence of Moscow’s decision to adopt an elastic, strategic defense of the territories it seized in the opening months of the war. It was a wise, though politically unpopular choice in Russia. Yet, the strategy has succeeded. Ukrainian losses have been catastrophic and by November, Russian Forces will be in a position to strike a knockout blow. 

Today, there are rumors in the media that Kiev may be under pressure to launch more counterattacks against Russian defenses in Kherson (Southern Ukraine) before the midterm elections in November. At this point, expending what little remains of Ukraine’s life blood to expel Russian forces from Ukraine is hardly synonymous with the preservation of the Ukrainian state. It’s also doubtful that further sacrifices by Ukrainians will assist the Biden administration in the midterm elections.  

The truth is Moscow’s redline concerning Ukrainian entry into NATO was always real. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea were always predominantly Russian in language, culture, history, and political orientation. Europe’s descent into economic oblivion this winter is also real, as is support for Russia’s cause in China and India and Moscow's rising military strength.

In retrospect, it is easy to see how Congress was beguiled by the denizens of think tanks, lobbyists, and retired generals, who are, with few exceptions, people with a cocktail level of familiarity with high-end conventional warfare. Members of the House and Senate were urged to support dubious strategies for the use of American military assistance, including reckless scenarios for limited nuclear war with Russia or China. For some reason, U.S. politicians have lost sight of the reality that any use of nuclear weapons would overwhelm the ends of all national policy. 

Apropos That A False-Flag War Crime Presages The Open Phase Of Biden's War

indianpunchline |  To be sure, the Biden team cannot but be worried that London is drifting into chaos and the Conservative Party’s faction leaders scurry around like headless chicken looking for a substitute to Truss who stepped down on Thursday. 

The British economy is disintegrating and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt anticipates that a cut on the defence budget is inevitable. That is to say, the Deep State’s fun and frolic in Kiev is no longer affordable. The UK is heading for hard times, the rubric of Global Britain looks delusional. 

Enter President Biden. The reports from Moscow suggest that Russians have hard intelligence to the effect that Washington has demanded from President Zelensky some spectacular performance on the battlefield as the midterms in the US on November 8 is round the corner. 

That adds to the enigmatic comment by a second defence minister in London James Heappey that the conversations that Wallace would be having in Washington were “beyond belief,” hinting that particularly sensitive and serious issues were on the agenda.  

Indeed, after arrival in Washington, Wallace headed straight for the White House to meet up with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden’s point person for the Ukraine war. A White House readout said the two officials “exchanged views on shared national security interests, including Ukraine.  They underscored their commitment to continue providing Ukraine with security assistance as it defends itself against Russian aggression.” 

As British politics descends to skulduggery that will extend into months, the US will be a stakeholder. Historically, since the World War 2, Britain led the US from the rear in critical  situations involving Russia. 

Indeed, Biden issued a rare statement on Truss’ exit, which stated that the US and the UK “are strong Allies and enduring friends — and that fact will never change.” He thanked her “for her partnership on a range of issues including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine.” Biden underscored that “We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face.” 

Biden has sent a powerful message to Britain’s political class signalling that he expects them to come up with a new prime minister who will faithfully adhere to the compass set by Boris Johnson on Ukraine. In immediate terms, what does it signal for the Anglo-American project in Kherson? Will it go ahead? That is the big question. 

The situation in Kherson is assuming the nature of a large-scale military confrontation, as Zelensky is throwing everything into it in an attempt to wrest control of the strategic Kherson city, which has been under Russian control since March, before the midterms in the US.

Turkish Banks Allow Russian Citizens Access To Turkiye's National Payment System

russia-briefing |  In light of the United States threatening Turkish banks with sanctions and SWIFT disconnection if they continued to operate Russian MIR payment cards for Russians visiting Turkiye, Ankara has been discussing a solution. 

MIR cards could previously be used to make payments and withdraw money from the ATMs of five Turkish banks prior to September 2022, when Russian tourists vacationing in Turkey began to have difficulties using the cards following Turkish banks withdrawing under US pressure. Private banks IsBank and DenizBank were later the first to announce that they would no longer be working with the Russian payment system, and three public banks, Ziraat Bankasi, VakifBank, and Halkbank, joined them on September 27, meaning that there are no longer any banks in Turkey that will accept Russian MIR cards, meaning that Russian tourists cannot make payments while in Turkiye.

Ankara has proposed using its Troy national payment system in place of MIR cards, and it is understood that the Central banks of Russia and Turkiye are discussing the issue.

Representatives of the Turkish tourism industry have also proposed launching a system of prepaid cards for Russian tourists that would work during their time in the country. Russians could pay for such cards in rubles in Russia along with their tour packages and then use them to pay for goods and services. Turkiye is a major holiday destination for Russians with the winter season a huge boost to Turkiye’s tourism sector.

Troy is Turkey’s national payment system, which has been operating since 2016. More than 12 million Troy cards were in circulation as of March 2022.

Should the United States threaten Turkiye with sanctions for using its own sovereign payment card system, this would create a new era of the reach of sanctions and possibly destroy the use of SWIFT as a global payment gateway.

Erdogan Is Sultan of Turkiye - A Muslim - And Has No Fear Of Being Called 'Anti-Semitic'...,

Putin and Erdogan just agreed to hugely expand Turk Stream pipes and make Turkey the de-facto pipe gas gateway to Europe. There are no other pipe available. Pipe is superior to LNG transport and infrastructure. It's a pipe dream to make Erdogan abandon that economic bonanza and leverage over EU they will get (joke intended).

Elizabeth Rosenberg flies to Turkey to bludgeon Erdogan into cutting ties with Russia.

Elizabeth Rosenberg came from the Center For A New American Security CNAS - funded by military contractors -  and formerly headed by Victoria Nudelmann nee Nuland.

duvarenglish |  Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Treasury Department Elizabeth Rosenberg traveled to Turkey to discuss sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia. US Treasury previously warned Turkish businesses of possible sanctions risks if companies establish relations with sanctioned Russian entities and individuals.

A senior U.S. Treasury Department official traveled to Turkey this week to discuss sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, the Treasury Department said, as Washington closely monitors growing economic ties between Ankara and Moscow.

Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Elizabeth Rosenberg traveled to Ankara and Istanbul from Oct. 17 through Octç 19, where she met with counterparts including officials from the ministries of finance and foreign affairs as well as representatives in the private financial and commercial sectors, according to a statement.

The Treasury said the meetings "affirmed the importance of close partnership" between the United States and Turkey in addressing the risks caused by sanctions evasion.

"During her meetings, Assistant Secretary Rosenberg covered a range of topics, including the sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia by a broad coalition of over 30 countries, energy security, anti-money laundering policy, and countering the financing of terrorism," the Treasury said.

Treasury and State Department officials engaged in talks with Turkish compliance officials, financial professionals, and government counterparts, it added.

Washington and its allies have imposed several rafts of sanctions targeting Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine, including targeting the country's largest lenders and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo also traveled to Turkey in June to discuss the invasion and the enforcement of sanctions imposed on Moscow.

NATO member Ankara opposes Western sanctions on Russia and has close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, its Black Sea neighbors. It also condemned Russia's invasion and sent armed drones to Ukraine.

At the same time, it has ramped up trade and tourism with Russia. Some Turkish firms have purchased or sought to buy Russian assets from Western partners pulling back due to the sanctions, while others maintain large assets in the country.

But Ankara also pledged that the sanctions will not be circumvented in Turkey.

The U.S. Treasury warned both the country's largest business group TÜSİAD and the Turkish Treasury Ministry in August that Russian entities were attempting to use Turkey to bypass Western sanctions.

Turkey has said joining sanctions against Russia would have hurt its already strained economy and argued that it is focused on mediation efforts.

 

Politics Flows From Culture And Culture Flows From Imagination

ecosophia  |  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, hasn’t it? A Pfizer executive admitted under oath that all those claims that the Covid vaccine would protect you from catching Covid had no data at all backing them.  Inevitably, corporate media flacks are now insisting at the top of their lungs, in the teeth of ample evidence, that nobody ever made the claims in question. Ukrainian agents used a truck bomb to damage the bridge that links Crimea to Russia; Russia, which has supposedly been running out of missiles since about a week since their forces invaded Ukraine, responded by sending a flurry of the missiles they aren’t supposed to have any more to blow up another round of Ukrainian targets, focusing on the energy and transport facilities the Ukrainians are going to need to face the massive winter offensive Russia is all too clearly preparing.

The rate of inflation here in the US has reached levels not seen since Jimmy Carter’s day, while the economy in the US and globally is reeling in ways that normally signal a serious recession on the way.  The mix of inflation and recession is called “stagflation,” for those of you who don’t remember the Seventies, and it’s no fun. The prices of fossil fuels are swinging all over the place, up because supplies are dwindling, down because a failing economy means that fewer people will be able to afford to burn them.  Oh, and Greta Thunberg has come out in favor of nuclear power, because it’s less ecologically damaging than burning coal.  (As you’d expect from a child of privilege, the one thing she can’t possibly imagine is getting by with a lot less.)

There’s plenty that can be said about any of these things. Just now, though, I want to focus on something a little different. The events that fill newspaper websites and give media pundits raw material for their gyrations don’t happen out of the blue, for no reason at all.  They are the results of cascading chains of cause and effect that ultimately reach back into the tangled recesses of collective thought.  It’s been pointed out, and truly, that politics is downstream from culture; it needs to be remembered in turn that culture is downstream from imagination. The shapes that fill today’s daydreams and nightmares are anything but irrelevant to the future. They will presently become cultural icons, and thereafter make their way into the political sphere.

This is why it’s worth paying close attention to the way that so many people in the comfortable classes are now insisting at the top of their lungs, in remarkably shrill tones, that nobody ought to do their own research or think for themselves. Social media in recent weeks has been full of that theme.  Mention that you’re looking into something yourself or making up your own mind, rather than believing whatever tripe the fashionable pundits approved by the corporate media want you to believe, and you can be sure to field a flurry of denunciations in tones ranging from clumsy mockery to saliva-flecked rage.

This is new. Not long ago it was still fashionable to give lip service to thinking for yourself and doing your own research, even though the unstated rule was that if you did so you had to come up with the same results as the talking heads on corporate media. No doubt many of my readers recall how a few years back, asking a woke activist for evidence for their claims would get the instant response, “It’s not my job to educate you!  You need to go educate yourself.” Go back a few more decades and you’ll find pundits insisting in smug tones that liberal democracy was superior to all other systems because it thrives on free inquiry and the clash of competing ideas.

So how did we get, in rather less than half a century, from liberal pundits preening themselves over the open society to their present-day equivalents demanding blind faith in the dogmatic utterances of officially approved experts?  That’s a complex story, and we can begin it with a famous BBC documentary titled The Century of the Self, which originally aired in 2002.

 

Big Picture: Who Is Winning World War III?

ejmagnier |  Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, has been chosen as the best US war theatre for its loyalty to Washington and readiness to play the most crucial role in confronting Russia regardless of the consequences. Kyiv is ready to offer the country and its inhabitants to fight Russia in a proxy war. The US could have done nothing against Russia without Ukraine’s readiness for sacrifice. 

This US objective has been carefully planned since the 2014 Maidan coup when Washington was responsible for appointing the future Ukrainian leaders, disregarding the EU interest and well-being. The US-NATO training of the Ukrainian army for confronting Russia started in 2015 under President Barack Obama and not in February 2022. The current US administration officially wished to annex Ukraine with minor damage but had been preparing for war for a long time. He who sows the wind reaps the storm, and Biden got what had been wished for. 

Some people in the West resist the idea that the ongoing war in Ukraine is between Washington and Russia. However, a four-star general Jack Keane (former vice chief of staff of the US army), has said that “the US has invested $66 billion in the Kyiv regime, a relatively small sum, which helped in arming Ukraine and motivating the public for a war against Russia. It is quite well worth it. We (US soldiers) are not doing the fighting, but Ukraine is (on our behalf).” 

Moreover, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said that his country, along with more than forty countries – beyond NATO allies – have established a Contact Group at the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, “to express commitment and intensify the support to Ukraine.” 

The US has been the driving force ahead of all European and western countries in sending weapons, offering intelligence support and “US and allied Special Forces” on the ground in Ukraine. Many more elements confirm that the US and its NATO allies are directly involved in an entire proxy war to weaken Russia and outlast President Vladimir Putin by investing more than $200 million per day to achieve its target. Ukraine just volunteered as a theatre to defend the “global international security order” (in fact, the US hegemony), as General Mark Milley, the Joint Chief of Staff Chairman, said.

So far, the US has succeeded on several military and economic levels and gathered enormous gains from the war on Russia in Ukraine. It is reviving NATO, suspending the Nord Stream 1, selling its expensive gas, breaking the financial Russian-European relationship and pushing Europe to send weapons to Ukraine to confirm the continent’s military involvement. All these are tremendous achievements for the US in a war where those killed are tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers but no Americans. 

Russia cannot win all its battles against the 30-NATO nations. But its withdrawal from several cities does not confirm the victory of the West in the ongoing war. The Russian President is preparing a new army of hundreds of thousands of men who will plunge into the battle this winter, which is expected to be harsh on everyone in Europe. Putin has appointed a new Russian military commander – the seventh since the Russian war began last February – to lead the upcoming winter battle to end Ukrainian gains in the east and south of Ukrainian territories and exhaust the West’s resources. That indicates that more ties of troops will be seen, and more intelligence services hit on both sides are expected.

For a long time, the CIA did not act so openly against Russia, and the United States did not engage in a war of this magnitude against a superpower country determined to win at all costs. However, Ukraine’s territory is the theatre of the military operations, and the collateral (economic) damage affects Europe this time, the natural US partner in its last decades’ wars. Washington can withstand long years of this war of attrition. Does Moscow have the patience to sustain a long battle with the will to win at any cost? It seems so to Putin’s determination to grab more Ukrainian territories and destroy more of the country’s infrastructure. Undoubtedly the belligerents are preparing for a hot but rather cold forthcoming winter. 

History observes the shake-up of the Pax Americana that is taking place in modern times. Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and other states are prepared for new world order. This is building up in Asia with solid industry, an exchange of trade in local currency, large reserves of food, and a prosperous future for those who represent almost half of the world’s population. This leaves the West, which means only 11 per cent of the world’s population, struggling to find enough energy to fill up its gasoline stations and thinking about its crumbling industry and gas reserves in 2023.

Economy Of Force Is An Aspirational Military Objective

johnhelmer  |  In war, force and money do the talking on the ground. Not talk in the air.

On the electric battlefield in the Ukraine, the targeting of Russian attacks is being calculated to cut the command and control links between the Galician capitals of Lvov and Kiev west of the Dnieper River and the Russian east, according to fresh analyses prepared by a North American military specialist in infrastructure demolition.  

In the first round this month, he says, the missile raids were a “reconnaissance in force. The Russians were experimenting with, and proving, their operational concepts; for instance, how well Iranian drones perform in concert with their other weapons options and tactics. They were  testing NATO counter- measures as well.”

For the time being, this is allowing the wealthy quarters of both cities to enjoy plentiful electricity; even rising house prices according to Kiev realtors in interviews to European media.  They are the sources for western media reporting of how normal and resilient the two cities are.

However, the BBC is now reporting President Vladimir Zelensky as saying  “that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations had been destroyed in the past eight days. Parts of the capital Kyiv have no power and water after new strikes on Tuesday.” The state propaganda organ added: “UK defence intelligence said it was highly likely that Russia had become increasingly willing to strike civilian infrastructure, in addition to military targets, since its setbacks on the battlefield.”

The North American military source has a different assessment. “The power losses in those cities have been targeted to pit those without the money or means for relief against those who have it. The Russian General Staff goal, in my estimation, is not to break the Ukrainian population’s will to fight, or their western backers’ stream of cash and arms. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. The Russians are even allowing the electric trains to keep moving between Lvov and Poland carrying western reporters, rotating NATO staffs, and military resupplies.  It’s to concentrate the new US arms supplies where they can be attacked more cost-effectively in the east; to prevent Zelensky’s men from communicating with their units and with the civilians across the Dnieper, in Kharkov and Odessa; and to allow those who want to leave to head for Poland and Germany. The Russian general who defeated Napoleon once called that his ‘Golden Bridge’ strategy.”  

He is referring to Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov (lead image, left). The deadline  in the Russian calculation is November 15, when President Joseph Biden (centre) will meet President Vladimir Putin (right)  at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, along with a Ukrainian delegation headed by Zelensky. “A quick glance at Ukrainian rail ticket sites shows that the trains are still running between Kiev and Lvov. I don’t believe this is an accident, nor a failure, of the Russian side. With the escalation this week, I believe we are in the attrition phase of the Electric War which coincides with the Ukrainian electricity market data releases, and the approaching Indonesia meeting.”

By sustaining the attacks with low-cost drones, the North American source comments, “it is unlikely that the Ukrainian utility crews, certainly exhausted now and terrified from working around the clock to effect repairs, using what must be dwindling stocks of spares, will be able to keep up.  Where will Ukrainian utilities like DTEK, find in-time spares for 330kV gear that is unique to Russia and the CIS countries? Furthermore, will 1000MVA, 750kV-330kV autotransformers, with all their required metering, control and protection relays, breakers, etc.,  fall out of the sky like the Russian, Iranian, or Turkish drones do? The answers to those questions are nowhere and no.”

“We can anticipate that the strongest attacks, in terms of concentration, accuracy and impact, will occur with lower temperatures.  Now, with winter just weeks, if not days, away, inclement weather including high winds, heavy, wet snow — all famous for knocking down power lines —  will only compound the problems for the Ukrainians.”

“Who can doubt that the Russians will coordinate their strikes with the poor weather, using it as a force multiplier? Just like old Kutuzov did to the French.”

 

U.S. Military Weak - Not For Lack Of $$$ But For Lack Of Ethics, Discipline, and Intelligence

WSJ  |   Americans like to think their military is unbeatable if politicians wouldn’t get in the way. The truth is that U.S. hard power isn’t what it used to be. That’s the message of the Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength, which is reported here for the first time and describes a worrisome trend.

Heritage rates the U.S. military as “weak” and “at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests.” The weak rating, down from “marginal” a year earlier, is the first in the index’s nine-year history.

The index measures the military’s ability to prevail in two major regional conflicts at once—say, a conflict in the Middle East and a fight on the Korean peninsula. Americans might wish “that the world be a simpler, less threatening place,” as the report notes. But these commitments are part of U.S. national-security strategy.

Heritage says the U.S. military risks being unable to handle even “a single major regional conflict” as it also tries to deter rogues elsewhere. The Trump Administration’s one-time cash infusion has dried up. Pentagon budgets aren’t keeping up with inflation, and the branches are having to make trade-offs about whether to be modern, large, or ready to fight tonight. The decline is especially acute in the Navy and Air Force.

The Navy has been saying for years it needs to grow to at least 350 ships, plus more unmanned platforms. Yet the Navy has shown a “persistent inability to arrest and reverse the continued diminution of its fleet,” the report says. By one analysis it has under-delivered on shipbuilding plans by 10 ships a year on average over the past five years.

From 2005 to 2020, the U.S. fleet grew to 296 warships from 291, while China’s navy grew to 360 from 216. War isn’t won on numbers alone, but China is also narrowing the U.S. technological advantage in every area from aircraft carrier catapults to long-range missiles.

Some will call all this alarmist and ask why the Pentagon can’t do better on an $800 billion budget. The latter is a fair question and the answer requires procurement and other changes. But the U.S. will also have to spend more on defense if it wants to protect its interests and the homeland. The U.S. is spending about 3% of GDP now compared to 5%-6% in the 1980s. The Heritage report is a warning that you can’t deter war, much less win one, on the cheap.

Missile Defense Fantasies: AKA That Above Top Secret Green Gas BeeDee Was Talm'bout....,

undark |  century now, governments and their military forces have enlisted the aid of scientists and engineers to invent weapons, devise defenses, and advise on their use and deployment.

Unfortunately, scientific and technological realities don’t always conform to the preferred policies of politicians and generals. Back in the 1950s, some U.S. officials liked to proclaim that scientists should be “on tap, not on top”: in other words, ready to provide handy advice when needed, but not offering advice that contradicted the official line. That attitude has persisted into the present, but scientists have steadfastly refused to play along.

One of the best-known leaders of this resistance is Theodore “Ted” Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Trained as a physicist and nuclear engineer, Postol has spent a career immersed in the details of military and defense technology. He worked for Congress in the now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, then in the Pentagon as an adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations before joining academia, first at Stanford University and then returning to his alma mater, MIT.

Throughout, he has been an outspoken critic of unworkable concepts, impractical ideas, and failed technological fantasies, including Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” system, the vaunted Patriot missile of the first Gulf War, and more recent intercontinental ballistic missile defense concepts tested by the U.S. His investigations and analyses have repeatedly revealed self-deception, misrepresentation, flawed research, and outright fraud from the Pentagon, academic and private laboratories, and Congress.

When we contacted him, we found that, far from being retired at age 70, he was preparing to travel to Germany to consult with the German Foreign Ministry on European-Russian relations. His work exemplifies the eternal verity that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. In the exchange below, his responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What Does Russia Plan To Do Next? Force Ukraine's Unconditional Surrender...,

sonar21  |  In the face of Western reports that Russia is on its heels and retreating, the facts on the ground tell a different story. For starters, Russian allies with embassies still operating in Kiev are shutting down and ordering their personnel to leave Ukraine. This includes China, Tajikistan, Krygyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkenistan,Serbia, Belarus, India and Egypt. Note that these embassies have remained open during the last seven months of the war with Russia. The decisions to cutback or cease operations is one indicator that these countries expect a major escalation in the war on the part of Russia in the near future.

Another piece of evidence that implies Russia is beefing up for a new offensive comes via Belarus. Russia is moving a large number of trucks, armored personnel carriers and tanks to Belarus.

While Russia is beefing up its forces in Belarus, the Supreme Russian Commander for military operations in Ukraine, General Surovikin, made the following comment in recent days:

I don’t want to sacrifice the lives of the Russian soldiers in a partisan war of hoards of fanatics armed by NATO.

We’ve got enough power and technical means to lead Ukraine to total capitulation.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/11836

In other words, the General, knowing the capability of the forces under his command and knowing the missions he and his staff are planning for them, is confident he has the means to force the surrender of Ukraine. No mention of negotiations. The word, “capitulation” is not ambiguous in its meaning.

There is another possibility to entertain–this is an elaborate feint by Russia designed to force Ukraine to deploy already weakened forces to the northern border to defend against a possible invasion from the north. This will make it difficult, if not impossible, for Ukraine to send reinforcements to the south in a timely manner if Russia decides to launch an offensive to clear out the Donetsk Republic or attack Nikolayev.

All of this movement on the ground is taking place against developing political chaso in the West. The United States, under the leadership of the demented Joe Biden, has embarked on a foreign policy apparently designed to anger and offend ostensible allies. The Saudis find themselves being treated like lepers. According to Reuters:

US President Joe Biden will act “methodically” in deciding how to respond to Saudi Arabia due to oil production cuts, but options include changes in US security assistance, reports Reuters the words of White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. . . .

At the same time, the tension between the countries is growing strongly. Biden no longer intends to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud on the sidelines of the G20 summit in November.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/biden-will-act-methodically-re-evaluating-us-saudi-relationship-sullivan-2022-10-16/

 

India Expects The Defeat Of The U.S. And NATO

tribuneindia  |  Russia’s retaliation against Ukraine’s ‘critical infrastructure’, something Moscow refrained from so far, has serious implications. Since October 9, Russia has begun systematically targeting Ukraine’s power system and railways. Noted Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin told Izvestia that if this tempo was kept up for a week or so, it ‘will disrupt the entire logistics of the Ukrainian military — system for transporting personnel, military equipment, ammunition, related cargo, as well as the functioning of military and repair plants.’

The Americans are cocooned in a surreal world of their self-serving narrative that Russia ‘lost’ the war. In the real world, though, Ivan Tertel, KGB chief in Belarus, who has an insider view of Moscow, said last Tuesday that with Russia boosting its troop strength in the war zone — 3 lakh troops who have been mobilised plus 70,000 volunteers — and the deployment of advanced weaponry, ‘the military operation will enter a key phase. According to our estimates, a turning point will come in the period from November of this year to February of next year.’

Policy-makers and strategists in Delhi should make a careful note of the timeline. The bottom line is, Russia is looking for an all-out victory and will not settle for anything less than a friendly government in Kiev. Western politicians, including Biden, understand that there is nothing stopping the Russians now. The US’ weapon kitty is running dry as Kiev keeps asking for more.

When asked whether he’d meet Biden at the G20 in Bali, Putin derisively remarked on Friday, ‘He (Biden) should be asked whether he is ready to hold such negotiations with me or not. To be honest, I don’t see any need, by and large. There is no platform for any negotiations for the time being.’

However, Washington has not yet thrown in the towel and the Biden administration remains obsessed with exhausting the Russian military — even at the cost of Ukraine’s destruction. And, for the Russians too, there is still much to be worked out on the battlefield: the oppressed Russian populations in Odessa (which suffered unspeakable atrocities from the neo-Nazis), Mykolaiv, Zaporizhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov are expecting ‘liberation’. It’s a highly emotive issue for Russia. Again, the overarching agenda of ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification’ of Ukraine must be taken to its logical conclusion.

When all that is over, Putin knows Biden will not even want to meet him. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said last week, ‘Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow. Today, Ukraine is able to fight only because it receives military assistance from the United States…

‘At the same time, I do not see President Biden as the person who would really be suitable for such serious negotiations. President Biden has gone too far. Suffice it to recall his statements to Russian President Putin.’

India should expect the defeat of the US and NATO, which completes the transition to a multipolar world order. Sadly, Indian elites are yet to purge their ‘unipolar predicament’. Europe, including Britain, is devastated and there is palpable discontent over the US’s ‘transatlantic leadership’. Indo-Pacific strategy is hopelessly adrift. New power centres are emerging in India’s extended neighbourhood, as the OPEC’s rebuff to Washington shows. A profound adjustment is needed in the Indian strategic calculus.

Having Powerful Enemies - But Limited Resources - Focuses The Mind On Weak Spots To Exploit

What used to be called BDA . . . Bomb Damage Assessment, is now satellite reconnaissance imagery review. Based on what is seen, targets are identified as finished or in need of being hit again. This is why last weeks cruise missile attacks have been followed up with subsequent attacks at regular intervals. It takes only minutes to reload launchers. But it takes some hours to collect satellite imagery reflecting recent damage - and have those images reviewed for selecting the next targets.

Low Earth Orbit spacecraft have some memory aboard, but not very much. These are polar orbiting vehicles and the areas over the poles have higher radiation exposure, with memory being notoriously vulnerable to radiation. So, frequent and even perpetual downlinks for Russian assets, is the order of the day. 

Russian spacecraft traversing Ukraine sky north to south or south to north will have Russian receive stations line-of-sight for downlinks of imagery. Ground based jammers aren't heard by dishes pointed upwards from within Russia.

 It is clear that in-orbit assets have determined Russian tactics and strategy. Why Sergei Surovikin, commander of Russian Aerospace forces is now supreme commander of the mobilization to bring about Ukrainian capitulation.

Normal drones have a controller, since they are either surveillance drones or attack drones hunting particular targets.The so-called kamikaze drones do not have a controller and are subsequently immune to jamming. They are instead like low and slow miniature ballistic missiles. Flight path fixed at time of launch so as to hit a particular static target. 

They evade detection till they can be seen near the target because they are small, slow, and very low to the ground. They emit very little infrared so they can’t be detected that way. They don’t talk to the mother ship so they can’t be seen sending signals nor can they be signal jammed. They thus also take way less in the way of chips (simpler and fewer) and so can be made cheaply and quickly in large quantities.

 Kamikaze drones are far cheaper than but just as effective as high-cost precision missiles Best bit is that they follow one of the principles of war – economy of force – and they certainly get a lot of bang for the buck.

The kamikaze drone will bring old fashioned antiaircraft guns back. The ones Russia is using don’t produce enough heat for a MANPAD to lock to, small arms aren’t going to bring them down in most cases, and it sounds like they don’t show up very well on modern missile anti-air systems which is combined with the ridiculous cost of bringing down a $20K drone with a $100K+ missile.

The Ukrainian tactic of putting serious air defense systems inside populated areas is almost as kamikaze as the drones themselves. Having them on the White House or similar makes some sense, having them heavily used inside a city does not.

At the moment, the Ukrainian police, soldiers, militia, etc. are trying to shoot those drones down with rifles, pistols or anything else that shoots a bullet and the streets of Kiev are sounding like a firing range. Best to be inside or you might get hit by a falling bullet-the more real danger is a populated area getting hit by an exploding shot down drone rather than the drone hitting its energy infrastructure target. Except it’s not just bullets flying willy nilly. 

Ukraine has S300 and Buk missiles curving down trying to hit the drones and plowing into apartment blocks. The S300 packs 150kg of explosive to the Geran-2’s 50kg.

And on top of that, keen troopers with western-supplied ATGMs are trying to hit drones in the air. Often with unguided ATGMs. Even  with guided ones they’ve got a snowballs chance. All of those come down too.

Russia has begun flooding* Donbass with old, reliable S-60 anti-aircraft guns. They shoot 57mm shells with proximity fuses, and are mgreat against small drones – as per experience in Syria. They can also penetrate 90mm of steel, so work well also against an enemy largely down to APCs and civilian vehicles for mobility.

And being from the old Soviet stock, they can be easily integrated with the existing air-defense systems, like battalion/divisional radars for targeting information or even automatic targeting.

Designed in the late 40s, considered obsolete in the mid-60s, reinstated after Vietnamese experience in early 70s, finally removed from service to storage in 1990s only find a niche for use again today.

Anyway, once you do see the drone, the latest wisdom is that 57 mm ammo has longer reach (6000 m vs 4000 m), doesn’t rely on hitting the target directly (proximity fuse) and packs way more punch (3-4 times heavier shell) than a regular 30 mm (like Pantsir, Tunguska or BMP-2/3).

Which all apparently translate to a higher kill probability against drone type targets. Come to think of it, S-60 was designed 80 years ago to protect the troops against relatively low and slow flying, propeller driven aerial vehicles.

 

Israel Can't Sell Ukraine What Israel Doesn't Have An Effective Defense Against Drones

thecradle  |  A senior Israeli official revealed to the New York Times (NYT) on 12 October that Tel Aviv is providing Ukraine with “basic intelligence” on Iranian drones used by Russia on the battlefield.

The unnamed official also revealed that a private Israeli firm was giving Ukraine satellite imagery of Russian troop positions.

In September, western media reported that Kiev had asked Israel to share intelligence on “any support” Iran has been giving to Russia. “The Israelis gave us some intelligence, but we need much more,” a senior Ukrainian official who spoke with Axios was quoted as saying.

Hebrew media revealed earlier that an Israeli defense contractor is supplying anti-drone systems to the Ukrainian military by way of Poland, in order to circumvent Israel’s official stance of not selling advanced arms to Kiev.

The unofficial sales are likely a stopgap measure to make up for the refusal of Israeli officials to sell Ukraine their Iron Dome missile defense system, reportedly in a bid to maintain strategic relations with Russia in Syria.

The Israeli defense and foreign ministries on Wednesday declined to comment on long-standing requests from the government in Kiev and its western backers to acquire the Iron Dome system, including pleas made since this week’s Russian missile barrage.

“Israel has great experience with air defense and Iron Dome, and we need exactly the same system in our city,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an interview 11 October. “We have been talking with them a long time about it. Those discussions have not been successful,” he added.

The reluctance by Tel Aviv to aid its US-sponsored analogue has not changed much since the war erupted in February, drawing the ire of Ukrainian officials.

“Everybody knows that your missile defense systems are the best,” President Volodomyr Zelensky said while pleading with the Israeli parliament in the spring.

“I don’t know what happened to Israel,” he said in an interview with French TV5 channel on 23 September. “I am in shock, because I don’t understand why they couldn’t give us air defenses.”

DefenseNews |  Israel said its Iron Dome defense system has been a great success, with a 90% interception rate against incoming rocket fire. But officials say the system is expensive to deploy. Bennett has said someone in Gaza can fire a rocket toward Israel for a few hundred dollars, but it costs tens of thousands of dollars for the Iron Dome to intercept it.

The Defense Ministry released a short video showing what it said were the new system’s successful interceptions of rockets, mortars and an unmanned aerial vehicle. The video, which was highly edited and set to music, appeared to show a laser beam coming out of a ground station, hitting the targets and smashing them into small pieces.

Bennett said in February that Israel would begin using the system within a year.

Israel has already developed or deployed a series of systems meant to intercept everything from long-range missiles to rockets launched from just a few kilometers (miles) away. It has also outfitted its tanks with a missile-defense system.

Talks on restoring Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers have stalled. Israel opposes the deal, saying it does not do enough to curb Iran’s nuclear program or its military activities across the region, and Israeli officials have said they will unilaterally do what’s necessary to protect the country.

At $100K/Shot Iron Dome Cheaper Than Patriot - But Not Effective Against Drones

wikipedia |  Although Iron Dome has proven its effectiveness against rocket attacks, Defense Ministry officials are concerned it will not be able to handle more massive arsenals possessed by Hezbollah in Lebanon should a conflict arise. Although in Operation Protective Edge it had a 90 percent hit rate against only rockets determined to be headed for populated areas, 735 intercepts were made at a cost of $70,000–100,000 per interceptor; with an estimated 100,000 rockets possessed by Hezbollah, Iron Dome systems could be fiscally and physically overwhelmed by dozens of incoming salvos. In 2014 Directed-energy weapons were being investigated as a complement to Iron Dome, with lower system cost and lower cost per shot. Solid-state lasers worldwide have power levels ranging from 10–40 kW; to destroy a rocket safely from 15–20 km (9.3–12.4 mi) away, several low-power beams could coordinate and converge on one spot to burn through its outer shell and destroy it. Because laser beams become distorted and ineffective in foggy or heavy cloud conditions, any laser weapon would need to be complemented by Iron Dome.^[67]

In 1996, the Israelis developed the Nautilus prototype and later deployed it in Kiryat Shmona, Israel's northernmost city along the Lebanese border. It used a collection of components from other systems and succeeded in keeping a beam on the same point for two continuous seconds using an early prototype of the Green Pine radar. Nautilus succeeded in its goal to prove the concept was feasible, but it was never deployed operationally, as the government believed that sending in ground troops to stop rocket fire at source was more cost-effective.^[67]

At the 2014 Singapore Air Show, Rafael unveiled its Iron Beam laser air-defense system. Iron Beam is a directed-energy weapon made to complement the Iron Dome system by using a high-energy laser to destroy rockets, mortar bombs, and other airborne threats.^[68] Development of the system began some time after the joint United States and Israel Nautilus laser development program ended.^[3]

In December 2014, former Israeli Air Force chief and head of Boeing Israel David Ivry showed interest in the American Laser Weapon System (LaWS). Earlier that month, the U.S. Navy had revealed that the LaWS had been mounted on the USS Ponce and locked onto and destroyed designated targets with near-instantaneous lethality, with each laser shot costing less than $1.^[67]

In February 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that a ground-based laser system would begin deployment within a year, first as a trial and then operationally. The system will first be deployed to the south of the country to areas most under threat from rockets fired from the Gaza Strip; the ultimate goal is for Israel to be surrounded by a "laser wall" to protect from rockets, missiles, and UAVs.^[69] While lasers are cheaper to fire per shot, they can be impacted by weather, have a slow rate of fire, and have less range. Therefore they will be used in conjunction with Iron Dome in situations where they can reduce overall interception costs.^[70] A procurement contract for the Iron Beam system was signed the next month, however the schedule for fielding was revealed to be delayed for several years.^[71]

At $2 Million/Shot Patriot Was Only Designed To Shoot Down Enemy AIRCRAFT

wikipedia |  The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied states. It is manufactured by the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and derives its name from the radar component of the weapon system. The AN/MPQ-53 at the heart of the system is known as the "Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target" which is a backronym for PATRIOT. The Patriot system replaced the Nike Hercules system as the U.S. Army's primary High to Medium Air Defense (HIMAD) system and replaced the MIM-23 Hawk system as the U.S. Army's medium tactical air defense system. In addition to these roles, Patriot has been given the function of the U.S. Army's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, which is now Patriot's primary mission. The system is expected to stay fielded until at least 2040.^[5]

Patriot uses an advanced aerial interceptor missile and high-performance radar systems. Patriot was developed at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, which had previously developed the Safeguard ABM system and its component Spartan and hypersonic speed Sprint missiles. The symbol for Patriot is a drawing of a Revolutionary War–era Minuteman.

Patriot systems have been sold to the armed forces of the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan, Greece, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Romania and Sweden. South Korea purchased several second-hand Patriot systems from Germany after North Korea test-launched ballistic missiles to the Sea of Japan and proceeded with underground nuclear testing in 2006.^[6] Jordan also purchased several second-hand Patriot systems from Germany. Poland hosts training rotations of a battery of U.S. Patriot launchers. This started in the town of Morąg in May 2010, but was later moved further from the Russian border to Toruń and Ustka due to Russian objections.^[7] On December 4, 2012, NATO authorized the deployment of Patriot missile launchers in Turkey to protect the country from missiles fired in the civil war in neighboring Syria.^[8] Patriot was one of the first tactical systems in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to employ lethal autonomy in combat.^[9]

The Patriot system gained prestige during the Persian Gulf War of 1991 with the claimed engagement of over 40 Iraqi Scud missiles. The system was successfully used against Iraqi missiles in 2003 Iraq War, and has also been used by Saudi and Emirati forces in the Yemen conflict against Houthi missile attacks. The Patriot system achieved its first undisputed shootdowns of enemy aircraft in the service of the Israeli Air Defense Command. Israeli MIM-104D batteries shot down two Hamas UAVs during Operation Protective Edge on August 31, 2014, and later, on September 23, 2014, an Israeli Patriot battery shot down a Syrian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 which had penetrated the airspace of the Golan Heights, achieving the system's first shootdown of a manned enemy aircraft.^[10]