The “Pravitel” Prerogative
Putin’s chosen prerogative as the presumed “pravitel” (правитель) over Russia trends in extinguishing the lives of generations of young and middle aged Russian and Ukrainian men on the outdated delusion that the prize of expansive imperial buffer territory is worth all the lives he can spend. I have heard arguments from academics and Russian friends that all…
The U.S. Military Industrial Complex Did Not Attack Ukraine
Russian, Chinese, and proxy troll networks have been falsely blaming the U.S. military industrial complex (MIC) for Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine and to divert attention from Xi Jinping’s transformation of China into something of a divine emperor cult. These dictators act as if World War 2 and the holocaust never happened and as if…
Multilateral Supply Suppression in Support of Ukraine
Argument The “Ukraine Defense Contact Support Group” (DCG) and others supporting Ukraine should take collective action to suppress international supply lines of bombs and weapons to the Russian Federation for use against Ukraine and Ukrainian civilian targets under the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings,(CSTB) despite near certain anticipated challenges under Article 19(2) of…
A Piece of Winter Strategy
For the remainder of Winter and beyond, Ukraine needs the means to continue to make Russian borderland roads and railways impassable and prohibitive to repair that would supply and enable Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. This, in occupied Ukraine and on roads and railways on the border inside Russia that support the short, mid,…
SOCMINT Sample: Putin’s Strategic Disinformation
Putin regime proxy profiles (paid, voluntary, or unwitting) are alleging Russian active measures talking points that the Putin dictatorship’s attacking Ukraine is only doing what John F. Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis and or the Bay of Pigs invasion. This narrative is false in a number of ways: 1. False Analogy as…
Strategic Factors: Constitutional or Utopian, Progress or Restraint?
The value of being conservative or progressive depends on the merit and persuasive gravity of the objectives that progressive or conservative goals would achieve at home and in U.S. foreign policy. If the achievement of progress or restraint morphs into provocative, anti-constitutional, one-party, identity-tribal, or single branch government ideology at home, it will be seen…
Our Political Premises: Knowing Self
Fundamental to both freedom and security is how well a population, its leaders, and its government know themselves and each other. Militarily, this is half of the classic Sun Tzu victory rule. One way leaders try to know this is by polling data, yet polling results also trickle into the presses and public awareness, offering…
If Russia Cannot Hold Ukraine What Does Victory Mean?
Nine months ago, CSIS’s Seth Jones wrote at WaPo that Russia could defeat Ukraine but could not hold the territory. Today it is not even certain that Russia can “defeat Ukraine” much less hold it. To give it a serious try, Moscow would need to dilute its defenses along borders on its vast frontier. Moscow…
Governing Incompetence of the Siloviki
The Russian intelligence service veterans termed “Siloviki” who became self-dealing oligarchs, or “Silovarchs,”1 have all but destroyed the KGB-FSB-SVR-GRU brands with their incompetence. A metaphorical meme for Putin’s war on Ukraine could be Tom Clancy’s “Hunt for the Red October” scene in which the Lithuanian-born (today he could be Ukrainian) Captain Marko Ramius of the…
Might Russia have Hacked, Hijacked, and or Spoofed Ukraine’s S-300 Air Defense?
Purpose: This brief dispatch is to point out a possible, not certain, past reference raising the issue of whether (1) Russian network attack capability and/or (2) cyberattack using backdoors could have had a hand in the errant flight this past week of what evidence so far suggests are two Ukrainian (yet Russian designed and made)…