In the News: Observations & Analyses
Ukraine: AP reported President Volodymyr Zelensky’s words at a ceremony commemorating the massacre at Babyn Yar in Kyiv of nearly 34,000 Jews during 48 hours in the 1941 Nazi occupation: “Babyn Yar is vivid proof of the atrocities that regimes are capable of when led by leaders who rely on intimidation and violence. At any…
Strategy Essay: Zelensky’s Unmet Requests are Xi Jinping’s Political Capital for Invasion of Taiwan
Chinese leader Xi Jinping uses China’s manufacturing power to help Russia’s aggression against Ukraine not out of friendship for President Vladimir Putin, but because a Putin victory in Ukraine can help him ram through his imperial military agenda for Taiwan and the region. The U.S. and free allies, by their munitions and weapons supply to…
Defending Ukraine, Changing War with Anti-Weapon Weapons
In February 2015, we wrote about a newly conceived category of advanced weapon systems purposed or repurposed to destroy aggressor states’ conventional weapons, ammo, and war supplies while such are used for aggression, yet refining the weapons to be ever more precise to that purpose, reducing collateral damage and depopulation: “These could be relabeled “disarmament…
Reality Over Reactivity for Right Result in Deterrence and Détente
As Iran provides Russia with short range ballistic missiles to use against Ukraine, U.S. officials are reportedly mulling approval of Ukraine’s request to use longer range U.S. weapons to strike Russian targets deeper inside Russia. Asked whether Ukraine should be allowed long range strike capabilities into Russian territory with U.S.-supplied weapons, The Wall Street Journal…
Supporting a High Yield Presence in the Kursk Region
From inside Russia, Ukraine’s Kursk Raiders have fused guerrilla warfare, blitz, and entrenchment tactics to extend Ukraine’s range and divide Russian resources. As the Raiders live off the land and turn Russian resources against Russian military and intelligence forces, defense contact group supporters should help them accomplish their defense mission and make it home alive…
Georgia and Armenia Ally with Ukraine, Others Follow
That should be a headline going forward. There’s still time. Truth: Those who cave to Moscow today will soon become its conscripts tomorrow, thrown into wars they sought to avoid. Secret police states don’t govern well and the Soviet Union proved it, collapsing on itself. The Putin persona is a trained product of that failed…
On People Leadership Ukraine’s Zelensky Has Earned Mantle as De Facto Leader of Eastern Slavs
Eastern Slavs, generally include Ukrainians, Russians, and Byelorussians yet it is Russia’s ruler today that uniquely implies Russia owns the highest tier of a presumed Eastern Slavic caste system with the right to dominate the others. Present day leader of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenka is submissive to Putin and has acquiesced to Putin’s domination. Having based…
Essay: Xi Jinping Gambles on Putin’s Wars. China’s Jiang Zemin & Hu Jintao Did Not Need To
President Vladimir Putin’s nearly three year slog inside sovereign Ukraine fuels mission creep for Russian forces and Chinese sponsor Xi Jinping’s substantial, yet globally interdependent, and therefore limited, instruments of power. Compared with his predecessors, Xi has become a spendthrift of Chinese good will with his international support for aggressors Russia and Iran against Ukraine…
Truth Out the Window: Putin’s Cynicism with “Special Military Operation” Mocks Russian Intellect and Losses
Note Putin’s dictatorial cynicism in the apparatchik-wording at the Russian Foreign Ministry, reported by Politico covering Russia’s latest free press restrictions retaliating for EU bans on Russia’s state-controlled RT and Sputnik: The “counter-restrictions” are imposed on “a number of media outlets of EU member states and EU-wide media operators that systematically disseminate false information about…
What Caspian States Can Do If Russia Tries to Misuse Treaty to Co-Opt Them for Putin’s Wars
The Set-up In the Spring of 2018, during negotiations leading to the execution of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea on August 12, 2018 by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan, the Russian Ministry of Defense took two actions to coerce the other parties: (1) the April 2018 relocation of the…