alanjjohnstone
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How much reliability should we place on the opinion of Scott Ritter.
During the build-up to the Iraq War I held his views to be well informed because he had been recently been connected to first-hand intel.
Fast forward twenty years
As TS himself has admitted, Ritter misunderstood Russia’s tactics. He has at the beginning of the war foresaw a rapid Russian victory and again had to correct himself.
“The military aid the west is providing to Ukraine is changing the dynamic and if Russia doesn’t find a way to address this meaningfully… the conflict will never end.”It was another mistake but in Feb 2023, his view on the crucial supply of West weapons remains pertinent. Nobody in authority disputes the supply problems and the time-lag. But nor do they agree that there will be a speedy end to the war. Perhaps an extended ceasefire and the resumption of hostilities at a later time.
Ritter should be heeded to some extent such as his contention that the Russians would respond to the loss of Crimea and Southern Ukraine with attacks on Polish, German and even British supply lines. This would lead to a collective response from NATO and would inevitably lead to a nuclear exchange.
Once again the view of most of us here that Ukrainian territory should be conceded in any settlement is validated.
Further to who is paying the price of the war, in Ukraine, it is workers’ rights being attacked as well
The credibility of Alexander Mercouris
TS offers a crooked lawyer as an expert
He is editor of The Duran
“Overall, we rate The Duran as a Questionable source based on far-right-wing bias, promotion of Russian propaganda, right-wing conspiracies, a lack of transparency, use of poor sources, plagiarism, and failed fact checks.”
TS – “Donbass will be fully liberated by August if Scott Ritter is to be believed and he hasn’t got much wrong so far.”
Other than this miscalculation by Ritter
TS – “My initial assessment was based on that of Scott Ritter. He expected Russia to follow their standard military doctrine, a doctrine that would have been used in a confrontation with NATO. But Russia refrained from doing so..”
I have little confidence in any of the predictions being made. Deception is the first rule of war and neither side are being open and transparent about their strategies and tactics, nor their losses.
If the Russian offensive has begun, its opening advances have been limited.
“The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops broke through two Ukrainian defensive lines in the eastern Luhansk region and pushed back Ukrainian troops some three kilometers (two miles).”
Time will tell.
Was it the lack of enthusiasm for independence?
Or was it the transgender issue that cost Sturgeon her popularity?
Or is it something to do with the police fraud investigation into SNP finances?
No doubt it will come out in the wash, eventually
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russian envoy to the United Nations, has said it will be impossible for his country to achieve its war aims unless Bakhmut is captured.
“I know that there is no way to liberate Donbas without capturing Bakhmut and I know that liberation of Donbas is one of the tasks of our military operation,” Polyanskiy said.
The Russian diplomat described the war-ravaged city as a “fortress” that is “part of a heavily fortified line of defense.”
“It’s not just a simple city. It’s a city that has long underground tunnels and fortifications,” he said. “That’s why it’s so difficult to capture this fortress, but I’m sure that we will do it.”
Comments from others that I know TS will dismiss.
Jon Roozenbeek, at the University of Cambridge, said taking the town would be symbolic for Russia as it would enable Putin to show some form of military victory. If captured, it would be Russia’s first major battlefield gain since the summer of 2022.
Roozenbeek said Bakhmut itself doesn’t hold a lot of strategic value, but the location does. He explained that taking Bakhmut would enable Putin’s troops to launch artillery strikes on key places, such as the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the Donetsk region.
Jaroslava Barbieri at the University of Birmingham, also said the city has more symbolic—rather than strategic—military importance.
“Taking control over Bakhmut is a desperate attempt to send the message that Russia is making incremental gains and can still win in Ukraine.”
The Institute for the Study of War assessment is that had Russian troops taken Bakhmut without significant Ukrainian resistance, they could have hoped to expand operations in ways that could have forced Ukraine to construct hasty defensive positions in less favorable terrain.
“Therefore, Ukraine’s defense of Bakhmut and undertaking an effort to set conditions for a counteroffensive are likely complementary, not mutually exclusive, activities considering that Russian forces would have continued their offensive beyond Bakhmut had Ukraine yielded the city earlier.”
It seems everything is dependent upon the success or failure of the imminent Russian Spring Offensive. IMHO even such a victory will not be sufficient to bring subdue Ukraine and bring it to the negotiation table. The war will go on and I have to agree with Wagners Prigozhin that the conflict will drag on, draining not only the combatants but the rest of the world of resources.
Recall the Iraq-Iran war lasted 8 long bloody years.
UK officials have been sketching out the implications of an invasion of Taiwan by China. Concerns about such a conflict have grown recently, and predictions about when it could take place range as far into the future as 2049.
We should add, however, if one believes that the West is provoking a war with China, then it is very currently poorly equipped to initiate one.
However, it does provide China with a timely advantage if it chooses to escalate tensions to an armed conflict.
One caveat, in such a war it would be more an air and naval conflict rather than a ground war involving artillery and tanks. America retains its dominance in that regard.
And then there is also the possibility of an Iran war. Once again, the USA will be reluctant to get directly involved if Israel attacked Iran.
Is it likely that Russia will invade NATO in the near future?
As you keep saying, Russia is not the aggressor, so present shortages are not an immediate critical issue. It simply supports all those who say that NATO is not a threat to Russia.
On the other hand, if a war did unexpectedly break out, it does raise the prospect of nuclear weapons being used to compensate for the lack of conventional supplies. Without sufficient 155mm shells, a tactical nuke may well be employed.
Stockpiles of weaponry are being depleted but NATO members have all committed to increasing their military budgets and are ordering new armaments from manufacturers. It will take time for them to be produced to replenish. But it will happen.
Perhaps the time-line may not be sufficient to save Ukraine from the anticipated Russian offensive, but it does not mean that NATO is being demilitarised.
On the contrary.
NATO is on course to enlarge its membership with Finland and Sweden planning to join.
The lesson being learned is that the expenditure of ammunition in today’s modern war is vast, much more than war-games had foreseen.
Do you think NATO countries will not take such lessons into consideration when they re-stock and re-arm themselves?
For the working class, it means that national budgets will be adjusted with less GDP spent on social welfare and much more spent on the military.
Tanks for nothing, Putin and Zelensky, for putting more money into the coffers of the armament industry and less into health, education and the elderly.
Something to be proud of.
As always, it is the workers who pay the price of war.
On November 25, 1920, Makhno’s commanders in the Crimea, fresh from their victory over Wrangel, were seized by the Red Army and shot.
Ukraine blew up a bridge near the eastern town of Bakhmut on Monday, a sign that it is planning to retreat.
New measures restricting journalists’ access to Bakhmut has been imposed.
BD – Zelenskiy said in early February that Ukraine was determined to hold Bakhmut, describing it as “Fortress Bakhmut”.
Alex Younger, who led the UK’s MI6 Intelligence Service between 2014 and 2020, raises tensions.
The UK must recognise “we’re in a competition” with China, Sir Alex said.
He said: “We need to wake up to this.
“We need to double down on the strengths that we possess to face this systemic competition that’s going on.”
PROTEST FOR PEACE
February 19 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, anti-war rally, Rage Against the War Machine.
Chris Hedges, Jimmy Dore, Dennis Kucinich, Ann Wright, Jill Stein, Max Blumenthal, Cynthia McKinney, Anya Parampil, David Swanson, plus right wing libertarians Ron Paul and Scott Horton and supported by the Libertarian Party’s Mises Caucus
The demands of the rally include Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine; Negotiate Peace; Stop the War Inflation; Disband NATO; Global Nuclear De-Escalation; Slash the Pentagon Budget; Abolish the CIA and Military Industrial Deep State; Abolish War and Empire; Restore Civil Liberties; and Free Julian Assange.
Veterans for Peace (VFP), refuse to join the rally. The board of Code Pink asked its co-founder, Medea Benjamin to cancel her speech at the rally.
A CALL FOR PEACE
A quarter of a million people have signed an online petition urging German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to stop increasing the flow of weapons to Ukraine and to push for a peaceful resolution of the conflict instead.
The petition also notes that negotiations do not equal surrender – rather, it means “making compromises on both sides” in order to prevent “hundreds of thousands more deaths and worse.”
