I recently found it necessary to block someone on Twitter who suddenly wanted to do a ‘debate’ with me about the Ukraine war. This is sad because I have followed him for a long time and met him personally at Basic Income conferences. I value his twitter feed as a way of keeping up with discussions inside the Basic Income movement.
I never engage in debates; I find them a complete waste of time. Dialogue can be useful. I usually prefer to listen when someone appears to know what he or she is talking about, then seek to verify what she/he said.
Then, when someone asks me about a subject I know something about, I try to explain it and refer the person to good information sources. I have little patience with someone who is out to change my mind about something. They almost invariably do not know what they are talking about.
If I feel like I am in for a ‘sealioning’, I just terminate. This was where this internet exchange seemed to be going. He thinks he is a master debater, so he was being cute about it, asking me whether I am confusing three questions; can Russia win the Ukraine war, should it win it, and will it win it.
He has over time turned into a standard ‘woke’ liberal. I knew he had absorbed the narrative about evil ogre Putin invading Ukraine to eat babies. Alas, he noticed the Z logo on my twitter bar.
He was somewhat indignant, but has not blocked me back. When I post this piece, I will try sending him the link. He inspired it, maybe it will inspire him.
However, I will not be discussing the topic any further with him. I had recently pointed him toward credible information sources on the Ukraine war. He has obviously had not availed himself of it.
Most of the aggressive ignorance in public discussion comes from group conformity. All social classes and education levels seem prone to it. It is more about cowardice, less about ignorance or stupidity.
Thus, the globalist’s perception management program on the net is turning to increasingly sophisticated, as well as aggressive, forms of gaslighting. The trope being used lately on us “Putin puppet” people is; “explain why you still think Russia will win the war.”
So what follows is why I think Russia will win the war. The simple answer is that I do not have my head stuck in the western media cognitive control bubble. To get a clear picture of what is going on, you do have to follow Russian media.
The internet has so far made it impossible to silence the voice of the other side. It takes only a little effort to find it. There is google translate. There are plenty of bilingual and binational commentators.
The level of public discussion in Russia puts the western internet to shame. You can get a really good idea of what people are talking about in Russia, the Donbas, and even in Ukraine. There is no doubt about what is happening.
In fact, the problem I am having in writing this piece is that too much is happening right now, after some months of inactivity. I am in information overload. But this story is well worth following.
It is really quite moving. The internet can be an amazing instrument. From a distance I am seeing a nation stand up.
The Russians have come to realize just what they are facing and what will be the consequences if they do not deal with it effectively. They are resolved.
They are solidly behind President Putin as he begins the war for real. However, they will not stand for any more of the Hamlet routine he has been doing for six months.
I will briefly explain how we got to this point. I have already written a lot about it, you can find it here and here
First, the actual character of Russian President Putin must be considered. He was a KGB officer. However, he was also educated in law and he thinks like a lawyer. He is also a very skilled and experienced politician.
Much is also made of Putin’s avocation of Judo. It is assumed that he would thus be disposed to seek to turn an opponent’s strength against him. We should hope so.
Throughout his time as the Russian chief of state, Putin has been cautious but determined in foreign policy. He makes sure he has solid legal justification before taking any action. He also makes sure he has the Russian people solidly behind him.
Beyond that, he makes sure Russia is seen in the eyes of the world, outside the western alternate reality bubble, to be acting according to principles and precedents of international law, and only after all other options are exhausted. This is important when you are in the situation Russia is in, analogous to a person faced with a sociopathic bully who is determined to violently attack, but who needs to present him or her self as the victim.
The western powers are determined to provoke a conflict, seeing it as the only way out of their dilemma. They are facing collapse due to decades of economic mismanagement. They do not really care whether they lose the war, as long as it creates the conditions under which they can impose measures they believe will preserve their power.
Putin began the war when Ukraine, under western direction, gave him a cause of war which he could not let pass. Ukraine tore up the Minsk treaty with the Donbas republics, with the clear intent to launch an all out military offensive to defeat Donbas. This would have had genocidal consequences for the Russian speaking population of Donbas.
No Russian government which allowed this to happen could remain in office, or should. Those who maintain that Russia was not justified in launching the “special military operation’ simply do not know what they are talking about, or they have an impaired moral sense.
Briefly, the course of the war has been this; after destroying the Ukraine army in the first month of the war, Russia withdrew from much of the territory it had taken and then seemed to just wait for four months. During this time what was left of the old Ukraine army used up most of its remaining soviet era equipment on futile attacks on the Russians.
But behind them NATO built a new army in Ukraine. This new army is equipped with western weapons, trained and led by officers from western armies. About a third of it seems to be made up of mercenaries from anywhere and everywhere.
This behavior of the Russian government is baffling until you think more deeply about it. It could still be seen as a strategic error, which has been much argued over in Russia. It is really a “glass half full or half empty” kind of conundrum.
Russia initially expected the Ukrainians to negotiate. It became clear that any Ukrainian politician who made any deal with the “Moskals” would be assassinated by the NeoNazi lunatics controlling Ukraine for western intelligence services. So the Russian army drew back to shorten their line and waited.
It became clear that the conflict between Russia and its allies, and the west, was three wars in one. Russia declined to seriously start the war on the ground. It waited for Ukraine and NATO to build the case for a real ground war, to the Russian people and to the international community.
The Russian people, for well known historic reasons, are more afraid of war than most people. They will consent to go to war only if the survival of their nation is imperiled. But they also know what the consequences will be for them if they let the West win.
The other two wars are the propaganda war and the economic war. The west has won the former hands down. It is really pretty sick; the western establishment media just ‘mirror projects’ onto the Russians whatever they are doing themselves, or however they are themselves failing.
The Russians are spectacularly winning the economic war. The western globalists completely miscalculated the effects their sanctions would have on Russia, and its blowback effects on themselves. Their economic blockade of Russia is actually benefiting the Russian economy.
The incompetent leadership of the European Union failed to understand how much their economies depend on Russian energy and materials. This conflict will destroy their economies, and they will never recover.
This initially suited the USA. It has long wanted the EU to be deindustrialized. But Uncle Sam is finding that the war is causing economic consequences for him that he had not expected.
It is thought that what provoked the NATO/Ukraine September offensive was the decision to allow the Donbas republics and two liberated provinces of South Ukraine to hold a referendum on joining Russia. These people had been strenuously demanding this. To them it was the only way to end the shelling they had endured from the NeoNazi lunatics for eight years, and with great intensity for six months.
The Russian allied force was clearly aware that a counteroffensive was coming. They evacuated all civilians who wanted to leave. They prepared new defenses further back.
Yet the command handled things awkwardly. There was poor coordination between units. Russians wondered why each sector of the front was commanded separately, with no overall command.
The pro Russia internet chatter, in Russian or English, was full of indignation. There was a certain level of confusion and panic when the the Russian allied forces began to give ground.
Everyone was asking; where the hell is the Russian air force? Why were there not enough troops on the front to cover the line?
In the Russian language internet, most of the blame was laid on the senior commanders in the war zone. A few called for these generals to be shot, like we are back in Stalin’s time. But the buck stopped well short of the senior political leadership of Russia.
The referendums passed with large majorities. The Russian Duma duly approved the annexation of the territories. The people there danced in the street over finally “going back to Russia”, between cluster bomb barrages from Ukraine.
With the legal formalities done, Putin and the council of state ordered a partial mobilization.
They day after the partial mobilization was called, the general in charge of ‘material-technical supply’ was replaced. The Russian internet is asking what happened to all the money supposedly spent on maintaining equipment stockpiles. It is abuzz with talk of new recruits having to supply their own socks and toiletries; some even buying their own ammunition.
Nonetheless, The case for war has been made to the Russian public. For every story about young men lined up at the border fleeing conscription, there is one about them lined up to volunteer to go and stamp out those “Azovs”. People are setting up funds to buy personal equipment for the troops.
The case is also made to Russia’s allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Council. This is an association of Eurasian states, led by China, which has created a solid bloc on the Eurasian landmass which is outside of western control. At their recent congress, they told the Russian delegation that they were clear with Russia using military means to “get this mess cleaned up.”
Of course, having made the case, Putin cannot go back on it. If he does not get the war machine rolling effectively in a few months, he will not remain in power. The Russian people will follow him and Russia’s allies will support it.
The front has now stabilized. General Surovikin is now in overall command. Russians seem cautiously satisfied that the war is now being handled properly.
Until now Russia has treated the war like a sort of ‘police action’. They are still putting on the line only a fraction of the force they could generate. But when they roll out the new force they are preparing, the NATO army in Ukraine will be done in a few weeks.
While it is very well prepared for one, Russia has not fought a major war in some time. It is to be expected that its army will require some shaking out, clearing away of deadwood in the command, and gaining practical experience. The very limited war it has fought so far has shown the Russian army many of its deficiencies, which are being corrected.
Russia is expected to go on the attack in the winter. The ground will be hard so vehicles can move. NATO will have a very hard time maintaining its Ukraine proxy force in cold weather.
The consensus seems to be that the new NATO army in Ukraine, you cannot call it a Ukrainian army anymore, has a few weeks to play out its antics. It will not be allowed to retake any large city. The Russians will need about three months to carry out their mobilization; training troops, laying down supplies, resolving deficiencies.
When the NATO/Ukraine army is done, the NeoNazi state which western intelligence services have nurtured in Ukraine for eight years, will also be done. The west, NATO, will not enter the war because it has no effective forces to enter it with. It seems destined to collapse, economically and politically, over the next two years, and with that all threat to Russia and its new territories will end.
So that is why I think Russia is going to win the war.
Now, as for my friend and his ‘can win’, ‘should win’, and ‘will win’. A very important fact he is missing is that Russia has a much superior military force to what NATO or the USA could field. Russia would have to screw up very badly to lose this.
Russia should win because it is on the side of right. Nazi regimes should never be tolerated anywhere. Those who have put Ukraine flags on their twitter handles have put themselves on the side of bastards with swastika tattoos who are doing everything that the Russian army is being accused of.
Russia will win because it is being reasonably well led. As old Clausewitz said, war is political.
If you cannot get a country’s people behind a war, you will not be able to generate effective military forces, no matter how much equipment you have stockpiled. Putin the politician has been very skillful and very careful in making sure the Russian people know exactly what they are fighting for, before he called the partial mobilization.
It is not hard to find the reality of the Russia-Ukraine-EU-USA, situation. The obstacle is, as I said, cowardice. The modern Oligarchic propaganda methods rely mostly on creating fear of being attacked, humiliated, ostracized, and “canceled.”
The nonsense propaganda put out against Russia and now China should be easily seen as such. It is really pretty inept.
On the other hand, while the Russian state media occasionally gives us nonsense, post Soviet Russians generally understand that the best propaganda is the truth. They have the truth on their side.
I am on their side. I will not let anyone or anything deter me from saying the truth, about the Ukraine/NATO war or anything else.
Interesting. I have never seen the case for Russia put out with such fervor. Makes me really curious about the source of your feelings. Like you, I don't trust the media or their presentations at all. (I have a hard time believing the Russian media is any different. I am certain they are run by the same anonymous group that runs ours. That group will make billions regardless of which way the war goes.) Your article is broad brush, as it has to be to be readable. But I have questions for somebody to answer. Other than the 70-year-old WWII history, what is the basis for calling Ukraine Nazi? If Putin is such a reasonable leader with a superior military, why the obliteration of Ukrainian infrastructure and citizens? It seems to me that the Russian people suffer from the same sort of arrogance that we do, so why is their (whoever they are) more credible than anything else? This is not a confrontation. I welcome your point of view. I just don't know how I should rely on it anymore than the other opinions thrown at us daily.