I suspect, not much, except blabber some more.<\/p>\n
Putin Won’t Go, Russia Won’t Collapse\u2014So What Will Biden Do About Ukraine?<\/a><\/p>\n Another\u00a0s\u00e9ance with the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu<\/a>\u00a0explains Putin\u2019s objectives in Ukraine: Russia will ruin and depopulate Ukraine, the way Richelieu reduced large parts of Germany to cannibalism during the Thirty Years War. Shortly after I conjured the spirit of Europe\u2019s greatest (and nastiest) strategist, the\u00a0Telegram channel of Russia\u2019s most fanatic nationalist, Aleksandr Dugin<\/a>, featured the item below:<\/p>\n NATO says the military phase of the conflict in Ukraine is far from over. Of course, no one will let Zelensky make peace.<\/p>\n Ukraine is not a subject, but an object, where the Zelensky regime is not an actor, but a tool.<\/p>\n Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the intentions of the enemy and use the period of the military phase of the operation to continue the methodical destruction of the military infrastructure of Ukraine, and taking into account NATO\u2019s course of prolonging the conflict, it is advisable to consider moving on to the destruction of industrial facilities in the territories of Ukraine that lie outside our interests, especially paying attention to those objects that Ukraine, for obvious reasons, will not be able to restore. Later, such a convenient opportunity to complete the deindustrialization of Ukraine may not present itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n An \u201copportunity to complete the deindustrialization of Ukraine.\u201d Putin isn\u2019t defeated or baffled or confused. He\u2019s turning the crank on the meatgrinder. One doesn\u2019t have to read too far into these lines to conclude that Putin hoped that Zelensky would cut a deal on his terms once Russia invaded, but when Zelensky refused to cut a deal, Putin moved to Option B, which is to erase most of Ukraine from the face of the earth. That\u2019s not as difficult as it sounds. Putin will keep the bits he wants in the Southeast (Donetsk and Luhansk), leave the West to factory farming, and pound the rest to rubble with artillery and air power.<\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s national population of 45 million had fallen to just\u00a033 million by 2020<\/a>\u00a0because half the working-age population left. Another 5 million refugees have fled, and millions more will leave before Russian cannons fall silent. There won\u2019t be enough working-age Ukrainians left to begin reconstruction.\u00a0Putin claimed on Feb. 23<\/a>\u00a0that the West intended to turn Ukraine into a NATO missile platform with a 300-mile distance to Moscow. If he can\u2019t get Ukraine to accept neutrality with Russian control over its southeast provinces, he\u2019ll eliminate the threat Richelieu-style.<\/p>\n It\u2019s horrible. But what\u2019s going to stop Putin? To flatten Ukrainian cities, all the Russians need is artillery. All the Javelin anti-tank missiles in the world won\u2019t do any good.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Putin\u2019s popularity is at 78% according to\u00a0independent polls<\/a>\u00a0that Western analysts think are accurate. The ruble has climbed back to just about where it traded before the invasion and the Russian economy is doing \u201cbetter than you think,\u201d according to the\u00a0London\u00a0Economist<\/em><\/a>. Biden bragged that the U.S. had reduced \u201cthe ruble to rubble.\u201d He spoke too soon. He declared that Putin \u201ccan\u2019t stay in power.\u201d Looks like he can and he will. China\u2019s sitting on the sidelines enjoying the show, and India, which refused to support sanctions against its longstanding ally Russia, will sell the Russians\u2019 consumer goods.<\/p>\n U.S. officials can scream all they want about Russian \u201cwar crimes\u201d (I don\u2019t know the facts and take no position on whether war crimes were committed or not). I think that Putin is a bad guy and that the Russian invasion was a wicked enterprise. But Putin isn\u2019t going anywhere, Russia isn\u2019t collapsing, and the Russian Army is demolishing Ukraine.<\/p>\n What, then, does the Biden administration do next? Russia outguns us in nuclear weapons (and can deliver them from submarines firing hypersonic cruise missiles underwater). We don\u2019t want a nuclear confrontation with Russia.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I signed\u00a0this statement<\/a>\u00a0calling for de-escalation of the conflict sponsored by Compact Magazine, founded by my friends Sohrab Ahmari and Matthew Schmitz. Biden, Blinken, Nuland et al. have led us into a dead-end crisis that threatens to have a horrifying outcome\u2014and maybe even a nuclear fireball. If you think I\u2019m exaggerating, read this\u00a0Asia Times<\/em>\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0by editor-in-chief Uwe Parpart and myself. There\u2019s still time to back out of the cul-de-sac. But not a lot.<\/p>\n Late-breaking news:\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reports:<\/p>\n Mr. Scholz made one last push for a settlement between Moscow and Kyiv. He told Mr. Zelensky in Munich on Feb. 19 that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia. The pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine\u2019s security.<\/p>\n Mr. Zelensky said Mr. Putin couldn\u2019t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. His answer left German officials worried that the chances of peace were fading. Aides to Mr. Scholz believed Mr. Putin would maintain his military pressure on Ukraine\u2019s borders to strangle its economy and then eventually move to occupy the country.<\/p>\n U.S. and European leaders held a video call. \u201cI think the last person who could still do something is you, Joe. Are you ready to meet Putin?\u201d Mr. Macron said to Mr. Biden. The U.S. president agreed and asked Mr. Macron to pass the message to Mr. Putin.<\/p>\n Mr. Macron spent the night of Feb. 20 alternately on the phone with Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.<\/p>\n The Frenchman was still talking with Mr. Putin at 3 a.m. Moscow time, negotiating the wording of a press release announcing the plan for a U.S.-Russian summit.<\/p>\n But the next day, Mr. Putin called Mr. Macron back. The summit was off.<\/p>\n Mr. Putin said he had decided to recognize the independence of separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. He said fascists had seized power in Kyiv, while NATO hadn\u2019t responded to his security concerns and was planning to deploy nuclear missiles in Ukraine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I suspect, not much, except blabber some more. Putin Won’t Go, Russia Won’t Collapse\u2014So What Will Biden Do About Ukraine? Another\u00a0s\u00e9ance with the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu\u00a0explains Putin\u2019s objectives in Ukraine: Russia will ruin and depopulate Ukraine, the way Richelieu reduced large parts of Germany to cannibalism during the Thirty Years War. Shortly after I … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79584,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79583\/revisions\/79584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}