Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Mithradates]

It's common sense that if the other side (Ukraine) starts with more mobilized than you (which isn't disputed by anyone), and you fail in your goals, you will mobilize more. It's doesn't imply you lost more of a set batch than you could hope to win with, when you already did not win with the original number.

Please rephrase.

So the original documents were leaked to the Ukrainian propaganda channels too?

They leaked to the internet, they are everywhere.

[conon394]

an intelligence leak of thissort, posted on social media and available around the world, is boundto harm intelligence sharing between Ukraine and the UnitedStates.

Is it? Leaks happen. Mistakes are made. Seems unlikely to end with any significant impact unless the leak is not plugged.

[Stario]

They would be cursing Putin because he started the war that led to disaster. Instead of just being patient and waiting for things to evolve naturally he decided to poke the bear with a stick.

Putin doesn't want whole of Ukraine (regions that are occupied exclusively by ethnic Ukranians for eg. here the resistance would be massive as every man, woman, child and even the eldelry take up arms to defend their homes).
On the other hand regions such as the Donbas independent Republics of Donetsk & Luhansk will probably be more than pleased that someone finally put an end to the (almost) decade of bombings and genocide of their region by the Ukranian regime...

Edit:
The interesting thing will be once the Russians realise their objectives they will almost certainly sue for peace, and whether the Ukranians will then accept or decline to keep fighting to try get any lost territory back... and whether murican lead NATO will continue support for such war.
If the Ukranian refuse peace (in the hope of liberating lost territory), and NATO supports such war then things will really escalate and it could be a hard life for the next decade or two for all of us (the whole world)...

[Coughdrop addict]

Putin doesn't want whole of Ukraine

So why the push to Kiev at the start? Sightseeing?

On the other hand regions such as the Donbas independent Republics of Donetsk & Luhansk will probably be more than pleased that someone finally put an end to the (almost) decade of bombings and genocide of their region by the Ukranian regime...

You need to keep up with the news. Those "independent Republics" were annexed by Russia months ago. The "decade of bombings and genocide of their region by the Ukranian regime" is such an outrageous lie that it doesn't merit rebuttal anymore than flat earth theory.

The interesting thing will be once the Russians realise their objectives they will almost certainly sue for peace, and whether the Ukranians will then accept or decline to keep fighting to try get any lost territory back... and whether murican lead NATO will continue support for such war.
If the Ukranian refuse peace (in the hope of liberating lost territory), and NATO supports such war then things will really escalate and it could be a hard life for the next decade or two for all of us (the whole world)...

Putin’s vanity project in Ukraine is a failure. He has exposed Russia as impotent. Who is going to listen to Russia huffing and puffing when they can't even take on Ukraine with some of our old weapons? Russia’s desperation to be feared is laughable.

When Ukraine decides this war is over it will be on terms that leave Putin nice and humiliated. In addition to the return of Ukraine's 1991 territory, a 10 mile demilitarized buffer zone of Russian land across the entire Russia-Ukraine border might be a good start.

[Cyclops]

Mincemeat anyone?

Clearly Russia already won the war and have occupied Washington, and it's only Nazi Jewish witchcraft propaganda that presents generals Bidenovsky and Trumpskoi as US politicians.

[Kyriakos]

It will be interesting to see what will happen the next time US invades a country. As long as Russia/China won't benefit from that invasion, they may well just flood the defender with money/weapons.
Though maybe US just plans to maintain the military-industrial complex with a new cold war - which, in time, may be more palatable to the US public.

[conon394]

It will be interesting to see what will happen the next time US invades a country. As long as Russia/China won't benefit from that invasion, they may well just flood the defender with money/weapons.

You assume they can afford to. Also so umm you miss Korea or Vietnam

[Kyriakos]

Syria might be as good a place as any for more Russia/China backing. That "civil" war has been going on longer than the two world wars combined.

[conon394]

Fine by me not sure what they get out of it. Its not like the US has more than a tiny investment in it. But last I checked Russia dose not have any kit or money or mercenaries to much for Assad. Not Sure If I were Assad I take Chinese money until I looked real hard at the terms on the belt and road imitative assuming China is still funding it.

[Ludicus]

Leaked Pentagon Documents Appear to Show U.S. Spying on Ally South Korea. - TIME

In 2013, it was revealed that the NSA and CIA had been tapping Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone for years.
And Germany isn’t the only ally that’s felt aggrieved: the French government was outraged in 2015 after news broke that the U.S. had been spying on then President François Hollande and his predecessors.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, that habit hasn’t stopped.
At least two of the documents, the Korea Herald reports, detailed internal discussions among South Korea’s officials concerning the U.S. pressuring the East Asian nation to help supply weapons to Ukraine amid Seoul’s hesitancy.

Yang says that the publicization of the documents, however, makes cooperation with the U.S., especially on Ukraine policy, even more fraught.

The Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), which controls the National Assembly, has been at best lukewarm about getting involved in the Ukraine crisis, and it’s become more vocal about U.S. interference. On Twitter on Monday, the party characterized the alleged American spying on Seoul as “a serious violation of national sovereignty.”

Leaked Pentagon documents provide rare window into depth of US intelligence on allies and foes.

Some of the documents, which US officials say are authentic, expose the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies.

Many of the documents had markings indicating that they had been produced by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as J2, and appear to be briefing documents.

“We expect the US to share a damage assessment with us in the coming days, but we cannot wait for their assessment. Right now we are doing our own,” said an official from a country that is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement with the US, which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

“We are poring over these documents to figure out if any of the intelligence originated from our collection,” the official said.

A second Five Eyes nation official expressed concern about the leaked Ukraine war information handicapping the country on the battlefield.
The official also pointed out that it was alarming to see one of the documents from February titled “Russia-Ukraine: Battle for the Donbas Region Likely Heading for a Stalemate Throughout 2023.”

“Gains for Ukraine will be hard to accomplish, but it does not help to have the private US assessment pointing to a likely yearlong stalemate revealed publicly,” the official said.

An intelligence report about Israel, meanwhile, has sparked outrage in Jerusalem. The report, produced by the CIA and sourced to signals intelligence, says that Israel’s main intelligence agency, the Mossad, had been encouraging protests against the country’s new government – “including several explicit calls to action,” the report alleges.
The document, titled “Israel: Pathways to Providing Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” says Jerusalem “likely will consider providing lethal aid under increased US pressure or a perceived degradation” in its relationship with Russia.
Another classified document, also sourced to signals intelligence, offers a window into how the US assesses its allies’ policies – and how the US can exert its influence to change them.

Old news…The Guardian makes an accurate summary,
Documents seemingly leaked from Pentagon draw denials from US allies

numerous allies have been forced into denials over the purported leaks.

South Korea to Probe Circumstances Around Reported Leak

South Korea “plans to request, if necessary, the U.S. to take reasonable measures,” the official said.

Come on, honestly speaking, it’s not necessary. Corinthians 5:7 – “walk by faith and not by sight”. I'm sorry guys I just can't stop laughing.

[conon394]

Leaked Pentagon Documents Appear to Show U.S. Spying on Ally South Korea. - TIME



Leaked Pentagon documents provide rare window into depth of US intelligence on allies and foes.


Old news…The Guardian makes an accurate summary,
Documents seemingly leaked from Pentagon draw denials from US allies



South Korea to Probe Circumstances Around Reported Leak



Come on, honestly speaking, it’s not necessary. Corinthians 5:7 – “walk by faith and not by sight”. I'm sorry guys I just can't stop laughing.

Who does not spy on each other it is the way the game works. There is a reason Lucius my wife working for the USDA can't even travel to Canada w/o a burner laptop and phone. Or back in the day when the we handed the execs of our biotech going to negotiate in Europe or Japan a burner laptop and a single RSA key to open a VPN to an isolated mail server and no direct data access. Corporate or government we assumed a reasonable chance somebody was likely to be inquisitive.

[Ludicus]

Who does not spy on each other it is the way the game works.

Obviously. But such an admission is nonetheless deeply embarrassing for the allies- and for the US.

Europe Must Avoid Becoming Subordinate to the United States -Says Macron.

Europe must resist pressure to turn it into a vassal of the United States,” Macron said, according to Politico.

I agree. I said some time ago in an earlier post that Europe should pursue a course independent of any influence, whether from the US or China. It is not easy, of course, as we already know. It should not be impossible to have good relations with both the US and China.

[conon394]

Obviously. But such an admission is nonetheless deeply embarrassing for the allies- and for the US.

How about embarrassing at best. At the end of the most close allies get over it since as I said they only one leak away from the same boat.

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re Macron - yep way show that independence by opening a new Airbus finishing assembly line in China - off shore those jobs for economic independence(?) what can go wrong?

[Sir Adrian]

Macron's new direction is wise and good for Europe.

Airbus isn't even a french company. It's a privately owned European company

[conon394]

Airbus isn't even a french company. It's a privately owned European company

But the announcement was made in the wake of Macron visit to China and surrey it is politically timed as a good - can't see why. Anyways between European subsidies and the state owned companies that make it up I think you are stretching

Macron's new direction is wise and good for Europe.

Err per Ludicus link sounds like bending over for Xi - I guess you can like that hope it works out well. Seems like a new line in Spain of Croatia or France would be better for Europe but hey whatever good new direction maybe a some BMW assembly plants in China next? Oh wait I know a Siemens chip plant that can never go sideways.

[Sir Adrian]

I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about moving away from depending on the US.

[conon394]

I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about moving away from depending on the US.

Yes and my point was as Far as I can Macron mothed words and then essentially did things that make Europe economically dependent on China.

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about moving away from depending on the US.

The EU honestly should maintain normalized relations with China, India, Brazil, and other emerging powers, not just with the US (Russia has made itself irrelevant, of course). There is perhaps no avoiding a multipolar world order despite the USA's best efforts to maintain its post Cold War hegemony. However, China, India, and Brazil will never have a closer relationship to the EU than the US by virtue of the latter being the dominant partner in NATO. The shifting of trade volumes and commercial ties between various countries will never affect that underlying bedrock. In turn, the US will most likely remain the largest trade partner of Canada and Mexico by virtue of geography more than anything else.

[conon394]

In turn, the US will most likely remain the largest trade partner of Canada and Mexico by virtue of geography more than anything else.

Which of course points what an epic blunder by the US of backing China in the WTO was and providing PMFN status was - certainly killed the potential of NAFTA.

[Ludicus]

I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about moving away from depending on the US.

Yes..
And yes, again,

The EU honestly should maintain normalized relations with China, India, Brazil, and other emerging powers, not just with the US ...There is perhaps no avoiding a multipolar world order despite the USA's best efforts to maintain its post-Cold War hegemony

Prepare for a multipolar currency world | Financial Times

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The leaks, what's going on.
US scrambles to trace source of highly classified intel leak

Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
Officials are looking at what motivations a U.S. official or a group of officials would have in leaking such sensitive information, said one of the officials who spoke to Reuters.
The official said investigators were looking at four or five theories, from a disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine U.S. national security interests.

Pentagon leak reinforces what we already know: US-NATO in it to win.

The authenticity of the documents has been acknowledged by Pentagon sources, and the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into who was responsible for the leak. Among the details revealed are that nine out of twelve “combat credible” Ukrainian brigades being prepared for the forthcoming offensive are fully trained and equipped by NATO. Training for these troops is being provided not only in the West but by 71 U.S. military personnel who are stationed within Ukraine, together with 97 NATO special operations soldiers.

These numbers are very small, they are not combat units and the leak only confirms what most observers have long assumed. Nonetheless, their presence does obviously create a risk that they will be killed or captured, thereby handing Russia a propaganda victory and creating an impetus to U.S. retaliation and a dangerous cycle of escalation.

It is also important to point out that the American Congress and public, and those of NATO allies, have never been informed that any U.S. and NATO soldiers are on the ground in Ukraine.
The documents (…) also hint at U.S. spying against close allies, including South Korea and the United Kingdom. Once again, this is not surprising, given how the United States was once shown to have spied on the private communications of Angela Merkel and other European leaders.

(…) it is worth remembering how news of Russian espionage in the United States and Europe was repeatedly used in the years before the war to whip up fear of and hostility to Russia in the West, thereby making it even more difficult to seek diplomatic compromises that might have prevented the Russian invasion. The leaked documents remind us that in this regard there is a strong element of the pot calling the kettle black.

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Six or seven (?) months after the terrorist act that destroyed the Nord Stream, how is the investigation going? The pipelines were 80-110 meters deep, and some experts believe that remotely piloted vehicles were probably used to place the explosives. Ukraine denies any involvement and has no vehicles (ROUV/ROVs) for this purpose. As far as Russia is concerned, they would have no need or interest in destroying an infrastructure that could eventually provide them with significant revenues. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of analysts pounding on the key of Russian authorship. The war is affecting intelligent people who in other matters would use rational arguments. In this case, rationality dictates that nobody destroys an infrastructure that cost their companies billions of euros, especially the country (Russia) that derived strategic advantage from it.
Biden's unfortunate statements in February 2022 about how he would not allow Nordstream 2 to work are in everyone's memory:
"If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." When asked how, the president says, "I promise you, we will be able do that."
And without supply from Russia's pipelines, Europe's dependence on American LNG is enormous. The increased cost keeps up inflationary pressure and takes away competitiveness from European companies. Meanwhile, half a year has passed and practically nothing is known. The suspicion that the US did or authorized the sabotage makes perfect sense.