{"id":264349,"date":"2023-01-29T08:39:13","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T08:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264349"},"modified":"2023-01-30T08:42:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T08:42:00","slug":"helmholtz-smith-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264349","title":{"rendered":"HelmHoltz Smith: What\u2019s Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Son of the New American Revolution \u2013 Jan 28, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I don\u2019t know what the Russians are going to do in Ukraine and neither does anyone else outside of their high command. But there sure have been a lot of wrong predictions. Leaving aside the Western propaganda mill (of which more below), serious observers seem to get the timing wrong. We know the correlation of forces favors Russia but we expect things to happen more quickly. We agree that Moscow was expecting something shorter, less bloody and quicker at the beginning and was probably surprised by the resistance of the Kiev regime and NATO\u2019s unhinged support. Therefore there was a re-examination and the call-up of further forces. Thus far we are in agreement \u2013 it\u2019s the timing of the next step that we seem to get wrong.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about why this is so and I have come to the following conclusions. By now everybody who is paying attention knows that the Ukraine battlefield is part of a world war in which those who control the US empire are trying to hold onto their dominance. For those outside the NATO propaganda bubble there is general agreement that<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Russia is winning both in the Ukraine battlefield and the wider theater.<\/li>\n
  2. Time is on Russia\u2019s side.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    First the Ukraine battlefield. The first aim in war is to destroy the enemy\u2019s power and that Russia is doing, especially in the Bakhmut slaughterhouse. Kiev is determined to stand and fight here and the Russians are quite happy to let them do so \u2013 \u201cartillery conquers and infantry occupies<\/a>\u201d \u2013 and that is what we see here. Slowly slowly the Russian forces advance over mountains of Ukrainian bodies. In the last week or so Russian forces have begun to advance on other fronts too. This grinding away can continue until Ukraine collapses because it is easier for the Russians to let the enemy come to them than go after them. Meanwhile Russian missiles destroy the infrastructure Kiev needs to continue the war. Time and developments favor Russia and there is no incentive to make \u201cbig arrow\u201d movements.<\/p>\n

    On the bigger war the sanctions that were supposed to have crushed Russia have boomeranged and we have headlines like \u201cInflation in Europe is falling but food prices are rising<\/a>\u201d and hypothermia deaths<\/a> in England. Inflation is falling because demand is falling and demand is falling because businesses are stopping because of the price of fuel<\/a>. Germany\u2019s PMI is declining<\/a>. No one (except the bubble dwellers in NATO) should be surprised \u2013 you sanctioned the biggest energy exporter, biggest grain exporter and a big exporter of potash, did you expect prices to go down? Everything needs energy and everybody needs food. NATO unity wobbles with Turkey, Sweden and Finland. Hungary officially notices<\/a> the sufferings of Hungarians in Ukraine. Partitioning Ukraine was contemplated<\/a>. Macron suspects<\/a> the US is intentionally weakening its European allies. Did Washington just sucker Berlin into going first \u2013 when exactly will the Abrams get there<\/a>? NATO is now breaking into its active stocks<\/a> (Estonia joins Denmark in sending all its artillery<\/a>). (And, not that anybody is asking, who blew up Nord Stream?) Riots and protests all over Europe<\/a>. What\u2019s happening<\/a> in Kiev? The longer this goes on the weaker Russia\u2019s enemies become. So in the big war, time and developments favor Russia and there is no incentive to make \u201cbig arrow\u201d movements.<\/p>\n

    Therefore Russia should keep doing what it\u2019s doing and hold the big force in reserve \u2013 no reason to change anything \u2013 it\u2019s attritting its enemies.<\/p>\n

    But<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    How crazy will NATO get? Its strategy is a total failure. \u201cCrippling sanctions<\/a>\u201d haven\u2019t collapsed the Russian economy, overthrown Putin or made the population rise up. Just the opposite \u2013 when even the Economist has to admit Russia \u201cdid a lot better than expected<\/a>\u201d you know it\u2019s actually thriving. The wonder weapons \u2013 Bayraktars, Javelins, M777s, HIMARS, Gepards, Patriots and now tanks \u2013 have done nothing but prolong Ukraine\u2019s suffering and make Wagner and Akhmat Sila into the best urban fighters in the world. What next? Can NATO reverse itself? Can it survive another defeat? Or, as Larry wonders, drive straight into the Grand Canyon? What new lunacy will it come up with when the tanks fail? (Can you imagine how unhinged the refrigerator<\/a> babblers will become if these things<\/a> work? CNN worries \u2013 \u201cThink of the propaganda victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin if pictures emerge of disabled American tanks on a Ukrainian battlefield<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    Therefore, I believe that the Russian high command is in a continual decision loop. Every morning it considers whether to continue the present strategy or start the \u201cbig arrow\u201d move to bring it to an end before NATO does something irretrievably stupid. It\u2019s a careful balancing process.<\/p>\n

    In short, the Russian high command will keep doing what it\u2019s doing and hold back the reserve until it decides that the moment has come to end it. And that\u2019s a decision that only it can make based on information that only it can know.<\/p>\n

    So, maybe the \u201cbig arrow\u201d offensive starts tomorrow or maybe it doesn\u2019t ever need to be started.<\/p>\n

    Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The West\u2019s response has been a total failure.\u201cCrippling sanctions\u201d haven\u2019t collapsed the Russian economy, overthrown Putin or made the population rise up. Just the opposite \u2013 when even the Economist has to admit Russia \u201cdid a lot better than expected\u201d you know it\u2019s actually thriving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":264351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264352,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264349\/revisions\/264352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}