September 13, 2022

Bloggers and YouTubers like Andrei Martyanov, Larry Johnson and Brian Berletic have argued cogently that the Russian-led forces made a tactical retreat from the north-east of Kharkov oblast as part of a ploy to inflict several thousand more casualties on the Ukrainians and their foreign mercenaries. Whether or not that is true, others such as Dima of Military Summary and Alex Mercouris of The Duran say the manoeuvre will prompt a crisis of confidence among the Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, who previously saw the Russian forces as their protectors and saviours from the Nazis. If those people don’t support the military intervention, what is the point of it?

While there is little question that RAND—the Pentagon’s own think tank—is a malignant imperialist outfit created to devise ways of advancing and preserving US imperialism across the globe, its advisory papers are sometimes surprisingly honest, outlining the path likely to be followed by the empire’s policymakers. Such is the case, for example, with RAND’s paper on the “weakening” of Rusia, predicated on unrelenting pressure and provocations to cause her to “overextend” herself.  But even these have to be taken with a grain of salt, since they may easily contain self-serving data calculated to accomplish hidden aims.