IMPERIALISM

DEBORAH ARMSTRONG—Yesterday, I was honored to be interviewed by Filmmaker Regis Tremblay for his Up Close and Personal series. We talked about what it was like when I lived in the USSR in 1991, what the people were like, my TV news career, what got me started writing about the Donbas, and American apathy. Regis is best known for his film The Ghosts of Jeju, a shocking documentary about the struggle of the people of Jeju Island, S. Korea. Set in the context of the American presence in Korea after World War II, the film reveals horrible atrocities at the hands of the U.S. Military Government of Korea.

It is not Russia that is “wasting men and equipment”, it is the Ukraine, because no matter what the Ukraine does, it is unable to change the outcome of the current conflict. At this point it will surrender unconditionally or be utterly defeated. Adding weapons to the mix will simply cause more Ukrainian deaths and destruction, and a greater financial burden on those counties provisioning them. The US has expensive but vulnerable bases and interests all around the world. The cost of defending all of them from any possible attack is astronomical, while an attacker need to find only one weakness at one point at one time to inflict a major defeat on the USA.

BATIUSHKA—The most dramatic event after its defeat in the Ukraine will surely be the retreat of the USA, as it is expelled from Eurasia, a process that began in Vietnam and then continued in Iraq and Afghanistan. The nationalist Trump wanted to withdraw voluntarily, but he was not allowed to, therefore the humiliating US withdrawal will happen by force, as it did in Kabul. ‘Yanks, go home’, chants the whole world, including many in Western Europe, tired of US tyranny. In Eurasia, the US now occupies only a few islands (Taiwan, Japan, Singapore), the tips of two peninsulas (Korea and Western Europe) and the seaboard edge Israel. It will have to leave all of these, except for the Non-Palestinian parts of Israel. Taiwan will naturally return to China, Japan will have to find its own way, reconciling itself to a reunited Korea and submitting itself to China economically.

During a Russian Defense Ministry meeting on Wednesday, Shoigu proposed a number of measures to strengthen the security of the Russian Federation, including creating a special grouping of troops on the country’s northwestern border and expanding Russia’s armed forces to amount to 1.5 million servicemen in total, with some 695,000 of them being contract soldiers. … Shoigu went on to suggest creating a number of new military groupings, including five new artillery divisions, eight bomber aviation regiments, and one fighter regiment, as well as six army aviation brigades. 

An important discussion by expert observers about the significance of Bakhmut, and what its fall may represent. Observers include Gonzalo Lira (host), Brian Berletic (The New Atlas), HistoryLegends, and Military Summary.