It is both immensely depressing and frightening that Western citizens who still support this horror continuing at unsustainable human and materiel cost don't understand conscription vans will become a fixture on their streets if their governments keep this up.
Tell me about it - I live in the Czech Republic, and if I try to talk to anyone about what's going on in Ukraine the only answers I ever get are that I don't understand Russians, 1968, they'll come here next etc. Even if these people receive conscription papers to go and fight in Ukraine they'll still blame Russia. Doesn't bode well for me either obviously
I didn't know your location, Alistair. Very interesting to hear your personal experiences - it's forgotten how all-in on this Czechia has been since the very start, to the extent of effectively making 'supporting' Russia a criminal, imprisonable offence.
Aside from the initial burst of well-reported pan-EU insanity such as banning the letter 'Z' in certain countries - it was of course urgently necessary to create the illusion of Putin as Hitler 2.0 and the 'international community' being united in solidarity with Ukraine against Russia's unprovoked barbarism - all the routine, rabid Russophobia and insane hawkishness in Europe has passed me by entirely in Serbia.
From my vantage point here, it's just not something one encounters. Criticism of the war? Sympathy with the Ukrainian people? Plenty. But it's well-understood who and what started this and many, even if they don't like Orthodox Slavs killing each other, see NATO getting given a long-overdue bloody nose and are, to say the least, intensely relaxed about that.
I know there are other people here in the Czech Republic (it hurts me to call it Czechia) who understand the context of the war, but they/we get drowned out by the rabid and ubiquitous Russophobia. They don't even see it as orthodox slavs killing each other, it is just purely 'evil Putin, evil Russia' 24/7 with no exceptions. At the victory day event in Prague a guy was even arrested for wearing a t-shirt with a Z on it
Don't even need to do that really, the nazis were quite open about considering slavs untermenschen. And the way most Czechs talk about communists is exactly how the nazis did. I attended a victory day event a few weeks ago in Prague (see my Notes) and there was hostility from the public, then the media slandered the event as Putin apologists and all that. Shit's crazy
I was thinking of the claims of segregationists that southern whites had some unique insight into the black psyche, or the Nazi observation that Jews were hated pretty much everywhere in eastern europe.
I try to introduce some facts into comments on the Times of London psyops articles, it's so depressing to read the return comments of readers who seem to have no concept of what or why events are unfolding.
Don't forget that the main ideologist of German Nazi - Alfred Rosenberg - was greatly inspired by the "ideas" of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, British "philosopher" and founder of "scientific racism"
And don't forget Brits had invented concentration camps long before German Nazis did (2nd Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902)
Nothing really changed since Alfred Milner and Halford Mackinder..
BTW After WW2 British government welcomed thousands of Ukrainian (Galicien) SS OUN/B members:
Actually, I am convinced that the ideology of human hierarchy, division of humanity on Uber and Untermenschen, seeing some humans as elites and others as slaves or raw flesh, comes first. THEN the ideas of colonization, wars of conquest, population replacement, Discovery Doctrine, Civilizing Mission, White Man Burden, Clash Of Civilizations come along with this basic belief that humanity has a hierarchy of worth.
This mentality of human hierarchy of worth became very popular in the 19th-20th Centuries. Therefore Zionism, British and French colonialism, later Nazism and fascism were born.
If you talk to regular Brits or Americans (or any NATO or Israel fanatic) they will display this Ubermensch mentality, so naturally. They will literally tell you "Russians are savages", "You don't think that Arabs are equal to Jews, do you? Hamas supporter!"
Although they themselves don't colonize or exterminate anyone, they are fully on board, because they believe that the order of the world is human hierarchy of worth. That equality cannot be permitted.
"When Plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they will create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it"
Throughout their colonial history Europeans (esp. Brits and French) used the same "Divide and Conquer" strategy to have other nations fight each other for the benefit of the Imperialist Oligarchy.
And the best way to analyze how the U.S. operates is to remember how it was created in the first place. As the European powers were realizing that direct conflict with each other was becoming counterproductive, they conspired to create a pirate colony of which they would all benefit. There were some bitter fights over the arrangement, but it is still part of the European style of Empire.
That's why the U.S. is more like a Corporation than a Country.. USRAEL Inc.
The main problem in the U.S. is the unshakable belief of ordinary Americans that the benefits of the "rule of the elite" will trickle down to everyone. They are conditioned to believe that wealth is magically created by the "elite" because the elite knows how to manage capital and it is better to have the crumbs than nothing. Americans at large fail to understand that that most of the wealth of the "elite" is extracted from the working ppl all over the world, including Americans themselves, and the crumbs they enjoy are only an insignificant percentage of what has been taken.
As a country, the US has been founded on that belief and it runs deeply in the American psyche. Americans are having really hard time realizing they have been exploited like cattle by their own "Elite".
"Fascism was the application to white people of colonial procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the 'coolies' of India, and the 'ni**ers' of Mrica."
The idea of human hierarchy of worth is sadly in Talmudic Judaism and Scofield Bible. From there everything else comes.
It is no surprise that Israel, for example, constantly justifies its politics and actions by the Old Testament - which is a must in Israeli schools.
It is simply a preservation of Iron Age.
First, a human being must be indoctrinated that he is an Ubermensch - and certain others are Untermenschen or "human animals". Then, this human being will become a colonizer, a sadist, a psychopath, a serial rapist,
a Nazi, a Zionist, a fascist, a Ukrainian nationalist....
Holocaust was not a genocide at all, because Nazis selected "Jews" randomly, believing that being Jewish is a race. Jews are not a race. Nazis simply eliminated Jews whom they considered to be Jewish. It was a deliberate murder of millions of people but it is impossible to call it a genocide because European Jews are not a single race. What Nazis indeed committed was a genocide of Slavs and Roma, like in my country (USSR), Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia.
Calling Holocaust a genocide justifies the existence of Israel. It means continuing Nazi-Zionist ideology that Jews are a race, a single tribe.
Yes, as part of the Commonwealth, Canada also welcomed thousands of Ukrainian (Galicien) SS OUN/B members, hell, we even gave one of them a standing ovation in parliament a couple of years ago!
BTW, Did you know that the reason Canadian government initially welcomed the Nazis after WW2 was to have them as "Strike-breakers" against the workers' Unions?
All the information I have seen suggests the west is now at 'peak weakness'. Out of munitions and behind Russia and China. If it continues to provoke Russia and China I will bet that there are generals now considering how to respond - and it may be pre-emptive. The utter stupidity of 'the west' amazes me.
They have pretty much stated a plan to attack China in 2027. They had planned 2025 but their 2022 proxy war failed to exhaust Russia and the Syrian gambil alsi failed to draw Russia out of its defensive stance.
Back in 1993, at a pub in Oslo, I met the uncle of my Norwegian son. This uncle was a colonel on the Norwegian (NATO) general staff. He had a degree in so-called Political Science. I am an engineer with a further degree in Operations Research from Imperial College.
I tried to explain to this moron that drones would make tanks obsolete in due course. That progress in electronics and software would make these toys incredibly deadly. After all, the force of an explosion is the inverse of the square of the distance. An explosion at 10 cm is 100 times more powerful than an explosion at 100 cm. Small explosives would penetrate any tank's hatches.
well for an engineer you seem to be a bit loose in your definitions. Any 'small explosives' certainly will not penetrate any tank's hatches. That's why they go to the trouble of making armour piercing shaped charges. And what's the distance got to do with it? We're talking about explosions at the surface of the tank whenever we talk of the efficacy of a munition for the most part. That is: anti-tank munitions.
And tanks certainly are not obsolete. That should be apparent from first principles or basic considerations.
You want armour whenever you can get it, a shield, protection.
And you want big guns whenever you can get them.
So you inevitably want armoured big guns.
And part of utility and part of 'protection' is mobility.
And that's what a tank is: a mobile protected big gun.
I doubt you are an engineer at all - if you are then perhaps it was your degree many years ago and since then you've forgotten it all. You certainly don't talk like one.
Using tanks as artillery pieces is obviously not what they were intended for. Tanks were supposed to LEAD an infantry advance. Currently, they need the drones and infantry to make their progress possible.
The thickest tank hatches are 12mm. AI tells me that:
"To penetrate a 12mm thick steel hatch on a tank, a shaped charge with roughly 50 to 200 grams of high explosive is likely sufficient."
IMHO, that is a small amount of explosives. Equivalent in weight to a hand grenade.
A modern tank costs thousands of times as much as a drone. It takes months to manufacture with innumerable suppliers in the chain. The factory takes years to construct. Contrast that with drones.
I see you're taking exception at what I've said. I now have things to say about your most recent post that may offend you even more, unfortunately.
But look:
"Using tanks as artillery pieces is obviously not what they were intended for. Tanks were supposed to LEAD an infantry advance. Currently, they need the drones and infantry to make their progress possible."
That's all wrong.
1. It is not relevant what things WERE intended for. What's relevant is their utility now (or in the future).
2. In fact a machine with a big gun on it IS intended to be used as an 'artillery piece' for that's precisely what a big gun IS. It IS an artillery piece. A tank IS a mobile artillery piece. Amongst other things.
Then you say:
"To penetrate a 12mm thick steel hatch on a tank, a shaped charge with roughly 50 to 200 grams of high explosive is likely sufficient."
IMHO, that is a small amount of explosives. Equivalent in weight to a hand grenade.
This is fudging. This is no 'small explosives would penetrate any tanks hatches' at all which is what you said. A 'small explosive' IS the hand grenades you mention. They are utterly useless. A shaped charge is not 'any small explosive' it is a specific sophisticated explosive tailored to be effectively much more than a 'small explosive'.
Then you throw in details of cost. I wonder why? There is no one doesn't know. What point do you try to make? That killing a tank with a shaped charge is a vast difference in expenditure? And you relate that to the modern theatre? And claim it means the end of the tank? But that has been true since the days of bazooka in Korea !
That was true in the days of Germany's U boats: one torpedo being much less costly than a ship, even a merchant ship. What's the point? It has virtually always been true.
So ships were obsolete because of torpedoes? Tanks are obsolete because of bazookas? Airplance are obsolete because of anti aircraft fire?
Nonsense.
And none of that addresses the facts I put before you.
I will repeat them:
We want guns, big guns, as close to the action as we can get them.
Your counter arguments were not effective at addressing issues he brought up. A) tanks are now being used in a manner they were not intended and have much less utility (even the author said they were becoming obsolete) and B) the thinnest armor on a tank is on the top where drones can easily attack and defeat them thus making tanks almost obsolete. I suspect tanks will be modified to have more armor on top and also change the shape of the top to help deflect the explosion. This will result in the drones having to carry even larger bombs.
Well you only say two things, mate: (1) I don't address his issue and (2) an issue you address. So what room is there for me to say anything?
Look: his issue is no concern of mine. Just think: what about if he raised the issue of lack of comfort for a long legged driver on a T-90 ? Or any other of a myriad irrelevancies? They are not my concern.
Go back to where we came from. Always try to remember the point. That's the main problem with that guy, he wanders off point down his own pathways.
Here's the point: he said tanks were finished.
I say they're not and point out why.
From there we immediately descend into his irrevancies. Don't you go there too.
Christ. For god's sake. How more irrelevant can you get than to pick on one part of one tank in its current implementation? A light hatch cover is not a prerequisite for a tank you know? It in no way defines 'a tank'. It is not part of the definition. Hence it is irrelevant when considering the question of whether 'a tank' is or is not 'finished'.
See?
All you have to do is put another lid on top of the first one and your shaped charge is f****d. But that's not something I should have said. It treats the point as though it had some relevancy. It does not
What is relevant is what I said: they are mobile armoured gun platforms. Did he address any part of that at all? No.
That's all about your point (2) which you got from him.
Reverting to your point (1). He said they're not being used in the manner they were intended. I did address that. I tried to point out what they are is weapons of war and their 'intended use' depends upon circumstances. They are intended to kill or help in the killing. Anyone claiming this or that weapon 'has' to be used in this or that way is a fool without understanding or imagination. A criminally defective fool in a military setting. Like that clown the duke of york who sent them marching up the hill. Why? Because that's 'what they are intended for'.
What utter schoolboy level lack of any attempt to think about things.
'Intended use' !! Number (1) 'Intended use' means nothing in context. What is all important is best effective use or perhaps more properly 'consideration of all effective uses'. Armies are full of examples of what we call in civvy street 'repurposing'. He fails to recognise the overall imperative which dictates 'intended use'. And that intended use is: to defeat the enemy.
All things are tools and never more so than in combat with other human beings.
'Intended use' doesn't matter in context with the question, which is HIS question and which is 'what use in the foreseeable future and the present?
Utterly irrelevant. Utterly.
Unless you do as I say, and consider the overall, the 'use' which even a soldier's greatcoat has: to help defeat the enemy.
That man is a nothing and a nobody as regards to this question. I suspect he's a child in fact, masquerading on the internet as an adult.
There is always a point of weakness in anything. And everyone knows it and when are the enemy you try to attack it and when you are the defender you try to strengthen it. We have cope cages already on hatches. And we have ECM's and anti-drones. And - the point - they have some effectiveness. Meaning the converse is true: the effectiveness of the attacks on those weak points is diminished.
In fact we see most tanks destroyed by fpv's are destroyed simply by dropping fpv's into the open hatch. The open hatch. Of an abandoned tank.
Abandoned because it was put out of action some other way. Probably, I guess, as a matter of probabilities, by a mine. And the soldiers failed to close the hatch. So the point? The point is the tank was taken out by an even 'weaker' point. And there's another: the tracks. A more or less 'usual' rpg can blow the tracks and cause the crew to quit and leave it there for finishing off or 'capturing'.
Christ on a crutch. Just look. Just look. And think.
And ignore blokes like that or you'll end up like me: wasting bloody hours and wearing my fingers out rabbiting on about the obvious. For what? For what benefit? For my own ego gratification? Nope. I feel like fool for wasting my time.
Russia is taking out tanks with repeated drone strikes according to videos on Marat-San channel on youtube.
I guess they know just where to strike them?
Drones definitely are a very important part of combat it would seem. I agree that tanks and artillery are much more powerful but this drone stuff is evolving at a breakneck pace.
Yes and I boldly predict we will get to a situation of statis. Where anti-drone perfectly balance drone. So the air becomes clear. Just as it is clear of airplanes because of ECM and AA and the sea is clear of ships.
But airplane fleets remain required, coveted, powerful, significant as do navies.
Essentially drones are as susceptible as any other flying object.
There are many different types flying at different speeds and heights.
Counter measures to each are being found.
And both sides will get them.
You will not be able to fly a drone without it being brought down.
But you will not be able to relax your defence without drones suddenly appearing.
The fact that drone delivery of explosives, to the studied weak spots of the tank can be done very accurately, makes the tanks more vulnerable. It definitely doesn't make them obsolete, but restricts their use. Anti tank munitions were the first iteration but still carried risk to the person firing a Javelin, so less accuracy. It's all about the weak spots in the armour.
It's all about making best use of what you've got and recognising the to and fro of technological progress, tactical progress. Being intelligent. What freed Kursk in the end? The shovel. The miners said lets use the pipeline. Dug down to it, volunteered to enter it.
He has rejected your argument, IMO, because you insulted him, as he says. This is a pity, since you are clearly right and he would benefit by learning from you. Men are highly competitive.
The vassal state UK government doing exactly what Trump wants - to share the costs of the war. Buying £30m worth of US made drones to send to Ukraine. The Times could ask itself - Are these drones fit for purpose? Is that money well spent by Starmer? Oh! And how is this military Keynesianism for UK economy? Is it not the Americans laughing all the way to bank selling us outmoded junk weapons?
Some accountability of this headless chicken government, addicted to bloodbaths!
I suspect the objectives in the War on Russia have been downgraded from winning to keeping Russia bogged down. Starmer & Macron v Putin and Lavrov. This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that the Stramer's idea of leadership is to kill people.
That works perfectly well from the western perspective. Just as the War On Iraq and the War On Libya were a complete successes from the western perspective.
I can't see why they shouldn't take on China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all at once. That way the mighty NATO can once and for all finish the Evil Axis and be done. 🤣
Against this background, the desire of the coalition of the willing (the "coalition of the sniffers") to start a war with Russia is extremely surprising.
Not at all. The rulers in and out of government are the only ones who matter, and their kids won't get used as cannon fodder, their portfolios won't take a hit.
So why should they care?
At every stage of the war, the Russian leadership has underestimated the sociopathy and cynicism of the West.
It's funny that, according to Ukrainian press reports, Mr. Zelensky was drafted into the army 4 times during 2014-2015. But he still managed to avoid mobilization.
I'm not sure I would necessarily agree that the high-ups aren't aware of these sorts of military tech developments. I can't fathom how they couldn't know. So I think the underlying answer is more psychological. Namely they are a bunch of fucking psychopaths.
This provides the answer to the obvious 'why don't they all just fucking grow up and stop killing each other'. That maturation will never happen precisely because they are monstrous psychopaths who get off on seeing suffering, abuse and all the rest of it. They are quite literally addicted to it (their brains are wired differently to the rest of us - their amygdalae are the wrong way round, that is).
Thus, for them, 'war' is not about anything 'strategic', it's not even an extension of politics anymore, it's just one huge snuff movie theatre.
If only someone had told Clausewitz about psychology, especially psychopathy, then he would've reviewed his book and thought 'fuck that' and started a laborious rewrite.
But this goes back a very long way of course. Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, the whole allied terror bombing campaign. Sending millions over the top in ww1. Kissinger's genocides. The MKULTRA Phoenix program. The Zebra murders. All of it.
Normal people simply don't do war because it's not beneficial to them. They talk out their issues.
Unless and until the common people, en masse, come to understand the psychology of the people they tolerate governing them, then none of this will ever stop. It will simply get worse in direct proportion to the further development of technology.
Until - the Goddess willing - some higher power/intelligence thinks enough is enough, humans are never going to eat the apple and develop an immune reaction to evil, so then decides to come along and put this beautiful planet out of her misery.
William I creates Contract with Anglo-Saxon leadership. Latter confers with Peasants. Peasants say, Monty Python style, "We don't care, King can do what Kings do, just leave us to our pigs and ploughing" Job Done. Billy then puts his Baron mates i/c Admin, sends old admin to spend more time with family, cancels all existing property deeds, borrows some funding from the usual suspects and remembers to hoover up the second layer of admin as his Iscariot supervisors of the plebs.
This was such a good plan it lasted (with some window-dressing) for a thousand years.
Check out your neighbourhood and then come back and argue!
I half-agree with you there, and kind of suggested as much with my last bit, when I said unless and until normal people grow up and develop an immunity to evil, manipulation, coercive control and so on, then yes, they will continue to vote for and support and tolerate lunatics/monsters, and the monstrous things they do.
The bit where I disagree with you is that it is not normal human nature we’re talking about here (if you go back far enough in human history/prehistory etc. - ‘war’ never really happened until around 5k years ago) - human nature has been corrupted and poisoned, essentially - but it was the monsters/lunatics who did that poisoning. People need to realise that. They are coercively controlled and have been for a very long time.
Once the people learn to say ‘no’ - and not just to war - then we might resolve the issue.
Otherwise, if it’s too late for this, then the sooner the species becomes extinct the better. Ave Asteroid Apophis!
Well yes, I was only talking about 'our' people: the western world. People at large may well be very different. I hope they are.
But it is unavoidable that 'our' people are completely unconcerned with genocide and their own involvement, warfare, approaching nuclear disaster... anything..
It seems their nature is to expect someone else to do things. Perhaps as a result of our civilization wherein completely gone, I think, is the notion of a 'well rounded man' capable of many things from building his own shelter for self and family to hunting/gathering food perhaps.
We are generations now into segregation by task, by occupation and we identify ourselves with our tasks even. I am no longer 'a man' or 'a woman', I am 'a bricklayer' or 'a manager' or whatever.
We are not only functionaries we identify so strongly with our function that we are literally claiming to be 'it'.
So we call for other functionaries to perform those functions we do not perform. A plumber to do the plumbing, an electrician to do the electrics, etc.
And I think we subconsciously perceive our voting as 'calling for a functionary' to do the running of the nation.
Whereas it is we who are supposed to be doing it.
So that's a massive job of reeducation required there I think. Unless the realisation suddenly swept through the populace with the speed of a new fashion: Harry Potter or Beyonce or something.
But should we desire to run things ourselves, as we should, we would then find ourselves without a venue or a voice. We have these surrogates: the 'social media' which are susceptible to manipulation and worse, can be withdrawn arbitrarily.
And our voices there are undisciplined entirely: it is a babel.
So, you may have seen this before, I constantly urge that we get and adopt an app that we all can use, even grannie in her rocker, with ease and which will show immediately how we are all feeling, thinking, 'voting' for whatever issues.
I find no one supports this idea at all. No one. I take that as a further indication of the nature of our people. They want someone else to do it. They want benevolent dictatorship. They in fact demand it via a sort of Ghandian passive resistance.
They are happy to take the risk of malevolent dictatorship. We see that. That is what they have all over the western world, is it not?
If we want to be activist and analysts and understand then the first thing is to become aware of this simple fact I think: the nature of who we are as a people.
Gotta be realistic about it or we'll be doomed to failure in anything we do and we'll be talking nonsense in anything we say.
I believe there is. In my book 'Reality: from metaphysics to metapolitics' I present Plato's teaching on an aristocracy (which means 'rule by the best' in Greek) which is rigorously trained to rule as an alternative to the anti-natural liberal democracy of the modern West. This should not in any way be confused with the degenerate hereditary 'aristocracy' that have always lived as parasites on the working class of their respective countries, including the so-called 'royal family' of a certain island nation.
That, I believe, would be a 'meritocracy', given that their merit is in their training for the task.
I know little about it. I'm no scholar. No political scientist.
But my first look has me seeing opportunity for perversion of any fine original impulse. It quickly gets orwellian. Who is to define the training? Who/what is to prevent it being perverted? And then the 'ruling class' is established in the beginning merely to serve the good of the mass - but what is to stop it inexorably turning towards putting its own welfare above the mass?
I think there's often conflation, confusion, between two aspects of 'rule' or 'govern'.
The organisational or perhaps 'bureaucratic' aspect on the one hand and the directional or aspirational on the other.
'Trained to rule' in which aspect - or both?
i.e. are they running the machinery of the society or are they directing the course of that society?
Either one is capable of bludgeoning the people.
The only rule we really need that is separate from the people is the 'infrastructure rule' that keeps the mechanism working well. That's an enormous task in itself.
For direction we need to know the wishes of the people in the main.
No trained class of 'rulers' is adequate here, it seems to me.
Agreed. I have unfortunately come across psychopaths several times and I think they are very attracted to politics/power.
Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobacewski? It's available to download free and it is his secret study of political psychopathy in the Soviet Union, but has had a resurgence of interest recently as it is very applicable to the current situation.
Another thorough accounting from the word master, Kit Klarenberg. As I read this, it became apparent that the US is basically equipped to fight a war if the opponent is from the 1990’s to early 2000’s. If our fighting capability is called to move beyond bombing undefended civilian infrastructure, we, like our faithful lieutenant Israel, are doomed to be shattered.
Thank you for your enormously kind words, dear Guy. You yourself sum up the problem with devastating eloquence and concision. Armchair Warlord posted an extraordinary thread a while back on how the abundantly obvious lessons of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war weren't learned by World War One, almost a decade later - https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1682312797475176448?t=KsohCGI8mTwBKFEgSwAakg&s=19. It played on my mind heavily writing my report. That NATO's "way of war" is dangerously redundant is writ large in endless footage of FPV drones able to hone in with pinpoint precision on targets 20 kilometres away. But delusions and blindspots persist...
When asked in an interview if Ursula von der Leyen would be sending any of her children to fight the good fight, she just laughed like the sociopath that she is.
This whole piece is sobering as hell. What’s wild is how clearly the writing’s on the wall, and yet the folks supposedly in charge are either sleepwalking or pretending none of it matters. The Times paints a brutal picture: this isn’t just some futuristic theory about drone warfare, it’s happening right now, reshaping everything on the ground.
Meanwhile, NATO still seems stuck in a mindset from 20 years ago, like tanks and jets alone are gonna cut it. Honestly, if they don't start paying attention fast, they’re gonna get blindsided in the worst way.
The brits are beyond ridiculous, invest in drone technologies, nah, they'd prefer to shovel taxpayers money into private banks and hope the media can destroy Russia.
When you start a fight, you have to go all in, fight to the death. Don't know what type of fight the brits thought they were starting with Russia, queensbury rules?
Laughing my head off now even more than back in Feb 22 at the sheer stupidity of the brit establishment. All they can do now is their usual satanic terrorism with red flag massacres of their own innocent citizens and the innocent citizens of their so called allies and friends.
Keeping this war going in Ukraine is reprehensible..........the shit heads in the EU don't obviously mind killing more people. They are more upset about 'losing face!'
"there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures..."
The goals are depopulation & profit. The only good slav is a dead slav; doesn't matter which "side" does the dying. And TPTB make more profits off bazillion $$ boondoggles; not "toy" planes. That is all NATO needs to understand.
"the House of Lords Committee called for London to “invest in research and development to maintain a strategic edge in drone technology"
Lol, you have to *have* superiority to "maintain" it. First catch up. Good luck with that a-holes!
"The report went entirely unremarked upon by the media contemporaneously, and today there is no sign of its multiple urgent calls to action having produced any meaningful results in any tangible regard in Britain’s armed forces."
Drones appear small, cheap, and not very complicated. So...where's the profit?
Curse those demons in the West who created this war and forced thousands, maybe over a million, Ukrainians to die for their hubris
It is both immensely depressing and frightening that Western citizens who still support this horror continuing at unsustainable human and materiel cost don't understand conscription vans will become a fixture on their streets if their governments keep this up.
Tell me about it - I live in the Czech Republic, and if I try to talk to anyone about what's going on in Ukraine the only answers I ever get are that I don't understand Russians, 1968, they'll come here next etc. Even if these people receive conscription papers to go and fight in Ukraine they'll still blame Russia. Doesn't bode well for me either obviously
I didn't know your location, Alistair. Very interesting to hear your personal experiences - it's forgotten how all-in on this Czechia has been since the very start, to the extent of effectively making 'supporting' Russia a criminal, imprisonable offence.
Aside from the initial burst of well-reported pan-EU insanity such as banning the letter 'Z' in certain countries - it was of course urgently necessary to create the illusion of Putin as Hitler 2.0 and the 'international community' being united in solidarity with Ukraine against Russia's unprovoked barbarism - all the routine, rabid Russophobia and insane hawkishness in Europe has passed me by entirely in Serbia.
From my vantage point here, it's just not something one encounters. Criticism of the war? Sympathy with the Ukrainian people? Plenty. But it's well-understood who and what started this and many, even if they don't like Orthodox Slavs killing each other, see NATO getting given a long-overdue bloody nose and are, to say the least, intensely relaxed about that.
I know there are other people here in the Czech Republic (it hurts me to call it Czechia) who understand the context of the war, but they/we get drowned out by the rabid and ubiquitous Russophobia. They don't even see it as orthodox slavs killing each other, it is just purely 'evil Putin, evil Russia' 24/7 with no exceptions. At the victory day event in Prague a guy was even arrested for wearing a t-shirt with a Z on it
Substitute "Jews" or "blacks" for "Russians" and your Czech interlocutors recapitulate a favorite theme of Nazi and segregationist propaganda.
Don't even need to do that really, the nazis were quite open about considering slavs untermenschen. And the way most Czechs talk about communists is exactly how the nazis did. I attended a victory day event a few weeks ago in Prague (see my Notes) and there was hostility from the public, then the media slandered the event as Putin apologists and all that. Shit's crazy
I was thinking of the claims of segregationists that southern whites had some unique insight into the black psyche, or the Nazi observation that Jews were hated pretty much everywhere in eastern europe.
It appears the only way out of this is to kill it out of them, unfortunately.
I try to introduce some facts into comments on the Times of London psyops articles, it's so depressing to read the return comments of readers who seem to have no concept of what or why events are unfolding.
I cancelled my 20+ years subscription of the FT decades ago - when I got tired of reading their Zionist lies.
They don't care. They know what opinions are high status, and what opinions are low-status, and that is all most humans care to know.
Kit, they hate Russia more than they care for human lives, and they of course are sure that THIS will never happen to THEM.
I have seen such utterances from British people that made me believe that this is a society of Ubermenschen.
Dehumanization has always been the basic prerequisite for colonization, slavery and genocide.
The Spanish "Conquistadors" treated the American Indians like animals, claiming they have no "soul". The same way slavers treated the black people.
Similarly, the Western Europeans still consider the Slavs to be "Untermensch", tho they would never openly admit it.
And this is exactly how Colonialism inspired Fascism/Imperialism:
youtube.com/watch?v=Ob_lIQRAnYM
youtube.com/watch?v=jgkUU946Iyw
Don't forget that the main ideologist of German Nazi - Alfred Rosenberg - was greatly inspired by the "ideas" of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, British "philosopher" and founder of "scientific racism"
And don't forget Brits had invented concentration camps long before German Nazis did (2nd Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902)
Nothing really changed since Alfred Milner and Halford Mackinder..
BTW After WW2 British government welcomed thousands of Ukrainian (Galicien) SS OUN/B members:
youtube.com/watch?v=UB_Gs-0dhOo
Actually, I am convinced that the ideology of human hierarchy, division of humanity on Uber and Untermenschen, seeing some humans as elites and others as slaves or raw flesh, comes first. THEN the ideas of colonization, wars of conquest, population replacement, Discovery Doctrine, Civilizing Mission, White Man Burden, Clash Of Civilizations come along with this basic belief that humanity has a hierarchy of worth.
This mentality of human hierarchy of worth became very popular in the 19th-20th Centuries. Therefore Zionism, British and French colonialism, later Nazism and fascism were born.
If you talk to regular Brits or Americans (or any NATO or Israel fanatic) they will display this Ubermensch mentality, so naturally. They will literally tell you "Russians are savages", "You don't think that Arabs are equal to Jews, do you? Hamas supporter!"
Although they themselves don't colonize or exterminate anyone, they are fully on board, because they believe that the order of the world is human hierarchy of worth. That equality cannot be permitted.
"When Plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they will create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it"
-Frederic Bastiat
youtube.com/shorts/h-6Bo4DupHg
Throughout their colonial history Europeans (esp. Brits and French) used the same "Divide and Conquer" strategy to have other nations fight each other for the benefit of the Imperialist Oligarchy.
And the best way to analyze how the U.S. operates is to remember how it was created in the first place. As the European powers were realizing that direct conflict with each other was becoming counterproductive, they conspired to create a pirate colony of which they would all benefit. There were some bitter fights over the arrangement, but it is still part of the European style of Empire.
That's why the U.S. is more like a Corporation than a Country.. USRAEL Inc.
The main problem in the U.S. is the unshakable belief of ordinary Americans that the benefits of the "rule of the elite" will trickle down to everyone. They are conditioned to believe that wealth is magically created by the "elite" because the elite knows how to manage capital and it is better to have the crumbs than nothing. Americans at large fail to understand that that most of the wealth of the "elite" is extracted from the working ppl all over the world, including Americans themselves, and the crumbs they enjoy are only an insignificant percentage of what has been taken.
As a country, the US has been founded on that belief and it runs deeply in the American psyche. Americans are having really hard time realizing they have been exploited like cattle by their own "Elite".
"Fascism was the application to white people of colonial procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the 'coolies' of India, and the 'ni**ers' of Mrica."
-Aimé Fernand David Césaire
The idea of human hierarchy of worth is sadly in Talmudic Judaism and Scofield Bible. From there everything else comes.
It is no surprise that Israel, for example, constantly justifies its politics and actions by the Old Testament - which is a must in Israeli schools.
It is simply a preservation of Iron Age.
First, a human being must be indoctrinated that he is an Ubermensch - and certain others are Untermenschen or "human animals". Then, this human being will become a colonizer, a sadist, a psychopath, a serial rapist,
a Nazi, a Zionist, a fascist, a Ukrainian nationalist....
Started with Rome. Even the 'Fasces' bit.
BTW the Germany’s first Genocide was NOT the so-called "Holocaust", before that they had colonial Genocide in Namibia:
youtube.com/watch?v=DUyUm1yEYVM
Which makes Germany the only country in the world to commit 2 Genocides in 20th century, and now support a 3rd in Palestine.
Read the book "SOLDATEN. Protokolle vom Kämpfen, Töten und Sterben" by Sönke Neitzel/Harald Welzer
Holocaust was not a genocide at all, because Nazis selected "Jews" randomly, believing that being Jewish is a race. Jews are not a race. Nazis simply eliminated Jews whom they considered to be Jewish. It was a deliberate murder of millions of people but it is impossible to call it a genocide because European Jews are not a single race. What Nazis indeed committed was a genocide of Slavs and Roma, like in my country (USSR), Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia.
Calling Holocaust a genocide justifies the existence of Israel. It means continuing Nazi-Zionist ideology that Jews are a race, a single tribe.
Yes, as part of the Commonwealth, Canada also welcomed thousands of Ukrainian (Galicien) SS OUN/B members, hell, we even gave one of them a standing ovation in parliament a couple of years ago!
Ottawa advised against releasing names of Nazi war criminals:
theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-ministers-advised-against-releasing-names-of-900-alleged-nazi/
Trudeau/Freeland supported neo-nazis since 2015 if not earlier..:
tnc.news/2022/03/15/trudeau-freeland-met-with-ukrainian-neo-nazi-party-cofounder/
youtube.com/watch?v=iDG_hWlVda4
Just look up who Freeland's grandfather was..
Right, many of them later migrated to Canada:
youtube.com/watch?v=ASPoFzmDteg
Canada admits letting in 2,000 Ukrainian SS troopers, 1997:
jweekly.com/1997/02/07/canada-admits-letting-in-2-000-ukrainian-ss-troopers/
One of them was recently given a standing ovation in Canadian Parliament:
youtube.com/watch?v=vezCq5KcC5c
youtube.com/watch?v=ASPoFzmDteg
BTW, Did you know that the reason Canadian government initially welcomed the Nazis after WW2 was to have them as "Strike-breakers" against the workers' Unions?
youtu.be/aTd8HovAG0I?t=305
just like In Operation "Underworld" the FBI sided with the mafia to keep dockworker unions under control.
Why would I care about the human and material cost paid by my enemies
One way to get their attention would be to send THEM to the front, even for a few days, but better an extended stay.
The issue is that the other option was that Russians kill all Ukrainians
I hope you're getting paid to be that stupid and annoying! Unfortunately, I don't think you are 😞
Russians literally say they want to genocide Ukraine, retard
Go on then my cognitively-challenged friend, tell us when 'Russians' said that
No interest in providing sources you won’t even read, retard
All the information I have seen suggests the west is now at 'peak weakness'. Out of munitions and behind Russia and China. If it continues to provoke Russia and China I will bet that there are generals now considering how to respond - and it may be pre-emptive. The utter stupidity of 'the west' amazes me.
Never ceases to amaze me, even though I'm a born cynic. Institutional stupidity seems to have become the norm throughout the west.
"Genius has limits. Stupidity does not."
They have pretty much stated a plan to attack China in 2027. They had planned 2025 but their 2022 proxy war failed to exhaust Russia and the Syrian gambil alsi failed to draw Russia out of its defensive stance.
Back in 1993, at a pub in Oslo, I met the uncle of my Norwegian son. This uncle was a colonel on the Norwegian (NATO) general staff. He had a degree in so-called Political Science. I am an engineer with a further degree in Operations Research from Imperial College.
I tried to explain to this moron that drones would make tanks obsolete in due course. That progress in electronics and software would make these toys incredibly deadly. After all, the force of an explosion is the inverse of the square of the distance. An explosion at 10 cm is 100 times more powerful than an explosion at 100 cm. Small explosives would penetrate any tank's hatches.
well for an engineer you seem to be a bit loose in your definitions. Any 'small explosives' certainly will not penetrate any tank's hatches. That's why they go to the trouble of making armour piercing shaped charges. And what's the distance got to do with it? We're talking about explosions at the surface of the tank whenever we talk of the efficacy of a munition for the most part. That is: anti-tank munitions.
And tanks certainly are not obsolete. That should be apparent from first principles or basic considerations.
You want armour whenever you can get it, a shield, protection.
And you want big guns whenever you can get them.
So you inevitably want armoured big guns.
And part of utility and part of 'protection' is mobility.
And that's what a tank is: a mobile protected big gun.
I doubt you are an engineer at all - if you are then perhaps it was your degree many years ago and since then you've forgotten it all. You certainly don't talk like one.
Using tanks as artillery pieces is obviously not what they were intended for. Tanks were supposed to LEAD an infantry advance. Currently, they need the drones and infantry to make their progress possible.
The thickest tank hatches are 12mm. AI tells me that:
"To penetrate a 12mm thick steel hatch on a tank, a shaped charge with roughly 50 to 200 grams of high explosive is likely sufficient."
IMHO, that is a small amount of explosives. Equivalent in weight to a hand grenade.
A modern tank costs thousands of times as much as a drone. It takes months to manufacture with innumerable suppliers in the chain. The factory takes years to construct. Contrast that with drones.
Are you also a "political scientist"? 😊
I see you're taking exception at what I've said. I now have things to say about your most recent post that may offend you even more, unfortunately.
But look:
"Using tanks as artillery pieces is obviously not what they were intended for. Tanks were supposed to LEAD an infantry advance. Currently, they need the drones and infantry to make their progress possible."
That's all wrong.
1. It is not relevant what things WERE intended for. What's relevant is their utility now (or in the future).
2. In fact a machine with a big gun on it IS intended to be used as an 'artillery piece' for that's precisely what a big gun IS. It IS an artillery piece. A tank IS a mobile artillery piece. Amongst other things.
Then you say:
"To penetrate a 12mm thick steel hatch on a tank, a shaped charge with roughly 50 to 200 grams of high explosive is likely sufficient."
IMHO, that is a small amount of explosives. Equivalent in weight to a hand grenade.
This is fudging. This is no 'small explosives would penetrate any tanks hatches' at all which is what you said. A 'small explosive' IS the hand grenades you mention. They are utterly useless. A shaped charge is not 'any small explosive' it is a specific sophisticated explosive tailored to be effectively much more than a 'small explosive'.
Then you throw in details of cost. I wonder why? There is no one doesn't know. What point do you try to make? That killing a tank with a shaped charge is a vast difference in expenditure? And you relate that to the modern theatre? And claim it means the end of the tank? But that has been true since the days of bazooka in Korea !
That was true in the days of Germany's U boats: one torpedo being much less costly than a ship, even a merchant ship. What's the point? It has virtually always been true.
So ships were obsolete because of torpedoes? Tanks are obsolete because of bazookas? Airplance are obsolete because of anti aircraft fire?
Nonsense.
And none of that addresses the facts I put before you.
I will repeat them:
We want guns, big guns, as close to the action as we can get them.
We want them mobile for preference.
And we want them armoured.
That's a tank.
Your counter arguments were not effective at addressing issues he brought up. A) tanks are now being used in a manner they were not intended and have much less utility (even the author said they were becoming obsolete) and B) the thinnest armor on a tank is on the top where drones can easily attack and defeat them thus making tanks almost obsolete. I suspect tanks will be modified to have more armor on top and also change the shape of the top to help deflect the explosion. This will result in the drones having to carry even larger bombs.
Well you only say two things, mate: (1) I don't address his issue and (2) an issue you address. So what room is there for me to say anything?
Look: his issue is no concern of mine. Just think: what about if he raised the issue of lack of comfort for a long legged driver on a T-90 ? Or any other of a myriad irrelevancies? They are not my concern.
Go back to where we came from. Always try to remember the point. That's the main problem with that guy, he wanders off point down his own pathways.
Here's the point: he said tanks were finished.
I say they're not and point out why.
From there we immediately descend into his irrevancies. Don't you go there too.
Christ. For god's sake. How more irrelevant can you get than to pick on one part of one tank in its current implementation? A light hatch cover is not a prerequisite for a tank you know? It in no way defines 'a tank'. It is not part of the definition. Hence it is irrelevant when considering the question of whether 'a tank' is or is not 'finished'.
See?
All you have to do is put another lid on top of the first one and your shaped charge is f****d. But that's not something I should have said. It treats the point as though it had some relevancy. It does not
What is relevant is what I said: they are mobile armoured gun platforms. Did he address any part of that at all? No.
That's all about your point (2) which you got from him.
Reverting to your point (1). He said they're not being used in the manner they were intended. I did address that. I tried to point out what they are is weapons of war and their 'intended use' depends upon circumstances. They are intended to kill or help in the killing. Anyone claiming this or that weapon 'has' to be used in this or that way is a fool without understanding or imagination. A criminally defective fool in a military setting. Like that clown the duke of york who sent them marching up the hill. Why? Because that's 'what they are intended for'.
What utter schoolboy level lack of any attempt to think about things.
'Intended use' !! Number (1) 'Intended use' means nothing in context. What is all important is best effective use or perhaps more properly 'consideration of all effective uses'. Armies are full of examples of what we call in civvy street 'repurposing'. He fails to recognise the overall imperative which dictates 'intended use'. And that intended use is: to defeat the enemy.
All things are tools and never more so than in combat with other human beings.
'Intended use' doesn't matter in context with the question, which is HIS question and which is 'what use in the foreseeable future and the present?
Utterly irrelevant. Utterly.
Unless you do as I say, and consider the overall, the 'use' which even a soldier's greatcoat has: to help defeat the enemy.
That man is a nothing and a nobody as regards to this question. I suspect he's a child in fact, masquerading on the internet as an adult.
There is always a point of weakness in anything. And everyone knows it and when are the enemy you try to attack it and when you are the defender you try to strengthen it. We have cope cages already on hatches. And we have ECM's and anti-drones. And - the point - they have some effectiveness. Meaning the converse is true: the effectiveness of the attacks on those weak points is diminished.
In fact we see most tanks destroyed by fpv's are destroyed simply by dropping fpv's into the open hatch. The open hatch. Of an abandoned tank.
Abandoned because it was put out of action some other way. Probably, I guess, as a matter of probabilities, by a mine. And the soldiers failed to close the hatch. So the point? The point is the tank was taken out by an even 'weaker' point. And there's another: the tracks. A more or less 'usual' rpg can blow the tracks and cause the crew to quit and leave it there for finishing off or 'capturing'.
Christ on a crutch. Just look. Just look. And think.
And ignore blokes like that or you'll end up like me: wasting bloody hours and wearing my fingers out rabbiting on about the obvious. For what? For what benefit? For my own ego gratification? Nope. I feel like fool for wasting my time.
Russia is taking out tanks with repeated drone strikes according to videos on Marat-San channel on youtube.
I guess they know just where to strike them?
Drones definitely are a very important part of combat it would seem. I agree that tanks and artillery are much more powerful but this drone stuff is evolving at a breakneck pace.
Cheers.
Yes and I boldly predict we will get to a situation of statis. Where anti-drone perfectly balance drone. So the air becomes clear. Just as it is clear of airplanes because of ECM and AA and the sea is clear of ships.
But airplane fleets remain required, coveted, powerful, significant as do navies.
Essentially drones are as susceptible as any other flying object.
There are many different types flying at different speeds and heights.
Counter measures to each are being found.
And both sides will get them.
You will not be able to fly a drone without it being brought down.
But you will not be able to relax your defence without drones suddenly appearing.
My apologies. I did not bother reading your message. You were rude to me and I have no time for you.
The fact that drone delivery of explosives, to the studied weak spots of the tank can be done very accurately, makes the tanks more vulnerable. It definitely doesn't make them obsolete, but restricts their use. Anti tank munitions were the first iteration but still carried risk to the person firing a Javelin, so less accuracy. It's all about the weak spots in the armour.
It's all about making best use of what you've got and recognising the to and fro of technological progress, tactical progress. Being intelligent. What freed Kursk in the end? The shovel. The miners said lets use the pipeline. Dug down to it, volunteered to enter it.
He has rejected your argument, IMO, because you insulted him, as he says. This is a pity, since you are clearly right and he would benefit by learning from you. Men are highly competitive.
yep, I damaged his ego I think. My fault. I'm not very kind or considerate at all. I should learn to be.
It depends upon whether or not you want people conversing with you who are masochists and/ or groupies or normal ones.
I wonder what the NATO guy said to him?
I'm afraid you've found my limits there - I couldn't figure out the bit about masochists or whatever.
But the nato guy, yep, wouldn't that be interesting? I get the feeling the guy couldn't be bothered with him actually, brushed him off. :)
Great piece, thnx. The Times makes no mention of this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advanced-attack-drones-for-ukraine-in-new-deal-struck-by-uk-government-and-anduril-uk#:~:text=The%20new%20contracts%2C%20totalling%20nearly,striking%20targets%20that%20enter%20it.
The vassal state UK government doing exactly what Trump wants - to share the costs of the war. Buying £30m worth of US made drones to send to Ukraine. The Times could ask itself - Are these drones fit for purpose? Is that money well spent by Starmer? Oh! And how is this military Keynesianism for UK economy? Is it not the Americans laughing all the way to bank selling us outmoded junk weapons?
Some accountability of this headless chicken government, addicted to bloodbaths!
I have long maintained that the only question is whether the War On Russia or the War On Iran will take priority for now.
Seems that the Empire is confident that it can do both.
I suspect the objectives in the War on Russia have been downgraded from winning to keeping Russia bogged down. Starmer & Macron v Putin and Lavrov. This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that the Stramer's idea of leadership is to kill people.
That works perfectly well from the western perspective. Just as the War On Iraq and the War On Libya were a complete successes from the western perspective.
I can't see why they shouldn't take on China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all at once. That way the mighty NATO can once and for all finish the Evil Axis and be done. 🤣
I n t h e i r d r e a m s...
As long as the so-called resistance continues to hem, haw and dither, it's working perfectly well.
Against this background, the desire of the coalition of the willing (the "coalition of the sniffers") to start a war with Russia is extremely surprising.
Not at all. The rulers in and out of government are the only ones who matter, and their kids won't get used as cannon fodder, their portfolios won't take a hit.
So why should they care?
At every stage of the war, the Russian leadership has underestimated the sociopathy and cynicism of the West.
It's true.
It's funny that, according to Ukrainian press reports, Mr. Zelensky was drafted into the army 4 times during 2014-2015. But he still managed to avoid mobilization.
Cynical, but who cares, as long as it works.
not surprising at all if you consider the millennial duration of the imperium and its elite educational resources
and also the question, given the rapid turnover of PMs, as to who really runs the country
and the fact that the elite educational history includes a class on the Revenge of the Light Brigade
Starmer and all PMs since Thatcher (poss exception G Broon) = water carriers.
Psychology of William I and Domesday, that title now eerily prophetic?
I'm not sure I would necessarily agree that the high-ups aren't aware of these sorts of military tech developments. I can't fathom how they couldn't know. So I think the underlying answer is more psychological. Namely they are a bunch of fucking psychopaths.
This provides the answer to the obvious 'why don't they all just fucking grow up and stop killing each other'. That maturation will never happen precisely because they are monstrous psychopaths who get off on seeing suffering, abuse and all the rest of it. They are quite literally addicted to it (their brains are wired differently to the rest of us - their amygdalae are the wrong way round, that is).
Thus, for them, 'war' is not about anything 'strategic', it's not even an extension of politics anymore, it's just one huge snuff movie theatre.
If only someone had told Clausewitz about psychology, especially psychopathy, then he would've reviewed his book and thought 'fuck that' and started a laborious rewrite.
But this goes back a very long way of course. Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, the whole allied terror bombing campaign. Sending millions over the top in ww1. Kissinger's genocides. The MKULTRA Phoenix program. The Zebra murders. All of it.
Normal people simply don't do war because it's not beneficial to them. They talk out their issues.
Unless and until the common people, en masse, come to understand the psychology of the people they tolerate governing them, then none of this will ever stop. It will simply get worse in direct proportion to the further development of technology.
Until - the Goddess willing - some higher power/intelligence thinks enough is enough, humans are never going to eat the apple and develop an immune reaction to evil, so then decides to come along and put this beautiful planet out of her misery.
All of this leaves out the elephant in the room. We, the people. These lunatics are there because we put them there.
And we leave them there.
Simple as that.
No getting out of it.
They are, in fact, a manifestation of the nature of the people.
Oscar Wilde: Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Definitely the clue of all clues.
William I creates Contract with Anglo-Saxon leadership. Latter confers with Peasants. Peasants say, Monty Python style, "We don't care, King can do what Kings do, just leave us to our pigs and ploughing" Job Done. Billy then puts his Baron mates i/c Admin, sends old admin to spend more time with family, cancels all existing property deeds, borrows some funding from the usual suspects and remembers to hoover up the second layer of admin as his Iscariot supervisors of the plebs.
This was such a good plan it lasted (with some window-dressing) for a thousand years.
Check out your neighbourhood and then come back and argue!
I half-agree with you there, and kind of suggested as much with my last bit, when I said unless and until normal people grow up and develop an immunity to evil, manipulation, coercive control and so on, then yes, they will continue to vote for and support and tolerate lunatics/monsters, and the monstrous things they do.
The bit where I disagree with you is that it is not normal human nature we’re talking about here (if you go back far enough in human history/prehistory etc. - ‘war’ never really happened until around 5k years ago) - human nature has been corrupted and poisoned, essentially - but it was the monsters/lunatics who did that poisoning. People need to realise that. They are coercively controlled and have been for a very long time.
Once the people learn to say ‘no’ - and not just to war - then we might resolve the issue.
Otherwise, if it’s too late for this, then the sooner the species becomes extinct the better. Ave Asteroid Apophis!
Well yes, I was only talking about 'our' people: the western world. People at large may well be very different. I hope they are.
But it is unavoidable that 'our' people are completely unconcerned with genocide and their own involvement, warfare, approaching nuclear disaster... anything..
It seems their nature is to expect someone else to do things. Perhaps as a result of our civilization wherein completely gone, I think, is the notion of a 'well rounded man' capable of many things from building his own shelter for self and family to hunting/gathering food perhaps.
We are generations now into segregation by task, by occupation and we identify ourselves with our tasks even. I am no longer 'a man' or 'a woman', I am 'a bricklayer' or 'a manager' or whatever.
We are not only functionaries we identify so strongly with our function that we are literally claiming to be 'it'.
So we call for other functionaries to perform those functions we do not perform. A plumber to do the plumbing, an electrician to do the electrics, etc.
And I think we subconsciously perceive our voting as 'calling for a functionary' to do the running of the nation.
Whereas it is we who are supposed to be doing it.
So that's a massive job of reeducation required there I think. Unless the realisation suddenly swept through the populace with the speed of a new fashion: Harry Potter or Beyonce or something.
But should we desire to run things ourselves, as we should, we would then find ourselves without a venue or a voice. We have these surrogates: the 'social media' which are susceptible to manipulation and worse, can be withdrawn arbitrarily.
And our voices there are undisciplined entirely: it is a babel.
So, you may have seen this before, I constantly urge that we get and adopt an app that we all can use, even grannie in her rocker, with ease and which will show immediately how we are all feeling, thinking, 'voting' for whatever issues.
I find no one supports this idea at all. No one. I take that as a further indication of the nature of our people. They want someone else to do it. They want benevolent dictatorship. They in fact demand it via a sort of Ghandian passive resistance.
They are happy to take the risk of malevolent dictatorship. We see that. That is what they have all over the western world, is it not?
If we want to be activist and analysts and understand then the first thing is to become aware of this simple fact I think: the nature of who we are as a people.
Gotta be realistic about it or we'll be doomed to failure in anything we do and we'll be talking nonsense in anything we say.
Here's the venue and voice thing: https://abrogard.com/blog/2023/12/25/dont-write-to-congress/
You are correct, not all people are like the "English".
Africa, Latin America, most of Asia, do not have this berserk streak.
which originated from our leader's original Viking blood
(and they created a mass formation psychosis to maintain the dynasty).
Thanks!
Glad I read onwards, your first contribution alarmed me, cut down on the coffee and blogs first thing LOL...
I don't believe there is anything in your comment I could possibly disagree with. I'll certainly have a look at your post.
I've started a series of my own, which may also be of interest: https://inadifferentplace.substack.com/p/liberal-socialism-and-what-is-to?r=2s9hod
Oscar Wilde: Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
I wonder if he was right? And if he was what's the significance - there's some other system within which the people do not get bludgeoned?
I believe there is. In my book 'Reality: from metaphysics to metapolitics' I present Plato's teaching on an aristocracy (which means 'rule by the best' in Greek) which is rigorously trained to rule as an alternative to the anti-natural liberal democracy of the modern West. This should not in any way be confused with the degenerate hereditary 'aristocracy' that have always lived as parasites on the working class of their respective countries, including the so-called 'royal family' of a certain island nation.
That, I believe, would be a 'meritocracy', given that their merit is in their training for the task.
I know little about it. I'm no scholar. No political scientist.
But my first look has me seeing opportunity for perversion of any fine original impulse. It quickly gets orwellian. Who is to define the training? Who/what is to prevent it being perverted? And then the 'ruling class' is established in the beginning merely to serve the good of the mass - but what is to stop it inexorably turning towards putting its own welfare above the mass?
I think there's often conflation, confusion, between two aspects of 'rule' or 'govern'.
The organisational or perhaps 'bureaucratic' aspect on the one hand and the directional or aspirational on the other.
'Trained to rule' in which aspect - or both?
i.e. are they running the machinery of the society or are they directing the course of that society?
Either one is capable of bludgeoning the people.
The only rule we really need that is separate from the people is the 'infrastructure rule' that keeps the mechanism working well. That's an enormous task in itself.
For direction we need to know the wishes of the people in the main.
No trained class of 'rulers' is adequate here, it seems to me.
Agreed. I have unfortunately come across psychopaths several times and I think they are very attracted to politics/power.
Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobacewski? It's available to download free and it is his secret study of political psychopathy in the Soviet Union, but has had a resurgence of interest recently as it is very applicable to the current situation.
Haven’t read that actually - I will check it out - thanks for the tip!
https://pearl-hifi.com/11_Spirited_Growth/10_Health_Neg/08_Psychopathy_OPs_AFs/03-Political_Ponerology_Full_Text.pdf
Another thorough accounting from the word master, Kit Klarenberg. As I read this, it became apparent that the US is basically equipped to fight a war if the opponent is from the 1990’s to early 2000’s. If our fighting capability is called to move beyond bombing undefended civilian infrastructure, we, like our faithful lieutenant Israel, are doomed to be shattered.
Thank you for your enormously kind words, dear Guy. You yourself sum up the problem with devastating eloquence and concision. Armchair Warlord posted an extraordinary thread a while back on how the abundantly obvious lessons of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war weren't learned by World War One, almost a decade later - https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1682312797475176448?t=KsohCGI8mTwBKFEgSwAakg&s=19. It played on my mind heavily writing my report. That NATO's "way of war" is dangerously redundant is writ large in endless footage of FPV drones able to hone in with pinpoint precision on targets 20 kilometres away. But delusions and blindspots persist...
When asked in an interview if Ursula von der Leyen would be sending any of her children to fight the good fight, she just laughed like the sociopath that she is.
And the horror is only starting. With AI the drones fly without fiber cables over much longer distances.
If only the politicians of both sides would have talked.
https://open.substack.com/pub/simplicius76/p/sitrep-52625-russia-unleashes-saved
This piece by Simplicius goes into detail about the impact of recent drone warfare innovations.
This whole piece is sobering as hell. What’s wild is how clearly the writing’s on the wall, and yet the folks supposedly in charge are either sleepwalking or pretending none of it matters. The Times paints a brutal picture: this isn’t just some futuristic theory about drone warfare, it’s happening right now, reshaping everything on the ground.
Meanwhile, NATO still seems stuck in a mindset from 20 years ago, like tanks and jets alone are gonna cut it. Honestly, if they don't start paying attention fast, they’re gonna get blindsided in the worst way.
Thank You Kit
The brits are beyond ridiculous, invest in drone technologies, nah, they'd prefer to shovel taxpayers money into private banks and hope the media can destroy Russia.
When you start a fight, you have to go all in, fight to the death. Don't know what type of fight the brits thought they were starting with Russia, queensbury rules?
Laughing my head off now even more than back in Feb 22 at the sheer stupidity of the brit establishment. All they can do now is their usual satanic terrorism with red flag massacres of their own innocent citizens and the innocent citizens of their so called allies and friends.
and some of their own serving soldiery who shouldn't be there ... er ... ask the question who let the SAS play at mercenaries?
Keeping this war going in Ukraine is reprehensible..........the shit heads in the EU don't obviously mind killing more people. They are more upset about 'losing face!'
"there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures..."
The goals are depopulation & profit. The only good slav is a dead slav; doesn't matter which "side" does the dying. And TPTB make more profits off bazillion $$ boondoggles; not "toy" planes. That is all NATO needs to understand.
"the House of Lords Committee called for London to “invest in research and development to maintain a strategic edge in drone technology"
Lol, you have to *have* superiority to "maintain" it. First catch up. Good luck with that a-holes!
I think you have the goal of depopulation in the other corner...
"The report went entirely unremarked upon by the media contemporaneously, and today there is no sign of its multiple urgent calls to action having produced any meaningful results in any tangible regard in Britain’s armed forces."
Drones appear small, cheap, and not very complicated. So...where's the profit?