Summer Is Coming

By
Chris Trotter
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91
1800

THE AMERICANS are doubling down on their commitment to keep the Ukrainian armed forces in the field against the Russians. The Biden Administration’s decision to dispatch another billion-dollars-worth of state-of-the-art artillery to Kiev has been met with fury in Moscow. The rage of Putin and his mouthpieces is understandable. Washington is giving the Ukrainians the weapons they need to keep the devastating Russian self-propelled guns out of range of the Donbass cities Moscow must take to secure anything remotely resembling victory.

What do the Americans know about Russia’s present military situation that makes them willing to incur Putin’s wrath in this way? The Russian President has warned the United States and its Nato allies repeatedly that the supply of weapons capable of fundamentally altering the strategic balance of its “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine will produce unimaginable consequences. By this, Putin is clearly alluding to the Russian Federation’s nuclear capability. “Give Ukraine too much help,” he is saying, “and I’ll use my nukes.”

That’s a big bluff to call.

To find out why Biden and his Defence and National Security advisors may be willing to call Putin’s bluff, we have to go all the way back to January and February of this year. From the wealth of detail relating to Russia’s offensive plans for Ukraine – subsequently borne out by the facts of the Russian invasion – it is clear that there had been a massive breach of Russian military security. Somehow, the Americans were reading Russia’s political and military leaders’ mail.

Obviously Putin, himself a counter-intelligence specialist, took steps to close up the breach. Senior figures in the political and military hierarchy started blipping off Russian screens.

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Job done?

Apparently not.

It is highly doubtful that the Americans would feel confident enough to call Putin’s nuclear bluff if they did not have it on very good authority, from those in a position to do so, that any move toward the tactical or strategic use of nuclear weapons by the Russian President will result in his immediate deposition.

This could mean something thoroughly cinematic – like a patriotic bodyguard drawing his pistol, shooting Putin and his advisers dead, crying “Long Live Russia!” and then turning the weapon on himself. Alternatively, it could involve the commanders of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces sending an H-Bomb tipped missile hurtling into Putin’s supposedly blast-proof nuclear bunker. (Spoiler Alert: There’s no such thing.) Or, it could amount to senior officers in the know quietly communicating Putin’s location to the Americans in sufficient time for them to carry out the deposition themselves.

Certainly, there can be little doubt in the minds of senior Russian commanders that the Americans know pretty much exactly where they are at any given moment of the day or night. The sheer number of Russian commanders killed by sniper-fire or drone-strikes since 24 February makes that terrifyingly clear. They will also know that if Putin is insane enough to actually order a tactical nuclear strike, the American response will be a massive, decapitating, counter-strike that will leave Russia leaderless and rudderless. Precisely because Russian nuclear-war-fighting doctrine devolves launch authority, in extremis, to battlefield commanders, the Americans will make damn sure that there are no battlefield commanders left alive.

In the context of this discussion it is important to remember that when the world was literally on the brink of Nuclear Armageddon in October 1962, it was the good sense and humanitarian instincts of the political commissar aboard a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine under attack from US Navy-launched depth-charges, off Cuba, who persuaded the vessel’s commanders not to respond with its nuclear torpedoes. By refusing to put his key in the unlocking mechanism, he saved himself, the crew, and the whole world from nuclear annihilation.

There is absolutely no reason to suppose that Russian patriots have become so extreme that, rather than depose a delusional and potentially genocidal president, they would see the whole of Mother Russia – along with the rest of the planet – reduced to a radioactive ash-heap. Nor is it fanciful to suppose that Russia’s most intelligent and capable citizens have not long since realised that their country has no viable future as an independent nation if it persists in the folly of attempting to “Make Russia Great Again” by force of arms. The only questions that matter now are: How many of those intelligent and capable citizens are there in the upper echelons of the Russian armed forces? And: How many of them have a working back-channel to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?

The point of maximum danger will come if/when a day arrives when the Russian forces in Ukraine lose all offensive capability and begin to fall back under Ukrainian pressure. That moment is likely to come when the state-of-the-art weaponry currently being dispatched from the United States is effectively deployed on the battlefields of Ukraine. Weapons with the power to shut down the massive artillery barrages Russian military commanders rely upon to take their objectives.

In the hugely popular television series, Game of Thrones, the stark warning that “Winter is coming” struck fear into the hearts of all the peoples of Westeros. Along the bitterly contested battle-lines of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the warning that should strike fear into the Russians’ hearts is the seasonal opposite of the Game of Thrones. Not the bitter snows of winter, but the sun-hardened fields of the Ukrainian plains, across which the Blue and Yellow Walkers can move with deadly speed.

What stark warning should Putin fear?

“Summer is coming.”

91 COMMENTS

  1. The fact that your commentary is obsessed with Putin renders it childish. The “empire of lies” needs its fairytales.

  2. Chris, read more widely. Nothing the West sends in terms of money, weapons, sanctions etc frighten the Russians, nor will they help Ukraine.

    Military “experts” in the West have totally misread Russian strategy, tactics and weaponry. This operation has been in a league the West cannot match, we are in catch up mode and at least 10 years behind.

    I think dreams of Putins demise ridiculous. The real issue is what type of society and polity will develop in a victorious and increasingly prosperous Russia? Only thing I can suggest is that younger Russians wont be impressed by what they see in the West.

    Meanwhile in the West maybe we should stop believing our own bull and start dealing with reality.

    • I concur. As per an earlier post, I mentioned meeting a war veteran whom stated the overhyped media perception that Ukraine is winning the war. They say the Ukraine are holding their own and are pushing back. Fast forward a week and Russia have not only taken back control but are making new inroads. As the war veteran mentioned the amount of Russian military weaponry is almost endless and will overpower Ukraine until they cede to Russia.

      https://edition.cnn.com/

    • Nick J; Did you forget the /sarcasm tag?

      If Russia is that good they would have rolled over the Ukraine by now, rolled over the Balkan states, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and be knocking on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. What is taking them sooooooooooooooooo long? I guess taking three months to conquer 20% of the Ukraine means another year to occupy 100% This is from bases inside Russia. Get any further, the rear echelon and supply bases will need to be on Ukrainian soil and open to long range attacks.

      Bert; Having the weaponry is one thing, having the trained operators and support personnel plus infrastructure to transport the equipment long distances in unfriendly occupied lands is quire another. Currently the Russian’s back room stuff is safe on Russian soil. Move further east and It becomes open to missile attacks. The true test will come when Russia declares mobilisation and the reaction by young people to that call. Not too sure I share your enthusiasm that the young people will flock to the green uniform fitting rooms.

      The question of how will Russia manage the ceded Ukraine if they reach friendly Moldova and the Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian borders. The place is in ruins so will Russia rebuild? Carry out a holocaust to get rid of the “Nazi’s”? Military expansion by conquest is one thing, holding the ground and codifying the populace, quite another.

      Just what will Russia do with the Ukrainian territories. For sure they will be fighting a huge underground army of partisans that ties up military resources for 20 or more years.

      • That 20% that Zelenskyy was talking about includes that part of the Donbas occupied since 2014 and Crimea, also annexed in 2014. The amount of territory taken by Russia in the last 3 months is less than 10%.

        Unless something dramatically changes, Russia wont be able to conquer much more of Ukraine. They will be able o consolidate in the Donbas and gain probably a few hundred extra square kilometres. They will probably lose Kershon in the South.

        The land bridge will be that part of Ukraine bordering the Azov Sea, which is not relevant for the Black Sea trade. The critical ports are Odessa and Kershon. Expect a major battle over Kershon

      • Gerrit, sarcasm? You are funny.
        Lets examine the mindset you answer with. Why hasnt Russia invaded the rest of Europe you ask? Thats a very imperialist question, is that how you interpret the world? Do they really want to take over failed Eastern European states? Why would they?
        Why hasnt Russia prevailed quickly? Can you envisage a military that doesn’t go around flattening whole cities or throwing around tactical nukes? Maybe the Russians know their goals which dont include destroying an area they are attempting to liberate. Has that occured to you?
        Has it occured to you that the Russians might just have been clever enough to work out their limitations and problems such as logistics and cut their cloth to match?
        I suspect Gerrit that you might benefit from dropping orthodox assumptions and asking the uncomfortable questions.

        • You should sell whatever it is you are taking as it is obviously mind-altering. While I would not guarantee the MSM as a reliable news source there are enough reliable alternative news sources providing information to show that Russia is in trouble. You have forgotten about the financial sanctions & diminishing oil sales to the EU which is also destroying the Russian capability to respond, sure China could help but they are smart enough to see the likely result & are not going to suffer any loss for Russia’s sake.
          It is a disgusting war & the USA has its fingerprints all over it because it is using Ukraine to further it’s own ambitions.

      • lol the same way they did after liberating the Crimea. It’s not hard to rebuild when you’re a real human nation.

  3. I think we need to look back a little further than January and February this year, to December last year when Putin made his “offer ” to the US and Nato of a way to recover security arrangements for Europe and the world in the face of continued NATO expansion and abandonment of successive treaties by the US administrations.
    The dismissive response he got from both must have been entirely anticipated and they cannot have been made without an intention to do something about Russia’s security in that expected circumstance.
    Though it looked like defending the people of the Donbass from the Ukrainian army was the trigger for this special op , it now looks like that wider issue of Russia’s own security is part of this.
    In December Russia sought the removal by negotiation of American nuclear capable installations in European countries that threatened Russia. I think this is the first step to doing something about forcing their removal. Putin is the most sane leader in the world and within his own country the most popular. He is at no risk of being deposed except by direct intervention by the CIA or MI6.
    IMHO
    D J S

    • Putin is a crazy cowardly bully mass murderer and warmonger. Russia is a super-power and Putin wasn’t asked by the Ukraine government to help them against anti govt forces. No country in the world would want to join Russia. Attacking a sovereign nation to replace the president with a favorable leader harks back to the days of the Soviet Union and the CIA and KGB overthrowing govts.. But this is 2022 and killing children, woman and old men is criminal. One can understand Sweden and Finland and other Baltic states wanting to join NATO after Putins invasion of Ukraine. Russia under Putin will forever be a pariah state and of no consequence in the world. WWIII may be Putins last resort so lets cross our fingers.

  4. Given the clear and irrefutable evidence that this conflict is a US/NATO construction, surely, rather than hoping that wiser heads in Russia will at some point pilot us to peace, we should be screaming for their counterparts in every forum we are a part of, and which are still free from the dead hand of US influence, demand that this madness ceases right now.

    • Dunno, Ratheon shares must be doing well, McConnell Douglas too. So many fingers in the till so to speak. Oil industry doesnt care about prices, the higher the better for them so long as it doesn’t collapse demand. American industry is fine with German industrial collapse, a competitor down, next up? And the peasants of the Ukraine, take their wheat for years to pay off the armaments they have purchased. Sure NATO doesnt look to be doing well but who better to capitaliseout of a conflict than US capital? Absolute experts.

      One interesting side story. Monsanto were ejected from the Russian market when Russia a few years back legislated against GMO foodstuffs. Monsanto have recently dominated seed and pesticide supply to the Ukraine. Most of that is grown in the East, so it would appear that Monsanto stand to lose the market in the liberated areas. Such a shame.

    • Re your comment Malcolm that the war in Ukraine is a “US/NATO construction” I am sure that the Ukrainian civilians executed by Russian soldiers in Bucha would have quite strongly disagreed.

      You may draw pretty pictures but to be honest your anti-West ‘worldview’ is pretty infantile.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre

      • Infantile is your naive belief in propaganda. It seems that other sources say the Russian troops had withdrawn before those bodies were laid out.
        Of course, I realise that only your approved sources are valid for providing valid propaganda – sorry – information..
        It is just that I find it hard to believe that you would actually know.

    • Who invaded who? in this instance Nato has not attacked anyone. All Nato has done is supply weapons to a nation under attack The attacking was done by Russia, a point obviously lost on the Putin apologists here.

      • Wayne, you and I live in the West, under an American nuclear umbrella. It doesnt make me feel very comfortable when our side decides to shifty up to the borders of a nuclear power and stir them up. Not exactly what I want putting us in the frontline. You may find that OK, Im appalled.

    • Malcolm there aint any wiser heads in Russia – all crazy mass murder warmongers. No chance there. The public need to know what is going on in Ukraine to their kith and kin.

  5. The wind blows from west to east. So any use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would blow radioactive particles back on to Russian soil.

  6. For a fuller account of the Cuba/submarine incident and general nuclear madness since the 1940s read ‘The Doomesday Machine’ by Daniel Ellsberg. A man who was there at the time and had top level clearance.

  7. You are blinded by such all-encompassing tribalism you and so many others are prepared to bet all of our futures on it. And for what, Chris? Rah, Rah, Rah, our side is so much better in every possible way?

    These past few years have demonstrated the destructive madness of collective liberal-class shadow denial like never before.

    You’re right that wisdom and humanity could still prevail. I certainly pray it will.

  8. Jacinda please send flak jackets and intelligence officers and thoughts and prayers to Auckland which is currently under siege by gun toting terrorists.

    • Jacinda maybe you could go above and beyond and even offer a frown and a tilting head for the many homeless now sleeping on the streets in every town.

      • The homeless are John Keys legacy and was at its peak in Auckland in the period 2010 to 2016. They lived in on the footpath on Victoria St near Sky City and outside the super-market. Thats at the same time Key sold off social housing then invited his property speculator mates in to create his hill billy rock star economy.

  9. What makes Chris think that because the weaponry promised by the US is more lethal, it will somehow have immunity to precision missile strikes, that the Russians have so far used effectively?
    Those precision strikes also beg the question..how did the Russians know where these weapons were stored?
    It seems they waited for the optimum time to strike, when the warehouses and hangars were full, then totally obliterated them .Indicating pretty good on the ground intelligence, which has been driving Kiev mad, finding traitors everywhere.As well, Russian soldiers are not allowed to carry their mobile phones, whereas the Ukrainians are, giving up their positions time after time.
    The reason Russia calls this a special military operation, is because it is using a mere 15% of its armed forces, and using them very effectively.Declaring war would then lead to mobilisation and a huge surge in troop numbers.I don’t think Russia is in any danger of running out of missiles, they’ll be ramping up production , and as well capturing heaps from retreating Ukrainians
    Yes, summer is coming, the traditional time for fighting in that neck of the woods, an advantage for both sides
    GOT memes do not win a war.

  10. “The Biden Administration’s decision to dispatch another billion-dollars-worth of state-of-the-art artillery to Kiev…”

    Ukraine had a whole lot of those multi rocket launches at start of war but Russia wiped them out immediately. Same thing will happen again. But hey at least weapons manufacturers get $$$.

    Its over, Russia has won. Yanks wont let it go, they are crazy and dont care about prolonging death and destruction for no reason.

  11. Russia didn’t surrender to the German’s, and I somehow doubt they’re going to surrender to Ukraine (regardless how many billions of dollars worth of weapons the US gives them). Russia has a habit of doubling down. I strongly suspect 99% of these new weapons will be destroyed by hypersonic cruise missiles the instant they cross the border.

  12. Noting in 1962 that it wasn’t the political commissar who said no to the launch of the nuclear torpedo. It was Vassily Arkhipov, a naval officer, and the EO of the submarine in question (but overall commander of the submarine fleet). The captain and political officer supported the use of the “special weapon” as they called it then, Arkhipov alone didn’t, and he eventually talked the others around, in a submarine, with no air, under depth charge from above. Incredibly, and unusually on that mission, three people needed to authorise the release of nukes, aside from the usual two. When you read the account of the whole episode (and similar ones like it), you have to wonder if some higher power was guiding their decision. It’s just all so finely balanced…

  13. “It is highly doubtful that the Americans would feel confident enough to call Putin’s nuclear bluff if they did not have it on very good authority”

    It’s more likely that decades of a degrading equipment and Military corruption from poor maintenance to stealing copper wiring would render a large part of the Russian arsenal unserviceable. The charitable view might be that US military planners want to weaken Russia by fighting to the last Ukrainian because a direct face off with US/NATO forces would obliterate Russian conventional forces virtually guaranteeing escalation to tactical nukes.

    What seems least plausible is that there is a real understanding of the ‘enemy’ that we have infallible chessmasters that can keep us back from the brink or that the intelligence is even accurate. I don’t see a Kennedy or Khrushchev in the room today and look how close the world came on their watch. If Curtis LeMay had had his way we probably wouldn’t be here today.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUfBc4qQMg

    • “It’s more likely that decades of a degrading equipment and Military corruption from poor maintenance to stealing copper wiring would render a large part of the Russian arsenal unserviceable.”
      This may have been true 6 months ago but i highly doubt that anymore. They most definitely have working missiles now that would give you a very severe sun burn.
      A charitable view might be that Russian planners would want to demonstrate the effectiveness of their missile systems and only take out a few bases in Poland as a response.

    • If you’re going to spout this nonsense, you should have the courage to tell us when the imaginary Russian collapse will come. It makes it easier to make fun of you when that deadline passes.

  14. This is what I understand. Putin has said that if the US sends missiles that can extend far enough to be used by Ukraine to bomb Russia it will take this as the US declaring war on Russia and it will respond to the US accordingly. As being at overt and outright war with the US. That it is one thing to help Ukraine to defend its territory but another to give it the means to attack Russia.

    Does anyone know if this is what was communicated?

  15. Oh just great we are back indulging in fantasy that Putin will be deposed again.
    Listen, the moment Western leaders decided to confiscate Russian wealth was the moment they could kiss any chance of a coup good bye. The Russian elite are now firmly welded to the Putin administration, anything else will leave them bankrupt and impoverished and we know that they have no intention of living in the poverty they created.

    • Did it escape your attention that the Russian elite is already at risk of becoming bankrupt and impoverished due to Putin’s ego so any sensible operator would see getting rid of Putin as the safest way to restore their privilege?

      • Did it escape yours that you expect them to side with people who just stole everything from them? America over played their hand with sanctions and now they have to deal with the consequences.

  17. You do not need to have breached the Kremlin’s secret messages to know that Putin is bluffing with his threat to use nuclear weapons.

    Weapons of mass destruction are not new. Gas weapons of the First World War invented to try and break the deadlock that that war had descended into, were perfected between the wars with the invention of the nerve gas sarin by German chemists. At the start of WWII Germany had enough stocks of sarin to wipe out London and possibly every other major British city as well. The British High command were so alarmed at the threat that they ordered the mass distribution of gas masks to the entire British population. Gas masks were issued to the public in cardboard boxes with strict instructions that they be carried at all times, without exception. Fines would be imposed if you were caught without your respirator.
    It has been called the great mystery of WWII why the Germans didn’t use their WMDs even when faced with inevitable catastrophic defeat. The fact that Adolf Hitler as a soldier in the trenches of the First World War had personally suffered under a gas attack may have had something to do with it. That Hitler’s experience of gas warfare was shared with hundreds of thousands of other German war veterans might also have made Hitler hesitate.
    But the main reason is that the allies would have replied in kind.
    The fact of the matter is that devastating Weapons of Mass Destruction have only ever been used in war, when only one side had them.
    You want to know why Putin is bluffing.
    I remember once reading a chilling account of a hospital ward in japan treating dying radiation victims following the American nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one point a rumour spread around the ward that Japan had the nuclear weapon and was dropping it all along the coast of California. The dying patients got up and cheered.
    What people are starting to realise is that WWIII has already started and that it will be fought with so called ‘conventional weapons’.

  18. This is hilarious.

    The sole reasons that the American empire is still supporting Ukraine are:
    A) It makes money for the military industrial complex
    B) Biden doesn’t want the Zelensky regime to surrender before the midterm elections

    • Quite possible. Maybe unlikely? Hard for me to say.
      But we have many closed minds in this debate who cannot countenance anything opposing their propaganda-driven beliefs, and those closed minds bring themselves into ridicule through their certainty that they know what is actually happening. Ha!

    • Support for Ukraine had been a bit patchy to begin with. What caught everyone by surprise was the stiff Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion. The US expected the Russian invasion to be a walk over. They closed the US embassy in Kiev and fled the country. Only last week did they US ambassador return. When Poland tried to supply Ukraine with MIG fighters the US vetoed it.
      It is only now that it sems that Ukraine might actually defeat the Russians that the US have got fully behind them. The Ukraine resistance to the invasion is what is driving events, nothing else. Without that resistance on the ground no amount of US weapons or aid would be forthcoming.

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