Russia Blues

May 2023May 19, 2023By Srdja Trifkovic

The Ukrainian campaign is not just the fight to retain strategic depth along Russia’s vulnerable southwestern flank; it is also the struggle to retain its status as a great power. The Biden administration is now more than ready for reckless escalation, a deadly game of chicken with nuclear . . .

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Comments (12)

A somber, sober, and edifying piece.

May 1, 2023 Tom Piatak Reply
The question to be asked snd answered is this : “How many more Russian lives are we willing to lose to secure the objective of this Special Military Operation ?”

May 1, 2023 Don C Reply
Russia should negotiate now with the territory they have added. They can claim that they are more secure than before. Then they should focus on reopening ties to Europe and liberalizing their economy. Putin can still remain authoritarian on the political front. But their economics will have to shift if they are ever to build a healthy society.

https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-ethics-of-liberty-human-rights-as.html

May 1, 2023 RMB Reply
A reconstituted, stable, secure, semi-modern, and semi-strong Russia, with its cautious predisposition (based on experience) toward the West, can provide the convenient adversary needed by the Western elite to wage the ideological war (or “Cold Peace”) against the alternative doctrine. That makes Russia strategically important, but certainly no partner, while kept economically engaged (meaning “down,” thus posing no real danger to the West).

The term “Catch-22,” to use the title of Joseph Heller’s satirical novel, may be applied to the Russian dilemma that best describes the Western strategy: Russia could be accepted as a partner only if it submitted to the West unconditionally—but that would result in its inevitable demise. Otherwise, the West will continue provoking and antagonizing Russia, forcing it to struggle and sacrifice its resources for an uncertain future. Faced with either an inevitable demise or an uncertain future, the Russians must choose the second option and will try to keep their independence at any cost. The West knows that, of course, and will attempt to raise that cost to Russia to unsustainable levels, whatever the consequences.

Russia and the United States should be allies, complementing each other in many ways. However, after missing out on the great opportunity of finally becoming strategic partners following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they will keep staring at each other suspiciously across the ocean. Although they secretly admire one another, sometimes even using the vague euphemism of “partners,” both will keep their options open. After the West committed the truly strategic blunder of not wanting to understand, comprehend, accept, and respect Russia, thereby totally alienating her again, Russia will remain an implicit adversary of the United States and the West in the foreseeable future—and that is what the Western elite precisely wants. There is no real solution for the resulting situation, and it will only be further complicated by the rise of a new and independent great power on the Eurasian landmass: China.

May 2, 2023 Peter J. Sandys Reply
I ask one question. If the Obiden Junta cannot define a woman can they be trusted with the nuclear button? We are dealing not just with incompetence or even evil but with insanity and insane people often commit insane acts.

May 2, 2023 John Acord Reply
The mood in St. Petersburg seems to be quite different than in Moskov, from what Dmitri Orlov tells in a recent Kunstler Cast.

May 3, 2023 Øyvind Holmstad Reply
Anyway, I’ve to admit I was wrong about that Russia would take back Kerson during the winter offensive, and that Putin then would become more popular than ever.

According to Indian Punchline, Medvedev wants a fast end to the war:

“In the weekend, former president Dmitry Medvedev wrote in Telegram channel that Russia should seek “mass destruction” of Ukrainian personnel and military equipment and deal a “maximum military defeat” on the Armed Forces of Ukraine; strive for “the complete defeat of the enemy and the final overthrow of the Nazi regime in Kiev with the complete demilitarisation of the entire territory of the former Ukraine”; and press ahead with reprisals against key figures of the Zelensky government, “regardless of their location, and without limits.””

Still, I too notice that Dmitry Orlev on Kunstler Cast tells it doesn’t matter if this war drags out for another 10 years.

Maybe you could go to St. Petersburg as well, to make another inside report from that city? If you could too make an interview with Dmitry Orlev, it would be very nice!

May 3, 2023 Øyvind Holmstad Reply
The author of this excellent, if depressing, piece is no doubt aware that alcoholism-always a major problem in Russia-is said to have reached epidemic proportions.

May 4, 2023 Hans Bosse Reply
I see not evidence that Russia wishes compete economically, i.e. be an economic superpower, with either China or the United States. Russia seeks to secure its very existence against an encroaching U.S./NATO/EU which seems to have the goal, a goal which in its nascent form goes all the way back at least to the beginning of the “Putin era,” to overthrow President Putin, topple the Russian government and divide Russia for exploitation while importing the full WOKE agenda of the Collective West. This war is not nor has it ever been a war between the Ukraine and Russia; it is a war between NATO (read the Neo-cons and Neo-liberals who control the foreign policy of the U.S.) and Russia. From the Russian perspective, the fight is existential; for the American people, the fight is not existential; however, alas, it is existential for the irrational ideology of the Neo-cons and the Neo-liberals. The fear that we should all have is that these radical Neo-cons and Neo-liberals will exercise the nuclear option when the defeat of their ideology is obvious. I have several friends, acquaintances and sources in Russia. I, too, am aware of Mr. Orlev, along with Andrei Raevsky and Andrei Martyanov here in the States. They have quite a different “take” on the SMO and Russia’s future in the wake of the SMO than does Dr. Trifkovic whom I both admire and respect.

May 4, 2023 Robert M. Peters Reply
Mr. Peters, thank you so much for sharing your view. Your comments are fully supported by facts and evidence. I am very puzzled and disappointed by Dr. Trifcovic’s perspectives on the Russia-Ukraine conflict which you have summarized so well.

May 16, 2023 CY Cheng Reply
Dr. Trifcovic wrote: “The move [on Ukraine] is both a mistake and a crime, a minus-sum game for the declining European remnant.” Excuse me for sharing my observation: This is the cheapest and misleading explanation to the Russia-Ukraine conflict from an erudite thinker such as Dr. Trifkovic. The statement is only worthy of garbage propaganda machines such as CNN and New York Times.

May 16, 2023 CY Cheng Reply
As a fellow Serb, I am always disappointed in Srdja’s doom and gloom concerning Russia prospects. Yes, economic growth has been only about 1% growth per year since 2014, however these years are the years of the Western sanctions that were supposed to destroy the Russian economy and ultimately result in the overthrow of Putin. Prior, from 2000- 2009 Russia economy registered China like growth, over 6% per annum. Overall, from 1990 to 2023 was 4.75%, that’s real production growth, not USA debt financialization “growth” while our real industrial base was gutted. Hell, the US didn’t average 4.75% over the same time period.
Shipyards, Russia reconstituted its many shipbuilding yards into United Shipbuilding and its now producing ships at a rate not seen since the heyday of Soviet shipbuilding, including commissioning a new massive shipyard, Zvezda in the far East that will produce every type of ship from 300,000-ton super tankers to the incredible 40,000-ton super nuclear powered Lider class icebreakers.
Aircraft Srdja – all new Russian aircraft will feature all Russian equipment – engines, avionics, landing gear, seats, toilet paper. That goes for the MC 21 – 15% more efficient than Boeing of Airbus competitors and a half a dozen more new civil aircraft. All made possible when Putin consolidated the fragmented Russian aircraft industry into United Aircraft.
Engineers Srdja – who in the hell do you think designed and built the super weapons Putin debuted in 2018, four hypersonic missiles, a 100knot 1000-meter-deep diving nuclear torpedo with 50-100 Megaton war head. The unlimited range nuclear cruise missile. How about the one-megawatt class nuclear space tug that will cut trip time to Mars from 18 months to 45 days. NASA i snot even in the game let alone a competitor.
Machine tools, yes, Russia under Yeltsin the Drunk let its world class machine tool industry collapse. Machine Tools has now been consolidated, like United Aircraft, United Shipbuilding, Rostec, Rosatom into one huge enterprise with growth rates of 100% per year for the last 5 years. By the way, Russia machine tool industry collapse is exceeded by an order of magnitude by the US machine tool collapse.
Scott Ritter whom many of your readers may know is now in Russia and reports a dynamic optimism pervading everywhere he has been in Russia, and he has been all through Russia on a month-long tour, not in some restaurant in Moscow talking to non-technical chicken littles about subject they know little to nothing about.
Isn’t that the problem though, non-technical people writing about technical matters?
Putin has a plan, state controlled corporations “commanding the height of industry” United Aircraft, United Engines (gas turbines), United Shipbuilding, Rosatom (nuclear power) Gazprom (natural gas) Rosneft (oil, petrochemicals) Roscosmos (space) and the list goes on. 1st and 2nd tier suppliers are public or privately held companies. The long-term, huge risk-taking capabilities of state socialist companies with the efficiency of market driven companies. I would say Russia has a strategy. Oh, by the way, “the commanding heights of the economy wasn’t Putin’s idea, it was VI Lenin’s. It was thought at one time that the unique strengths of capitalist and socialist economies would eventually merge to take the advantages of each, well they have, in Russia and China.

May 17, 2023 RAO Reply

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