Schrodinger’s Offensive
by Julian Macfarlane
Tokyo-based geopolitical analyst and foreign affairs consultant.
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Ukraine is mounting Schrodinger’s Offensivoe. If it succeeds, it has already started. If it fails, then it hasn’t even begun. Clint Ehrlich.
Schrodinger’s famous paradox as applied to the SMO in Ukraine seems to be popular. Besides Ehrlich, Brad Pierce on the Wayward Drabbler which you definitely need to read, uses it:
“…this is what I like to call “Schrodinger’s War Effort,” in that we’re meant to believe that Ukraine is simultaneously easily winning and also desperately needs gear because it’s on the brink of catastrophic collapse; similarly, Russia is simultaneously comically weak and incompetent and able to conquer Europe if they are not stopped in Ukraine.”
Schrodinger was not of course trying to explain physics, he was commenting on the human capacity for absurdity, which finds fertile ground in quantum theory. We have big brain but they are not really designed for science.
Four days into the counteroffensive-that-was-maybe-just-an excursion-to-the-beach-in-Crimea — Zelensky met with Justin Trudeau in Kiev. After they played a duet on the piano with their penises (just kiddin’), Zelly finally acknowledged that there was indeed a “Counteroffensive”- the very same one that Trudy’s top-guy in Washington had been demanding. He just need a little more lube — so the Canucks gave him half a billion dollars, which will also be very helpful for maybe a new villa and private jet.
Schrodinger’s box had been opened.
But….the cat was still both alive and dead- the offensive both a failure and a success. While the Counteroffensive has officially begun, it has…well…not started in actuality since Kiev has instructed its single source media to refer only to “probing attacks”.
“Probing”? I leave the semantics to your imagination.
The UAF suffered losses of perhaps 10,000 men in its counteroffensive inthe first ten days along with substantial amounts of equipment including Leopard tanks, Bradleys and mine clearing vehicles-at least 160 tanks, mostly irretrievably damaged and hundreds of other vehicles, according to most sources. By the time you read this, the numbers will be higher, roughly a thousand men every day and 10 tanks, plus AFVs.
Yet, the UAF has been unable to breach Russian minefields to get to Russia’s real, multilayered fortifications 20 km beyond.
It’s kinda like slipping on the first step of a stairway to a building — not able to climb up to even knock on the door. The people inside aren’t going to answer anyway.
The Ukrainians are men all along the “contact line” in all sectors, and more in the rear due to missile strikes and bombing of logistics centers, radars, ammo depots and the like. Keep in mind that every combat soldier needs support by 10 in the rear. They die-he dies too.
Right now, 10 Ukrainians die for every Russian, far in excess of the 3:1 ratio expected in assaults against defended positions.
The majority of the UAF losses of armor are not actually tanks blown to pieces but many damaged or abandoned on the battlefield — “irretrievable” losses.
Russia had 54 tanks put of action in the first 10 days but perhaps 30 of these could be can be salvaged or repaired.
Here too the UAF / RF loss is ratio is lop-sided.
There is a reason for this: it is called “stupidity”
Failing in the Zaporozhe region, the Ukrainians attacked in southern Donetsk , Zelensky first claimed to have taken three uninhabited villages in the Vremevka “gray zone”.
These villages are tiny — one had only five buildings. But here too, the UAF has suffered losses all out of proportion to any tactical benefits.
Russian forces control the high ground in the area, which is a salient of no strategic importance whatsoever.
In the Artyomovsk / (formerly) Bahkmut region, the Ukrainians took some cow pastures. The cows did not fight back. The Ukrainians killed any cow that did not speak Ukrainian.
Buoyed by this “success”, the UAF attempted to attack Klesheyevka, where the cows got revenge. The Ukrainians lost at least 350 men plus armor and vehicles. The cows mooed. And booed.
The UAF also attacked in other areas such as Adiivaka, Kupyansk, and Marinka-hoping to divert RF resources in these areas ,where the Russians have been advancing steadily. But it was the Ukrainians diverting their resources and losing more of their men and equipment. The RF continues to advance in these areas.
So once again, the UAF is winning and losing at the same time. Schrodinger, supposedly dead -is (why not?) also alive- in one of his quantum boxes , reading Forbes ….
Ukrainian forces are advancing along three or four axes in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. On the axis running along the Mokri Yaly River, the Ukrainians aren’t just advancing. They’re thundering .
Forbes continues….
In April 2003, early in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a battalion from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division combined 29 M-1 tanks, 14 M-2 fighting vehicles and several M-113 armored personnel carriers into an urban assault task force-and rolled straight into Baghdad days ahead of a planned multi-brigade coalition attack on the city.
The so-called “thunder run” of the 3rd Infantry Division was only possible because:
. “shock & awe” SEAD
. massive air assaults by over 1800 aircraft
.extensive bombing of Bagdad itself
.complete lack of effective resistance from the Iraqis, who had been massacred in places like the Highway of Death, as they attempted to flee.
In the case of the UAF, it has no air support, not much mobile artillery, and it has already lost 25 to 30% of the equipment supplied by the West. Add to that degraded logistics.
Oh, and the Russians are not going to run and invite NATO to shoot them in the back.
General Milley recently acknowledged that the US is no longer the only military superpower. Russia and China are super powers too. Then he went on to promise the Ukraine more weaponry to commit national suicide.
Contradictions? Schrodinger lives.
Ukraine has almost no time left to make a big splash. They have no option apart from gaining one final big flashy triumph they can hail as a victory to be sold to their souring Western audience, whose support is slowly drying up, and who’s getting ready to throw in the towel. And the only way for Ukraine to get such a huge and relatively ‘fast’ triumph is by severing the Crimean landbridge. It’s the only objective in the entire conflict where Ukraine can deal one big deathblow to Russia’s jugular in a very proportionately small amount of moves. No other possible combination of captures or assaults in Donbass can have such an effect.
Simplicius is a remarkable writer whose work I greatly admire. Subscribe to his newsletter.
But his attempt to reason here is unreasonable. He seems to be implying that the Western “audience” is “souring” and support drying up.
Although Western audiences do get bored easily they don’t get to make the decisions about any kind of programming — either in entertainment — or in geopolitics. That’s the sponsors — in this case are MICIMATT-t he Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex. War is good for them. The Ukraine show helps them showcase and sell their wares.
So, real support is actually escalating even if audiences would just prefer to watch the Walking Dead, which is really the same trope as the Ukraine war but more for. One must ask why the public likes zombies so much. Do they identify?
In any case, the NeoCons and NeoLibs have promised more of everything; More tanks. More AFVs. F16s. Patriots and khaki underwear for Zelly.
Of course, in reality the Walking Dead and Zombies are impossible. So is the “Big Splash” — from the point of view of any competent military person, such as 14 year old gamer. buot the the UAF will try it anways. .
But the sharks are waiting. Attracted by all that noise. And hungry.
For the UAF to overcome Russian defenses and cut the land bridge they would need:
.Roughly 5 as many troops as they have
.Full SEAD, which means full air superiority, advanced AD and EW.
.5 to 10 times their current force of armor,
.A massive improvement in logistics.,
.A huge increase in ammo.
.10 times more artillery
.Upgraded coordination, communications and command structures without ideological (Nazi) and political interference.
.An efficient logistics system
.An engineering corps capable of providing bridges and mine-clearing
.Battlefield medical
Yeah — it’s a lonnnnnnnnnng list. And incomplete at that. So why is the UkroNazi leadership trying ?
One reason might be because they Nazis. Ideologs. True Believers for whom facts, realities on the ground mean little.
Another reason is greed. . Keep the war goin’; the money flowin’. For the West the ‘war’ is just a media event.
The Ukrainian “leadership” after all, is not really Ukrainian-it’s American. Zelensky is just a placeholder.
Always follow the money. Cui Bono?
As I have suggested it’s MICIMATT- the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex that calls the shots. When the USSR disappeared, they were faced with the awful fact that there was no major threat to them to support their huge budgets. How, oh how, could they afford new BMWs for each of the kids and the dog, too?
In this topsy turvey world, American military industrial companies are now profiting from the failure of Germany’s wunderwaffen Leopard 2s in the CounterOffensive — which almost guarantees providing Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The US has already said it will supply DU munitions — which the Russians will presumably blow up in Western Ukraine, polluting Europe to the West.
With elections looming in the US and the DNP destroying what is left of American democracy with lawfare against Trump, American politicians get to deflect — with stirring speeches about the need to fight evil Russians, rather than address the possible collapse of the Republic or even mundane boring stuff about healthcare and education and why Americans are dying in unprecedented numbers compared to other countries.
The “intelligence” community is busy dumbing down things to pander to their political masters and the media narrative- what you might call “event porn” — which panders not only to politicians and bureaucrats- but to Academics and think-tank whores who thrive on thrive on explaining why cats are both alive and dead.
The fan does not stop turning until totally clogged with shit.
In the meantime, absurdity has to be managed. The cat has to be fed.
Magicians do it through misdirection. People believe what they see — which is unfortunately also what they see. Which was Schrodinger’s point, of course.
So, the UAF attacked the Kakhovka Dam. That re-directed attention from Ukrainian military failures.
Zelly, of course, blamed the Russians. He even phoned Greta Thunberg, who dutifully called it “ecocide”.
The event was trumped in the Western Press as yet another proof of a.) Russian desperation b.) Russian Evil.
So if the “Counteroffensive” fails, it’s because the Russians play dirty and to not care about the environment or human life. Russian “success” and Ukrainian failure therefore become somehow irrelevant.
The Russians blow up their own pipeline and shell their own nuclear powerplants? Rationality is lost in litany.
There was clearly no advantage to the Russians to blow up their own dam. Maybe some small advantage to the Ukrainians- except that the Russians had already prepared for the eventuality by withdrawing their troops from Kherson city to high ground on the other side of the Dnieper. The Ukrainians have taken a few small islands in the Dniepr where the Russians can annihilate them .
General Zaluzhnyi was a competent commander and hugely popular in the Ukraine. He had opposed losing men to try and defend Bahkmut.
Then he disappeared. Rumors abounded. One set assserted that the Zelensky regime had fed the Russians coordinates for a strike that had left the General injured. Others said Kiev’s GUR had taken him out, although the head of the GUR was also missing. Since the head of the GUR, Budanov is also missing, something is happening but we just don’t know.
Zelly has well-publicized meetings with commanders Tarnavsky and Komarenko, as well as Syrsky. But the unfortunate Zaluzhyny is nowhere to be seen.
Now he is being fingered as a scape goat with a story that he organized the attack on Nordstream — unbeknownst to his boss, Zelensky, who naturally would not do anything so perfidious . More absurdity. There is a huge preponderance of evidence indicating that only the Americans had the means and the opportunity to pull of this stunt.
What this actually indicates is that there is division in the Ukrainian military — which is natural at this point.
And it plays to the narrative that Zelly is a hero, a freedom fighter. And no sacrifice is too great.
At least, when you have no skin in the game.
Zelensky knows the counteroffensive cannot succeed. Who better to blame than the purported architect of the Norstream Bombing, Zaluzhny?
The Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on Russian civilians in rural Belgorod have also gotten a lot of press. More distraction.
These are a repeat of Ukraine’s attacks on civilian populations in the Donbass and Lugansk from 2014 on.
The current attacks which use American, Canadian and NATO supplied equipment and Ukrainian special forces are supposedly the work of Russian dissidents, led he Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) and Freedom of Russia Legion. See? The Russian people are rising up, and killing Russian farmers and their kids.
Denis Kapustin is a Russian NeoNazi, whose nickname is “White Rex”, which suggests his rightwing racist views. Rumor is, however, that he is actually Jewish since has family was granted residency in Germany on that basis.
Be that as it may, however, he is an honorary Aryan just like Zelensky -a Banderite critter and useful for Ukrainian PR.
The Russians have responded to these attacks by rapid response, destruction of Ukrainian raiding parties, evacuation of border areas, and deployment of regular Russian forces and others.
Terrorist attacks in Belgorod are of no strategic importance — except to stimulate volunteer enlistment in Russia with hundreds of young men signing up to fight- and to harden public opinion. Simplicius has a recent article that cites a lot of estimates for just how much the Russian Army will have expanded by the end of the year. It appears that the Russians are meeting all their recruitment goals — without the need for additional conscription. Their contract forces are increasing exponentially with volunteers.
Here, too Russia has the advantage. It treats its troops with honor and respect. For the Ukraine, they are just cannon fodder.
But the West insists that Russia is collapsing. Yet also preparing to conquer Europe. The Ukrainians will keep on coming.
In other words, once the Russians have depleted Ukrainian reserves in this “counteroffensive”, the Russian military will move on to take all of Donbass and the Kharkov region.
Then all that remains are the Odessa and Mykolaiv oblasts in the South, which are necessary to stabilize Moldova -and Western Ukraine to the borders of Poland, Romania and Hungary. The Kiev elites will flee to Galicia. The Ukraine needs to be not just de-Nazified — but de-Americanized in the same way that Russia has been.
There can be no denazification without the de-Americanization of Ukraine. No denazification is possible in that part of Ukraine that will remain under US rule. It was for the sake of growing Nazism that the United States came to Ukraine. Money is not their main goal. They will pay any price for the destruction of Russia. Elena Panini Institute of Russia Strategic Studies.
Naturally, the Russians hope for a coup. That may or may not happen.
The Banderites had almost 10 years to infiltrate the military- and one must remember that the Wehrmacht in WWII remained largely loyal to the end, although many learned to despise the Nazis. Military people are trained to follow orders- and the ouster of Zaluzhny indicates what can happen to commanders with principles- who actually care about the country.
The RF may have to completely break the UAF and root out the Nazis. Long-term full-scale Russian occupation of Ukrainian speaking oblasts is unlikely, but a neutral democratic republic with a solid constitution would no doubt be welcome — especially if it came with referendums, rebuilding and reconstruction. For that the Russians would need China, who I think would be more than glad, given the natural and human resources of the region.
Again, the US and its vassal states cannot be involved.
The NATO gang will meet in Vilnius and try to persuade the Poles to send troops into Galicia despite polls that indicate zero public support for that.
Ukrainians, especially Galicians, are as unpopular in Poland as Russians, and enough Poles have died in the proxy war already. With the economy tanking, the last thing ordinary Poles want is a war they cannot win.
But NATO needs the pretense of consensus, so Ukrainians will get more Patriots and F16s — -not mention main battle tanks too heavy and too complicated to maintain under Ukrainian conditions.
Abrams MBTs suffer from the same weaknesses as Leopards. The promised F16s and Abrams can’t arrive for months. Stryker vehicles, known as ‘deathtraps” are clearly unsuitable for the Ukraine, which will get lots of them anyways.
In any event-by the time all this kit is ready to ship, Ukraine may have collapsed. Mopping up the mess will take a long time. De-Americanizing will likely follow the same course as it has in Russia as ordinary people realize who their real enemy is.
More and more, the Russians understand now that is a culture war. You could call it a clash of “civilizations”. But is the US a “civilization”? Is the “West”? Civilizations are like people- they need a soul. And that is something lacking in societies that live in moral and spiritual denial.
The US and its empire have demonstrated over and over again that they have no principles- only slogans. Russia, by contrast, has had to reinvent itself. And to do that successfully it needs a moral basis, rooted in real principles. It needs a soul.
A national soul is not given by a leader, however; it is created by the hearts of its people beating as one, aspiring to something beyond themselves, something beyond the present, transcending individual greed.
Originally published at https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com.
