The Swagger #16 — Sunday Wildcard Edition

But Biden’s foreign policy, if you can call a foreign policy resembling a drunken bar fight a “policy,” is faring even worse than his domestic policy. Specifically, the broad outlines of Russia’s punchback strategy are beginning to emerge so clearly and so obviously they can now be seen from the International Space Station, nevermind by a lawyer like me, who never attended military college or took political science at Harvard.

Bloomberg ran a breaking story this morning with the understated headline, “Russia Targets Ukraine Power System With Ballistic Missiles.” It appears the Russians are in fact preparing for something big, a major offensive action, something bigger perhaps than we’ve ever seen before in the Proxy War. That’s what this looks like. Whatever it is, however big for Ukraine, it’s the tiniest part of Russia’s strategy, a tiny wooden doll in the middle of all the other dolls.

Bloomberg reported that last night Russia used over 40 of its top-end hypersonic missiles against at least five of Ukraine’s biggest cities, including its capitol Kiev, plus top cities Kharkov, Odessa, Zaporizhzhia, and even Lviv, which is far from the front lines in Western Ukraine. Russia’s attacks were carefully-planned, and despite reports that Ukraine’s biggest power plants have now been irreparably damaged, no deaths have been reported so far this morning.

For comparison, it was like someone permanently disabling the power in New York, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles in one night.

There was a short period back at the beginning of the war when I was skeptical the Russians were serious, since they didn’t wipe out Ukraine’s power infrastructure — something that was obviously within Russia’s power. It seemed to me that if Russia really wanted to win, it would first switch off the lights.

Well. That predictable strategy now seems finally to be the strategy the Russians are employing. But that’s not even close to all. The strategy that is emerging is breathtaking and hideous. Let’s dig in.

First, in an otherwise poorly-covered story, on Monday Bloomberg published this headline:

It was a big deal. Putin signed an executive order nationalizing a US-based conglomeration that had bought up 650,000 acres of Russian farmland. Russia just took it all, placing all that acreage under the “temporary management” of Rosimushchestvo, Russia’s federal property management agency.

Setting aside the obvious wisdom of reclaiming Russia’s strategically-critical farmland from their murky, opaque U.S. corporate owners, it was an entirely predictable response, one that Russia waited two long years to trigger. As you may recall, the U.S. sanctions war against Russia began with America seizing the personal property of “Russian oligarchs,” like their yachts and houses.

Biden stupidly bragged the seizures would lead to regime change, since the Russian billionaires would thow out Putin to placate America and get all their stuff back.

Not only did that not happen, but on Monday Putin began doing it back to us. Corporate media, which celebrated the seizures of Russia assets at the sanction war’s beginning, pretty much had nothing to say about the much bigger and more meaningful nationalization of 650,000 acres of U.S.-owned property in Russia. But it was a totally predictable tit-for-tat response.

What did Biden think would happen?

Biden’s plan was even dumber than it looks. It’s costing us a fortune to maintain all the seized Russian property, which is not easy to sell:

In other words, after two patient years, Russia has just begun to fight back economically. And Putin is fighting against DEI-promoted morons.

The military part of Russia’s emerging strategy is its — again, predictable — strengthening of America’s enemies. Also on Monday, in the Eurasian Times, we learned Russia has given nuclear North Korea access to hypersonic technology:

Remember: the U.S. currently lacks any effective answer to hypersonic missile technology. The missiles are so fast they defeat our air defenses. The hypersonics can easily take out an aircraft carrier. They could also be used effectively in a first strike. Now North Korea has them, since North Korea has been supplying Russia with artillary shells.

Thanks, Joe Biden!

Also Monday, the Chatham House published a story about Russia which for the first time used its Security Council veto to stop sanctions against North Korea:

Our ally South Korea is freaking out, creating a whole new major strategic demand on U.S. military resources, spreading our efforts and forces even more thinly.

Last month, media quietly informed us that somehow, the pesky Houthis — who Biden have given up trying to beat and is now trying to bribe — have also acquired indefensible hypersonic technology. Somehow.

Five months ago in November, Iran — which has been supplying Russia with drones for Ukraine — announced it had also acquired hypersonic missile technology:

Hypersonic missiles could defeat Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. Like South Korea, our ally Israel is also freaking out, requiring — as we’ve seen — massive amounts of U.S. military resources staged in the Middle East. Where’d Iran get that hypersonic technology? Russia, obviously.

Yesterday — yesterday! — the Biden Administration seemed to finally awaken to the awful possiblity that, instead of being isolated by sanctions, Russia had created a massive military alliance instead, composed of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea:

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that China has just sent its highest-ranking diplomat to North Korea since before the pandemic:

So that’s what we know. Now I will speculate some. What I think is happening is that Russia has been carefully preparing a global anti-NATO strategy for two years now, and it is now begining to pull the trigger. The tragedy is that the Russian strategy was completely obvious and utterly predictable, unless your pugnacious president has dementia and always wants to challenge everyone to pathetic push-up contests.

Russia began this war with one obvious advantage. It had developed a game-changing military technology, hypersonic missiles, which surpassed U.S. military technology — even though America’s woke generals pridefully believed they owned the category of high-tech weaponry. But in the face of existential threats from Biden’s reckless administration and escalatory rhetoric, Russia responded by arming all the U.S.’s biggest enemies, trading its high-tech missile system for other, more mundane war material that it needed in Ukraine.

Biden, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan — without even an hour of real military experience between them — were drunk on their own self-esteem but were too stupid to envision this perfectly predictable eventuality.

We used to talk about America’s woke, diminished military needing the ability to fight wars on two fronts or three fronts. Well, how about four fronts? Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea — each an ally the U.S. has committed to defending. How about that? Are we prepared for four fronts?

I think we will soon find out, at least if Biden and his team of incompetent neocons are stupid enough to continue pushing the Russians. Give them Ukraine before you get us all killed, morons.

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, as described in yesterday’s UK Times headline, they are running out of irreplaceable Ukrainians:

They are going to make an army of Amazonian female fighters! That’s the plan! I bet Russia is terrified.

According to democrats, if only the Republicans would get out of the way and approve that $61 billion, it would solve everything. It would solve everything, if by “everything” they mean “nothing at all.” The Russians have outfoxed us. We can’t possibly fight a four-front war, never mind a kinetic war against a China-Russia-North Korean nuclear axis.

Now what, Joe?

Don’t take this as defeatist. We can come out of this fine. The proper path through this treacherous quagmire is the path of humility and standing down. Get NATO and the CIA out of Ukraine. Quit poking the Russian bear.