The Kharkov Game-Changer by Pepe Escobar https://www.unz.com (September 13 2022) https://strategic-culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Pepe1309-930x520.jpg Wars are not won by Psychological Operations (PSYOPS). Ask Nazi Germany. Still, it's been a howler to watch Natostan media on Kharkov, gloating in unison about "the hammer blow that knocks out Putin", "the Russians are in trouble", and assorted inanities. Facts: Russian forces withdrew from the territory of Kharkov to the left bank of the Oskol river, where they are now entrenched. A Kharkov-Donetsk-Lugansk line seems to be stable. Krasny Liman is threatened, besieged by superior Ukrainian forces, but not lethally. No one - not even Maria Zakharova, the contemporary female equivalent of Hermes, the messenger of the Gods - knows what the Russian General Staff (RGS) plans, in this case, and all others. If they say they do, they are lying. As it stands, what may be inferred with a reasonable degree of certainty is that a line - Svyatogorsk-Krasny Liman-Yampol-Belogorovka - can hold out long enough with their current garrisons until fresh Russian forces are able to swoop in and force the Ukrainians back beyond the Seversky Donets line. All hell broke loose - virtually - on why Kharkov happened. The people's republics and Russia never had enough men to defend a 1,000-kilometer-long frontline. Nato's entire intelligence capabilities noticed - and profited from it. There were no Russian Armed Forces in those settlements: only Rosgvardia, and these are not trained to fight military forces. Kiev attacked with an advantage of around 5 to 1. The allied forces retreated to avoid encirclement. There are no Russian troop losses because there were no Russian troops in the region. Arguably this may have been a one-off. The Nato-run Kiev forces simply can't do a replay anywhere in Donbas, or in Kherson, or in Mariupol. These are all protected by strong, regular Russian Army units. It's practically a given that if the Ukrainians remain around Kharkov and Izyum they will be pulverized by massive Russian artillery. Military analyst Konstantin Sivkov maintains that "most combat-ready formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are now being grounded (...) we managed to lure them into the open and are now systematically destroying them". The Nato-run Ukrainian forces, crammed with Nato mercenaries, had spent 6 months hoarding equipment and reserving trained assets exactly for this Kharkov moment - while dispatching disposables into a massive meat grinder. It will be very hard to sustain an assembly line of substantial prime assets to pull off something similar again. The next days will show whether Kharkov and Izyum are connected to a much larger Nato push. The mood in Nato-controlled EU is approaching Desperation Row. There's a strong possibility this counter-offensive signifies Nato entering the war for good while displaying quite tenuous plausible deniability: their veil of - fake - secrecy cannot disguise the presence of "advisers" and mercenaries all across the spectrum. Decommunization as de-energization The Special Military Operation (SMO), conceptually, is not about conquering territory per se: it is, or it was, so far, about protection of Russophone citizens in occupied territories, thus demilitarization cum denazification. That concept may be about to be tweaked. And that's where the tortuous, tricky debate on Russia mobilization fits in. Yet even a partial mobilization may not be necessary: what's needed are reserves to properly allow allied forces to cover rear/defensive lines. Hardcore fighters of the Kadyrov contingent kind would continue to play offense. It's undeniable that Russian troops lost a strategically important node in Izyum. Without it, the complete liberation of Donbas becomes significantly harder. Yet for the collective West, whose carcass slouches inside a vast simulacra bubble, it's the psyops that matter much more than a minor military advance: thus all that gloating on Ukraine being able to drive the Russians out of the whole of Kharkov in only four days - while they had 6 months to liberate Donbas, and didn't. So, across the West, the reigning perception - frantically fomented by psyops experts {1} - is that the Russian military was hit by that "hammer blow" and will hardly recover. Kharkov was preciously timed - as General Winter is around the corner; the Ukraine issue was already suffering from public opinion fatigue, and the propaganda machine needed a boost to turbo-lubricate the multi-billion dollar weaponizing rat line. Yet Kharkov may have forced Moscow's hand to increase the pain dial. That came via a few well-placed Mr Kinzhals leaving the Black Sea and the Caspian to present their business cards to the largest thermal power plants in northeast and central Ukraine (most of the energy infrastructure is in the southeast). Half of Ukraine suddenly lost power and water. Trains came to a halt. If Moscow decides to take out all major Ukraine substations at once, all it takes is a few missiles to totally smash the Ukrainian energy grid - adding a new meaning to "decommunization": de-energization. According to an expert analysis {2}, "if transformers of 110~330 kilovolts are damaged, then it will almost never be possible to put it into operation (...) And if this happens at least at 5 substations at the same time, then everything is kaput. Stone age forever." Russian government official Marat Bashirov was way more colorful: Ukraine is being plunged into the 19th century. If there is no energy system, there will be no Ukrainian army. The matter of fact is that General Volt came to the war, followed by General Moroz ("frost"). And that's how we might be finally entering "real war" territory - as in Putin's notorious quip that "we haven't even started anything yet". A definitive response will come from the RSG in the next few days. Once again, a fiery debate rages on what Russia will do next (the RGS, after all, is inscrutable, except for Yoda Patrushev). The RGS may opt for a serious strategic strike of the decapitating kind elsewhere - as in changing the subject for the worse (for Nato). It may opt for sending more troops to protect the front line (without partial mobilization). And most of all it may enlarge the SMO mandate - going to total destruction of Ukrainian transport/energy infrastructure, from gas fields to thermal power plants, and substations, and shutting down nuclear power plants. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978813820/?tag=unco037-20 Well, it could always be a mix of all of the above: a Russian version of Shock and Awe - generating an unprecedented socio-economic catastrophe. That has already been telegraphed by Moscow: we can revert you to the Stone Age at any time and in a matter of hours (italics mine). Your cities will greet General Winter with zero heating, freezing water, power outages, and no connectivity. A counter-terrorist operation All eyes are on whether "centers of decision" - as in Kiev - may soon get a Kinzhal visit. This would signify Moscow has had enough. The siloviki certainly did. But we're not there - yet. Because for an eminently diplomatic Putin the real game revolves around those gas supplies to the EU, that puny plaything of American foreign policy. Putin is certainly aware that the internal front is under some pressure. He refuses even partial mobilization. A perfect indicator of what may happen in winter is the referenda in liberated territories. The limit date is November 4 - the Day of National Unity, a commemoration introduced in 2004 to replace the celebration of the October revolution. With the accession of these territories to Russia, any Ukrainian counter-offensive would qualify as an act of war against regions incorporated into the Russian Federation. Everyone knows what that means. It may now be painfully obvious that when the collective West is waging war - hybrid and kinetic, with everything from massive intelligence to satellite data and hordes of mercenaries - against you, and you insist on conducting a hazily-defined Special Military Operation (SMO), you may be up for some nasty surprises. So the SMO status may be about to change: it's bound to become a counter-terrorist operation {3}. This is an existential war. A do-or-die affair. The American geopolitical /geoeconomic goal, to put it bluntly, is to destroy Russian unity, impose regime change, and plunder all those immense natural resources. Ukrainians are nothing but cannon fodder: in a sort of twisted History remake, the modern equivalents of the pyramid of skulls Timur cemented into 120 towers when he razed Baghdad in 1401. It may take a "hammer blow" for the RSG to wake up. Sooner rather than later, gloves - velvet and otherwise - will be off. Exit SMO. Enter War. Links: {1} http://thesaker.is/on-the-role-and-importance-of-pysops-for-the-smo-warning-long-discussion/ {2} https://t.me/lobaev_vlad/4663 {3} https://news.rambler.ru/sociology/49327852-ekspert-vlasti-gotovyat-izmenenie-statusa-spetsoperatsii-na-ukraine/ Pepe Escobar Archive: https://www.unz.com/author/pepe-escobar/ Subscribe to New Columns: https://www.unz.com/subscribe/?domain=pescobar https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/09/13/the-kharkov-game-changer/ https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-kharkov-game-changer/ https://billtotten.wordpress.com/ https://www.ashisuto.co.jp--- To unsubscribe: List help:

GOP splitting

By the way , the Nazis , accompanied by fascists from some Eastern European countries , murdered 27 million Soviets and substantially destroyed their economy . So, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, including East Germany was not an empire ! It was the Soviets putting the fascists “on ice” to protect their people against another invasion , a profound obligation they had to their people .

Also , the German genocidal invasion was CAPITALISM cheating in economic competition with socialism. So, the relative poverty of the Soviet Union during the Cold War was not at all the failure of socialism . In fact , the Soviets had built their economy out of the Czarist Russian backward economy. Soviet Socialism built its forces of production up in just 23 years close to the size of the US economy which took a century to build under capitalism.

Not only that: after the massive destruction inflicted by the fascists, the Soviet Socialism rapidly built their economy back up close to the US size .

All proving the superiority of socialism.

Of course , the Soviet Union was exhausted after that , having lost a huge part of the most important part of production- LABOR POWER- lost 27 million ! .

Also, the Soviet Union was under threat of imperialist invasion from the very beginning when the white armies, US and French troops tried to strangle the revolutionary baby in the cradle . SO, IT HAD MILITARIZE ALL OF SOCIETY TO PROTECT ITSELF AND DIDN’T HAVE THE LUXURY OF FULL “DEMOCRACY.”

Glory to the Soviet working class and the Soviet Communist Party ! Glory !

By the way , the Nazis in Ukraine today trace their heritage to one of groups of non-German Nazis who aided the German invasion of the SU in WWII

See Russ Bellant’s article below from 2014 long before the current Russian military action to neutralize Nazis in Ukraine in 2022:

https://fpif.org/seven-decades-nazi-collaboration-americas-dirty-little-ukraine-secret/

What is a woman ?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gqzU_AQicMI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wk2YUNglhNE

Samarkand at the crossroads From Timur to the BRI and SCO From its ancient Silk Road role to China's BRI project, Uzbekistan is set to remain an important geoeconomic hub in Central Asia by Pepe Escobar https://thesaker.is (August 11 2022) SAMARKAND - The ultimate Silk Road city, set at an unrivaled Eurasian trade crossroads, is the ideal spot from which to examine where the New Silk Roads adventure is heading next. For starters, the upcoming summit of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will take place in Samarkand in mid-September. The ancient city dazzled Alexander the Great in 329 BC and made the Tang dynasty crazy for its golden peaches. This was a cosmopolitan hub that embraced Zoroastrian fire-worship and even flirted with Nestorian Christianity, until Arab conquerors under the banner of the Prophet arrived in 712 and changed everything forever. In the 13th century, the Mongols irrupted on the scene with the proverbial bang. But then Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Dynasty in the late 14th century, set to embellish Samarkand into a resplendent diamond, drawing artists from across his vast empire - Persia, Syria, India - to make it "less a home than a marvelous trophy". And yet, ever the quintessential nomad, Timur lived in swank tents and gardens on the outskirts of his urban jewel. The Silk Road trade frenzy died down in the 16th century after the Europeans finally "discovered" their own Maritime Silk Road. Russia conquered Samarkand in 1868. It was, briefly, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan before the transfer to Tashkent and then, up to 1991, mired in invisibility. Now the city is all set to revive its ancient glory, as a key hub of the Eurasian Century. What would Timur make of all this? "Conqueror of the World" Timur was born in a little village outside of Samarkand, into a clan of Turkicized Mongols, only a century after the death of Genghis Khan. Hit by arrows in his right shoulder and hip when he was only 27, he got slapped with the pejorative Persian nickname Timur-i-Leme ("Timur the Lame"), later Latinized into Tamerlane. Just like with Genghis, you wouldn't want to pick a fight with Timur. He single-mindedly set out to become "Conqueror of the World", and delivered in droves. Timur defeated the Ottoman Sultan Beyazid in Ankara (don't mention that to Turks); destroyed the Golden Horde in the Kazakh steppes; bombed Christian armies in Smyrna (today's Izmir) with cannonballs made of severed heads. In Baghdad in 1401 - they still remember it, vividly, as I heard it in 2003 - his soldiers killed 90,000 residents and cemented their heads in 120 towers; he ruled over all trade routes from Delhi to Damascus; he evoked poetry by Edgar Allan Poe, drama by Christopher Marlowe, opera by Vivaldi. The zombified, woke, collective west would deride Timur as the proverbial autocrat, or a "dictator" like Vladimir Putin. Nonsense. He was Islamicized and Turkicized - but never religiously fanatic like today's Salafi-jihadis. He was illiterate but spoke Persian and Turkic fluently. He always showed enormous respect for scholars. This is a nomad always on the move who supervised the creation of some of the most dazzling urban architecture in the history of the world. Every night at 9 pm, in front of the psychedelic lighting enveloping the architectural treasure of the Registan ("sandy place"), originally a bazaar in a trade crossroads, amidst the blurred conversations of countless Samarkand families, Timur's words still resonate: "Let he who doubts our power look upon our buildings". Timur died in 1405 in Otrar - today in southern Kazakhstan - when he was planning the Mother of All Campaigns: the invasion of Ming China. This is one of the greatest "what ifs" in history. Would Timur have been able to Islamicize Confucianist China? Would have he made his mark just like the Mongols who are still very much present in the Russian collective unconscious? All these questions swirl in our minds when we are face to face with Timur's tomb - a stunning slab of black jade in the Gur-i-Mir, actually a very modest shrine, surrounded by his spiritual adviser Mir Sayid Barakah and family members such as his grandson, star astronomer Ulug Beg. From Timur to Putin and Xi Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are no Timur material, of course, much less current Uzbek President Shavkat Mirzoyoyev. What's striking now, as I've seen on the ground in bustling Tashkent and then on the road to Samarkand, is how Mirzoyoyev is skillfully profiting from both Russia and China via his multi-vector policy to configure Uzbekistan as a Central Asian - and Eurasian - powerhouse by the 2030s. The government is heavily investing in a massive Center of Islamic Civilization in Tashkent, nearby the landmark Khast-Imam square, home to the deeply influential al-Bukhari Islamic Institute, and is also building a whole new business complex in the outskirts of Samarkand for the SCO summit. The Americans have invested in a business center in Tashkent complete with a brand new slick Hilton attached; only a block away the Chinese are building their own version. The Chinese will also be involved in the construction of an essential New Silk Road transportation corridor: the $5 billion Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Pakafuz {1} railway, also known as Trans-Afghan Railway. Uzbekistan has not bought into the idea - at least not yet - of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which calls for free movement of goods, people, capital, and services. The country privileges its own autonomy. Russia accepts this because bilateral relations with Tashkent remain strong, and there's no way the latter will get closer to Nato. So from Moscow's perspective, getting cozier with post-Islam Karimov Uzbekistan remains a must, at the same time without coercing it to join the Eurasia integration institutions. That may come in time; there's no rush. Russia enjoys huge approval ratings in Uzbekistan - even though not as high as in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. As many as 5 million migrants from the Central Asian "stans" are working in Russia - mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks, even as they now also seek jobs in the Persian Gulf, Turkey, and South Korea. As one of its top "secured" spheres of influence, Moscow regards Central Asian states as critical partners, part of a consolidated Eurasian vision which is in total contrast with the western borderlands and the fast disintegrating Ukraine. All roads lead to BRI The Chinese angle, defined by its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is way more nuanced. For all of Central Asia, BRI equals infrastructure development and integration in global trade supply chains. Uzbekistan, like its neighbors, linked its national development strategy to BRI under President Mirziyoyev: that's inbuilt in the official "Strategy of Actions in Five Priority Directions of Development". Uzbekistan is also an official member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China's relationship with Central Asia draws of course on the Soviet era, but also carefully takes into account territorial divisions and mind-boggling border issues. The collapse of the USSR saw, for instance, a river, an irrigation ditch, a bunch of trees, or even a roadside brutalist monument suddenly converted into external borders of new sovereign nations - with unpredictable results. In the Ancient Silk Road era, this made no sense. Timur conquered everything from northern India to the Black Sea. Now, it's hard to find somebody in Tashkent to take you across the border to Turkestan via Shymkent - both now in southern Kazakhstan - and back, with minimum border hassle. Sultan Erdogan wants to bolster Turkestan's reputation by naming it the capital of all Turkic peoples (that's hugely debatable, but another long story). And we're not even talking about the hotbed of the Ferghana valley, still prone to the fanatical jihadi influence of outfits of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) kind. All that was festering for three decades as each of these new Central Asian nations had to articulate a distinct national ideology coupled with a vision for a progressive, secular future. Under Karimov, Uzbekistan swiftly recovered Timur as its definitive national hero and heavily invested in reviving all the glory of the Timurid past. In the process, Karimov could not miss the opportunity of expertly styling himself as the modern Timur in a business suit. Back to the geoeconomic limelight The SCO shows how China's approach to Central Asia is defined by two central vectors: security and the development of Xinjiang. Stronger regional states such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan deal with Beijing, as with Moscow, via their carefully calibrated multi-vector foreign policy. Beijing's merit has been to expertly position itself as a provider of public goods, with the SCO functioning as a top lab in terms of multilateral cooperation. This will be bolstered even more at the Samarkand summit next month. The destiny of what is in effect Inner Eurasia - the heartland of the Heartland - is inescapable from a subtle, very complex, multilevel competition between Russia and China. It's crucial to remember that in his landmark 2013 speech in Nur-Sultan, then Astana, when the New Silk Roads were formally launched, Xi Jinping stressed that China stands "ready to enhance communication and coordination with Russia and all Central Asian countries to strive to build a region of harmony." These were not idle words. The process involves a conjunction of BRI and the SCO - which has progressively evolved into a mechanism of economic cooperation as much as security. At the 2012 SCO summit, then Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Gouping had already been adamant: China would absolutely not allow the unrest that happened in West Asia and North Africa to happen in Central Asia. Moscow could have said the exact same thing. The recent (failed) coup in Kazakhstan was swiftly dealt with by the six-member, Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). China is increasingly invested in using the SCO to turbo-charge a geoeconomic overdrive - even as some of its proposals, such as establishing a free trade zone and a joint SCO fund and development bank still have not materialized. That may eventually happen, as in the wake of western Russophobic sanctions hysteria the SCO - and BRI - progressively converge with the EAEU. At every SCO summit, Beijing's loans are gleefully accepted by Central Asian actors. Samarkand next month may herald a qualitative convergence leap: Russia and China even more involved in bringing back Inner Asia to the geoeconomic limelight. Link {1}: https://kun.uz/en/news/2022/03/29/uzbekistan-launches-construction-of-trans-afghan-railway-line-connecting-termez-mazar-i-sharif-kabul-peshawar https://thesaker.is/samarkand-at-the-crossroads-from-timur-to-the-bri-and-sco/ https://billtotten.wordpress.com/ https://www.ashisuto.co.jp--- To unsubscribe: List help:

Republicans are, in short, in disarray.

Lindsey Graham was convinced he was doing his party a favor. Unnamed sources who spoke with NBC News said the proposed nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks that the South Carolina Republican unveiled on Tuesday would "give candidates a more popular position to point to when they are pressed about the issue." One anonymous strategist called Graham's bill "exactly" the right prescription, adding, "We got to do something."

They sure did something, alright. "More popular" does not mean "popular," as many of Graham's colleagues quickly grasped (a Wall Street Journal poll last month found Americans opposed to the idea by a 57-30 margin—a 31% swing against the idea since March). So, by turns, Republicans declined to embrace the measure, distanced themselves from it, pushed back against it, or refused to talk about it at all.

That's led to some absolutely delicious headlines, because Republicans are, in short, in disarray.

We're less than eight weeks out from Election Day and Lindsey Graham just created a $#@!storm for Republicans nationwide.

Here's Politico: NBC: The New York Times: CNN: Axios:

Price Increases Persist Despite Supply Chain Progress

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/15/price-increases-persist-despite-supply-chain-progress/

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 Price Increases Persist Despite Supply Chain Progress BY DEAN BAKER

The overall Consumer Price Index rose 0.1 percent in August, core was up 0.6 percent; up 8.3 percent and 6.3 percent year-over-year, respectively. Overall, the picture shows inflation persisting in a wide variety of areas where it seems that supply chain issues are being overcome. This is not a good story.

Food at home prices went up 0.7 percent in August, 13.5 percent year-over-year. Beef, chicken, and milk were up 0.8 percent, 0.5 percent, and 0.2 percent, respectively. These rises are somewhat surprising since price indexes had shown declines.

Car prices are still rising sharply: new vehicles up 0.8 percent in August, 10.1 percent year-over-year, added 0.03 percentage points to the month’s inflation. The car and truck rental index was down 0.5 percent in August, 6.2 percent year-over-year. This implies that rental agencies have rebuilt fleets and more cars are available for households. The index is still up 39.9 percent from its pre-pandemic level.

Car insurance went up 1.3 percent in August, 8.7 percent year-over-year. The health insurance index (profits and expenses, not premiums) went up 2.4 percent in August, up 24.3 percent year-over-year. Car and health insurance together added 0.05 percentage points to the month’s inflation.

Prescription drug prices were up 0.4 percent in August, 3.2 percent year-over-year.

Both rental indexes rose 0.7 percent in August: rent proper up 6.7 percent year-over-year, owners’ equivalent rent up 6.3 percent. The divergence in rental inflation continues with expensive cities seeing smaller rises: San Francisco, New York City, and DC were up 1.9 percent, 2.9 percent, and 3.1 percent year-over-year, respectively. Detroit was up 6.7 percent, Atlanta 13.5 percent, and Phoenix 21.4 percent.

College tuition rose 0.5 percent in August, up 2.8 percent year-over-year. Apparel prices were up 0.2 percent in August, 5.1 percent year-over-year. Appliance prices fell 1.2 percent after dropping 0.6 percent in July, but are still up 3.0 percent year-over-year. Supply chain issues are being overcome. This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

Dean Baker is the senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.