DDP Newsletter November 2024, Vol. XL, No. 6
When political and/or economic collapse is threatening, an age-old method for a regime to maintain its grip on power is to start a war.
While the incoming Trump regime is unpredictable, President-Elect Trump said his priority was to stop the killing in Ukraine. However, without a crushing military defeat, Russia is not going to give up its proclaimed objectives. And it is Ukraine that is being crushed. Russians are advancing relentlessly on the ground in Ukraine, a succession of U.S. and NATO Wunderwaffen having failed to change the game (tinyurl.com/5n92u8yp).
A loss in Ukraine would be a disaster, according to Western reigning authorities (https://tinyurl.com/mr64ydh5). Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley said, “What’s at stake is the global international security order that was put in place in 1945” (https://tinyurl.com/5n8968n4). Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated, “Failure in Ukraine could be the beginning of the end of the golden age of the West” (tinyurl.com/mru2cv95). Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Ukraine’s defeat would be the end of the West’s postwar hegemony (tinyurl.com/2sz783b8).
The Biden regime authorized striking into Russian territory with long-range missiles—which can only be operated by U.S. personnel. Both U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles have attacked Russian targets. It is not clear how many were destroyed by Russian air defenses or how much damage was done, but it was likely unspectacular (https://tinyurl.com/y9t372rd).
Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has declared that NATO and the U.S. are now at “full war” with Russia (https://tinyurl.com/3b23s7aj). On Nov 19, after the U.S. had authorized what Russia views as a major escalation, Putin signed a decree updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine. This stares that a nuclear strike could be justified in case of “aggression against Russia and its allies by any non-nuclear state…with the support of a nuclear state.” This would be “considered a joint attack by both countries on Russia.” Putin added that “a ‘critical threat to sovereignty’ posed by conventional non-nuclear weapons would also be seen as valid grounds for a nuclear response and that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against close ally Belarus” (https://tinyurl.com/2xnds3hd).
In retaliation for the NATO attack, Russia struck the Dnipro Yuzhmash aerospace manufacturing facility with a newly developed hypersonic Oreshnik (“Hazelnut tree”) intermediate range ballistic missile. Some accounts say the underground working part of the facility was turned into dust. This suggests that the Oreshnik submunitions crashed at hypersonic speed into the workshops and simply pulverized them. There was no particular need for high explosives to do the job (https://tinyurl.com/ssmzb593).
Putin claims that NATO has no means to stop such a missile and that the military is picking targets in Ukraine from a list of decision-making centers, industrial production sites, and military facilities. NATO has no analogues, and none will appear soon, he states. Russia has several more such missiles available now, and serial manufacturing has begun (https://tinyurl.com/3b9cnmsb).
The Oreshnik attack is not featured on news.google.com, and Western experts downplay its significance, according to a report on Reuters (tinyurl.com/e6swthsz). This said that the missile was no big deal, could be intercepted, and was possibly being used more for psychological effect. As Will Schryver states, “Reuters wants everyone to know…Putin is just talking tough to sow unfounded fear of Russian military might” (https://tinyurl.com/27pm72ue).
Despite the Oreshnik attack, the U.S. and its Ukrainian “orderlies” launched 13 more ATACMS missiles into Russia. The Russians claim to have shot down 10 of them and acknowledge the loss of an S-400 radar unit and its crew. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported today that five ATACMS launch vehicles were destroyed by a volley of Iskander missiles, and that additional Iskander strikes, directed against apparently known concentrations of US/NATO personnel in Ukraine, “neutralized” about 40 Americans and nine French personnel (https://tinyurl.com/4y58as9t).
Europe is taking the war threat far more seriously. An estimated 5.2 million copies of a crisis preparedness pamphlet are set to be delivered to Swedish households in the next two weeks, with the text available in multiple languages online. Citizens are advised to be ready with a stockpile of food and emergency supplies, including baby food, medicine, and hygiene products. There are diagrams of expedient shelters. Finland has also published its own online crisis preparedness brochure, warning that as of the last government survey in September, only 58% of Finns have adequate emergency supplies at home to ride out a crisis. Norway published its own printed pamphlets earlier this year on how citizens could manage by themselves for a week in the event of a national crisis, including war (https://tinyurl.com/5h7vrtm7). Germany is preparing to convert metro stations, offices, and public buildings into bomb shelters. The Federal Office for Civil Protection is identifying suitable structures and developing an app to guide the public to nearby shelters (https://tinyurl.com/n99a5y2s).
MIDDLE EAST FRONT
Shortly after Israel and Hezbollah announced a temporary ceasefire, Turkish-backed rebels launched a shock offensive against Syria that reached past the gates of Aleppo. Many factors may have contributed to re-bleeding in the “frozen” Syrian civil war (https://tinyurl.com/y6432u4u). According to Simplicius, Israel, having failed to defeat Hezbollah, has gone to Plan B, which is to eliminate Iran’s ability to resupply Hezbollah via Syria. To do that, Assad must fall. Showing Israel’s handprint on the attack, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was hit with a major “exploding beeper and radio” attack, wounding many SAA servicemen—a perfect replay of the same attack on Hamas earlier. Russia has evidently sent reinforcements to Syria, weakening its efforts in Ukraine.
The incursion followed weeks of Israeli strikes into Syria itself, likely the preparatory forewarning in anticipation of this offensive.
Ukraine’s calling cards were also visible, Simplicius states, with the Syrian terrorists’ usage of FPV (first-person view) drones in the attacks, and their choice of yellow and blue head and arm bands. Ukrainian field commanders have been spotted among the militants. Ukraine, with the U.S., has been training members of the Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, and actively recruiting them to fight in Ukraine.
“It’s clear that the conflict is taking on a global proportion of interconnectivity, a true ‘world war’” (https://tinyurl.com/m3m9rtsy).
Is World War III already here?