Ian J on the western strategic mess north-east of the Balkans

Ian J is one of our main chaps at N.O. and he’s put together a nice take on the impasse facing the west:

From an article by 'Simplicius the thinker' on the efforts of some NATO 'leaders' to 'take over' in the Ukraine: (sorry - have no bona fides for Simplicius)

"NATO cannot let Russia capture Odessa for a multitude of reasons.

1. NATO was building important naval bases there in order to fully neutralize Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the future. It would allow Russia to totally landlock Ukraine, thus ruining NATO’s last remaining puppet-state’s chances of being a military thorn in Russia’s side

2. The above alone would allow Russia to dominate global wheat markets as Ukraine would have little ways to export its grain

3. It would allow Russia to create an unbroken land corridor to Pridnestrovie (Transnistria) which would catalyze into an even greater ‘domino-effect’ collapse of NATO destabilization plans, allowing Russia to totally solve the PMR issue and create a fortress in the region
In short, it’s absolutely apocalyptic for NATO to lose Odessa.

But here’s the problem: all of NATO combined without the U.S. Army cannot defeat Russia. Yes, even bogged down in Ukraine—Russia has now raised an entirely new army group of over 500k men which is enough to take out all of NATO by itself, barring U.S. presence.

However: the U.S. absolutely could not and would not commit its land forces to such a European war effort. Why? Because it would mean totally trapping the entire already-depleted and shrinking U.S. military in this one theater, allowing China to grab Taiwan at its leisure without threat of the U.S. military aiding in any overtly significant way.

Two significant things to remember: only a few NATO states are barking, many others have openly declared no troop involvement, Italy and Germany amongst them. In fact, it’s now coming to light that Germany’s internal claim for not supplying Taurus missiles is because it would require them to place ground troops in Ukraine to administer the missiles, which is a big red line for them.

And the other big thing no one has brought up:

NATO’s infamous Article 5 specifies that mutual defense doctrine is only triggered if NATO troops are attacked on NATO territory.

Can you guess what that means for French troops being hit in Odessa?

That means Macron is walking a very fine line—if he can’t get a coalition to back him in this new drive, he’ll be an emperor with no clothes as French troops would be left alone to face potential Russian strikes, to which they would have no answer whatsoever, and would be wiped out.

Have just read todays article by Larry Johnson criticising the views of a UK 'Elite' propagandist - seems to say it all:

"The lunacy reflected in this piece helps explain why the Brits are so lost as they struggle to come to grips with the fact that Putin is kicking their pompous asses."