Douglas Macgregor: Dead-end Road Ukrainian offensvies are nonsense Douglas Macgregor July 1, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHDtOevaBm0 Today Russia is stronger, I would argue economically than it was before; the War Began our sanctions have been ultimately quite helpful to the Russians; they are not a part of our Western Financial system to the extent that they might have been hurt by us seriously how have the sanctions been helpful to Russia well; they've managed to sell all of their Energy Products all of their minerals everything agricultural products through others at higher prices that have ultimately reached their target destination, in Europe and other parts of the world anyhow; so the amount of hard currency if you will from the West that's pouring in has actually increased, at the same time, they've discovered that they could sell virtually everything if they needed to China and India to a lesser extent those two countries these are over a billion people in each country enormous economies; they want to do business with Russia; so that the absence of the European Market Per Se has not churned out to be this terrible experience; that everyone in the west assumed it would be wasn't that a chess game a lot of people saw coming; because both India and China cannot self or will never be self-sufficient on energy, well I suppose so uh you know I don't know that anybody regarded as a chess game because the difference between Putin whatever mistakes he made in terms of assumptions shrink to insignificance next to the mistakes that we've made I would argue because we made assumptions about Russia that were just completely wrong as just like the rest of the world number one Russia is a backward economy that will collapse quickly if we sanction it in other words that they're they're not a true nation state in the western sense they don't have a developed economy they can't survive yeah we regarded it as some sort of Mega Island yeah yeah they don't have a real scientific industrial base now suddenly we see all of these factories uh in Russia running 24 hours a day seven days a week producing ammunition weapons missiles all these things we said they were going to run out of very very quickly and couldn't replenish we said that no one would support Russia that Russia would be isolated well in fact I I would argue that most of the world actually backs Russia against us that we and the Europeans are increasingly on an island all by ourselves and Russia is not going to fall apart Russia has become more cohesive this is a state that rests on the foundation of Orthodox Christianity and Russian ethnicity now there are plenty of people inside Russia who are not ethnic Russians those people are treated very well they are treated as equal Partners inside Russia all you have to do is look at the churches you know and the chechens are brilliant Soldiers by the way I keep hearing people say Well they're not really that good well you could not be more wrong those people are superb and they are fiercely loyal and by the way if you go back to the czarist period every czarist Army had contingents in it that were kazakhs uzbeks chechens others turkic peoples tartars working with them and fighting with them against whomever the enemy was whether it was the Ottomans or the austrians or whomever so the point is that Russia is more cohesive than we are if you're looking for internal unrest discontent divisive forces you can find those in Spades inside American society but that's not the case in Russia at all so when you when you look at the economy wise one may say yeah they're doing better today but even prior to the award they had a big birth and death problem I don't know if you've seen the numbers on their birth and death rate if you want to pull that out that's not a uh good luck the closest thing you can compare that to as a case study they're having more people dying than being born there's only one other country can compare this to and you know who that is it's one of their allies is China those guys have the similar issue India is a complete opposite and we're not doing that great ourselves but uh Russia is not a good place when it goes it comes down to that but I want to go back to the thought wait a minute before you leave yeah Putin agrees with you yeah and Putin has tried very very hard to reverse that he the first thing he tried to do is to prevent The Brain Drain everybody with any Talent OR ability had been getting out of Russia since 1992. so he's tried to reverse that I think he's had some success he's tried to encourage people to have fun by the way if you if you don't mind how did he do the first one I'm curious basically by finding employment for scientists and Engineers that otherwise had nowhere to go he said oh we've got to find employment for these people so that we can keep them here we have to reward them for their talent I think he's done reasonably well there when it comes to the rest of the economy you know turning around this attitude that why should I bring two or three children into a world that's dominated by alcoholic men that are destroying themselves and committing suicide has turned out to be pretty tough I think he's made some progress there I think this war is going to help him enormously because I think the war is Awakening A sense of Russian identity that is far far stronger and greater than anything we thought existed all you have to do is talk to the people that are inside Russia and ask Russians what they think everybody says well they're all afraid of Putin so they're not going to tell you the truth that's not true that's just not true and we're hearing as exactly what I said Russia is closer United more today than I think it has been in at least 30 years or 40 years okay so so then as a as a competitor whoever you go up against you're going to do better if you put them as being overly calculating meaning it's it's naive to just say it's a simplistic War let's just do this this is what's going to happen we're going to be this right okay you know for me sometimes you know how an enemy uh forces you to do something to come out and say see I told you this is what they wanted to do the entire time so for example I want to get your feedback on this so I you know NATO is trying to do whatever they can to get Ukraine to be part of NATO no that's not what we're trying to do no that's exactly what they're trying to do and this is why they promised us they would never do this and now they're going to be doing this nope that's not what they're doing so he's pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing and then all of a sudden you know the article comes up from Guardian if you want to show that article real quick I think it's Guardian uh uh you know which one I'm talking about NATO accelerating the membership uh NATO allies back Fast Track membership for Ukraine says cleverly U.S foreign secretary says Ukraine has evolved quickly as zelinski tells Summit it can be engine of green growth so all of this time that they're talking about this this is now leading to you you know we have to use this as an opportunity to bring them into NATO then Putin is going to come out and say well I told you guys this was the entire intention the entire you know this is why I'm doing XYZ because I knew you guys were doing this is he that calculating of a guy that is forcing his opponent and his enemy to expose their hand or is it just accidentally that this happened because he didn't think the war was going to last this long [Music] yeah yeah I do and uh I think the man's highly intelligent and I there's no doubt in my mind that he views what you just said as a welcome development that the his opponent is essentially revealing his hand saying this is what we're really all about but I do think at the beginning he still thought there was a degree of Goodwill in the west that he could exploit and there is none that's what he's found out unpacked on I think because of his experience uh watching various administrations remember he met with bush he is subsequently met with Obama and and ultimately with Trump each time he was be trying to understand us trying to understand what we were about and I think he listened to what was said in private and he convinced himself that these people really aren't the enemy you know that they are unreasonably obsessed with or fascinated with NATO which he doesn't see any reason for I mean quite frankly he you know since he had one of the things that's very funny is people say well he was going to invade Eastern Europe well wait a minute you told me back in March that his army was small and incapable and now you're telling me he was always going to invade I mean which which is it's a bunch of nonsense so he wasn't going to invade he wanted to do business with everybody badly because he knows that if Russia is to continue to develop and grow he needs technology most of the technology that he wants is in Germany so Germany is enormously important to Russia and always has been well now he's turning away because he's trying to substitute uh Chinese Indian and other economic powers for German cooperation but the bottom line is that I think uh Putin miscalculated up front there was no good will he thought there was and now he knows it so what are you going to do about it Mr Putin and I think the Russians are all standing around saying okay we like you you've done a great job uh you know the Army is ready it's up and running it's now large enough and strong enough to do what needs to be done Mr Putin what are you going to do yeah and you know makes sense we're going to see how much of that was you know wasn't expecting it he was just kind of going in to do it and then now all of a sudden the hands are being shown but let's look at the other side you know the other side is anytime uh it happens in sports it happens in families it happens in companies oh look what's going on in Amazon six of Jeff Bezos c-suite Executives all reasons on the same day you know hey look at the Elon Musk today with Twitter 1250 employees resigned that place is a civil war today right and they'll say things like this and us as readers we're not in it we're like oh wow shit's hitting the fan in right you know Twitter shit's in the fan in this place if you look at it where with a Wagner group okay Wagner group or whatever they want to call themselves um these guys come out and he's a billionaire himself he's done well for himself and hey our goal is to do this and our goal is to do that and then story comes out saying Putin disappears after Wagner uh uh cool chaos Daily Mail Russian President Vladimir put has not been seen publicly since he addressed the nation regarding the Wagner group failed amidst rumors of Putin's flight to tavare region U.S Secretary and state Anthony blinken wonderful guy by the way noted cracks emerging in the Russian Administration Putin in a pre-recorded message termed the Wagner troops move as a staff in the back of our troops around the people of Russia what we are facing now is a treason okay and then obviously talks about who evgeny is and what he's in all the stuff which I'd love for you to talk about that as well when that happens from the outset it's very easy for the enemy to say look what's going on over there even his people don't support his decision he's about to be replaced it's about to be very quickly like the last time this happened we saw this 25 years ago when this took place within a week somebody came in and took over Russia that's exactly what's going to be happening right uh opposing message of how you said this thing's going to be done in Ukraine very quickly the other side said he's about to fall in the next week watch this thing's gonna happen very quickly that's not a good look when that happens where the leader of a country has to leave because they're worried about what's going to happen to him so one from the optic standpoint two from he's got an 89 approval rating if he does why are people going against him and there's clips of people supporting giveni saying hey thank you for doing this Optics matter well the people that were thinking uh evgeny progression were not thanking him for rising up in some sort of Uprising they were thanking him and the Vagner group for their heroic performance on behalf of the Russian people and those same people that were doing that also said you know we love Putin we love our president I I think people first of all made a mistake of assuming that what was happening was an uprising it never was and Peter Goshen made that very clear we'll learn more in the future but what we know at this point is the following first of all Putin didn't flee anywhere Putin wasn't afraid of anything as thirty thousand troops he did take ten thousand in the ministry of interior forces these are very very heavily armed police and moved them into various areas because they had intelligence already on many Ukrainian terrorist cells they simply went out there and eliminated all of these that was simply a case of let's go do it get it over with in the event that there's something going on between them and this group in in the Wagner group it turns out that uh Putin did talk directly to a pregosian that came out today assuming that's true he he claimed that he was talking to lukashenko who's the president of Russia now if that's in fact true and Putin talked to him then the whole thing ended very quickly and the argument for ending it according to pregosian was we don't want to we'll want to shed any Russian blood so then the question is why did you do it and one of the key reasons I think that there are two possibilities one is I think pagosian was speaking for a lot of people who were very dissatisfied with karasimov and shoigu because they feel strongly that this Ukrainian War should be brought to a close let's stop it the only way to stop it is to advance to attack and crush the enemy and their view is that there's so little left now on the Ukrainian side why are we waiting let's get this done the longer we wait the greater the possibility that NATO and his friends will find an excuse to intervene and we don't want that to happen Putin's taking a position while I'm holding back just in case NATO intervenes in other words I've got hundreds of thousands of troops I've got a huge strategic Reserve if they're dumb enough to intervene then I've got that you know on hand that I can employ that's a debate that is unfolding we're hearing about a shake-up in the Russian high command you'll recall that Putin had a meeting with some journalists a small group of them and he talked to them for three hours something you never hear anybody in the United States do any politician that is and he was very straightforward and Frank we had the transcripts and one of those things that came up was a discussion about the senior leadership and one of the journalists said you know we're we're concerned because we're getting feedback from a lot of soldiers that we can do better that we need more aggressive more capable leaders and he said you know I think there's something to that and I've got to look into it I've got to look at it I think we're going to see a shake-up in the high command now there's a an unsubstantiated rumor out there that the commander-in-chief of Russian Airborne forces is now taking over the theater I don't know I haven't seen it confirmed anywhere that could be the case also in the same report garazimov is returning to his essential duties as chief of the general staff he's no longer going to run anything in connection with the war in Ukraine shoigu seems to be shoigu he's Putin's friend I don't think Putin holds him because he's a civilian he's not a professional Soldier directly responsible for anything that's not right so I think we'll see some shake up in the high command and that may foreshadow some offensive action now here's another theory that this was a carefully constructed show for the West to convince everybody that Russia was falling apart and see who said what and so forth I don't buy that I don't either I buy the first argument yeah and people say well you know my gosh how could this happen George Marshall relieved 32 core and division commanders during less than three years of fighting during World War II uh large numbers of senior officers were removed and and changed and moved around and given new commands uh this is this is not unusual in war it happens if it doesn't happen you're in a lot of trouble I mean one of the complaints that I've had about the U.S military and the Army in particular is no change why no change well it's a stagnant pool of people and talent you need fresh blood fresh eyes and I'm sure that Putin has discovered that's required in the in the Russian military and I think we'll see it happy Fourth of July too we have a special event that's coming up with Tom Brady Mike Tyson and we'll get there in Miami ball conference it'll be August 30th to September 2nd this weekend for Fourth of July we're running a special buy one get one free bring your spouse bring your business partner bring your running mate if you haven't yet registered click on the link below or above get registered looking forward to spending three days with you in Miami thank you what do you think are the chances that Ukraine's eventually going to be part of NATO non-existent non-existent yes that's not going to happen no and this is the problem we don't seem to understand that if we continue to insist at whatever remains of Ukraine become part of NATO we're going to see hundreds of thousands of Russian troops on the Polish border they're they're just going to roll right across Ukraine it will not stop until they hit the Polish border in the Romanian border that's very clear that's not what he wants and re and I keep trying to explain this to people if you know anything about Western Ukraine I grew up with people from Western Ukraine they do not want anything to do with the Russians and Putin knows that he doesn't want to run the place doesn't want to govern it he just doesn't want it to be a platform for attack against Russia which is what we tried to turn it into I also think the majority of ukrainians that are still there and maybe even the majority of their way they may not like Russians but I don't think they support this war and the reason I say that is if you go back to the election that brought solenski to power when he was picked up from nowhere as a comedian and sponsored by kolomoski who's a very powerful oligarch in Ukraine he ran on a peace platform he said if I'm elected I'll make peace with Russia well virtually everybody something something like 89 percent went out and voted for it they wanted peace with Russia there were only a very few people in the far west of Ukraine that that didn't support that so I I don't think uh zielinski is by any stretchy imagination as widely supported as people think and you know you talk about their situation right now he has press gangs press gangs or groups of people that go out and forcibly drag ukrainians into the Ukrainian military because they need Manpower he's now doing that in the Far Western portions of Ukraine where he said he wouldn't do it in Galicia and in the Carpathian what used to be called the Carpathian military District ukrainians are leaving ukrainians are moving out there are reports now that ukrainians are actually stoning and in some cases shooting at these press gangs from the Ukrainian Army in in Western Ukraine that they don't want to go to war they don't want to fight we're getting reports that platoon and company-sized elements down in southern Ukraine are defecting they're simply saying look we've had it we can't do this anymore and they're coming across and surrendering and very very smartly the Russians from the beginning have treated all of the Ukrainian prisoners very very well they have not harmed them they have not abused them or brutalized them they facilitated prisoner exchanges whereas we've got videotape of Ukrainian Soldiers kneecapping with with the AK-47s Russians Russian knees of soldiers that are in captivity we have them we have video of them executing because the Ukrainian soldiers that did actually posted it on YouTube on the internet so he he's run a very good campaign in the sense that he's made it very clear we don't want to kill you we're not really the enemy we want this to end too and it has had an effect inside Ukraine that we are not hearing about these things are not reported to us in the western media because it undermines the narrative did you see the Wall Street Journal story about a few days ago of Wagner Mutiny revives U.S fears over control of Russia's nuclear weapons the Wagner parliamentary party military uh paramilitary group failed Insurrection Russia led by evgeny has reignited concerns over control of Russia's nuclear Arsenal as U.S Secretary of State Anthony blinken put it anytime you have a major country like Russia that has signs of instability that's something of concern despite these tensions U.S officials stated that they detected no irregular activities or changes in alert levels related to Russia's nuclear forces is that a real threat or is that just a you know story to over exaggerate what's really going on to put fear in the American people absolutely second one yes absolutely you're not hearing anything truthful from this Administration and the media is conspiring with the administration to misinform the public it's simple truth the same thing's happening in Western Europe nobody is being told the truth the only way to get the truth is to talk to people who are over there on the ground fortunately I have some people who are willing to do that and pass me information and we forget that there are people in Poland that have grandparents who are ukrainians living in eastern Ukraine we forget that there are people who are Slovakian some are check who actually have brothers-in-law or cousins working in banks in Moscow in other words there are people over there that are telling the truth I just don't think uh we're getting it and I don't see any evidence that that's going to change anytime soon and that worries me because if we continue to push this false narrative and we make it abundantly clear that there will be no negotiation which is what we're effectively saying right now Putin has the following choice you can pull all your forces out of Ukraine you can prepare to commit suicide in public and remove yourself from office and then we'll talk I mean that's absurd there's no chance of any of that happening so what where are we headed I think we're headed to lots of Russian troops on the Polish border unless someone wakes up in Europe and I think it could happen in Germany and it could happen in France where those governments are very fragile right now I think uh Schultz's approval rating is about 32 or 33 percent if they get rid of him and you get a new Coalition involving the alternative for Germany and maybe even the left uh on the far left those two groups are all opposed to this war and there is no support in the German population for going to war with Russia if you ask anybody in Germany are you prepared to suit up and go to the Eastern Front everybody says are you out of your mind of course not if that were to happen then Putin would have someone he could talk to in Berlin and Berlin then could conceivably lead us out of this Dead End Road but that hasn't happened yet and again I think that's something else that Putin is watching for I think that's another reason why he's held back Russia and Germany grown close over our energy deals and pipelines and there was this uh wasn't there a story narrative that they you know thanks to the Russians turning off the pipeline as part of the Ukraine conflict these poor Germans are going to be freezing in the winter and so aren't they friendly to in recent times fairly dependent on Russia and probably you know uh in a position where it might not be a bad idea to be the to be the uh you know moderating voice in 90 right in 1914 Russia and Germany were each other's principal trading partners in other words when the war broke out they were already each other's principal trading partners interestingly enough the British were entirely dependent on the Optics industry in Germany for all of its military applications mom uh I mean these things happen sometimes dumb ideas become policy without anybody Consulting the with on the wisdom of doing something in 1941 Russia and Germany reach others principal trading partners Germany could not have launched any offensive in the West in 1940 without copious amounts of Steel and coal and iron and oil and gas and so forth from Russia impossible grain poured into Germany in other words this is a symbiotic relationship that's been there for a long time this existed between Prussia and Russia and the prussians were always pro-russian as a result and worked to avoid any conflict this was bismarck's argument the austrians were were less open-minded but they too sort of shut up and colored because they were in a position to do much my point is this is a natural relationship it benefits both sides we have looked at this and said this is evil and bad because this makes Germany dependent upon Russia but we forget that Russia was also dependent upon Germany and what happened in 1941 in July that changed everything it's called Lend Lease from the United States we compensated Russia with everything that had formally been receiving from Germany technology Steel locomotives you name it all the resources aluminum all the precious metals everything that the Communists in Moscow needed to survive the German assault we started providing immediately in July 1941 and we were not even part of the war it was illegal and FDR did that now I'm not here to debate the wisdom of that that's another subject but my point is Russia also is dependent on Germany just as Germany has been dependent on Russia so the notion that it's a one-way street is just inaccurate and wrong happy Fourth of July too we have a special event that's coming up with Tom Brady Mike Tyson and we'll give erra in Miami ball conference it'll be August 30th to September 2nd this weekend for Fourth of July we're running a special buy one get one free bring your spouse bring your business partner bring your running mate if you haven't yet registered click on the link below or above get registered looking forward to spending three days with you in Miami foreign [Music] |