I got to tell you, folks, Vladimir Putin’s speech was a bummer. I bet he watched our yesterday’s video.
At least, it looks like he cheated his talking points off of the ones we’d suggested. Like, we didn’t strike first — they did.
The West was trying to bleed us dry, but our GDP has dipped a measly two percentage points.
We’re innocent, we were provoked, and now we’re being victimized.
There we go again. The same old narrative that redefines the word “contradiction.”
We’re the most powerful country out there, we’re not the ones to mess with, but they’re hurting us, and we’re powerless to respond.
Threats and grievances were spat out to thunderous applause. Nobody seemed to see through the incongruity.
Sycophantic officials would farcically jump off their seats every time he moaned about how bad things are
and how we can’t do anything about it.
In the run-up to the event, we predicted it would be the case.
Everyone dreaded the day, expecting a full-scale mobilization drive and closed borders to the propagandists’ pre-apocalyptic choir.
In this context, bleating about your grudges and traditional values actually sounds like good news.
The scarier the announcement, the bigger the sigh of relief.
That said, fear and relief are limited to a domestic audience only. International spectators are underwhelmed.
Ever since the war started, Putin has — directly or otherwise — repeatedly pointed to the nuclear button.
But he and his cronies overdid it to a point where two things became obvious. First, they’re not pushing it.
Second, the nukes are their last resort. In terms of conventional warfare, Putin’s escalation has peaked.
Indeed, his entire army is battling it out on the front lines, including the mobilized recruits, the convicts, and the mercenaries.
So is whatever remains of the equipment that’s still usable.
As soon as a new missile capable of wrecking the Ukrainian infrastructure becomes available, it’s used straight away.
Putin, however, is still very much in business when it comes to hurting Russian citizens.
He can close the borders, step up the repression, sign a couple dozen legislative bans into law,
or once again put the economy through the wringer of new taxes or seized assets.
In short, when it comes to crippling Russia, the world’s Vladimir Putin’s oyster.
But again, it’s only true of Russia and the Russians.
To the rest of the world, he’s a dud. He’s shown everyone the best he could manage.
CONTENTS
Putin announced that Russia halted its participation in the New START treaty. But what exactly is this treaty?
Simply put, it’s about spending cuts.
Two states capable of nuking each other to a crisp agree that since they can’t afford the mutual annihilation,
the amount of nukes they have is unsustainable, and building new weapons is a waste of money.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to limit the arms and thus reduce the obscene expenses for the weapons that won’t be fired
in the first place?
In other words, it’s only a matter of resources. What do you mean you want to bypass and suspend the treaty?
Do you want to ramp up investments in strategic offensive arms? So be it, then.
A new round of the arms race is underway, a competition between the economies that are eons apart.
I can recall a country with a failing economy that once challenged the U.S. to an arms race, only to crumble thereafter.
However, the decision to suspend the New START treaty Putin announced in the address was the only one that has to do
with the military.
Importantly, it’s a decision, and not declaration.
But even this decision is largely a domestic affair.
Let’s keep rolling.
The storyline running parallel to Putin’s address is the new round of the war Evgeny Prigozhin
and the Ministry of Defense are waging in the media.
While Putin portrays himself as an unimpeachable leader and a title character in the confrontation with the united West,
his two armies are engaged in a public feud, their leaders decrying each other as liars and saboteurs.
His two armies are accusing each other of helping the enemy.
Covering these events, the director of a future documentary will certainly play this footage on a split screen:
the officials applauding the proclamations of traditional values and the dismantling undergraduate education vs.
Prigozhin attacking the generals in the public eye.
Historically, this director will be dead right. The timeline of the two stories matched.
According to Putin, Russia uses its military force to drive the Western long-range missiles away from its borders.
It begs the question: Which of the two branches?
“These liars are compromising the supplies” or “You are the liars who have been fully supplied”? Which one?
A show of unity and bureaucratic loyalty accompanied by the collapse of statehood at the core level.
Which doesn’t come as a surprise. Like we’ve already said, Prigozhin is past his heyday and Wagner PMC is more of a liability.
But still, these two events happening on the same day is quite telling.
Here you’ve got the unity, the power, and the undivided authority. The two armies are scrapping it out with each other.
Are you sure they are ready to take on the heavily armed enemy?
A dictator with a plan and a vision that everybody else can’t simply keep up with gives way to an elderly guy
with a fuzzy idea of his own army.
Putin is certain that his army is capable of major military feats, like driving its enemies away from the borders,
that it’s still a force to be reckoned with.
By contrast, the real army is increasingly mired in feuds and bickering while being in the spotlight.
Isn’t it weird? Putin’s image is now being tarnished not by the traitors he once again mentioned in his speech,
evidently like myself.
Far from it, the supreme leader’s image is being undermined by entirely different people and organizations,
the ones that make him look like a clueless buffoon delivering turgid yet meaningless orations.
These are the organizations that he’s been fostering, bankrolling, and promoting: the regular army and the paramilitary squads.
They are the ones who go, “Scoot over, sir. Good luck, by the way, sparring with NATO.
We’ve got more important stuff to attend to, like squabbling over the ammunition.
Mind you, not the Sarmat ICBMs or the Iskander ballistic missile systems, not the animated cartoon world-ending wonder weapons,
but the regular non-rocket artillery ammunition.
We aren’t capturing Kyiv, not just yet — we’re struggling to keep the front lines in a stalemate.
But this oxymoronic combination of might and mundanity, chumps and champs, heroes and zeroes has a certain vibe to it.
Some are threatening Biden from afar, redrawing the spheres of influence, strategizing on a global scale,
fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, and living in an imaginary abstract universe, while others can’t discharge a howitzer.
BIDEN’S SPEECH
What about Biden, though? Before we answer this question, let’s take a closer look at Joe Biden, a career politician.
His first electoral success came when Putin was a minor. Fifty years ago, Joe Biden won a seat in the U.S. Senate.
He was involved in big politics, a fiercely competitive business in the States, before the Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin
even finished elementary school.
He saw Leonid Brezhnev in his prime.
Maybe in his early adult years, Joe Biden could blurt something out, but ever since he got into politics,
he’s been mindful of the opinion polls and his party allegiances.
You could drop a brick on his foot — he’d think twice before opening his mouth.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have enjoyed a lengthy career in U.S. politics.
Yesterday, this political old-timer spoke to a crowd in Warsaw and said something that our team had routinely stated:
Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased. They must be opposed. We don’t seek to destroy or control Russia.
Our problem lies with Vladimir Putin. We will bring to justice everyone guilty of war crimes.
The guy’s resume spanning 50+ years in politics includes the supreme ability to engage in doublespeak
and maneuver his way out of potential problems, to sit on the fence and make a lot of sense.
But this time, Biden is being as blunt as it gets, and there are no two ways about it.
We aren’t going anywhere, he says, we aren’t pulling out.
Instead, we’ll be using force on Putin, since there are no other viable alternatives.
Although Putin’s speech is bleak, it’s best compared with Biden’s remarks.
That way, it’s increasingly clear that he’s got nothing to counter it.
This horde of useless yesmen cheering him on like a talk show audience clapping on cue won’t take up arms
and head to the battlefield to fight the U.S.-equipped Ukrainian soldiers.
They can be choreographed to nod in unison, but I’m afraid it's of little use.
The speech providing specific answers to specific questions (support of Ukraine and new aid packages in response
to the deranged autocrat) vs. the vague ramblings on traditional values.
Ukraine will be given new combat capabilities, while Russian students will waste an extra year
as they switch back to the Soviet grad school system.
YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK
It might not be such doom and gloom if Putin’s reputation and legitimacy didn’t center around the antithesis of him
as an outspoken and strong leader to “weak” democratic Western politicians.
While Europeans and Americans are going at it in a political correctness contest designed to voice their concerns
in the most ambiguous way, the tough Russian leader is lording over everyone else. And no one can do anything about it.
They care about voters, public opinion, and lobbyists as they need to properly align their interests.
Putin, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be aligned with anyone or anything. He’s a self-avowed monarch and his own man.
To an extent, it used to be this way. Western leaders are limited in their choices and actions.
They find themselves at the top of complicated and sustainable political systems where a sloppy remark can
cost them a career and where words have consequences.
Sure, before the war, Putin treated Western politicians the way he pleased.
He could say all he wanted, he could threaten them, lie to them, or promise anything.
He was taken seriously, they trusted him because they had no choice, and they ended up hoodwinked.
No one wanted to risk escalating things and being held responsible for the conflict.
But these rules apply to the times of peace, that is, when threats, including empty ones, matter.
During the war, though, it’s different. Democratic leaders begin to adapt, change their rhetoric, and make tough decisions.
Their political systems resist at first, but once they accept the idea of war, they are aiming for victory.
At this point, it turns out that the autocrat has no aces up his sleeve, except ceaseless claptrap.
It turns out that the destructive regime is built around an equally destructive state that can only put on a tough facade
in peace time, browbeating free thinkers into compliance. But when push comes to shove, it’s totally exposed and powerless.
A year ago, the hoodlum was threatening to steamroll and pulverize everyone.
All the while, the free world was trying hard to appease him and sweet-talk him back into cooperation.
A year later, they’re fighting back the hoodlum, and the latter has no better option than mumbling and moaning.
Importantly, he mumbles not to his opponents, but to his own cronies to explain it all away.
That’s what we heard him do yesterday.
See you tomorrow!