Mother of all Losers

 The Biden Admininistration's foreign policy, in cooperation with NATO, is the worst ever.  

GOAL: Weaken Putin

RAND Corporation released a concerned report that Russia is learning how to fight NATO while modernizing its own army, and NATO is not getting any real, on the ground, hands-on experience themselves, at least nothing comparable to what Russian soldiers are getting through this conflict

In May 2023, over 80 percent of Russians approved of activities of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The popularity level was five percent higher than in September 2022, when it stood at 77 percent.

Mercouris video on deplomatic relations (excerpts begin at 56:42):

At the G7 meeting Modi did say a lot of other things. He talked again about international law. He says Global Peace stability and prosperity is a common objective. In today's interconnected world, crisis in any one region affects all the countries and the developing countries which have limited resources are the worst affected.  These countries are facing the maximum and most profound impact of the food, fuel, and fertilizer crisis, and that's a clear rebuke to the Western powers. It raises the question as to why we are facing the need to discuss matters of peace and stability in distinct forums (such as G7) and not the United Nations which was established with the very purpose of establishing peace? Why does it often fail to prevent conflicts today? Why even the definition of terrorism has not been accepted in the United Nations? If introspection is done then one thing is clear -- The institutions created in the last century are not in line with the system of the 21st century. They do not reflect the realities of the present -- that is why it is necessary that reform should be given concrete shape in big institutions like the UN. The UN will also have to become the voice of the global South. Otherwise we will just keep talking and the U.N Security Council will become just a talk shop. Why is the United Nations dominated still by the victorious powers of the second World War? Why in effect do the Western Powers -- the United States, Britain, and France -- still have three permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council whereas the global South does not have a permanent representative?

Another leader who was also at the G7 and who was apparently extremely unhappy by the way that he was treated there and that was President of Brazil Lula de Silva.  So what does Lula de Silva do as soon as he gets back to Brazil -- he telephones President Putin...  The president of Brazil shared his impressions of participating in the recent G7 Summit and also outlined his vision of possible mediation efforts to find ways of resolving the conflict in Ukraine.  It's almost as if Lula were reporting to Putin about the G7. I wonder whether that means by the way that Lula in future might not receive invitations. It's been pointed out recently that South Africa, which is very much in the uh West's bad country list at the moment, was not invited to the G7....

We have an interesting contrast in diplomatic styles with Biden and Putin and their respective approaches to Erdogan.  

Putin telephones Erdogan and tells him: 

"We're delighted to see you reelected. You have our warm congratulations. We look forward to working with you on every conceivable issue in our relations." 

It's a warm and friendly call between Putin and Erdogan. 

By contrast, it is a lot more tense call from Biden. The call is purportedly to congratulate Erdogan over his re-election, but in practice is to put pressure on him, bully him perhaps might not be too strong a word, to remind him pointedly that he's a member of NATO and that comes with certain obligations. Turkey should in other words distance itself from the Russians and support the Western position over Ukraine.   The terseness of the Turkish readout confirms that relations between Russia and Turkey have steadily improved over the last couple of years, while relations between Turkey and the United States have steadily deteriorated.

In sum, Russian factories are running all out producing war goods, its military engineers are enhancing its weapons and related technologies, its military commanders are honing their battlefield tactics and practicing against the combined efforts of 31 NATO countries and 10 or more additional Western allies, Putin is more popular than any Western leader in his/her wildest dreams, Russia's economy is strong in the light of closer ties with countries such as China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabian, etc, and Putin and Russia enjoy improved diplomatic relations with many of the world's most powerful nations.

This is failure on an epic scale. Time to double down! 

It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’.

Update 6/27/2023:  Here's a related rant from Gilbert Doctorow:

The war in Ukraine has upended traditional Soviet-Russian military doctrine about deployment of forces. The use of both reconnaissance and kamikaze drones in tandem by Russian soldiers at the front reverses entirely the advantage in real time targeting that the Ukrainians may have had at the start of the war thanks to U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and satellite images.  This new warfare which, as we see from the destruction of Bradleys and Leopards in the attempted attacks of the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive, makes clear the fact that the Russian army is emerging from the military operations in Ukraine much stronger than it entered the war.  Not just in manpower numbers resulting from the autumn 2022 call-up of reserves, or from the 160,000 volunteer signups this year, not just from the near tripling of production by the Russian military industrial complex, but by being war hardened and possessing the latest knowledge of what works and what doesn’t on the battlefield.  In this sense, the weakening of Russia that was said to be the objective of American support for the Kiev regime by Blinken, by Austin, by Biden, has had the opposite effect. I say this without considering the emptying of military equipment stocks across Europe resulting from massive deliveries of arms to Ukraine.