From Russia’s perspective, the increasingly serious talk about Western/NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine (even if they operate on a non-NATO mandate) is already concerning enough, but its threat perception would further worsen through Polish participation in such a mission.
What I find incomprehensible about Poland is how the so-called “conservative-nationalist” President is boasting about his country’s U.S. connections and hosting of its forces. What could be less “nationalist” than openly admitting to one’s country’s complete lack of sovereignty over military affairs?
The Czech premier Fiala, of the so-called “Civic Democratic” Party (what a joke), takes a similar stance, claiming to adhere to some kind of conservatism while simultaneously acting as a complete patsy to a foreign power. The difference is that the guy is so supremely irrelevant that no one hears about this, of course.
What is the matter with the political landscape in these countries? It seems to be subject to total élite capture.
Duh. The "conservative nationalist" tendency is merely posturing. Some American functionary snaps his fingers, and european knees hit the floor with a resounding thud.
Poles ARE independently anti-Russian. Czechs, Slovaks or Hungarians were all parts of the KuK Germanic-Catholic Austro-Hungary, so they were intuitively interested in an orthodox Slavic counterweight to the East.
Poles are different - they've never forgiven themselves for not being able to convert Russia to Catholicism in the 15th to 17th century. Croats are in this respect vis-a-vis Serbs similar to the Poles vs Russians. It's like the Shia-Sunni schism in the Arab world.
Current government is so ideologically and biologically linked to the Cathedral you wouldn't speak of independence. However, there are lots of Poles like Brzezinski or Sikorski or Applebaum-Sikorski that actually produced this Cathedral. So it's not imposed from the outside only but a two-way street.
Previous PIS government was partly independent but obviously just as Russophobic. If I understand correctly, most of the Polish military contingent put on leave and then died fighting as "mercenaries" in Ukraine - that happened during the previous PIS government. Fatality metrics have dropped very substantially since change of government.
Well, if Poland wants to keep the Russians out of the European system and prevent any joint German-Russian operations, which has been their #1 geopolitical doctrine for many centuries, and if they are not strong enough to do this themselves, their only hope is the support of the sea hegemon in Washington or London. This of course ended disastrously in the first part of the 20th century, but after the fall of the Soviet system the Poles again adopted this stance, and its rationality could certainly be argued for for the first post-Soviet decades. A small country with gutted elites and elite-producing institutions and with geography such as Poland can't survive long without a "крыша". The pro-U.S. stance is still heavily embedded in the public discourse, even if the elites themselves may have changed their view recently, but they still can't voice that change publicly, hence the continued pro-U.S. rhetoric.
We shall see to what extent the elite has been captured in whether their will yield to Washington's pressure to become directly involved in the war.
As for the silly pretty-sounding party names, I don't think you should single out Poland here. Everywhere you go (big powers such as Russia included) you see the same meaningless "democratic/patriotic/we-are-the-best" slogans everywhere.
Poles don't like Russians since the 1830 insurrection against the tsar. Even national-conservative ones. Hungarians and Slovak national-conservatives are more level-headed.
So, Trump has to traverse a razors edge to get this right it sounds like? Makes my head hurt. If anyone can make it happen, it would be President Trump, but I sure don’t envy him this mess…I’ve sensed that Biden is the worst President in our history, and this whole thing is just a big, steaming pile of further proof of that fact…
Yes, his moving the embassy to Jerusalem as promised instead of the typical lip service was evidence of that, certainly, but he is also the most anti-war president I ever remember and I’m getting pretty long-in-the-tooth at this point, so that means something as well. Israel must have their own homeland, secure and without interference, but they must also stop killing too. Trump seems to feel that way as well. Pragmatic about something that is layered and complex beyond belief. But for us on the outside, pragmatism seems our only choice. The complexities of it all are almost incomprehensible otherwise.
Can you please explain what “escalate to deescalate” means, since this term is being thrown around everywhere, not just here, and it would seem self-contradictory (if you are escalating, surely you cannot by definition be deescalating)? Thank you.
If NATO troops are introduced to the region, assuming it comes to blows (but remains conventional, due to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction), which side do you think would have the upper hand, with the current balance of forces?
I don't foresee any repeated tit-for-tat Russian-NATO conventional strikes remaining limited to Ukraine even if they remain below the nuclear threshold.
A lot of observers imagine that this intervention scenario would lead to some grand World War II-like battle on the Ukrainian plain.
That's not what's likely to happen. What's more probable are long-range tit-for-tat strikes that eventually hit targets outside of Ukraine in Russia and NATO.
From there, the nuclear brinksmanship crisis would likely soon follow, and then there'll either be a de-escalation deal or a nuclear war.
>>"That's not what's likely to happen. What's more probable are long-range tit-for-tat strikes that eventually hit targets outside of Ukraine in Russia and NATO."
But what does that have to do with a PKO force? Or is the PKO force, in your imagining, merely a feint to trigger long-range strikes/stealth attacks on Russian air defense, C2 and DIB with which the US thinks it can bludgeon Russia into submission (called a "negotiated peace")? In that scenario, NATO does what Ukraine has wanted to do but on a larger, sustainable scale.
Seems more likely to me that Trump and those who advise him would try to create a scenario in which they could claim justification for targeting Russia's ghost energy fleet on the high seas which Russia has little way of protecting, though that would play havoc with global energy markets. That doesn't require getting unwilling Europeans to ride into the "Valley of Death" and, since Trump just got elected, won't probably run again and the US is relatively insulated from energy problems, it's easier to carry out. Plus we already have the precedent of Nordstream.
I see any such deployment as a tripwire for setting that scenario into motion, but provided that the West has the political will to follow through, which isn't yet certain and events might unfold differently than they expect in any case. I don't foresee them having some major land battle that won't go nuclear and will just end whenever it ends and only remain contained to Ukraine.
While not taking away from your good writeup, the amount of analytical power being expended on this “peacekeeping” talk throughout the corporate media and the blogosphere is incredible. This should have been dismissed at the time it was first uttered as just another Western fever dream.
1) Peacekeepers do not stop a war, they only preserve a peace that has been tentatively established. We are nowhere close to that yet.
2) Peacekeepers are generally deployed in conjunction with a conflict in which neither side can prevail, but in which neither wants to stop fighting. A tenuous “peace” is established by (at least) a cease-fire, and NEUTRAL peacekeepers try to enforce it, mostly by inserting themselves between the combatants. In Ukraine, it is clear that Russia is prevailing, and hence has no incentive to stop fighting. Everyone knows that Ukraine is going to lose.
3) Peacekeepers are supposed to be from neutral countries, and Europeans have amply demonstrated by their actions to date that they are anything but neutral. The West only wants to introduce these “peacekeepers” to fortify the insufficiency of Ukrainian forces. Does anyone truly believe that they would act against Ukraine if, for example, Ukraine decides once again to start lobbing shells into Donetsk City and killing civilians?
This entire idea is nothing more than Europe wanting to “fight without fighting” in the hope that it can help Ukraine “lose without losing.”
I could imagine NATO using the term "peacekeeping force" as a guise for a military intervention regardless of what a true PKO force really is. But the problem is, I can't envision how the pseudo-PKO intervention force is going to be put together and sustained and how it won't lead to massive resistance across a Europe that is already pretty chaotic. And that's before anyone even tried to impose conscription.
It is interesting to note that the main Polish geostrategic think-tank, Strategy&Future, the one which everyone in Poland reads and listens to, the one with many friends in the Pentagon, has recently (past 6-8 months or so) publicly flipped its stance on the fundamental geopolitical direction of Poland. While it has previously hoped for American resources and know-how (South Korea style) to be injected into the region defined by Poland-Romania-Ukraine axis for a sort of Intermarium, a wedge between Germany and Russia to be restored, now they have concluded that that window has closed. Since USA did not move an inch in that direction when it was possible, Poland and the region have lost their geopolitical chance of the century and now Poland's main task is to not become Ukraine 2.0, to not get itself involved in WWIII, to preserve the human lives and human capital even at the cost of loss of independence to Berlin and Moscow. It was until recently unthinkable to hear something like that in the (almost) mainstream discourse in Poland.
I think Russia should "peace keeping forces" ONLY IF (1) they are stationed in the Polish territory pre-WW2, not east of it. (2) Ukraine has no military, only police. Russia will perform inspection. (3) Only non-NATO countries are allowed. Say, India, Russia, Brazil, etc. and only under UN charter. Otherwise, just be polite and firm in the diplomatic language. The result should be determined in the battleground. The war started because diplomatic methods or self-constraints could not resolve the issue.
The only good deal that I see the US and Russia will agree on.
Russia will take over Ukraine, while the US can do whatever it wants in the Middle East except for attacking or invading Iran which will likely develop or already have nuclear deterrence.
Given how Trump's nature of defending Israel, he would take this deal in a heartbeat. Anything related to Israel will get Trump jumping all over the place wrathfully.
Who even cares about what USA does to its stone aged bedpals in the Saracenic peninsula? Those lackeys are America's own problem, or release mannequins whichever way one might like to fathom them as. Kamasutra describes more than a hundred sensuous poses, and there are many more in modern erotic literature for those interested, why would the rest of the world even bother?
The worst feature of media coverage of this "peacekeeper" issue is the recurrent conflation of different scenarios:
1. The entry of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a negotiated settlement.
2. The unilateral entry of a NATO force under guise/rubric of "peacekeepers" in Ukraine (or some part of Ukraine) on some pretext without any negotiated settlement as a pressure tactic. Of course that is a PKO force in name only.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that Russia will reject the first scenario since it runs counter to the very premise and fundamental goals of the "Special Military Operation." And that's assuming we get to actual negotiations any time soon.
The second scenario is simply a casus belli for Russia which it's impossible for me to imagine the Europeans being willing to incur. France and Germany are in political chaos. Poland seems to be retrenching from its former war-enthusiam. The willingness of European publics to support such an operation seems close to nil. They've given much of their equipment and munition stocks to Ukraine already. I'll believe it's credible when I hear that forces and logistics are on the move.
And I'm not sure about this notion of a shift in the "Overton Window" as supposedly indicated by the upsurge of "peacekeeping" talk in the last few weeks. For all we know, it's bluffing and smoke-blowing as a warm-up negotiating tactic by Trump and company aided by a willing media.
The pattern here seems more like the sine curve that has been recurring throughout this war. We had an earlier drumbeat of talk about NATO going into Ukraine also featuring a lot of babbling by Macron about a year or so ago, didn't we? We also had the endless talk about No Fly Zones at the beginning of the war.
Korybko has assessed in earlier pieces that he thinks Putin, given the failure to create alternative financial systems to support the Russian economy long-term, might bend to the very thing he started this war to avoid--NATO occupying up to 2/3 of Ukraine albeit initially under the guise of a PKO force. Well, I'd like to see an assessment of what that does to domestic politics in Russia. Nothing is truly unthinkable. But given how fragile Europe is right now and how unready and unwilling its publics are to do anything like playing chicken with Russia, the scenario in which Putin knuckles under to the "PKO" threat seems hard to credit for me. And the actual execution of it by an almost entirely European force ("Their responsibility!" per Trump's view of the world) seems even more unlikely.
Maybe there could be a Scenario #3 in which a "PKO force" is actually camouflage for what is effectively part of a new partition of Ukraine secretly agreed to by Russia and Trump and company. Not really sure how that would work.
A scenario I have not seen mentioned is one in which Trump and company would engineer a situation in which they would claim justification for targeting Russia's ghost energy fleet on the high seas which Russia has little way of protecting, though that would play havoc with global energy markets. That gambit would not require getting unwilling Europeans to ride into the "Valley of Death" and, since Trump just got elected, won't probably run again and the US is relatively insulated from energy problems, it's easier to carry out. Plus we already have the precedent of Nordstream.
Of course, there are many potential second and third order effects that could stem from such a move and the legal/PR basis is very questionable. But it seems more feasible in a number of ways than the PKO scenario.
Targetting of Russia's ghost fleet will of certainty elicit sinking of Europe's oil tankers. There are plenty of smouldering "hot"zones along the trajectory of oil transport in major international sea lanes to Europe, Eastern mediterranean and Japan, and the players are fairly numerous. Stock markets will go caput.
Yes, I don't mean actually turning weapons on and sinking them. I mean something more legalistic or covert involving some combination of impounding, arresting, bribing, hacking, systems, propulsion sabotage or boarding--enough to gum up the works of energy sales to some appreciable extent that threatens significant economic damage.
Russia is hardly well postured for naval conflict in any case, as we've seen from the Black Sea. And I'm not sure about "hot zones." Most of the hot zones are already hot and there is no real hot zone around the Cape of Good Hope.
I think markets will go haywire under any escalation scenario.
But I certainly agree, it's highly risky in general, although not as risky as trying to intrude a massive intervention force into Ukraine under a PKO guise.
The other risk would be to Western relations with the customers--like India.
Well, hopefully none of them is attempted. But I do think we need to consider other possible Trump moves besides this "peacekeeper" scenario even if we end up thinking they are unlikely. Otherwise we end up with tunnel vision simply based on our willingness to focus on the one scenario that is being talked about extensively.
Agreed. But in all of the legalistic scenarios targetting Russia's ghost fleet which you have mentioned, tankers ferrying oil to Europe will indeed be sunk. There is no going around it, I mean such an outcome is inevitable to my mind. I never said Russia personally will need to do the sinking, or that the Russian navy is the only agency for such an eventuality to materialise. However, I am not the one doing the sinking of either the Russian tankers or those of Europe or Japan, and do not stand to gain or lose either way, so I have no issue with those who believe in either of the alternative outcomes. Sceptics can wait and watch for themselves, and I ain't playing no poker, no bets.
when are we ever going to get any truthful perceptive detailed in depth reporting? who are these Poles who are 'getting fed up' ? Not your ordinary citizen you can bet on that. Because no one gives a hot damn for ordinary citizens.
So who the hell is it?
The whole Polish 'Parliament' ( The Sejm and the Senate) or just part of it?
Or more likely: much more likely, some 'cabinet' within all of that? The 'council of Ministers' ?
Hey? How about some facts? How about sheeting some blame home?
More likely that 'the cabinet' it would be some big mouth in the cabinet manipulated by people external to the government. Or so I'd think. Haven't learned in recent times that seems to be the way all governments work.
In which case who are those operators?
When are we going to stop this specious bullcrap that talks endlessly in terms of 'nations' via their nation names as though they really existed as sentient entities, rational or irrational (noteworthy here that even to be irrational is to be intrinsically rational but momentarily divergent from that 'natural' state) ?
They don't. They aren't.
There is some bunch of guys there who need 'outing'.
There and everywhere else.
Then we can start talking sense and grabbing ahold of the levers.
All of them link to the primary source, and from there you can discover for yourself how the data was complied if you're so inclined.
Nobody produced any comparable analyses of those surveys like I did, all of which are detailed, summarize the results, and interpret them for my audience.
It's incredibly disrespectful of you to start of your comment implying that my work isn't "truthful perceptive detailed in depth reporting".
As the surveys prove, average Poles do indeed feel this way, though not yet a majority of them. Review the data yourself and you'll see.
As for officials, again, you're so dishonest to gaslight when I literally named the officials who commented on this subject. Why would you lie and pretend that I didn't?
I encourage the sharing of contrarian views and court constructive critiques, but what you're doing is intellectually insulting and disrespecting me.
Even worse, by gaslighting in the comments the way that you did, you're trying to deter my audience from reading my hyperlinked materials and even this piece itself in full.
That's unacceptable, and you either need to check your behavior right now or you're going to be blocked. There won't be another warning.
The valiant hero Ramzan Kadyrov should stop taking Poles serving in the Azov battalions as prisoner. Liberate all of them from their shackles of their wordly fate, and liberate Ukraine from the Greater Israeli warlords. During the heydays of insurgency wrought by foreign Uieghur mercenaries in Syria, Israel had flown more than 1000 firebombing sorties with its warplanes over Syria, reducing to ashes civilians and police alike with wanton abandon, burning to death a dozen teenaged cadets at a military academy and razing to rubble a biotech factory that produced import substitution vaccines and lifevsaving anti-cancer medicine. Eventhough not even a single missile had been fired at Israel from Syria by either Hezbollah or the IRCG or Syrian military during those gory days, yet Israel firebombed Syrian civilians and police personnel in wholesale fashion like the bombing of Dresden, under the ostensible pretext of prempting supply chains of Hezbollah in Lebanon, but in reality with the motive of demoralising Syrian defenders and buttressing the dwindling fortunes of Israel's ISIS protege every time the Syrian police and paramilitary platoons went on an concerted offensive against them. Going by the token of that established precedent, Russia will be more than justified in NUT striking the supply chains of Azov battalions on the rail routes and roadways and airports located inside Poland, more especially in view of the fact that Poland as NATO's frontline catspaw has become a conduit for transport of depleted uranium ammunition with its double Whample of radioactive plus chemical hazards to the Ukrainian frontlines, as well as the notorious cluster bombs on Atacams camouflaged in green powder paint to stay concealed for years in farmland foliage, and the fact that missiles transiting through Poland are being used in NATO strikes on Russia's nuclear deterrent infrastructure such as Early warning radars and Beriev Awacs planes, aside from the fact that Polish officers on the ground in NATO camps on Ukrainian soil are actively training forcibly conscripted Ukrainian civilians in the art of war and subjecting them to hazing for compelling them to fight against Russia on Ukrainian-occupied Russian land in Kursk.
In all likelihood, plans are brewing in NATO for a terrorist Maidan style invasion of Belarus for "regime change" masquerading as "revolution" on the lines of Turkish intervention in Syria, with Poland being the launch pad for this incursion by land.
Ramzan Kadyrov has the precedent of Ben Guiron's Israeli example in dealing with "attackers" by expulsion in the form of "Nakba" from conquered and annexed territories in dealing with Poles who are participating in collective NATO aggression against Chechnya, in accordance with a principle which is being held as sacrosanct paradigm in both the western world and the bastion of Islam in Saudi Arabia alike. Following that precedent will fulfill Nostradamus' prediction and desire about bringing Poland under the tender mercies of Islam.
What I find incomprehensible about Poland is how the so-called “conservative-nationalist” President is boasting about his country’s U.S. connections and hosting of its forces. What could be less “nationalist” than openly admitting to one’s country’s complete lack of sovereignty over military affairs?
The Czech premier Fiala, of the so-called “Civic Democratic” Party (what a joke), takes a similar stance, claiming to adhere to some kind of conservatism while simultaneously acting as a complete patsy to a foreign power. The difference is that the guy is so supremely irrelevant that no one hears about this, of course.
What is the matter with the political landscape in these countries? It seems to be subject to total élite capture.
Duh. The "conservative nationalist" tendency is merely posturing. Some American functionary snaps his fingers, and european knees hit the floor with a resounding thud.
Poles ARE independently anti-Russian. Czechs, Slovaks or Hungarians were all parts of the KuK Germanic-Catholic Austro-Hungary, so they were intuitively interested in an orthodox Slavic counterweight to the East.
Poles are different - they've never forgiven themselves for not being able to convert Russia to Catholicism in the 15th to 17th century. Croats are in this respect vis-a-vis Serbs similar to the Poles vs Russians. It's like the Shia-Sunni schism in the Arab world.
Nobody is arguing any of that. The question is whether Poles are independent at all. Even when they pretend to be independent, they aren't.
Current government is so ideologically and biologically linked to the Cathedral you wouldn't speak of independence. However, there are lots of Poles like Brzezinski or Sikorski or Applebaum-Sikorski that actually produced this Cathedral. So it's not imposed from the outside only but a two-way street.
Previous PIS government was partly independent but obviously just as Russophobic. If I understand correctly, most of the Polish military contingent put on leave and then died fighting as "mercenaries" in Ukraine - that happened during the previous PIS government. Fatality metrics have dropped very substantially since change of government.
Well, if Poland wants to keep the Russians out of the European system and prevent any joint German-Russian operations, which has been their #1 geopolitical doctrine for many centuries, and if they are not strong enough to do this themselves, their only hope is the support of the sea hegemon in Washington or London. This of course ended disastrously in the first part of the 20th century, but after the fall of the Soviet system the Poles again adopted this stance, and its rationality could certainly be argued for for the first post-Soviet decades. A small country with gutted elites and elite-producing institutions and with geography such as Poland can't survive long without a "крыша". The pro-U.S. stance is still heavily embedded in the public discourse, even if the elites themselves may have changed their view recently, but they still can't voice that change publicly, hence the continued pro-U.S. rhetoric.
We shall see to what extent the elite has been captured in whether their will yield to Washington's pressure to become directly involved in the war.
As for the silly pretty-sounding party names, I don't think you should single out Poland here. Everywhere you go (big powers such as Russia included) you see the same meaningless "democratic/patriotic/we-are-the-best" slogans everywhere.
Poles don't like Russians since the 1830 insurrection against the tsar. Even national-conservative ones. Hungarians and Slovak national-conservatives are more level-headed.
So, Trump has to traverse a razors edge to get this right it sounds like? Makes my head hurt. If anyone can make it happen, it would be President Trump, but I sure don’t envy him this mess…I’ve sensed that Biden is the worst President in our history, and this whole thing is just a big, steaming pile of further proof of that fact…
Russia needs to scare Trump over Israel like threatening to arm more terrorists to disrupt Israel. Trump will abandon Ukraine immediately!
Trump is the most pro-Israel president ever!
Yes, his moving the embassy to Jerusalem as promised instead of the typical lip service was evidence of that, certainly, but he is also the most anti-war president I ever remember and I’m getting pretty long-in-the-tooth at this point, so that means something as well. Israel must have their own homeland, secure and without interference, but they must also stop killing too. Trump seems to feel that way as well. Pragmatic about something that is layered and complex beyond belief. But for us on the outside, pragmatism seems our only choice. The complexities of it all are almost incomprehensible otherwise.
Trump can't do shit🤣 And he's a fucking dementia riddled idiot🤣😂🤣
Can you please explain what “escalate to deescalate” means, since this term is being thrown around everywhere, not just here, and it would seem self-contradictory (if you are escalating, surely you cannot by definition be deescalating)? Thank you.
I elaborated on it more here:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/heres-what-trumps-peace-plan-might
A good illustration, thank you.
If NATO troops are introduced to the region, assuming it comes to blows (but remains conventional, due to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction), which side do you think would have the upper hand, with the current balance of forces?
I don't foresee any repeated tit-for-tat Russian-NATO conventional strikes remaining limited to Ukraine even if they remain below the nuclear threshold.
A lot of observers imagine that this intervention scenario would lead to some grand World War II-like battle on the Ukrainian plain.
That's not what's likely to happen. What's more probable are long-range tit-for-tat strikes that eventually hit targets outside of Ukraine in Russia and NATO.
From there, the nuclear brinksmanship crisis would likely soon follow, and then there'll either be a de-escalation deal or a nuclear war.
What it also means is that NATO occupied Ukraine will be used as a base for raids into Russia.
>>"That's not what's likely to happen. What's more probable are long-range tit-for-tat strikes that eventually hit targets outside of Ukraine in Russia and NATO."
But what does that have to do with a PKO force? Or is the PKO force, in your imagining, merely a feint to trigger long-range strikes/stealth attacks on Russian air defense, C2 and DIB with which the US thinks it can bludgeon Russia into submission (called a "negotiated peace")? In that scenario, NATO does what Ukraine has wanted to do but on a larger, sustainable scale.
Seems more likely to me that Trump and those who advise him would try to create a scenario in which they could claim justification for targeting Russia's ghost energy fleet on the high seas which Russia has little way of protecting, though that would play havoc with global energy markets. That doesn't require getting unwilling Europeans to ride into the "Valley of Death" and, since Trump just got elected, won't probably run again and the US is relatively insulated from energy problems, it's easier to carry out. Plus we already have the precedent of Nordstream.
I see any such deployment as a tripwire for setting that scenario into motion, but provided that the West has the political will to follow through, which isn't yet certain and events might unfold differently than they expect in any case. I don't foresee them having some major land battle that won't go nuclear and will just end whenever it ends and only remain contained to Ukraine.
While not taking away from your good writeup, the amount of analytical power being expended on this “peacekeeping” talk throughout the corporate media and the blogosphere is incredible. This should have been dismissed at the time it was first uttered as just another Western fever dream.
1) Peacekeepers do not stop a war, they only preserve a peace that has been tentatively established. We are nowhere close to that yet.
2) Peacekeepers are generally deployed in conjunction with a conflict in which neither side can prevail, but in which neither wants to stop fighting. A tenuous “peace” is established by (at least) a cease-fire, and NEUTRAL peacekeepers try to enforce it, mostly by inserting themselves between the combatants. In Ukraine, it is clear that Russia is prevailing, and hence has no incentive to stop fighting. Everyone knows that Ukraine is going to lose.
3) Peacekeepers are supposed to be from neutral countries, and Europeans have amply demonstrated by their actions to date that they are anything but neutral. The West only wants to introduce these “peacekeepers” to fortify the insufficiency of Ukrainian forces. Does anyone truly believe that they would act against Ukraine if, for example, Ukraine decides once again to start lobbing shells into Donetsk City and killing civilians?
This entire idea is nothing more than Europe wanting to “fight without fighting” in the hope that it can help Ukraine “lose without losing.”
I could imagine NATO using the term "peacekeeping force" as a guise for a military intervention regardless of what a true PKO force really is. But the problem is, I can't envision how the pseudo-PKO intervention force is going to be put together and sustained and how it won't lead to massive resistance across a Europe that is already pretty chaotic. And that's before anyone even tried to impose conscription.
Very aptly spoken, Mr PlainBill. Spot on.
It is interesting to note that the main Polish geostrategic think-tank, Strategy&Future, the one which everyone in Poland reads and listens to, the one with many friends in the Pentagon, has recently (past 6-8 months or so) publicly flipped its stance on the fundamental geopolitical direction of Poland. While it has previously hoped for American resources and know-how (South Korea style) to be injected into the region defined by Poland-Romania-Ukraine axis for a sort of Intermarium, a wedge between Germany and Russia to be restored, now they have concluded that that window has closed. Since USA did not move an inch in that direction when it was possible, Poland and the region have lost their geopolitical chance of the century and now Poland's main task is to not become Ukraine 2.0, to not get itself involved in WWIII, to preserve the human lives and human capital even at the cost of loss of independence to Berlin and Moscow. It was until recently unthinkable to hear something like that in the (almost) mainstream discourse in Poland.
EDIT: typos
Good information. Thanks.
I think Russia should "peace keeping forces" ONLY IF (1) they are stationed in the Polish territory pre-WW2, not east of it. (2) Ukraine has no military, only police. Russia will perform inspection. (3) Only non-NATO countries are allowed. Say, India, Russia, Brazil, etc. and only under UN charter. Otherwise, just be polite and firm in the diplomatic language. The result should be determined in the battleground. The war started because diplomatic methods or self-constraints could not resolve the issue.
Indeed, Mr Nakayama.
The only good deal that I see the US and Russia will agree on.
Russia will take over Ukraine, while the US can do whatever it wants in the Middle East except for attacking or invading Iran which will likely develop or already have nuclear deterrence.
Given how Trump's nature of defending Israel, he would take this deal in a heartbeat. Anything related to Israel will get Trump jumping all over the place wrathfully.
Who even cares about what USA does to its stone aged bedpals in the Saracenic peninsula? Those lackeys are America's own problem, or release mannequins whichever way one might like to fathom them as. Kamasutra describes more than a hundred sensuous poses, and there are many more in modern erotic literature for those interested, why would the rest of the world even bother?
The worst feature of media coverage of this "peacekeeper" issue is the recurrent conflation of different scenarios:
1. The entry of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a negotiated settlement.
2. The unilateral entry of a NATO force under guise/rubric of "peacekeepers" in Ukraine (or some part of Ukraine) on some pretext without any negotiated settlement as a pressure tactic. Of course that is a PKO force in name only.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that Russia will reject the first scenario since it runs counter to the very premise and fundamental goals of the "Special Military Operation." And that's assuming we get to actual negotiations any time soon.
The second scenario is simply a casus belli for Russia which it's impossible for me to imagine the Europeans being willing to incur. France and Germany are in political chaos. Poland seems to be retrenching from its former war-enthusiam. The willingness of European publics to support such an operation seems close to nil. They've given much of their equipment and munition stocks to Ukraine already. I'll believe it's credible when I hear that forces and logistics are on the move.
And I'm not sure about this notion of a shift in the "Overton Window" as supposedly indicated by the upsurge of "peacekeeping" talk in the last few weeks. For all we know, it's bluffing and smoke-blowing as a warm-up negotiating tactic by Trump and company aided by a willing media.
The pattern here seems more like the sine curve that has been recurring throughout this war. We had an earlier drumbeat of talk about NATO going into Ukraine also featuring a lot of babbling by Macron about a year or so ago, didn't we? We also had the endless talk about No Fly Zones at the beginning of the war.
Korybko has assessed in earlier pieces that he thinks Putin, given the failure to create alternative financial systems to support the Russian economy long-term, might bend to the very thing he started this war to avoid--NATO occupying up to 2/3 of Ukraine albeit initially under the guise of a PKO force. Well, I'd like to see an assessment of what that does to domestic politics in Russia. Nothing is truly unthinkable. But given how fragile Europe is right now and how unready and unwilling its publics are to do anything like playing chicken with Russia, the scenario in which Putin knuckles under to the "PKO" threat seems hard to credit for me. And the actual execution of it by an almost entirely European force ("Their responsibility!" per Trump's view of the world) seems even more unlikely.
Maybe there could be a Scenario #3 in which a "PKO force" is actually camouflage for what is effectively part of a new partition of Ukraine secretly agreed to by Russia and Trump and company. Not really sure how that would work.
A scenario I have not seen mentioned is one in which Trump and company would engineer a situation in which they would claim justification for targeting Russia's ghost energy fleet on the high seas which Russia has little way of protecting, though that would play havoc with global energy markets. That gambit would not require getting unwilling Europeans to ride into the "Valley of Death" and, since Trump just got elected, won't probably run again and the US is relatively insulated from energy problems, it's easier to carry out. Plus we already have the precedent of Nordstream.
Of course, there are many potential second and third order effects that could stem from such a move and the legal/PR basis is very questionable. But it seems more feasible in a number of ways than the PKO scenario.
Targetting of Russia's ghost fleet will of certainty elicit sinking of Europe's oil tankers. There are plenty of smouldering "hot"zones along the trajectory of oil transport in major international sea lanes to Europe, Eastern mediterranean and Japan, and the players are fairly numerous. Stock markets will go caput.
Yes, I don't mean actually turning weapons on and sinking them. I mean something more legalistic or covert involving some combination of impounding, arresting, bribing, hacking, systems, propulsion sabotage or boarding--enough to gum up the works of energy sales to some appreciable extent that threatens significant economic damage.
Russia is hardly well postured for naval conflict in any case, as we've seen from the Black Sea. And I'm not sure about "hot zones." Most of the hot zones are already hot and there is no real hot zone around the Cape of Good Hope.
I think markets will go haywire under any escalation scenario.
But I certainly agree, it's highly risky in general, although not as risky as trying to intrude a massive intervention force into Ukraine under a PKO guise.
The other risk would be to Western relations with the customers--like India.
Well, hopefully none of them is attempted. But I do think we need to consider other possible Trump moves besides this "peacekeeper" scenario even if we end up thinking they are unlikely. Otherwise we end up with tunnel vision simply based on our willingness to focus on the one scenario that is being talked about extensively.
Agreed. But in all of the legalistic scenarios targetting Russia's ghost fleet which you have mentioned, tankers ferrying oil to Europe will indeed be sunk. There is no going around it, I mean such an outcome is inevitable to my mind. I never said Russia personally will need to do the sinking, or that the Russian navy is the only agency for such an eventuality to materialise. However, I am not the one doing the sinking of either the Russian tankers or those of Europe or Japan, and do not stand to gain or lose either way, so I have no issue with those who believe in either of the alternative outcomes. Sceptics can wait and watch for themselves, and I ain't playing no poker, no bets.
when are we ever going to get any truthful perceptive detailed in depth reporting? who are these Poles who are 'getting fed up' ? Not your ordinary citizen you can bet on that. Because no one gives a hot damn for ordinary citizens.
So who the hell is it?
The whole Polish 'Parliament' ( The Sejm and the Senate) or just part of it?
Or more likely: much more likely, some 'cabinet' within all of that? The 'council of Ministers' ?
Hey? How about some facts? How about sheeting some blame home?
More likely that 'the cabinet' it would be some big mouth in the cabinet manipulated by people external to the government. Or so I'd think. Haven't learned in recent times that seems to be the way all governments work.
In which case who are those operators?
When are we going to stop this specious bullcrap that talks endlessly in terms of 'nations' via their nation names as though they really existed as sentient entities, rational or irrational (noteworthy here that even to be irrational is to be intrinsically rational but momentarily divergent from that 'natural' state) ?
They don't. They aren't.
There is some bunch of guys there who need 'outing'.
There and everywhere else.
Then we can start talking sense and grabbing ahold of the levers.
What in the world are you gaslighting about? Did you even read the analysis that I hyperlinked to?
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-latest-survey-shows-that-poles
It also links to three other related surveys from earlier this year:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/a-top-eu-think-tanks-poll-proved
https://korybko.substack.com/p/what-do-the-latest-surveys-say-about
https://korybko.substack.com/p/interpreting-a-top-eu-think-tanks
All of them link to the primary source, and from there you can discover for yourself how the data was complied if you're so inclined.
Nobody produced any comparable analyses of those surveys like I did, all of which are detailed, summarize the results, and interpret them for my audience.
It's incredibly disrespectful of you to start of your comment implying that my work isn't "truthful perceptive detailed in depth reporting".
As the surveys prove, average Poles do indeed feel this way, though not yet a majority of them. Review the data yourself and you'll see.
As for officials, again, you're so dishonest to gaslight when I literally named the officials who commented on this subject. Why would you lie and pretend that I didn't?
I encourage the sharing of contrarian views and court constructive critiques, but what you're doing is intellectually insulting and disrespecting me.
Even worse, by gaslighting in the comments the way that you did, you're trying to deter my audience from reading my hyperlinked materials and even this piece itself in full.
That's unacceptable, and you either need to check your behavior right now or you're going to be blocked. There won't be another warning.
With pleasure! Why would any self-respecting person allow an anonymous troll to continue gaslighting and insulting them? lol
How pathetic that you're now trying to portray this as a win for you, as if I care what you or anyone else thinks lol
Had you posted this on X, then I'd happily troll you back since I enjoy trolling back my trolls, it's one of my favorite hobbies actually!
But I keep this space clean for people to have respectful and informed discussions, and since you're trashing the place, you gotta go.
Good riddance, and thanks for the chuckles on the way out, your last message was amusing lol
Why do people have to be assholes? Something in their genes🤔 What a ❄
Well... the polish did wanted to be better than the Original NAZIS so no wonder they are so happy to go down this road!
Peace keeping Yeeeaahhh let’s go with that
The valiant hero Ramzan Kadyrov should stop taking Poles serving in the Azov battalions as prisoner. Liberate all of them from their shackles of their wordly fate, and liberate Ukraine from the Greater Israeli warlords. During the heydays of insurgency wrought by foreign Uieghur mercenaries in Syria, Israel had flown more than 1000 firebombing sorties with its warplanes over Syria, reducing to ashes civilians and police alike with wanton abandon, burning to death a dozen teenaged cadets at a military academy and razing to rubble a biotech factory that produced import substitution vaccines and lifevsaving anti-cancer medicine. Eventhough not even a single missile had been fired at Israel from Syria by either Hezbollah or the IRCG or Syrian military during those gory days, yet Israel firebombed Syrian civilians and police personnel in wholesale fashion like the bombing of Dresden, under the ostensible pretext of prempting supply chains of Hezbollah in Lebanon, but in reality with the motive of demoralising Syrian defenders and buttressing the dwindling fortunes of Israel's ISIS protege every time the Syrian police and paramilitary platoons went on an concerted offensive against them. Going by the token of that established precedent, Russia will be more than justified in NUT striking the supply chains of Azov battalions on the rail routes and roadways and airports located inside Poland, more especially in view of the fact that Poland as NATO's frontline catspaw has become a conduit for transport of depleted uranium ammunition with its double Whample of radioactive plus chemical hazards to the Ukrainian frontlines, as well as the notorious cluster bombs on Atacams camouflaged in green powder paint to stay concealed for years in farmland foliage, and the fact that missiles transiting through Poland are being used in NATO strikes on Russia's nuclear deterrent infrastructure such as Early warning radars and Beriev Awacs planes, aside from the fact that Polish officers on the ground in NATO camps on Ukrainian soil are actively training forcibly conscripted Ukrainian civilians in the art of war and subjecting them to hazing for compelling them to fight against Russia on Ukrainian-occupied Russian land in Kursk.
In all likelihood, plans are brewing in NATO for a terrorist Maidan style invasion of Belarus for "regime change" masquerading as "revolution" on the lines of Turkish intervention in Syria, with Poland being the launch pad for this incursion by land.
Ramzan Kadyrov has the precedent of Ben Guiron's Israeli example in dealing with "attackers" by expulsion in the form of "Nakba" from conquered and annexed territories in dealing with Poles who are participating in collective NATO aggression against Chechnya, in accordance with a principle which is being held as sacrosanct paradigm in both the western world and the bastion of Islam in Saudi Arabia alike. Following that precedent will fulfill Nostradamus' prediction and desire about bringing Poland under the tender mercies of Islam.
1. That this is under consideration at all is a testament to Russian dithering and indecision.
2. Nobody will ask Poles or their politicians their opinions.