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NATO's Losing Proxy War In Ukraine

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Tuesday, Sep 26, 2023 - 12:14
Destroyed Bradleys and Leopards in Ukraine
German-supplied Leopard tanks and American-supplied Bradley Fighting Vehicles destroyed during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Image via the Russian Ministry of Defense. 

Losing The Proxy War In The Ukraine

Entrepreneur, journalist, and publisher Ron Unz has just posted an article breaking down the state of the Russia-Ukraine War as he sees it (NATO's Losing Proxy War in Ukraine). In typical Unz fashion, it's very long, so here is a summary of it. 

  1. Impact of Nord Stream Destruction: Unz recalls the massive underwater explosions destroyed most of the $30 billion Russian-German Nord Stream Pipelines and notes it was a significant act of industrial terrorism and an act of war against Germany. He talks about the economic impact this has had on Germany, and says it may ultimately lead to a fracturing of NATO.
    Lawrence Wilkerson has had a distinguished mainstream career, serving as the longtime chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and in a lengthy interview a couple of days ago he foresaw the loss of America’s German ally and the dissolution of NATO. If that 76 year alliance does disintegrate, future historians will surely point to the Nord Stream pipeline attacks as the crucial triggering event. Western media possesses an awesome power of illusion, but Reality usually has the final say.

  2. Military Situation in Ukraine: Unz quotes a report by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh that the situation on the ground is worse that Western media have portrayed:

    “It’s all lies,” the official said, speaking of the Ukrainian claims of incremental progress in the offensive that has suffered staggering losses, while gaining ground in a few scattered areas that the Ukrainian military measures in meters per week. [...] The American intelligence official I spoke with spent the early years of his career working against Soviet aggression and spying has respect for Putin’s intellect but contempt for his decision to go to war with Ukraine and to initiate the death and destruction that war brings. But, as he told me, “The war is over. Russia has won. There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going.
  3. Poland Abandoning Ukraine. Unz sees this as further evidence that the military situation for Ukraine has deteriorated:
    Public events seemed to quickly confirm the accuracy of the grim Ukraine war prognosis reported by Hersh. Poland has always been intensely hostile to Russia, so from the beginning of the fighting, the Warsaw government had been the strongest and most enthusiastic backer of Ukraine’s military effort, by some accounts even secretly sending many thousands of its own troops into combat. But Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has now declared that his country would provide no additional military aid, underscoring his position with remarkably undiplomatic language:

  4. Armaments Production: Unz cites the recent New York Times report that Russia is now producing more artillery shells than the West combined:

    Western officials also believe Russia is on track to manufacture two million artillery shells a year — double the amount Western intelligence services had initially estimated Russia could manufacture before the war. As a result of the push, Russia is now producing more ammunition than the United States and Europe. Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West.
    Unz adds:
    When I first saw that claim by a senior NATO Defense official that “Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West,” I wondered whether some ridiculous misprint had slipped past the copy-editors of our national newspaper of record; but the figure seems absolutely correct. 
    Unz refers to a Fox Business interview with Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s weapons acquisition chief, who says we're producing 28,000 shells per month today, while, Unz notes, Russia is producing 170,000. 

  5. Hypersonic Missiles: Russia isn't only outproducing us in artillery shells, but, Unz points out, they're also producing hypersonic missiles that are impossible to defend against:

    A few days ago, a Ukrainian missile strike damaged the Crimea headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, an operation that almost certainly required NATO reconnaissance and intelligence support, legally making the alliance a co-belligerent in the conflict. The Russians could announce tomorrow that they will retaliate by using a conventionally-armed hypersonic missile to demolish the NATO headquarters in Brussels, even providing the exact hour and minute of the planned attack so as to minimize any resulting loss of life, and from what I’ve read none of our lavishly-funded missile defenses could save the doomed building from its fate.

  6. The Firing of Michael "Sarah" Ashton-Cirillo. Unz highlights a post by Andrew Anglin about the implications of the Ukrainians firing their American transgender spokesperson:

    This seems to demonstrate that the Ukraine propaganda agenda is on the backfoot. After the murder of Alexander Dugin’s daughter, and the bombing of a journalist, Vladlen Tatarsky, at a coffee shop in Saint Petersburg, the Ukraine state made these exact same threats, saying they were going to kill more and more journalists and writers who say things against them. Obviously, the goal of murdering journalists is to create a chilling effect, where people are scared to criticize you. When I was on Twitter, a lot of people were saying they were going to hunt me down and kill me for criticizing the war. I’m like “lol, ok.” But I could see even that situation – just internet death threats – causing a lot of people to stop speaking out against the war. It’s really gross behavior, and not the mark of a winner. But it’s something Ukraine has done consistently, so the fact that they are punishing this tranny and doing damage control shows that they’re feeling the heat.
    To highlight the absurdity of the situation, Unz closes by quoting one of Anglin's commenters named "Robertson"
    If in 2015 you would have told me the US would have given over 100 Billion in aid to a military “ally” in a hot war with Russia that had an American transsexual wearing an obvious wig as its spokesperson issuing death threats to journalists covering the war for not lying about it, all with our approval, I’d have told you that you are drinking way too much, but now it’s hard to imagine things being any other way.

It seems even more absurd that Republicans would continue to finance this war with what's going on on our southern border.

Maybe they'll finally come to their senses. Let's wrap this up with a brief trading note.

Timing A Trade Entry 

In a post yesterday, we mentioned a technical indicator we've found useful in timing entries into positions, Relative Strength Index.

We've got an attractive long candidate on our watch list, one with solid fundamentals as well as a strong chart. 

Relative Strength Index is one of the indicators we'll be using (along with Portfolio Armor's gauge of options market sentiment) to time an entry into this one. If you'd like a heads up when we place that trade, be sure to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below if you haven't already. 

 

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