Very good article. He spells out the current situation well, but I do not agree with his conclusions that the U.S. or the rest of NATO will continue the sanction campaign regardless of the devastating effects it is having on the West.
From my perspective it appears the will to continue this is already starting to crumble and this is likely to pick up speed as the suffering escalates.
The president of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce has already openly spoke out on the need to end sanctions. Macron and Scholz (according to a Ukrainian telegram source) have already devised a Minsk 3 plan that they are trying to push on Zelensky. Germany is blocking the EU 9 billion euro financing plan and the one billion euro IMF loan and not only has Germany been slow walking and delaying shipping to Ukraine the weapons they had previously pledged; but the Defense Minister has denied the previously promised 200 fuchs armoured personnel carriers saying that Germany needed to keep their weapons for their own defense.
The Italian government is in a crisis and may fall and the two main groups there are at odds about continuing to supply Ukraine. And some of the Eastern EU members have been cold to the sanction plan all along because it creates devastating harm for them. Etc., etc., etc.,
People may not recognize it yet; but this whole program is in the process of imploding.
Amazing how quickly warfare technology changes. Just out an interesting article about the latest efforts from that “gas station masquerading as a country”...:-)
I wonder if there was ever anything John McCain was right about...:-)
https://www.space.com/russia-anti-satellite-laser-facility-satellite-photos
Satellites spot construction of Russian anti-satellite laser facility: report
By Brett Tingley published 3 days ago
Anti-satellite technologies are on the rise as space becomes an increasingly vital domain for military activities.
Recent Google Earth images reveal construction at what appears to be a sophisticated laser system at a Russian space facility designed to blind adversary satellites.
The construction is taking place at the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Krona space facility near Zelenchukskaya in Russia’s far southwest, home of the massive RATAN-600 radio telescope. The existence of this new complex was brought to light in an in-depth open source investigation published by The Space Review that analyzed public satellite imagery, solicitation documents from Russian industrial contractors and Russian financial documents.
All of these sources lay out the construction of a project named Kalina, described in the financial documentation obtained by The Space Review as a laser system designed for “electro-optical warfare” that can permanently blind adversarial satellites by shining laser pulses so bright they can damage optical sensors. (This is distinctly different from other lasers known as “dazzlers,” which are aimed at only temporarily blinding optics systems.)
Russian patent and procurement documents reveal that the Kalina laser facility features a separate tracking system with adaptive optics to help it better mitigate atmospheric disturbance. Along with this system, the laser itself features a transmit-receive system to measure laser light reflected back at it from its target in order to better aim directly at the optical systems on its target object.
This “shadow war in space,” as The Washington Post deemed it, is already playing out. Elon Musk wrote in May 2022 that Russia has been “ramping up their efforts” to jam and disrupt signals from SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites. SpaceX recently sent many Starlink terminals to Ukraine to re-establish communication networks and provide emergency internet services in the nation, which Russia invaded in February.
It’s quite possible that ground-based lasers like Russia’s new Kalina system could provide exactly the type of “soft kill” methods described by Chinese researchers — techniques that, unlike “hard kill” methods, don’t create risks for everyone else operating in space.
There is no point for Russia to sign up for Minsk 3 because the first two are still haunting her.
As was the case with the previous agreements, Ukraine is going to violate them since day one, but the media is going to claim that Russia is doing it.
There is no point in any deals in such environment.
Regarding weaponized energy it takes a special kind of stupid to whine about.
Numerous top European leaders declared a total economic war on Russia, stating that they are going to stop the gas import as quick as possible.
Once the flow stopped, according to the Russian statement due to valuable equipment withheld due to sanctions and the facts on the ground confirm it, they scream ‘energy weapon’, instead of assuming responsibility for own actions.
Bottom line is that the European claims of alternative sources are mostly of symbolic nature. The US and Australia a decreasing gas exports due to domestic shortages, and Arabs do not want to invest trillions into idiots whose goal is to switch to renewables in ten years.
Russia at the same time is rather effective in diverting the European sales and it makes Euros frustrated as hell, except they don’t have any viable options.
one option to continue the sanction regime and escalate further would be to keep pushing russia until it provokes a response that provides the excuse for going to fully open direct war (not that we aren’t now unofficially in a limited way, and apparently bragging about it)
done right, it could solve the pesky election problem in november too. I suspect that is a central factor in timing, actually.