This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

All is not well in the mud huts of Moscow. “It’ll be easy he said, we’ll just walk right in.” Reports say the Ukrainians shot down six Russian fighter jets and six helicopters, on the first night. Get out your scratch pads, each fighter jet costs 100 million dollars wholesale. Plus, six helicopters, ditto. It means they’re burning through some rubles and hardware real quick down there. Now, throw your minds all the way back to the Bush wars. Remember when the US lost six fighter jets and six helicopters, in one night? Right, me neither.

As an amateur armchair strategist, how many fighter jets did you assign for an operation like Ukraine? Twenty-five maybe, or fifty? Because you just lost more than 10% of your force on the first night. And as I listened on the second night, the skies were mainly quiet from fighter jets. And that told me the Ukrainians probably did shoot down six Russian fighters. And then someone in the Russian Air force said, that it was time to try plan B. As an arms broker selling Russian fighter jets, how’s your day looking?

I keep hearing reporters, Europeans reporters mainly. Pressing politicians to do more to stop Russia, without offering any suggestions as to what that might be. “Why, you ought to! Boy, if I were in your shoes, I know what I’d do!” Asking, “are we just that powerless to stop Vladimir Putin? Sanctions are no good, you gotta do something immediately!” One reporter was so insistent, that I wanted to email him and let him know, the Ukrainians were passing out weapons and helmets. And accepting volunteers if he was that willing. They’ll take anybody, even pudgy reporters with a $200 haircut and $400 Gugi scarves around their necks.

The question is not are we powerless to stop Putin. The question is what day is a good day for you, to start WWIII? Here is a word that strikes fear in the hearts of Russian Generals, and makes the blood drain from their faces…Finland. A failed Russian incursion, so poorly planned and prosecuted, as to encourage the Germans to attack them at the first opportunity. And then, we all remember the very successful Russian/Afghan operation.

It was supposed to be Blitzkrieg; it was supposed to be over and done by now. You send in your strike forces and knock them out before they know what’s happening. But if they still know what is happening after 48 hours? The planned has failed. If this was supposed to be the Russian version of “Shock and Awe” I’m shocked, but certainly not awed. Tanks running over a civilian car, for what? Slow day in the Armored Personnel Carrier? Artillery dropping rounds on an apartment complex. “Oh, that’s real good boys! Just the way we practiced.” Dud missiles as street ornaments, for the locals to stand next to and get their pictures taken with.

Reporters with absolutely no grasp of history. Asking “What good will passing out 18,000 Kalashnikovs do? The Russian have tanks!” The original Russian idea was to strike from the Belarus border, straight into Kyiv. Decapitate the government, declare victory, and name some Moscow stooge to head the new government. A city can devour an army in one bite. Foolish is the general that leads his forces into Kyiv grad armed with 18,000 Kalashnikovs in the hands of the untrained.

Russian forces attacked a key air base north of the Kyiv. The Russians were going to use that base as a staging area for an aerial assault of Kyiv. Their strike forces took the base and then the Ukrainians pushed them back out. The Russians eventually retook the base, but either, the base is now too damaged to use. Or the Russian don’t feel safe in trying to use it. Strike forces or Seal teams are designed to take an objective, and you hold it until reinforced. And it appears, that those reinforcements were too slow in coming.

I don’t want to be that guy who goes around saying mines bigger than yours, but I seem  to remember videos of cruise missiles flying through open windows. And blowing up the Iraqi military ministry, within 20 minutes of the first shot being fired.

It could be, even more than the Ukrainians that Vladimir Putin’s biggest fear now, should be of failure. The bully trying to act tough, that ain’t all that tough after all. Their failed plan was to decapitate Kyiv, devolves down to the grind. Six of yours for four of ours. The overpowering might of the Russian army, will eventually prevail down to an Afghan-Vietnam style insurgency. Fueled and funded by an aggrieved world. If the Ukrainians could shoot down six fighter jets and six helicopters in one night, imagine what NATO could do in a weekend?

But the Russian have tanks! Yes, but they must step outside them from time to time, to pee. Passing out the rifles was genius. He was signaling Moscow to get ready; that the long game has already begun. And strangely, he spoke from a position of power because the Russian plans of quick victory have failed, and he knows it. During the German occupation of France, and elderly woman spent her days, tripping German officers with her crutches on the steps of the Paris Metro, times 33 million. Census takers getting their heads blown off or Russian officers ambushed in a street Café.

And just think, Putin paid for this. Or will pay for this. Or as Admiral Yamamoto once never said, “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.” I don’t think Vlad planned on the whole world except for Twump and the Republicans, turning on him and isolating him. Setting back the Russian economy decades and setting Russia back politically, seventy-five years. For him now, every step forward is a step back.

I said to myself yesterday, if Putin puts out peace feelers this is going badly for him. They were drug addled Neo-Nazis and he was going to cleanse Ukraine of these Nazis, once and for all! But now, he’s ready to talk. And Even Pro Moscow Donald Twump has shut up.

The world is outraged by Putin’s threats, and Putin has made himself villain number one on the world stage. With history as our guidepost, that is an untenable place to be. A place that makes it hard to buy life insurance. “Have you ever started a war of aggression that failed, leading to a deadly insurgency?” Why doesn’t Saddam write me anymore?

The Ukrainians can’t win, but they don’t have to win. Like George Washington, they simply have to stay in the field, they never could win. But the Russians could certainly lose. In any circumstance, Ukraine is now an unavoidable open sore in the heart of Europe. And maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday soon, will be addressed because it must be. Either by the Russian government itself, or by NATO. As the list of former leaders ejected after a military incursion has failed is a long one.

NATO prefers to use the Mike Tyson method. Boxer Iron Mike once said, “Everybody has got a plan, till you punch them in the head!” Putin has tried to show the world how strong he was and has now proved to the world, the opposite.