Articles by Larry Johnson

By Larry Johnson at Sonar21.com
(Credit: Alcides Antunes)
It gives me no joy to write this, but it must be said — the FBI is a broken law enforcement institution and should be dismantled. I believe the same about the CIA, but that’s a topic for another day.
Based on the FBI’s conduct over the last eight years, I find no reason to trust anything that FBI officials say with respect to the recent attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Yes, I think both acts qualify as terrorism, but I have little confidence that we are getting, or will get, the true story.
I worked closely with the FBI during my time in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism at the Department of State (1989 -1993).

During my first months on the job, I was one of two State officers writing country clearance cables regarding the investigation of the bombing of Pan Am 103, i.e., a message to one of our embassies requesting permission for FBI agents to conduct an investigation in a particular country.

In addition, I worked on exercises and real-world missions with members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team who served as members of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (aka FEST).
I also had the privilege of coordinating with Floyd Clarke, who was the Deputy Director of the FBI, on implementing an advertising campaign for the Terrorism Rewards Program. The FBI agents I worked with were honorable, professional men. They were apolitical.

That is not the case today. The leadership of the FBI has become a gang of partisan, political hacks. What is the evidence?
Let’s start with the Russiagate investigation, which was the first big warning sign for me. The FBI, working with the CIA and the United Kingdom’s MI-6, carried out a deliberate operation to sabotage the campaign and subsequent Presidency of Donald Trump.
The FBI knowingly lied on multiple FISA warrants and suffered no consequences.

Even after Trump’s surprising victory, the FBI — conspiring with the Department of Justice — manufactured a crime to destroy Trump’s National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn.
Mike committed no crime, but was saddled with criminal charges that bankrupted him financially and defamed his reputation.
Then there was the Hunter Biden laptop. My friend, JP Mac Isaac, was the unfortunate soul who received two damaged computers from Hunter Biden.

Despite repeated attempts to contact Hunter and have him retrieve his property, JP became the rightful owner of the hard drives — by virtue of abandonment — per the work agreement that Hunter signed.
JP and his dad, Steve, made repeated attempts to contact the FBI to turn over the hard drives. It was only in December 2017 that the FBI finally showed up and took possession.
But, instead of conducting an investigation of the ample evidence of criminal activity present on the hard drive, the FBI buried it.

The FBI turned into an American version of the Stasi in the events leading up to and surrounding January 6. There was a legion of FBI informants in the crowd who had one mission — create a riot and a predicate crime for arresting Trump supporters.
The subsequent persecution and prosecution of Trump supporters conjured up images of political purges associated with the reign of Joseph Stalin. The FBI, in my opinion, became adept at creating crimes rather than solving them.

Over the past two years, several FBI whistleblowers came forward to raise the alarm about the criminal misconduct of their leaders but, instead of being celebrated, they faced retaliation, including losing their jobs.

All of my retired FBI buddies, guys and one gal (Coleen Rowley), are sickened by what has become of an organization they were once proud to be a part of. I think the downward slide started with Louis Freeh and the decline accelerated as the FBI partisan political outfit under Robert Mueller and Jim Comey.
I did my own video today discussing the latest news regarding the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
Maybe these were nothing more than isolated incidents.
But I cannot rule out the possibility that these two attacks are part of something darker — a threat to our Republic hatched by insiders. Senator John Kennedy promises there will be an accounting. I hope he is right. […]

Real life is better than the movies. No doubt. Today’s surprise comes out of Moscow, with an announcement from the State organization charged with investigating major crimes that the Ukrainian company Burisma was involved with financing terrorists:
Russia’s top investigative body announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior officials in the United States and NATO member countries who are suspected of “financing terrorism.”
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it has “established” that money from commercial organizations had been used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia in recent years, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. . . .
The top law enforcement body named the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the implicated organizations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden served as a member of Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019.

So, what’s the big deal. We already knew about Hunter. What does that have to do with the CIA? Does the name Cofer Black ring a bell?
International Energy Group Burisma has expanded its Board of Directors to include an expert in the field of security and strategic development. Joseph Cofer Black, a former Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and Ambassador at Large for counter-terrorism recently joined the Board as an independent director at Burisma Group. Ambassador Black resigned from public service in 2005 after a 30 year career  and is considered a  leading expert and significant figure on  U.S. and international security issues.  
How about that. A career CIA officer, with no experience in the oil and gas industry beyond pumping gas for his own vehicles, gets a sweet spot on a board alongside Hunter Biden. Before joining the board of Burisma, Mr. Black snagged a spot on the board of a Latvian Bank:

The extraordinary meeting of the shareholders of joint-stock company Baltic International Bank (‘the Bank’) was held on 11 October 2016 where decisions on changes in the composition of the Bank’s Supervisory Board were adopted.
Joseph Cofer Black has been invited to join the existing members of the Bank’s Supervisory Board– Valērijs Belokoņs, Vlada Belokoņa, Andris Ozoliņš and Dr. Hans – Friedrich Von Ploetz – as of November 1, 2016.
Cofer Black’s ostensible qualification for serving on the Bank’s board was his background in counter terrorism. In an interview with DELFI, a business magazine, Cofer claimed expertise in terrorist financing:
What does counterterrorism have in common with banking? How much time do you have? Actually [they are] shockingly similar. I spent the last 12 years of my time [at the CIA] in counterterrorism, but before that I worked in other fields [of intelligence]. An important thing in counterterrorism is what we now call financial counterterrorism. At the beginning of my career, there was little if any combating of terrorism in the financial area. It was my responsibility, but I wasn’t very eager to get into it, because it’s timeconsuming, labor-intensive and expensive. In that time you are trying to outsmart and stop terrorists before they kill people.
Turns out, Cofer was of no help to the Latvian bank on this issue. In 2018 the bank was fined:

Latvia’s financial regulator, the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FKTK) said December 6 it was imposing a 1.5 million euro fine on Baltic International Bank (BIB) “for deficiencies in the Bank’s internal control system.”. . .
“In 2018 the FKTK carried out an on-site inspection of the Bank, as well as a targeted inspection, during which the FCMC identified that the Bank’s internal control system does not fully comply to the regulatory requirements governing the prevention of money laundering and terrorism and proliferation financing (hereinafter – AML/CTPF),” the FKTK said.
“The Bank had not established an adequate internal control system to meet its risks in the field of prevention of money laundering and terrorism and proliferation financing, which would ensure effective compliance with the regulatory requirements,” it added, explaning that “in several cases” the bank had not taken sufficient measures to make certain that a beneficial owner indicated was the beneficial owner; had not obtained documentation and had not taken necessary measures to make certain of the origin of financial means in its customer accounts and had not documented conclusions; had not ensured appropriate and high-quality enhanced customer due diligence; had not duly decided on termination of business relationships with customers and, in a particularly damning comment “had not paid sufficient and special attention to untypical large, complex, inter-related transactions with no apparent economic purpose or clear legal purpose.”
Going back to the charges leveled by Russia’s Investigative Committee, if Cofer Black was on the Burisma Board during the time that Burisma funds were being transferred to groups with ties to terrorists, then it is quite understandable that Russia will be inclined to believe the CIA is implicated, at least indirectly, in terrorist attacks in Russia. Too bad that Latvian bank did not hire me and my partner instead of Cofer. We actually wrote and implemented compliance programs for banks and investment firms that kept them out of this kind of trouble. I can’t wait to see the evidence.
A couple of interesting and unusual interviews today. The first was with Marcos Soares, a Brazilian who lives and works in Italy. The second was with Sarah at DD Geopolitics. We discussed CIA links to terrorist organizations.

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Even though a growing number of Western elites are awakening to the reality that Ukraine is headed for defeat and will drag NATO along with it, the so-called intellectual cognoscenti of foreign policy, like the editorial board of the NY Times, continue to indulge fantasies and delusions. They conclude a Sunday editorial pleading for more money for Zelensky and the losing cause with this:
Mr. Trump and his followers may argue that the security of Ukraine, or even of Europe, is not America’s business. But the consequence of allowing a Russian victory in Ukraine is a world in which authoritarian strongmen feel free to crush dissent or seize territory with impunity. That is a threat to the security of America, and the world.
The Washington and New York establishments continue to insist that Vladimir Putin is an “authoritarian strongman.” I have one word of advice — look in the damn mirror and pay attention to what is happening in the United States before you mount your moral high horse and gallop off to lecture other countries on democracy and human rights.
When I read the penultimate sentence in the paragraph above I asked myself the question, “How many political prisoners are there in Russia?” I was not surprised by the answer.

“For political prisoners, the situation is often worse, because the state aims to additionally punish them, or additionally isolate them from the world, or do everything to break their spirit,” Vaypan said. His group counts 680 political prisoners in Russia.
Guess what? The United States has prosecuted (and persecuted) twice as many political prisoners than Russia.
In the three years since the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,265 defendants across nearly all 50 states and D.C. and secured sentences of incarceration for more than 460 people, according to newly released numbers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.
In remarks Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland described the Justice Department’s sprawling probe of the Capitol attack as “one of the largest and most complex and resource-intensive investigations in our history.”
None of these numbers capture the lawfare assault on former President Trump and many of the people who served in key positions during his administration. The Biden Administration routinely chastises many other countries — most recently India — for prosecuting political opponents. Talk about lack of self-awareness and irony.

So spare me the nonsense about Russia being a soul crushing attack on personal liberty while claiming the United States is the bastion of freedom and justice. It is a lie. And I say that without delving into the Federal Government’s collaboration with social media to attack conservatives and censor articles and persons who are not in line with Biden’s woke agenda, as thoroughly documented by the reporting of Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi. Then there is the proven case of the Biden Administration’s attack on scientists and physicians who challenged the specious CDC claims and remedies for COVID is just another glaring example of the putrid authoritarianism emanating from Washington, DC.
Here is part two of my discussion with Nima. We focus on the implications for NATO and Secretary of State Blinken’s crazy claim that Ukraine will get to join the NATO club.

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I have to comment on an article written by Owen Matthews in the U.K. version of The Spectator — Putin may seem confident – but Russia’s future is bleak. The lunacy reflected in this piece helps explain why the Brits are so lost as they struggle to come to grips with the fact that Putin is kicking their pompous asses.
Mr. Matthews starts with this nonsense:
And yet, as he prepares for his fifth term, the truth is that Putin is a hollow tsar. He invaded Ukraine to assert Russia’s greatness in its backyard as well as on the international stage. Instead, the war showed that Putin’s much-vaunted army is incapable of defeating a far smaller Ukrainian force. Instead of halting Nato expansion, he has massively extended it to formerly neutral Sweden and Finland. The invasion has erased key sectors of the Russian economy (notably gas exports and automotives), brought foreign investment to an abrupt halt and made Russia an economic vassal of China.
The war has forced up to a million of the country’s best educated and brightest into exile and broken the Kremlin’s implicit contract with Russia’s elites that they would be able to enrich themselves and enjoy their earnings unhindered in exchange for political submission. Most fatefully, war has allowed Putin and the elderly securocrats who surround him to fulfil a dream that many old men may aspire to but very few achieve – to create a future that reflects an idealised version of their country’s past.

Take your pick in selecting the most absurd Matthew’s claim. My favorite is, “The invasion has erased key sectors of the Russian economy (notably gas exports and automotives), brought foreign investment to an abrupt halt and made Russia an economic vassal of China.” Is Matthew’s really this misinformed or is he just a corrupt propagandist who will type what he is told by the MI-6 propaganda team.
Not only has the Special Military Operation energized and dramatically expanded the military industrial sector of Russia, but the rest of the economy is purring along just fine. The war has not “erased” Russia’s gas exports, it has redirected them and expanded them. And then there is the fact that many of the Europeans continue to buy Russian gas, only paying a premium through third-party brokers and ravaging their own economies with inflation. Yes, Western foreign investment has stopped and Russia, without missing a step produced over 4% growth in the last quarter. Poor, poor Russia.
Unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, Russia has not off-shored its industrial capabilities to other countries, like China. And Russia’s own ample supply of oil, gas, aluminum, coal, uranium, bauxite, nickel and rare earth minerals means that it does not have to rely on some prickly foreign country or entity to keep its civilian and military industries churning out product.

The most important result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that it has exposed NATO as a hollow shell. NATO’s supposedly superior tanks and artillery have been decimated on the Ukrainian steppes and exposed as expensive prima donnas that require expensive maintenance and are unreliable in combat conditions. I guess Mr. Matthews did not see the video of the British Challenger tank stuck in the mud. This video is emblematic of the sorry state of the British military.

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The depth of Matthew’s ignorance and hypocrisy is revealed in the following two paragraphs:
But the most significant part of Putin’s speech was not what he said about the war in Ukraine but how little time he devoted to it – just 15 minutes of two hours. The rest was focused on his domestic programme, addressing everything from fixing a deepening demographic crisis to replacing crumbling infrastructure, improving health and education and providing funding for science and research. The nuts and bolts, in short, of everyday administration. And his main message was aimed not at Russia’s wealth creators or elites but squarely at the budzhetniki – the tens of millions of state employees, military and security personnel, pensioners and bureaucrats who rely on the Kremlin for their income and who form the backbone of Putin’s support.
The key question for his political survival is how long he will be able to pay to keep these people onside. Few of the bullish economic forecasts that Putin made in his speech stand up to close scrutiny. Yes, Russian GDP nominally rose more than any G7 country last year. The average Russian household ended 2023 with about 18 per cent more money in the bank than a year earlier. Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-controlled bank, posted a 5.5-fold year-on-year net profit jump to a record high of 1.5 trillion rubles ($16.3 billion). The defence industry employs 3.5 million people and many factories have doubled their workforce since the beginning of the war. But this apparent economic boom is really due to a massive increase of state spending on the war – a form of military Keynesianism that is swallowing 40 per cent of the state budget, and close to 10 per cent of Russia’s GDP.
That’s a hoot. According to Matthews Russia is only experiencing economic prosperity because of defense spending and it is starting to run a “deficit.” Russia is a piker compared to the the United States, which is 35 trillion dollars in the hole (and climbing), has a one trillion dollar defense budge (okay, $900 billion to be precise), no longer produces tanks, failed to produce a functional hypersonic missile, incapable of matching Russia’s output of artillery shells and has become largely a service economy. The latter means the U.S. is no longer an industrial powerhouse.
I think Owen Matthews is going through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief as he struggles to come to grips with the defeat of Ukraine. He is in the “denial” stage. Next up — anger then bargaining. He has a ways to go to get to “acceptance.” […]

Vince Flynn Thanks Me
Judge Napolitano was the inspiration for doing this post. He wrote an excellent piece in the Daily Wire last week commenting on the apparent collapse of the criminal case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks. The Judge wrote:
As the pre-trial hearings in the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who are charged with masterminding the 9/11 attacks proceed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, the government continues to stumble with its own witnesses. In hearings last week, government lawyers tried to demonstrate that statements the defendants made to CIA and FBI agents were voluntary.
When the government’s principal torturer, a now-retired psychologist, had difficulty recalling that during a torture session he threatened one of his victims by offering to slit the throat of the victim’s young son and that he had recounted that threat under oath in previous testimony, it became apparent to all in the courtroom and to those of us who monitor these awful proceedings that the government was encountering a strange and unexpected difficulty in defending the behavior of its torturers.
The Judge’s judicial instincts are spot on. But there is much more to this story. The American public, and much of the world, have been bamboozled into believing that torture is an effective interrogation technique. It is not. It is counter productive.
Hollywood and novelists have played a key role in my view of popularizing torture as a necessary evil. The TV show, 24, featuring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, routinely relied to torture to get info out of terrorists. Hell, even Supreme Court Justice Scalia, when he was alive, believed Jack Bauer had the right to torture:
“Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.
“So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”

Then there is the late Vince Flynn. As you can see from the image posted at the top of this piece, I was friends with Vince — at least until he because famous — and helped him with his first five books. His views on torture are his own. I suggested otherwise, but he explains his thinking in this interview with Robert Bidinotto:
Flynn: Yes. Here’s where I sit. It’s real simple. If al Qaeda signed the Geneva Convention, put on a uniform, stuck their flag in the ground, and said, “Let’s meet on the battlefield,” I would say: “Absolutely. Torture—you can’t do it. Period. End of discussion.” But we have an enemy that won’t put on a uniform, has not signed the Geneva Convention, hides behind men, women, and children, and then attacks men, women, and children—civilians.
I think it’s a joke that we are even having this debate, as a nation. I think that torture should take place only for high-value targets where we know they are withholding information that could help us bust up cells, financing, organization, and possible operations.
The problem is that because we are a civilized society, and because we’ve lost our mooring—we’ve lost our attachment to our Judeo-Christian beliefs—we’ve gone off on this little safari with PC. We think that we have to say things so that people will think, “He’s smart, he’s compassionate, he cares, he’s got a good heart.” The reality is that if you were to ask the American people, “When Mitch Rapp starts to torture some bad guy who knows where the nuke is, are you sitting there in the privacy of your home crying and saying, ‘Please stop torturing this guy’? Or are you saying, ‘Get him, Mitch! Get the information out of him!’”
Vince violated the Gannon Rule. Dick Gannon was my boss at State CT. He was a retired Marine Colonel and Vietnam Combat vet. He was fond of saying, “If it feels really good it is probably wrong.” What I tried to tell Vince was no matter how emotionally satisfying torturing a bad guy is for the purpose of entertaining an audience, in the real world it is counter productive and fails to produce reliable intelligence.

Unfortunately, most of the world labors under the false belief fostered by the Jack Bauers and Vince Flynns that the CIA is skilled and practiced in the art of torture. That is a lie. The opposite is true. The CIA training program for case officers offered zero instruction in torture or interrogation. The primary mission of a CIA operations officer is to recruit foreigners to spy for us — i.e., to commit treason against their own country. This process is a seduction, not coercion. If you have convinced someone to betray their country or their cause it better not be based on anger at you for inflicting pain or threatening to harm loved ones. That is a recipe for getting screwed over by your recruited source.
The CIA operations training course at its primary facility in the United States focused on identifying and recruiting sources. Interrogation or sweating a suspect for information is not part of that training. That is why the CIA, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, turned to two contract psychologists — James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen — to come up with an interrogation program to use on suspected terrorists. This turned out to be a lethal clown show because neither Mitchell nor Jessen “had any experience as an interrogator, any knowledge of al Qaeda, or any science to justify their methods.” They apparently were avid fans of Vince Flynn.
I credit people like former FBI Agent Ali Soufan with trying to bring some sanity to the CIA interrogation program. Unfortunately, he was ignored, smeared and became a target of CIA officers eager to discredit him.
I explain the backstory on much of this in the following video. Enjoy.

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If you’re under 55 years of age you probably never heard of EF Hutton. Hutton, a brokerage, made quite a name for itself with a series of ads that carried the tag-line, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” Here is one example:

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So pay careful attention to Putin’s warning to the West during his annual “The State of Russia” speech.
Putin noted that while accusing Russia of plans to attack NATO allies in Europe, Western allies were “selecting targets for striking our territory” and “talking about the possibility of sending a NATO contingent to Ukraine.”
“We remember the fate of those who sent their troop contingents to the territory of our country,” the Russian leader said in an apparent allusion to the failed invasions by Napoleon and Hitler. “Now the consequences for the potential invaders will be far more tragic.”
In a two-hour speech before an audience of lawmakers and top officials, Putin cast Western leaders as reckless and irresponsible and declared that the West should keep in mind that “we also have the weapons that can strike targets on their territory, and what they are now suggesting and scaring the world with, all that raises the real threat of a nuclear conflict that will mean the destruction of our civilization.”
Putin’s remarks were not “off-the-cuff.” It was a carefully crafted message directed specifically at Biden and NATO leaders and came in the wake off French President Macron’s incredibly tone-deaf speech earlier in the week:
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not “ruled out” in the future after the issue was debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris, as Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds into a third year.
The French leader said that “we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war” after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials.
“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” Macron said in a news conference at the Elysee presidential palace.
Macron was not the only European leader with a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease. Olaf Scholz did his share to sow more NATO disunity. While he strongly dismissed Macron’s claim that Europe would deploy troops to Ukraine, he threw the U.K. and France under the bus:
Speaking to journalists in Berlin earlier this week, Scholz justified his continued refusal to send Germany’s Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying it could require German troops in Ukraine to program them.
That would — in Scholz’s view — make Germany an active participant in the conflict.
“This is a very far-reaching weapon,” Scholz said of the Taurus. “And what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany.”

Besides Putin’s clear warning to the NATO alliance that it is playing with potential nuclear fire, Russia’ s intelligence service leaked a stunning conversation between German military officers who were discussing plans to attack Russia. According to the transcript, a conversation took place on February 19, 2024 among Grafe (department head for operations and exercises at the Air Force Forces Command of the Bundeswehr), Gerhartz (Bundeswehr Air Force Inspector), Fenske and Frohstedte (employees of the Air Operations Command within the Space Operations Center of the Bundeswehr). There was a detailed discussion of using German missiles to attack targets in Russia, such as the Kerch Bridge in Crimea. You can read the full transcript here.

This was not an accidental leak. It was intended to put the West on notice that Russia is fully aware of what NATO officials across the alliance are saying to each other and is aware of plans to attack Russian targets. This leak coupled with Putin’s remarks the previous day is an unmistakable warning to the West that it is approaching a red-line that, if crossed, will require a strong Russian response. Such a response could include destroying NATO bases used to launch attacks on Russia. Putin is not bullsh*tting. He is serious and the gravity of the matter is underscored by Putin giving the green light to leak intercepted conversations of NATO officers to the media. The West better pay close attention. […]

David Glantz and Jonathan House did mankind a service when they delved into Soviet Army archives and produced a must read about World War Two — When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. This book is not just about the earthshaking events from 80 years ago, when the Soviets shrugged off initial devastating losses and proceeded to eviscerate the German Wehrmacht in the course of the war on the Eastern front. The book is still relevant because it provides an understanding of Russia’s approach to military planning and combined arms that is unfolding in Ukraine.
I was particularly struck by the authors’ account of the Operation Citadel aka the Battle of Kursk because of the parallels with Ukraine’s failed 2023 counter offensive. For starters, both the Soviets of 1943 and the Russians of 2023 knew that there was an impending “offensive” or “counter-offensive.” Neither the Germans of 1943 nor the Ukrainians of 2023 made any efforts to obscure their intent to launch a major offensive.
Then there is the matter of defensive entrenchments. The Soviets constructed hundreds of miles of trenches and fighting positions in depth along the expected axis of attack. The Russians erected what is commonly known as the Surovikin lines — a series of defensive structures 30 kilometers deep and spread across a hundred mile front. These Soviet and Russian entrenchments proved effective in defeating the respective Nazi and Ukrainian offensives.
The biggest take away from the Glantz/Houseman book is the difference between a Soviet “war footing” and the current Russian “Special Military Operation.” While modern day Russia is applying some of the planning and operational principles exercised by the Soviet Stavka during WW II, Russia has not fully mobilized nor has it unleashed the kind of firepower associated with Soviet attacks in WW II. This is a simple way of saying Russia has not yet fully flexed its military muscle.
I recommend you read the latest from Simplicius the Thinker, who provides an excellent summary of the panic that is sweeping over Ukrainian and Western authorities in the wake of Ukraine’s defeat at Avdeevka. One of the biggest reasons the West consistently misunderstands and misinterprets what is happening militarily in Ukraine with Russian operations is that the West projects onto Russia what it thinks the Russians should do. For example, when Russia deployed miles of tank columns north of Kiev in March 2022, the West concluded that this was a failed Russian military operation because there was no armored assault on Kiev. Western analysts concluded that Russia had inadequate logistics and could not sustain operations.

We now know that this is incorrect. Russia positioned that force north of Kiev as a bargaining chip as part of a broader diplomatic/military solution. Russia withdrew that force as a gesture of goodwill when it appeared that there was a negotiated settlement in the offing. But the United States and the U.K. sabotaged those negotiations and proceeded to erect a narrative that Russia suffered a humiliating military defeat at the hands of the Ukrainians. It was a lie but it had the desired effect of feeding the public narrative in the West.
The West keeps looking for a “big arrow” offensive — i.e., a massive build up of Russian forces in one or two areas and an ensuing armored column attack that attempts to breach the Ukrainian defensive lines. I do not think that is in the cards at all. Russia is employing a dispersed offensive that applies concentrated force at a variety of locations along the 1200 kilometer front. Without clearly signaling their next axis of attack, the Russians are able to confuse what is left of Ukraine’s army and force it to shift forces back and forth along the front. Just as a tsunami builds slowly and then suddenly overwhelms all that is in front of it, I think we are witnessing the Russians unleashing the equivalent of a military tsunami.

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I have long been on record that there was no stalemate in Ukraine; that Russia has a clear and decisive advantage. Good to know that former CIA Chief and Secretary of Defense Bobby Gates agrees with me:
The Russian military has broken the stalemate in the Ukraine war, Robert Gates, former CIA director and secretary of Defense, said Wednesday, following Moscow’s successful push to take the front-line city of Avdiivka.
“It’s no longer a stalemate. The Russians have regained momentum,” Gates told The Washington Post’s David Ignatius in a streaming interview. “Everything I’m reading is that the Russians are on the offensive along the 600-mile front.”
Russia has suffered staggering losses in the war, he noted, but with Ukraine now confronting artillery shortages due to flagging U.S. support, “the Russians are feeling that the tides have turned, and while there is much to be done, the initiative has passed to them,” Gates said.
Still, Gates can’t help but peddle stupid bullshit. “Russia suffered staggering losses?” Absolute nonsense devoid of facts. It is this kind of self-deceit that prevents most Western analysts from grasping the dire predicament facing Ukraine and NATO. I suspect the Russians privately are encouraging the West to continue to indulge in such fantasies. Just makes the Russian strategic task easier to pull off. […]

U.S. policy in Ukraine is in tatters and the Biden Administration is flailing about like a drowning man. I have several videos that should be viewed if you’re in the mood to binge that tell the story in an entertaining fashion. And it is not just me talking. You’ll hear from John Mearsheimer, Andrei Martyanov and Ray McGovern. I also want to introduce you to a Mr. Orfalea. More about his later.
First up, Andrei Martyanov and I were interviewed Wednesday by Dmitri Simes Jr. on his channel, New Rules. We focused on the military situation in Ukraine and, if I do say so my self, did a damn fine job!!

A good companion piece is a shocking development — PBS actually allowed John Mearsheimer on the News Hour where he obliterated the Ukraine is winning narrative. The fact that PBS felt obliged to actually have an informed voice on air instead of regurgitating the propaganda of Michael Kofman is a sign that the worm is turning in the Washington swamp. John did a magnificent job.

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If you ever had a doubt about the group think and propaganda that defines Washington, D.C. then all you need is a dose of Orfa — Matt Orfalea to be precise. Brilliant work! Did you know that Ukraine is going to win? Must be true, I saw it on YouTube:

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By the way, that image of Shep Smith is scary. He’s put on some pounds and looking his age.

I will close out with the Friday staple — Ray and I chatting it up with Judge Napolitano. We cover the waterfront.

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William Burns, CIA Director
CIA Director William Burns’ January 30, 2024 article in Foreign Affairs — Spycraft and Statecraft:
Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition – is a shocking display of ignorance and misinformation about Russia, the state of the war in Ukraine and NATO’s military capabilities. Although Burn’s is an educated man and experienced diplomat, this article displays a profound arrogance seasoned with provably false claims. The so-called vision he presents for “transforming the CIA” is a childish fantasy and signals that the CIA is drifting towards being irrelevant as well as incompetent.
Let us begin with an examination of Burn’s characterization of the February 2022 “Special Military Operation.” According to Burn’s”
The post–Cold War era came to a definitive end the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. I have spent much of the past two decades trying to understand the combustible combination of grievance, ambition, and insecurity that Russian President Vladimir Putin embodies.  . . .
That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, from its one-dimensional economy to its inflated military prowess to its corrupt political system.

Putin’s war has already been a failure for Russia on many levels. His original goal of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved foolish and illusory. His military has suffered immense damage.
At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out.
An intelligence chief like Burns is supposed to bring a non-partisan, objective perspective to an issue like Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. Burns fails spectacularly on that count.
He refuses to acknowledge the role the CIA and Britain’s MI-6 played in sparking the 2014 coup that ousted democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych, which culminated in the Ukrainian military attacking the Russian speaking citizens in the Donbass. That in turn sparked the now ten year civil war and the vote in Crimea to re-join the Russian Federation.
Burns is totally disingenuous. He pretends that the West played no role in the subsequent civil war that wracked the Donbass. He ignores the West’s repeated entreaties for Ukraine to join NATO – a firm redline for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government. And he fails to acknowledge the West’s saber rattling as the U.S. European Command and NATO conducted annual joint military exercises with Ukraine where Russia was the featured foe.
Burns’ claims about Russia’s “one-dimensional” economy and weak military capability is beyond shocking. This is the kind of specious claim one normally would expect of a middling university student or a partisan hack. Russia’s economy is anything but one dimensional – it has a robust defense manufacturing capability, is a leader in the production of grain and oil and gas, and is one of the world leaders in supplying critical Rare Earth Elements (aka REE). According to the Foreign Policy Research Institute:
Russia is another major player in global REE supply chain management due to its massive mineral resources and a centuries-long tradition of mining and metal processing, particularly for military-industrial applications. Russia accounts for some 10% of global untapped supplies at around 12 million tons. Some cooperation with the U.S. is still ongoing, including titanium supply to Boeing by the state-owned VSMPO-Avisma. However, expanding U.S. reliance on Russia in a strategic area of REE is not currently viable because of the history of adversarial and competitive relations dating back to the Cold War. Moscow is considering increased investment in critical mineral infrastructure, and Russian corporations may be able to produce around 7,000 tons of REE concentrate by 2024, greatly enhancing leverage over supply chains and diminishing the country’s dependence on China.
Burns’ demonstrated failure to acknowledge the reality of Russia’s military capability perhaps explains why the West has been caught by surprise as Russia continues to attack the Ukrainian Army while rapidly expanding its own military force. Russia not only enjoys a decisive advantage in manpower, but its defense industry is also outpacing on a dramatic scale the ability of the United States and Europe to produce artillery pieces, artillery shells and combat vehicles.
Russia, in sharp contrast to the United States, has deployed operational, successful hypersonic missiles. U.S. efforts to replicate Russia’s success on this front have failed and there is no evidence that the United States can match even a fraction of Russia’s existing capability. Ditto for air defense systems. Russia is the world leader in producing combat-proven air defense systems, which include the S-400, S-500, and S-550.
After two years of combat in Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated that it can defeat and deter every advanced NATO system provided to Ukraine. Although touted as “game changers” when first supplied to Ukraine – I am referring to the HIMARS, the Javelin anti-tank guided missile, and the Patriot missile battery – these systems have proven to be expensive failures.
Burns then makes these outlandish claims:
Putin’s overblown ambitions have backfired in another way, too: they have prompted NATO to grow larger and stronger.
Although Putin’s repressive grip does not seem likely to weaken anytime soon, his war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his power at home.

Burns simply has not been paying attention to what has transpired in Ukraine over the course of the last 24 months. Ukraine was trained and equipped by the United States and NATO to be a proxy force that would shred the Russian military and erode Putin’s base of support. Although Ukraine was not a de jure member of NATO, it was, for all practical purposes, a de facto member.
Instead of devastating the Russian military, it is the Ukrainian Army that has suffered catastrophic losses. The fact that the average age of a front-line Ukrainian soldier is 43 years is clear evidence that it is Russia who is decimating Ukraine’s army, not the other way around.
Burns’ comment about Putin’s eroding political position is based on hope, not fact. If anything, Putin’s political support in Russia is stronger today than at the start of the Special Military Operation. Polling shows that public support for Putin hovers around 80%. What a contrast with the lagging political support for Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, or Olaf Scholz of Germany.
Russia’s recent breakthrough in Avdeevka is not a one-off event. It is a harbinger of Ukraine’s impending collapse. Russia is pressing its advantage in manpower, sound military leadership, logistics, artillery, drones, and fixed-wing aircraft across the entire 1000 km front.
The Biden Administration continues its desperate attempts to persuade the Republican controlled House of Representatives to approve a $61 billion dollar aid package for Ukraine. Even if that money is approved, it will not change the trajectory of the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is defeated and has no viable path forward to defeat Russia. The principal shortcoming is the lack of trained manpower. Even if Ukraine could magically produce 500,000 conscripts, those new soldiers would not be sufficiently trained to engage in simple combat operations for at least one year.
Ukraine does not have a year unless Russia decides to halt its advance and call an end to missile and rocket attacks on Ukraine’s logistic and military hubs. And that is not going to happen.
It is natural for politicians and government officials outside the United States to assume that an article written by someone of the stature of William Burns is credible and based on sound intelligence.
But that is not the case here. Burns is ignoring the realities on the ground in both Ukraine and Russia. You do not need to have access to Top Secret U.S. intelligence to realize that Ukraine is in trouble and that Russia – far from being weakened and isolated – is resilient, strong and busy forming a new world order with China and other countries of the Global South.
Just as the end of World War II brought about a new world order with the United States in a dominant position, both economically and militarily, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has set off a chain of events that is eroding U.S. supremacy and creating a vacuum that Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa are working to fill.
The era of the United States calling the shots and coercing other nations to accede to its policies is coming to an end. When the history of this period is written, the war in Ukraine, coupled with the West’s effort to destroy Russia, will be seen as the spark that ignited the fire that burned down the power of the Colonial West. […]

There is a lot going on in the world that is generating fear in the West because they have lost control of the narrative and the battlefield. Ukraine’s retreat from Avdeevka has exposed the lie that the Russian military is a spent force comprised of coerced, untrained, poorly supplied conscripts. This has left NATO scrambling to try to find a way to keep Ukraine in the fight, but Ukraine’s Army is being ground into dust and its morale is flagging.
But that is not where the real danger lies. Israel is signaling that it will invade southern Lebanon and fight Hezbollah.
Here is General Halevi doing his version of Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.

But this is not just some idle fantasy confined to Halevi. He has the backing of an overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens according to Lebanon’s Naharnet.
A poll published by right-wing Israeli newspaper Maariv has showed that 71% of Israelis believe that Israel should launch a large-scale military operation against Lebanon.

Israel has been carrying out heavy air strikes on villages in southern Lebanon during the past week, but it has not weakened Hezbollah. To the contrary. Hezbollah is stepping up its own missile attacks on Israeli settlements. Saraya al-Qassam and company hit “Ashkelon” with massive barrages of projectiles, setting off the missile sirens and sending the Jewish settlers running for shelter!

Hezbollah also reportedly targeted, at 01:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, February 17, 2024, the Branit Barracks with a “Falaq 1” missile, scoring a direct hit. The average Israeli citizen does not understand that Hezbollah has a significant escalatory capability in terms of being able to launch big missiles into Israeli cities that previously have not been targeted. Hezbollah also has a trained army. It is not a group of rag tag terrorists. And Hezbollah has well-fortified defensive lines capable of stopping an Israeli attack.
‏Making matters more interesting and dangerous, Iran has unveiled two new air defense system — the martyr Arman mid-range/short-range defense system and the Azarakhsh short-range air defense system. The Arman has a maximum detection range of 180 km with the following capabilties:
— Target tracking range of up to 160 km
— Maximum engagement range of 120 km
— Maximum engagement altitude of 27 km
— Reaction time of less than 20 seconds
The Azarakhsh has a much shorter range:
– Operational range of 50 km with radar detection and 25 km with optical tracking
– The ability to carry 4 portable missiles
– The ability to destroy aerial targets, including helicopters and manned/unmanned aircrafts
– The ability to operate in different weather conditions
If Iran decides to provide these systems to Hezbollah then Israel will face a new threat.
The bottom line is this — both Israel and Hezbollah appear to be stepping on the gas and moving towards a full-scale war.
I will close with a video interview I did on RT Friday night regarding the situation in Ukraine with Adesewa Josh. […]