Fog of War: Mistakes Ukraine Needs to Avoid in World War III

Keep the faith and you will overcome no matter what the odds are, and at the same time face the harsh truth, however harsh the truth may seem.

Stodele's paradox

War is a way of deceit

Sun Tzu

On August 1, 1914, all European capitals exploded with violent joy - the First World War began. Crowds with orchestras and choirs sent volunteers to the front. These pictures were the same in Russia, and in Germany, and in Serbia, and in France. Everywhere everyone was sure that the war would end in a maximum of three months. It will end, of course, in victory. Everyone thought that they would win, and the enemies would be severely punished. But the war ended after more than four years. More precisely, the war ended on September 2, 1945. The World War lasted 31 years and one month. It did not end the way the vast majority of world leaders expected. The United States, which was not initially considered as a key participant, won that war. And all the key participants received huge losses. Many disappeared as subjects. Many have lost their status. And all this against the backdrop of tens of millions of corpses.

If you haven't figured it out yet, World War III has begun. It did not start on February 24, but in 2008, when the global economic crisis started. In 2014, the war came to Ukraine. Ukraine all these years behaved as if there was no war. Therefore, on February 24, the war took on an all-out character. If you still do not understand this, then this is very bad. Because your misunderstanding forms expectations that are not based on reality. As a result, it leads to disaster.

The elites and masses of Europe on August 1, 1914, deceived themselves in assessing the nature and consequences of the war.

Putin, in launching the invasion on February 24, was deceived in assessing Ukraine's ability to resist and the reaction from the West.

The West was deceived by Putin's rationality, believing that he would be satisfied with little, while Putin would be satisfied with victory within the framework of his psychopathic delirium, which took on catastrophic forms. This nonsense is shared by most of the people of Russia. By the way, it was a similar chimera about Slavic unity that drove Nicholas II into the trap of the First World War.

So, the war will be long, hard, and many will not see its end. The war will have its stages, fade and flare up. The war will be won by those who will be better organized, have more resources and morale. The latter is important, but without the first two factors, Ukraine's victory in this war will be in doubt.

Nazi Germany had excellent organization and morale, but had insufficient resources. It lost.

Modern Russia has poor organization, low morale (but Luzhniki has shown that the situation can change) and huge resources regarding Ukraine.

The West has a powerful organization, huge resources and low morale.

Ukraine has a terrible organization, meager resources and the highest morale.

It is the 24th day of the war, but many in Ukraine are already celebrating the victory. Such a blatant underestimation of the enemy can have disastrous consequences.

Serbia in 1914 acted as a WWI skirmisher. Joyful war songs were sung in Serbia, and Gavrilo Princip, who killed Archduke Ferdinand, was a national hero. He died in a small cell, the army of Serbia was thrown into the sea by the Central Powers. Serbia, according to the results of WWI, suffered the largest losses (or one of the largest) as a percentage of population / losses. Serbia was in the right camp, because as a result of the war it turned into Yugoslavia. But the flywheel of violence that started then turned into a nightmare that haunts Serbia and the Balkans to this day.

Romania entered WWI in 1916. Lost everything that can be lost. It was occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary, but did not sign the surrender. She played for time as best she could. Romania again declared war on the Central Powers the day before the end of the First World War and, according to the Trianon Peace Treaty, doubled its territory at the expense of Hungary.

You can fight in different ways.

You can fight very skillfully and desperately, but lose everything. Like Japan in 1945.

You can lose tactically but win strategically, like Romania, which traditionally has strong diplomacy.

It is possible to play at the highest level of strategy, like the USA, to take out the British Empire with the hands of Germany, France, Russia, the Ottoman Empire. By the way, the Americans are playing the same game today. Only instead of Britain and Germany, their key opponent is China.

There is one key conclusion for Ukraine in the current situation. Please hear me as a person who has been saying since 2006 that there will be a big war. Just hear!

If we do not look at our situation adequately, then the threat of total defeat will hang over us.

If we do not understand that this war is for years, then we will make the wrong decisions. This will lead to the loss of vast territories. The entire left bank of the Dnieper and part of the right. With the threat of losing Kyiv.

Therefore, it is time to call a spade a spade. Many of our people have already died and will still die because of the impotent and political adventurers who enshrined a false goal in the Constitution.

Impotents are NATO. Do not confuse. NATO, as a bloc for us, has done practically nothing. All real assistance is at the bilateral level. Vice versa. Through the NATO mechanism, we were forbidden to buy defense weapons. Forgot? This is a non-working tool as long as decisions there are made under the dictation of Russia's allies.

The main partners of Ukraine in the field of defense are the United States, Britain, Canada and Turkey. outside of NATO. Remember how British planes with NLAW circled Germany. NATO will not help us in the war with Russia. NATO does not offer us any real prospects. Offers to stand at the door. So why do we cling?

Poroshenko made a fetish out of NATO, deceived people, replacing the essence with slogans. And now it's parasitic. Removing the provision on movement in NATO from the Constitution will not change anything for us. But it will give an opportunity to exchange it for some applied things. And finally, take your military-industrial complex seriously. Building pragmatic alliances with those who are ready and useful to us.

We need to untie Zelensky's hands. He may or may not use this card. But he should be given the opportunity. If, after Mariupol, they start turning Kharkov into the same ruins because of the clause on NATO, this stupid slogan should be abandoned. If the country is brought down, words about NATO will not help us in any way, we simply will not get out of the hole into which we climbed thanks to the stupidity, greed and venality of the old elite.

In 2014, the former NATO commander in Europe, Wesley Clark, reviewing a map of the fighting in the Debaltseve region a month before it fell, told me: “I don’t understand why you don’t maneuver. You have such a huge territory that you can maneuver and attack from a vantage point.”

We must understand a number of basic conditions that will allow Ukraine to emerge victorious in World War III.

First. We must preserve statehood in one form or another. Any piece of statehood will make it possible to knock out reparations from Russia or what remains of it.

Second. Without a new organization of the state and the economy, focused on the needs of the war, we will not be able to win the war. Because the army cannot fight without relying on the resources of the state. The Armed Forces of Ukraine already live by the rules of war, the Ukrainian state does not.

Third. Losses in such a war are inevitable. Losses will be huge if we do not maneuver. Lack of maneuver will lead to the fact that the enemy will surround our cities, which will heroically resist, turn into ruins and, in the end, surrender. The loss of territories brings a lot of problems, but so far it is not fatal. The loss of the army in the boilers can lead to fatal consequences for the Ukrainian statehood. Therefore, we must already today build the Reserve Army, proceeding from the fact that in the long Third World, the losses in killed and wounded will be in the hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions. You must understand that in this situation everything is already possible, including nuclear strikes with tactical weapons.

Fourth. Reorganization takes time. Therefore, look at the "peace talks" not as Minsk-3, but as a resource for a radical restructuring of the state, army and economy.

Minsk-2, signed by Poroshenko, did not lead to a radical modernization of the state. Petty squabbles and greed led to a loss of time. We are reaping the catastrophic consequences of this today.

Therefore, the rejection of NATO in the Constitution will not be the basis of the treaty and peace. The basis of the world will be the result on the battlefield. And the rejection of NATO in the Constitution is just a maneuver.

Summary: Ukraine will avoid a new catastrophe if it starts to face the truth and take action based on the need to achieve victory in a long and difficult struggle. Betting that Russia is about to collapse because of our hatred and Western sanctions is fraught with our own defeat.

The Stodale paradox says that companies that achieve great results don't generally focus on what to do to be great, they focus on what not to do and what to stop doing immediately. We must immediately stop living in soap bubbles of our fantasies. Fantasies about “144 reforms”, about “the West will help us”, that the phrase about NATO in the Constitution seems to give us some prospect of joining NATO, led us straight into a bloodbath. If we do not think for ourselves, then no one will save us. We need our own strong national state and no one but us will create it. If in this terrible war with our age-old enemy we do not create a strong state, then we will never create it. This war is a chance for Ukraine to finally become strong and take its rightful place among civilized peoples. Civilization stands on the ability to balance the mind and emotions. A person loses his advantage by not using reason, and is not a person if he loses emotions. At this extremely difficult moment in Ukraine's history, we must not let emotions crowd out reason. We will never take revenge on the enemy if we are not smarter and cooler. On the contrary, we will create the strongest state when we break out of the logic of "treason-victory" and stop responding to the cries of bots which are backed by soulless scum. 30 years of scum used the emotions of the people to rob them. This war should put an end to the scum and their methods, which prevented Ukraine from becoming a truly free and happy country.

Therefore, we must continue to believe in victory, no matter what the hardships, but at the same time have the courage to face reality, no matter how harsh it may be.

Glory to Ukraine !