US/West/Kiev's Fantasy of Defeating Russia's Liberating SMO

by Stephen Lendman

On July 8 in Foreign Affairs — a Council on Foreign Relations publication, a group historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once called a "front organization (for) the heart of the American establishment" — political science professor Barry Posen explained the following:

Claims by the US/West of Kiev's ability to "defeat Russia on the battlefield, either depleting its forces through attrition or shrewdly outmaneuvering it (are) implausible (and) fan(ciful)."

Days before Russia's SMO began in Feb., Posen wrote the following:

"(V)irtually no one (in the US/West or elsewhere) believes that the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian military could today mount a successful defense of" its territory if attacked.

Yet hegemon USA-dominated NATO regimes "encourage the Ukrainians to fight the Russians, (knowing they) have little likelihood of producing military success."

Nukes aside, there are no "magical (US/NATO) weapons" able to challenge and defeat overwhelming Russian military superiority by Ukraine.

Kiev's only sensible option is pursuit of diplomatic conflict resolution to stop the bleeding of its territory and human toll of its troops.

Yet as ordered by his US master, puppet Zelensky vows to "fight on to victory and restore the prewar status quo (sic)" to the last Ukrainian.

The above fantasy ignores Russia's determination to achieve its SMO goals — notably the demilitarization and deNazification of Ukraine, along with liberating Donbass entirely from Nazified occupation.

Throughout its SMO, Russia's overwhelming firepower and superior tactics outgunned, outmaneuvered and outwitted Ukrainian Nazis and conscripts.

According to Posen, Kiev's "leaders and backers speak as if victory is just around the corner."

"But that view increasingly appears to be a fantasy."

"Ukraine and the West should therefore reconsider their ambitions and shift…toward a more realistic approach: finding a diplomatic compromise that ends the fighting."

Vladimir Putin earlier minced no words, saying:

The US/West and Kiev "should have realized that they would lose from the very beginning of our (SMO) because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order."

"This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony…" 

Russia's SMO isn't based "on hypocritical double standards, but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions…"

It's also "to align cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality."

"Everyone should understand that this process cannot be stopped."

"The course of history is inexorable, and the collective West's attempts to impose its new world order on the rest of the world are doomed."

Russia's overwhelming battlefield successes against the scourge of made-in-the-USA Ukrainian Nazis is an example of what Putin explained.

On July 14, Russia's Defense Ministry reported the latest toll on Ukraine's greatly degraded military, saying:

"The following targets were destroyed in counter-battery fire: a battery of multiple launch rocket systems near Slavyansk, a platoon of multiple rocket launchers in the area of Nikolayevka in the Donetsk People's Republic, and also an artillery platoon of US-made M777 howitzers at firing positions in the settlement of Pervomaisky in the Kharkov Region." 

"Russian Aerospace Forces struck the deployment site of a battalion of the Ukrainian army's 14th brigade with foreign mercenaries, eliminating 43 and wounding about 170 militants."

"In the area of the settlement of Chasov Yar in the Donetsk People's Republic, Russia's precision weapons hit the temporary deployment site of a battalion of the 14th mechanized brigade manned with nationalists and foreign mercenaries."

"The strike eliminated 43 and wounded about 170 militants."

"(I)n the area of the settlement of Malaya Tokmachka in the Zaporozhye Region, Russian army aviation aircraft delivered a strike by precision missiles against the temporary deployment site of the 97th battalion of the Ukrainian army's 60th mechanized brigade."

"The strike eliminated 30 and wounded another 37" Nazis.

"Overall, the following targets have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation: 249 aircraft, 137 helicopters, 1,534 unmanned aerial vehicles, 354 surface-to-air missile systems, 4,050 tanks and other combat armored vehicles, 744 multiple rocket launchers, 3,145 field artillery guns and mortars and 4,292 special military motor vehicles."

Beginning in mid-May and since then for the past two months, "Russian strike drones wiped out (most) US-made M777 howitzers employed by the Ukrainian military."

And this by Russia's Defense Ministry:

"The enemy (continues to) suffer significant losses (of troops, weapons, munitions and equipment from) high-precision" Russian strikes.

While the empire of lies can prolong proxy war on Russia for some time, the longer things drag outs, the harder it'll be for Ukraine's bleeding to recover.

Puppet Zelensky is too detached from reality, too focused on his own self-interest, too controlled by his US master, too uncaring about the vast majority of Ukrainians to accept defeat by seeking diplomatic conflict resolution.