Dialogue Works edition of 28 August 2024: Kursk and U.S. preparations for a first, decapitating nuclear strike against Russia
In today’s 40-minute chat with host Nima Alkhorshid, we reviewed many of the issues I raised in my latest analytical article entitled “For Russia, recovering Kursk is no walk in the rose garden.”
Dr. Gilbert Doctorow l Russia's Kursk Recovery: The Mission No One Saw Coming?
I was particularly appreciative of the possibility to explain the methodological errors I perceive in most of my peers in the “dissident movement” opposing the Washington narrative who are most visible on youtube these days. I said this not for purposes of self-promotion, but to restore reason and balance to what has become a highly emotional interpretation of what is going on in the Russia-Ukraine war.
At issue is the use by my peers of backroom channels in Russia from retired or active military officers, from political scientists to produce here in the West what looks like impressive “scoops” but may in fact be something quite different: by this I mean that colleagues are likely being played by their Russian contacts to disseminate misleading or inaccurate information which makes the Russian military operations look like the proverbial walk in the rose garden, which makes the Ukrainians look like a depleted, rag tag force. No, as one highly authoritative Russian military expert who is a member of the upper house of the bicameral Russian legislature explained on a Russian talk show two days ago, there is fierce fighting going on in Kursk, not just some ‘bombs away’ from Russian jets dropping glider bombs. “Fierce fighting” means there are heavy casualties on both sides, and the effort to expel the Ukrainians from Kursk will take some time.
All of the challenges for the Russians in Kursk are due to the role the United States has and is playing there. The USA is supplying real-time satellite reconnaissance and command and control assistance to the Ukrainians. Moreover, all of the equipment the Ukrainians are using was delivered by the USA precisely with this mission in mind. And the same Russian panelist on The Great Game says this preparation by the United States means that Russia’s enemy on the ground in Kursk is in better fighting form than the Russians.
And then there is the possible, maybe likely connection between the US-planned and driven invasion of Kursk and the positioning of two US aircraft carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean, where they can as easily launch a first nuclear strike against Russia as be used to intervene in an Israeli-Iran war, which is all we hear about in major Western media.
Nonetheless, the single biggest issue in this interview is where are the Russian experts in the West, who know the language and culture as well as I do? We do not hear from them. The work of commenting on the war has been left to folks who are highly skilled geopolitical and military experts but who lack the in-depth area knowledge and the language skills essential if they were to test what information they are being given by their sources before passing it along to their viewers and readers.
Yes, such Russian experts do exist. I am not alone in a vacuum. There are several hundred if not thousands of them in the United States. Nearly all are serving as professors or instructors in universities, where they will be fired at once if they open their mouths and say what I say in public At my age that is not a problem, since I no longer have to work for a living. Others of them have jobs in think tanks, like RAND, where the very notion of resistance to the Washington narrative is heresy.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024