Speaking at a security forum in Seoul, 71-year-old former Defense Secretary James Mattis showed why Trump fired him for insubordination among other things. Mattis used his time is Seoul to spew rubbish on the Ukraine War, saying Russia’s performance on the battlefield was “pathetic,” referring to his assessment, the same one given by 79-year-old President Joe Biden and 45-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, both tout Ukrainian battlefield success. “We have a saying in America—we say that nations with allies thrive, nations without allies wither and we’re watching Russia wither before our eyes right now,” Mattis told White House news channel CNN. Mattis knows that 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin has carved up Ukraine like a Thanksgiving turkey. Ukraine is now land-locked losing the entire Black Sea coast.
Mattis enjoys a good opportunity to rip Putin and the Russia Federation. But as Defense Secretary under former President Donald Trump. Mattis was fired Jan. 1, 2019, largely because he advocated war with the Russia and China, something Trump saw as destructive and counterproductive. Mattis’s belligerent rhetoric toward Russia and China didn’t help U.S. national security, putting the U.S. into the exact position under Biden where the U.S. has almost no clout on the world stage. Biden’s boast of strong transatlantic relations with historic partners but has destroyed relations with Russia and China, both needed for U.S. national security in the modern world. Mattis talks about Russia having no allies but what do you call China? Russia plays an active role in the BRICS economic bloc, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, now considering adding oil-rich Iran.
Mattis says Russia has no allies but clearly its relationship with Beijing is good enough to compensate for the loss of oil and natural gas under strict U.S. and EU sanctions. Biden thought his threats of sanctions would stop Putin from invading Ukraine but found out the hard way that if Biden’s willing to arm Ukraine to the teeth, Putin was ready to take what he calls “special military operations.” Mattis spent his time in Seoul slamming the Russian military which has run roughshod over Ukraine. No one imagined Feb. 24, that the Kremlin would seize 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, taking over the Black Sea coast, home to Ukraine’s most strategic ports. Kiev finds itself land-locked and partitioned after four months of war. Mattis condemned “the immoral, the tactically incompetent generals in charge of your operations,” only making things worse for the Biden White House.
Mattis can slam Putin and the Russian military all he wants but who controls Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline? How has Russia “withered” in the Ukraine War? Putin’s met nearly all of his objectives, sealing off Donbas from Kiev, now looking at years, not months, if ever to reclaim lost sovereign land. Zelensky accuses Putin of war crimes but he continues to battle the Russian Federation. Biden told the press in Madrid that he would continue to battle the Russian Federation until victory. Ukraine’s War is no longer about Ukraine working out its border dispute with the Kremlin but the U.S. fighting a proxy war to topple the Putin government. When you look at the battlefield maps, Russia has partitioned Ukraine, seizing all of its Black Sea coastline, leaving Kiev land-locked. How is Biden going to vanquish the Russian army when they’ve had their way with Ukraine’s military?
Zelenksky believes in Biden’s mission to take down Putin’s government, or has Defense Secretary Lloyd Austion said April 26, to degrade the Russian army to the point it can no longer wage war. “One lesion is don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations,” Mattis said, reported by CNN. If Russia’s generals or the battle plan is so “incompetent,” why does the Kremlin control 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, the entire Black Sea coast and inflict some 1,000 casualites a day? Where’s Mattis evidence of Russian “incompetence,” when they’ve secured so much sovereign territory in Ukraine? Mattis likes to recite White House platitudes about the Ukraine War, that Ukraine only needs more weapons to defeat the Kremlin. Mattis said neither side has inflicted a “knockout blow,” but he sees Ukraine doing that sometime soon. Mattis has no facts only White House talking points.
Where’s Mattis’s proof that Russia has botched the Ukraine War, leaving Ukraine ready to land a “knockout blow” on the Russian Army. Mattis looks at the same war maps as anyone else produced by Jack Keane and the Institute for the Study of War. They show that since the war began Feb. 24, Zelensky has lost 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including the entire Black Sea coastline. “In 2 months of fighting, there has no yet been a knockout blow. It will come, as RU forces become more depleted,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, also making unproven statements. Mattis and Hertling know that Ukraine has lost its shirt in its war with the Russian Federation. Things deteriorated for Zelensky once Biden told the press March 26 in Warsaw, Poland that Putin should no longer continue as Russian president. Krelin officials took threat seriously.
